Maine Small Business: Using Portland Radio To Reach Millennials

Millennials make-up 25% of the population. This segment of consumers now exceeds the number of baby boomers. In the five counties of southern Maine, says Nielsen, there are 196,0677 people who qualify as millennials.

Of particular importance to Maine small business owners, millennials living in Cumberland, York, Sagadahoc, Androscoggin, and Oxford counties, will spend $1.5 billion dollars. Cha -ching!

To garner an unfair share of this giant pool of millennial moolah, Maine business owners need to advertise. And, no matter how one measures it, advertising on Portland radio is, irrefutably, the most potent way to convert millennials to customers.

Last week, according to Nielsen, 181,812 southern Maine millennials tuned-in to a Portland radio station. This is far more than watched a local TV station; read a local newspaper; thumbed through a local magazine; beamed-down radio via satellite such as Sirius/XM; or plugged-in to a streaming service like Pandora or Spotify.

Maine Small Business Advertising On Portland Radio Millennials

There seems to be three reasons why younger consumers gravitate to a 98-year-old medium instead of choosing from among the horde of new media options:

1. New music discovery. Despite the abundance of digital music services including iTunes, iHeart, Pandora, Spotify, and YouTube, consumers still depend on local AM/FM radio stations to find their next favorite band or song. A recent study by Nielsen found that 72% of all new music discovery happens on AM/FM radio and an over-air the air station’s simulcast stream. No other source comes close.

2. News/Information: The first regularly scheduled radio broadcast in 1920 was a news program. It was heard primarily by young hobbyists who could build their own radios. Flash forward, to 2018. Millennials, according to Nielsen, spend more time engaging with radio news content every month, than with TV news services or digital news services.

3. In-Car Listening. According to Nielsen, 93% of Maine millennials use a car every week. Forty percent of these Maine listeners commute 40 minutes every work day. Of all the in-car entertainment available to these drivers, younger listeners prefer radio. A study to be released later this month by Edison Research, reveals that 66% of radio listeners tune-in exclusively in their cars and nowhere else.

Millennials Respond To Radio Ads

In July of this year IPSOS, a global research company examined how advertising affected Amazon’s sales during the 36 hours of Amazon Prime Day. To collect data, IPSOS surveyed 2,010 Americans 18 and over with an online survey during and after the event.

According to Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer at Cumulus Westwood One, the company that commissioned the study, among all adults who were aware of Amazon’s Prime Day radio advertising, 25% made a purchase. The radio ads, among this broad audience, delivered about as well as online ads, and 13.6% better than television ads.

Where, radio really delivered for Amazon was among 18-49 years old. Thirty eight percent of this younger audience that were aware of the ads on AM/FM radio made a purchase during the Prime day event. Radio performed 18.7% better than online ads and a whopping 22.5% better than TV ads.

A similar study conducted a few years ago demonstrated strikingly similar results. When media and marketing expert Doug Schoen saw the results, he was amazed.

“The implications of results like these,” said Mr. Schoen, “are profound for the communications and advertising industries and as a marketing professional with over 35 years of experience, I found this data nothing short of fascinating. It’s quite clear that we should all be paying more attention to radio, its reach and potential to help our businesses. It’s doing the job with expert efficiency.”

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