Radio: Ready for New Waves of Heavy Listeners?

As we collectively grapple with historic levels of unemployment and millions of people telecommuting, radio’s indomitable spirit remains.

As we fight our way back, there’s an emerging opportunity to increase average daily cume and AQH persons, the building blocks of ratings and revenue.

Despite the temptation to pursue at-home listening/streaming, radio needs to maintain its strategic focus and resources on the Heavy Listeners (7+ hours/week in PPM; 100+ QH in Diary) who generate consistent daily cume and deliver the majority of their QHRs out of home (commute/work).

As radio keeps moving forward, Heavy Listeners remain essential. Audience data across markets and formats confirms that although light users generate cume, they have minimal impact on your ratings. This insight was true before COVID-19, it’s true now and it will be true on the other side of this pandemic.

Prior to COVID-19, 130 million Americans commuted to work in a car each day. These listeners are radio’s bread and butter. If there was ever a doubt that radio consumption is dominated by workers who commute, coronavirus has driven home that point.

As more segments of the economy reopen, we must continue to earn these newly available listening occasions and not assume we are entitled to them.

As Heavy Listeners head back to work, they will be joined by an emerging segment of commuters who have access to a car, but until coronavirus, relied on mass transit. As waves of these commuters get back in the car, radio stands to benefit from an increase in occasions and quarter-hours.

– About 7.5 million workers nationwide previously used public transportation to get to work.

– In the age of coronavirus, nobody wants to be on a crowded bus, subway or commuter rail.

– In every major market, the impact on mass transit from COVID-19 has been catastrophic* (data from each of the Top 10 markets further below).

• New York – Ridership down 92%
• Los Angeles – Ridership down 76%
• Dallas – Ridership down 71%

There’s a risk in dismissing the impact of mass transit riders due to perceptions of relatively small numbers outside the Top 10 markets, but every PD knows the very real impact even one or two heavy meters/diaries have on your ratings.

The sustained opportunity for these commuters to remain behind the wheel can help radio offset the impact of unemployment and telecommuting during COVID-19.

As people continue to resume their commute, it’s an ongoing opportunity to welcome workers back and remind them that Radio Rides Shotgun – No Distancing Required. Will you be ready to capitalize on these waves of heavy listeners?

Get Back in the Driver’s Seat with DMR/Interactive.

– Accelerate the recovery of your core audience, win listening from your competitors, and capture heavy listening from new in-car commuters.

– Ensure your brand is top of mind before listeners turn on the radio, so that you win the listening occasion and it doesn’t go to Spotify, Sirius/XM or your competition across the street.

– Lock in your success with our 360° strategic approach to station marketing that builds relationships with the Heavy Listeners who matter most to your ratings and revenue.

We’re continuing to qualify stations/groups for this important opportunity to get Back in the Driver’s Seat and strategize the road ahead, even if your marketing budget is currently on hold.

Schedule your confidential assessment – please contact Andrew Curran, President and COO, DMR/Interactive acurran@dmrinteractive.com. We look forward to helping you efficiently drive ratings and revenue.

* Impact of COVID-19 on Public Transportation in the Top 10 markets. Similar insights in other markets available upon request.

New York: “New York City subway ridership is down 92 percent … Long Island Rail Road ridership has decreased by 97 percent, Metro-North by 95 percent.” Link to this news coverage.

Los Angeles: “Ridership has fallen 64 percent on Metro buses and 76 percent on rail since stay-at-home orders were issued.” Link to this news coverage.

Chicago: “CTA ridership has plunged about 80 percent since Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order. Metra ridership is in an even bigger free-fall, projected to be down 97 percent.” Link to this news coverage.

San Francisco: “BART’s most optimistic budget projections for the next fiscal year, from this July through June 2021, show ridership averaging half of what it was before the coronavirus outbreak sent the economy into a tailspin, spokeswoman Alicia Trost said. Worst-case scenarios show ridership down 85 percent over the year. Even when those projections extend through the summer of 2022, Trost said, ‘None of them return back to normal levels.’” Link to this news coverage.

Dallas-Ft. Worth: “Compared with the same time period last year — weekday bus ridership decreased by 46%, light-rail ridership dropped 58% and Trinity Railway Express ridership declined 71%, according to Dallas Area Rapid Transit.” Link to this news coverage.

