Why Digital Radio is a Valuable Addition to Your Advertising Mix

Digital radio is a popular addition to the radio landscape that offers more targeted advertising opportunities for companies who want to reach a specific audience. For businesses and brands seeking to diversify their marketing strategies, digital radio advertising can be a valuable and powerful addition to the marketing mix.

What Is Digital Radio?

Streaming digital radio is available through services like Pandora, iHeartRadio, and Spotify. These streaming services are quickly gaining popularity, because they give listeners the ability to customize their listening experience. You can build your own playlist track-by-track on Spotify. Pandora builds custom stations based on your favorites, and tracks songs you like and dislike to further customize it as you listen.

What are the Benefits?

Digital radio gives listeners a more customized listening experience, so its users typically fit a more niche demographic. For example, Spotify caters to a younger audience, while Pandora listeners trend a little older and are more likely to have children and grandchildren.

You can target a narrower audience with this type of radio, specifying a particular geographic location, or age range (among other identifiers). Digital radio is an excellent way to reach consumers outside the home, with 49 percent of Americans listening to radio in the half hour before they make a purchasing decision.

Radio advertising is highly cost efficient, offering an affordable addition to your marketing strategy. Combined with the targeting capabilities, a well-placed piece of creative can really stick with your listeners, helping you make the lasting connection that you’re after.

Many types of digital radio also let you display a banner ad in conjunction with your audio advertising. This further increases the impact of advertising dollars spent in this channel, and it also raises the likelihood of winning clicks and onsite conversions as an added byproduct of your advertising efforts.

How Will It Develop in the Future?

Digital radio signals are gradually replacing all analog radio signals, so digital transmissions will soon be the standard both for subscription-based streaming services and standard AM and FM radio. This is because digital radio offers a cleaner listening experience with better overall audio. The major barrier today is the fact that it requires a specialized listening device. Not all receivers or car radios are equipped for digital signals.

As digital radio and streaming services mature, you’ll have access to more listener data so you can reach a highly engaged audience identified by their age, listening patterns, geography social connections, and more. Subsequently, it’s best to use a multifaceted advertising strategy now that incorporates radio advertising for all types of signals.

Mediagistic is dedicated incorporating new and innovative products into our offerings, and our media planning team recommends digital radio when it fits well for a client’s market. We’re continually looking at media trends as they are developing in the industry to ensure your campaigns are taking full advantage of all relevant channels. If you’re wondering whether digital radio is a good fit for your company, talk to one our marketing consultants today for a comprehensive set of recommendations.

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Lindsay Hamill is a Senior Key Account Media Manager at Mediagistic. She specializes in helping clients plan and execute robust media campaigns, which includes helping to determine reach & frequency goals.