Houston-Galveston: “Bus ridership has plummeted since stay at home orders went into effect. METRO also hasn’t been charging fares.” Link to this news coverage.

Washington, DC: “Ridership at some stations currently totals just 1,200 people per weekday, less than 5% of normal traffic, Metro general manager Paul Wiedefeld said in a statement.” Link to this news coverage.

Atlanta: “MARTA — by far the state’s largest transit system — has been hard hit. In addition to the decline in bus passengers, train ridership is down nearly 80%.” Link to this news coverage.

Philadelphia: “Transit ridership was down 79% and Regional Rail ridership fell by 96% last month.” Link to this news coverage.

Boston: “The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the nation’s fourth-busiest public transit system, is now running a modified Saturday schedule and has about 20% of its typical ridership on buses. On subways, ridership is just 8% of a typical pre-pandemic day.” Link to this news coverage.

Radio: The Soundtrack of Domestic Front Lines

During past conflicts, our heroes shipped off to foreign lands with the Armed Forces Network serving as the soundtrack and trusted voice.

Think of Robin Williams uttering that most famous of phrases, “Goooooood morning Vietnam!”

The movie was based on the real life of Air Force Sergeant Adrian Cronauer. In addition to a memorable show opening, after he died back in 2018, his family recounted that he loved to personally engage with his audience.

Today our COVID-19 heroes remain stateside, which means they aren’t tuning into AFN for companionship. Instead they are listening to their favorite local stations.

AM/FM radio is entertaining and inspiring these listeners who never stopped commuting. In addition, with each Hometown Hero salute, radio continues to super-serve our core heavy listeners.

For cashiers, health care workers, delivery drivers and all of those on the domestic front lines wearing PPE, radio remains their #1 choice and the 800-pound gorilla in the audio space.

As more people return to the workplace, listening will increase, but it won’t all happen overnight. It will be more like waves of marathon runners crossing the “resumed my daily commute” finish line.

As that happens, being ranked in the Top 5 will become more essential to getting on ad buys.

Your station’s ability to connect and engage off-air with the employed, heavy listeners who matter most is the #1 way you can generate the daily cume necessary to drive ratings and win revenue.

This approach doesn’t reflect some opportunistic shift based on COVID-19 research, but rather it’s the foundation of our strategic approach that’s driven client success for over 30 years.

As you review the latest ratings and prepare to reopen your market, we’re building and executing customized shovel ready plans. Reach out to myself, Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, or Jen Clayborn to set up a confidential conversation regarding your competitive situation.

Radio’s 100th anniversary is going to be unlike any other year in our history.

On behalf of everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

Don’t Let Perfect (your budget) Be the Enemy of Good (your marketing plan)

It’s already been a month since COVID-19 turned things upside down.

That also means we’re one month closer to restarting the economy.

When the time comes, will you be ready to capture an even larger share of listening and help make up for lost ratings and revenue?

Whether it was post 9/11 or after the Great Recession, we’ve never peddled a shiny new object or touted a magic bullet.

Coronavirus will be no exception.

In fact, during these difficult times, we sharpen our unrelenting focus on building relationships with the employed heavy listeners who matter most to your success.

As weeks turn into months, the strategic initiatives that you commit to during this time will help you win long term on the other side. For our part, we’re increasing our commitment to you – further details below.

In the meantime, as you continue to put out fires and analyze ever changing budget scenarios, it’s not about ignoring the urgent in favor of a virtual corporate retreat, but it’s important that you stay ahead of the curve.

One of the difficulties in making this mental shift is that there continues to be so many unknowns – starting with, when will life get back to normal?

With no definitive answer, your strategy to maximize this downturn doesn’t need to have every “i” dotted or “t” crossed.

According to Voltaire, “The best is the enemy of the good.”

Perfection, according to Psychology Today, “‘may exist as a concept’, but it’s not a reality. After all, its definition is entirely subjective. ‘Achieving perfection’ is entirely a judgment call, depending on who’s trying to achieve it and who’s watching.”

Meanwhile, as Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

When it comes to taking action, significant academic and professional research has been done about the importance of maintaining and growing your advertising investment in the midst of an economic crisis.

Additional reports can be found in publications from the New Yorker a decade ago to Forbes last year and Marketing Week this month.

As we examine these insights, it’s worth noting that our feet are planted firmly on the ground. We certainly understand that even before the current pandemic, marketing budgets in radio have continued to contract in recent years, despite increased competition and audience fragmentation.

In fact, this lack of investment coupled with a prolonged drop in audience consumption makes these subsequent insights even more significant for radio.

Despite these limitations, as Donald Rumsfeld said, “You go to war with army you have, not the army you might want.”

Over the last hundred years, America has experienced a variety of recessions and depressions. Yes, each one feels unique, especially to those going through it and COVID-19 is no exception. However, the enduring lessons are the same.

Companies that cut their marketing during times of economic difficulty, create pain for themselves both during and after the downturn, in terms of revenue, market share and profitability.

In the 1920’s, Harvard graduate Roland Vaile studied 250 companies during the Depression of 1920 and 1921. Hard to believe, but there was a depression at the start of the decade only to be outdone by the Great Depression 10 years later.

According to an analysis by Tellis and Tellis, “The study found that across all industry groups, increasing advertising was associated with increasing sales.”

In subsequent downturns, the results are the same.

In reference to the 1970’s recession, analyst Jane Gilday of Faherty & Faherty said, “the companies I follow, such as P&G, Philip Morris, and Revlon, are becoming more aggressive in their advertising…they’d spend more promotional and ad dollars to gain a little more market share.”

Also during the 1970’s recession, Chevrolet dropped their strategy of pegging advertising as a percentage of sales and increased their advertising while Ford decreased their advertising by 14%. In the subsequent year Chevy increased their market share by 2%, while Ford lost theirs.

In 1985, the Research’s Laboratory of Advertising Performance at McGraw Hill examined the impact of advertising and sales during the 1981-82 recession at 600 companies.

According to researchers, “Firms that did not cut their advertising over both years of the recession, had sales that grew almost 340% by year six.”

In 2002, the Journal of Brand Management, studied the advertising spend of 822 firms and found this compelling insight.

“Those that maintained or increased advertising had 7% annual growth in sales in 1991 compared to non-existent growth for the companies that decreased their advertising expenditures. This gap in sales growth between the two groups widened to 25% by 1995.”

Decade after decade the impact of cutting marketing during an economic crisis leads to the most predictable of results – prolonged pain.

It’s the same conversation your sellers are having with your clients.

For our part, we are helping clients continue to execute their marketing and capture increased share of voice.

We are also helping other clients optimize their audience retention and engagement strategy in the midst of a corporate marketing freeze.

For others, they are reaching out to explore strategic initiatives and develop shovel ready plans because they know that there will be enormous pressure to make up for lost ratings and revenue as communities reopen for business.

In each instance, our commitment to you remains the same. We’re going to help you develop and execute relationship marketing strategies focused on the employed heavy listeners who matter most to your ratings and revenue.

We’re also going to continue to treat every dollar as if it was our own and maximize it accordingly.

Based on the conversations we’re having, we appreciate that you are dealing with an endless stream of items that must be handled immediately during the workday.

The tyranny of the urgent prevents you from getting to the important strategic initiatives and conversations that will be essential to your lasting success.

As a result, DMR/Interactive is expanding our availability into the evening from 8pm to 11pm Eastern (Mon-Thurs).

Simply reach out to myself, Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, or Jen Clayborn to set up a conversation.

Truthfully, we love what we do and we’re always available. This codifies our approach as we continue to serve radio and help you navigate these unprecedented waters.

On behalf of Catherine, Tony, Jen, and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

Open Letter to Radio: coronavirus edition

March 24, 2020

An Open Letter to Radio (coronavirus edition),

The coronavirus has already achieved what an invading army would never have dreamed possible – overrunning America and bringing our economy to its knees in a matter of days.

When it comes to AM/FM radio, the coronavirus is set to accomplish what satellite and streaming platforms have attempted, but failed to do for more than a decade – erode the ratings of music stations overnight.

After all, being the 800-pound gorilla of audio with the most profitable and resilient business model along with the largest total reach of any media platform, we have much to lose.

The situation is further compounded because unlike television, our heaviest users get up and go to work every day, which for the moment, is no longer happening.

Conventional wisdom also reminds us not much listening occurs at home on the couch.

Even with the growth of smart speakers and mobile apps, these devices won’t be able to offset the loss of overall listening. This is especially true during drive time as commutes switch from driving across town to walking down the hall.

What’s radio to do?

Let’s get out in front and lean into what’s going on.

Does anybody think less of the aviation industry or their favorite airline because commercial travel has come to a halt?

Even the most casual observer knows that when business travel dries up overnight, airlines are in for severe turbulence.

Like the airlines, it’s taking a global crisis on the scale of a modern world war to significantly impact radio listening.

Reason being: The backbone of radio listening and the backbone of our economy are one in the same – the American worker.

If there’s any doubt that our core audience is upwardly mobile with a paycheck that provides disposable income, this global disaster is going to prove it.

Radio must own our story with confidence and conviction.

National TV news airs every morning and evening. In this constantly changing environment, that’s not frequent enough.

Meanwhile, cable news is a never-ending stream of alerts and loud opinions that only the most avid news junky can consume.

Not to be outdone, social media updates your news feed by the second and is full of unverified information and conspiracy theories.

None of these scenarios serve “the public interest, convenience and necessity.”

Radio is trustworthy and local – two essential attributes in this public health crisis.

Our ability to provide reliable updates every quarter-hour is an essential part of our story.

Trusted voices on the radio – they are companions.

This is going to become even more important as people settle into a work from home routine. A video chat with your best friend at work is nice, but the companionship radio provides will be increasingly essential.

Speaking of video conferencing, despite many of these companies growing their stock price in the midst of a historic market downturn, the business model these platforms operate on is not well suited to make money during a temporary surge.

They have to scale up additional network resources and many of the new customers are not generating revenue due to the freemium model. As soon as bars and restaurants reopen, virtual happy hours will be kicked to the curb.

Further, many of their existing paying customers are encountering technical issues as a result of this surge in usage, which has sparked concerns about the long-term impact on their brand reputation.

For radio’s part, we can have the entire city tune in without any incremental increase in the cost of doing business.

News/Talk is predictably experiencing that surge right now.

We have an amazing over-the-air business model that we often take for granted in this digital age.

We’re able to serve our communities and each additional listener doesn’t increase our costs. It’s another angle of our amazing story as the internet pipes are set to burst.

Radio has always done some of its very best work when responding to a disaster and this coronavirus is no different.

As we navigate this global crisis, we’re going to generate even stronger insights into why our employed audience is so valuable.

Even before we roll up our sleeves and win listening back, radio will have an opportunity to make the case to both new and existing clients that on-air messaging must be an advertiser’s first dollar spent during the recovery; allowing them to reach the people with paychecks and money to spend, rather than the people still sitting on the couch.

Radio’s 100th anniversary will be unlike any other.

Together we will continue to drive radio forward.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn, and everyone at DMR/Interactive, this is the latest installment of an annual Open Letter to Radio series that began in 2016.

It was initially written to coincide with Labor Day, radio’s unofficial holiday, a claim made possible by the dominant percentage of listening that’s delivered by employed persons across markets and formats.

Earlier editions of the letter are available here: 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Onward,

Andrew Curran
President and COO
DMR/Interactive

Taking Aim at the Future of Hunting: Recruit, Retain, Reactivate

What’s the bigger risk to wildlife, a hunter in a blind or a decrease in funding for wetlands and conservation?

The answer, it turns out, is complicated.

As part of a long term trend, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the number of Americans who hunt is down by an additional 2 million people in recent years.

You might think conservationists would be busy taking a victory lap.

However the problem for environmentalists and state natural resource departments is that their funding model is dependent on licenses and fees generated by hunters.

Exacerbating the issue, baby boomers are aging out of hunting as younger generations focus on school sports and indoor hobbies such as video games.

For more than a century, there’s been a link between hunting and conservation; dating back to the days of trigger-happy hunters, all but blasting the bison population into the history books and finishing off North America’s most abundant bird, the passenger pigeon.

As a result, hunters were asked to curb – and pay for – their excesses. Avid outdoorsmen such as Theodore Roosevelt put their stamp on an enduring ethos that combined sport with conservation and in 1937 the Pittman-Robertson Act was passed, which imposed an 11 percent excise tax on the sale of firearms that is apportioned annually to state agencies for conservation.

As hunting continues to decline, the resulting financial shortfall is hitting many state wildlife agencies.

In Wisconsin, a $4 million to $6 million annual deficit forced the state’s Department of Natural Resources to reduce warden patrols and invasive species control.

Michigan’s legislature had to dig into general-tax coffers to save some of the state’s wildlife projects. Some states, including Missouri, are redirecting sales tax revenue to conservation.

In Pennsylvania, where the game commission gets more than 50 percent of its revenue from licenses, permits and taxes, the agency had to cancel construction projects and leave dozens of positions vacant even as it was tackling West Nile virus.

3 R’s of Hunting: Recruitment, Retention and Reactivation

In the wake of this new reality, many states are devising ways to reinvigorate hunting culture and expand the sport’s appeal, especially to empty nesters and young professionals who have free time on the weekends without the demands of youth sports.

Colorado has a Hug a Hunter campaign to raise awareness of wildlife management and outdoor recreational opportunities.

In Pennsylvania, where the number of licensed hunters has dropped from 927,000 to 850,000 over the past decade, the state is relaxing its ban on Sunday hunting to increase opportunities for working families.

All in an effort to Recruit, Retain and Reactivate hunters.

Meanwhile, these advocacy groups understand that recruiting someone to go hunting one time has a very limited upside unless the participants are retained and reactivated in subsequent seasons.

According to Chris Willard, R3 coordinator at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, “It’s not enough to just host these events and have a good time – you have to be really strategic about who you bring into those events. And more importantly, once they’re at those events, how do you connect them to that next step?”

Mentorships help create lasting habits.

According to Outdoor Life, “Mountain Song Expeditions in Vermont offers weekend intensives for novice deer hunters and eight-month apprenticeships. Course activities include traditional shooting practice and blood-trailing exercises, but also mock hunts, meditation, and a sacred goat slaughter so students can practice butchering.”

In Minnesota, “the Department of Natural Resources pairs hunter hopefuls with prospective mentors. Instead of following them for one season, however, the mentor-mentee relationship is designed to expand over three seasons (as experts recommend). The first year consists of an introduction to the sport and one-on-one hunting, the second incorporates more off-season involvement through scouting and shooting, and the third allows hunters to test their skills by hunting solo, but still within the supportive environment of a collective deer camp.”

The 3 R’s strategy also embodies our approach to recruiting the heavy listeners who matter most to the ratings and revenue.

Fortunately, with radio’s accessibility and ease of use, no weekend in the woods is necessary to create a habit.

In fact, the most important right of passage for becoming a heavy radio listener is to simply get a full-time job.

Working 40 hours per week generates daily tune-in and high TSL.

That’s one of the key reasons why recruiting a database of employed heavy listeners who can be retained and reactivated beyond the initial campaign maximizes your marketing investment.

Let’s discuss how the 3 R’s can be leveraged in your competitive situation.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

A Brand Marketer’s Dilemma: The Age of Dissonance

Nielsen is a world class measurement company, so it stands to reason they also measure marketing and how buying decisions are being made by brands.

The findings, as it turns out, are not always flattering.

Among the top insights in the report, “novelty plays a huge role in marketers’ confidence, and newer (digital) channels tend to get the benefit of the doubt … even when that effectiveness cannot be readily verified.”

Brand marketers are “willing to continue to invest in a digital channel even if that channel’s performance is lackluster.”

When it comes to top priorities for brands, “Audience targeting is ranked at the top by the most number of respondents (53%), followed by ad creative (37%), audience reach (31%) and data quality (28%).”

Meanwhile, “The fact that brands rank the importance of data quality last is alarming. Without accurate data, marketers must question the validity of any insight.”

When respondents were asked to rank marketing objectives, “acquiring new customers comes out on top for 41% of all respondents. For 28% of respondents, increasing brand awareness is the top priority. Customer retention came in a distant third at just 13%, while preventing churn is least important.”

According to the authors, “This lack of focus on churn is a missed opportunity for marketers.”

In addition to the insights, the report offered several other takeaways:

“Gut feel isn’t good enough anymore. While it can be hard to detect which of your marketing activities are changing consumer behavior, relying on assumptions isn’t the answer.”

“Focus on improving data quality as much as you focus on reaching and targeting your audience. None of that targeting will hit the mark if the data that sustains it isn’t accurate.”

“Segment high-value customers to guide media planning and messaging strategies.”

For radio that means segmenting and focusing on the heavy listeners, who have the most occasions and TSL to give.

When it comes to the importance of audience retention and reducing churn, Harvard Business Review reports, “acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.”

In an era when station marketing budgets routinely require multiple levels of approval and more is expected to be done with less, this Nielsen report identifies many of the challenges that exist, while encouraging brands to step up their game.

Our Approach

With digital channels, we don’t believe in stockpiling impressions. In most instances, that amounts to little more than vanity metrics, especially when a significant portion of views are non-human traffic.

Instead, we optimize digital dollars to drive clicks and activations by the employed persons in the target demo who deliver significant TSL and occasions.

With data quality, there’s a saying, “Garbage in, garbage out.” For our part, we are relentless in how we approach data hygiene and collection.

When it comes to connecting with your most valuable heavy listeners by name, there are no shortcuts.

As both the Harvard Business Review and Nielsen attest, retention and loyalty are extremely valuable to your bottom line and maximizing your marketing budget.

It’s also why we make the cultivation of Super-Fans and Amplifiers such an important part of each campaign.

This overall approach empowers our clients to recruit and engage the heavy listeners who matter most to the ratings and revenue, while also extending the life of the relationship.

Download your copy of Nielsen’s Age of Dissonance report today.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

20/20 Vision: Insights for the New Year

In 2020, radio will go back to the future. 100 years ago on election day, KDKA in Pittsburgh aired the first commercial broadcast.

Delivering results of the Harding-Cox presidential race before they were printed in the newspaper proved the power of radio and stations have been continuing to make the case ever since.

The upcoming election will once again be an important storyline for radio.

In the meantime, here are some key insights from 2019 that will continue to drive us forward.

1. The Resilience and Power of Radio

Nielsen Audio has been helping advertising giants, including Procter & Gamble, rediscover the power of radio. In 2019, advocates with independent data driven insights continued to emerge.

Research by Deloitte provides a powerful value proposition. Driven by full-time employment, the higher your education and income levels, the more you listen to radio.

Meanwhile, according to Pew Research, more Americans now get their news from radio than printed newspapers or social media.

2. Business Travelers are the Equivalent of Employed Radio Listeners 

According to American Airlines, business travelers represent just 13% of their total passengers, while delivering 50% of the revenue. As a result, business travelers generate 6.7 times more revenue than leisure passengers.

Business travelers spend more and travel more often. Same is true for your employed heavy listeners. They deliver more daily occasions and TSL, which drives ratings and revenue.

3. NFL Turns 100 in Style

In the midst of its 100th anniversary, the NFL faces ongoing attendance declines, fewer young people playing football as well as increased competition for their target audience’s time and attention.

Professional football has been around for 100 years, has $15 billion in annual revenue, faces a growing concern over the next generation along with increasing audience fragmentation. All of these could also be used to describe radio.

Yet over the next decade, the NFL is expected to grow its revenue to $27 billion per year.

What’s the secret?

“We have obsessed a lot over the last three or four years on game presentation, which I think matters,” said Barry Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer. He continued, “We always pay attention to them (the ratings), but it’s not as much week-to-week or year-to-year. It’s about how is it trending generally.”

This unrelenting focus on the user experience by the NFL has culminated in a year-long celebration that provides a playbook for radio to follow in 2020.

4. Organic Influencers Flex Their Muscles

According to an article in Social Media Today, “the influencer industry is undergoing a major shift towards not just micro-influencers, but organic influencers … the real people who already buy your products and services and create content about your brand – they’re your genuine brand advocates.”

Organic influencers live and breathe your brand. They know who to recruit and just what to say.

These Amplifiers and Super-Fans also have a direct impact on your marketing budget. The new listeners they recruit on your behalf deliver the impact of an additional 15-20% in marketing spend.

Our ability to identify and engage your best listeners and empower them to become a key component of your station marketing provides an enormous competitive advantage for our clients.

Looking Forward to the Year Ahead

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) – The final regulations have yet to be finalized, so it’s impossible to predict the full impact, but for those who invest in direct relationships with listeners and build audience databases, there’s an enormous competitive advantage compared to relying on 3rd party data.

In addition to helping radio stations build relationships with those employed heavy listeners who matter most to ratings and revenue, we’re ready to accept Verified Information Requests, while also staying on top of similar consumer privacy measures as they make their way through other states.

It’s going to be a great 2020.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

Happy New Year!

– Andrew Curran, President and COO