Marketers call them Generation Z.  Fayetteville small business owners call them teenagers.  Whatever 12-17 years old are called, they live in homes cluttered with video games, smartphones, and tablets. They have easy access to Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, and hundreds of other apps their parents have never heard of.

What may come as a surprise to many local business owners, despite the abundance of options for teens, Fayetteville radio stations dominate their media consumption.

Last week, according to Nielsen, 29,200 teens tuned-in to Fayetteville radio. On average, each of these listeners spent 90 minutes a day.

Fayetteville consumers will spend $7.1 billion on goods and services over the next year. To claim a significant portion of those expenditures, small business owners need to be at the top of customers' minds when it comes time to buy.

Since 1939, when WFNC became the first radio station in Fayetteville, thousands of business owners knew, intuitively, that advertising on the medium was a potent way to be remembered when a purchase was imminent. 

Now there is proof that radio advertising creates the brand awareness necessary to drive sales.

Everybody in Fayetteville used to watch TV, commercials and all. But, as media options proliferate, viewers are fleeing. This is not good news at all for television advertisers.

Last week for instance, according to Nielsen, only 74% of Fayetteville consumers watched broadcast television. To put this in perspective, 93% tuned-in to their favorite radio local radio stations.

Compared to two years ago, according to Nielsen, the C3 rating for CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox have plummeted by 27%, especially among 18-49 viewers.

Radio advertising is processed by the brain five-times faster than visual advertising.  This is awesome news for Fayetteville business owners who depend on radio to market their goods and services.

Fayetteville consumers will recognize the first few notes of Jingle Bells five times faster than they can identify a picture of Santa Claus.  That's because it takes the human brain 5/100th of a second to process sound.  On the other hand, it takes a full quarter of a second to process visual stimuli.

This difference in processing time may seem inconsequential. But, for a Fayetteville small business owner who is fighting to inject their advertising message into the mind of consumers, that .20-second gap can be the difference between success and failure.

No! Satellite radio has had no effect on the number of people who tune-in to Fayetteville radio stations each.  For that matter, Pandora and Spotify have not affected local radio listening either.

The fact is, AM/FM radio reaches more consumers each week in Fayetteville than all other advertising media. Satellite, it turns out, has barely been a blip on listeners' radar.

Last week, for example, 93% of Fayetteville adult-consumers tuned-in to a local station vs. the 16% that connected to Sirius/XM, the only remaining provider of satellite radio service.

There is historical significance to the 93% reach number mentioned above.

Is advertising on Fayetteville radio just a day job for local small business owners?  

Thousands of North Carolina companies depend on radio advertising to market their goods and services. But most of these business owners choose to buy commercials only between 6:00 am and 7:00 pm.  Is this a good idea? Maybe not.  Here are the facts.

During the course of last week, for instance, 288,946 adult consumers tuned-in to their favorite Fayetteville radio stations. This is significantly higher than the number that tuned-in to a local TV station, read a local newspaper, or logged on to Spotify and Pandora.

But radio listeners do not roll-up their ears just because the sunsets. According to Nielsen, 50% of people who listen to the radio during daylight hours, also tune in at night.

To put this in perspective, more people listen to Fayetteville radio at night than listen to satellite radio, Pandora, and Spotify combined.

Some of the bravest people in Fayetteville are small business owners.  These hearty entrepreneurs invest their passion, their hope, their time, and, of course, their money despite the odds.

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), the good news is that 80% of small businesses make it through the first year. After that, though, only about half will make it to their fifth anniversary. Even fewer, 33% will keep their doors open for ten years.

CBInsights performed an analysis to determine the top ten reasons small business owners fail.  I have included the entire list. But, of particular importance, is reason #8, "poor marketing". This subject will be discussed in more detail because this is where advertising on Fayetteville radio stations can help business owners not to fail.

When a Fayetteville small business owner advertises on a local radio station, the first words determine if consumers will pay attention. The article "Be Heard: The #1 Job of Commercials on Fayetteville Radio" discusses this topic in-depth.

When it comes time to buy, however, getting in the final word can be equally important.  Advertising on Fayetteville radio is often the last voice a customer hears before making a purchase in-store or online.

Being the last voice serves as a potent reminder to consumers that a business or product exists.  Especially since our brains make things very easy to forget. Science says it's so.

Warning: this article requires the exercise of math muscles not used since 9th-grade algebra class.

It is true that the cost of advertising on a Fayetteville radio station is proportional to the number of listeners that station reaches.  The more listeners who tune-in, the more a business owner can expect to pay for each commercial.

It is also true, that when a Fayetteville small business owner purchases a commercial on a radio station, they are paying to reach all of the listeners. Only a portion of those listeners, though, will ever be in the market for the goods or services that business sells.

The entirety of a radio station's audience can be thought of as the 'quantity'.  The fraction of that audience that will be receptive to a business owner's message (the listeners most likely to become customers), are the 'quality'. 

When a business owner is choosing which Fayetteville radio stations to advertise on, which is more important, quantity or quality?  Reaching the most listeners or the most likely customers?

Just about every adult in Fayetteville spent, on average, 15 hours last week listening to the radio.  As a matter of fact, more people tuned-in to their favorite Fayetteville radio station than watched TV; read a newspaper, or logged-on to Pandora and Spotify."Sure," a Fayetteville small business owner said to me. "People are still tuning-in to local radio stations, but do they switch stations when my commercial comes on?"

Not to worry. Unlike TV, which makes avoiding commercials a breeze, there is no ad-skipping technology for radio.  As a result, a study by Nielsen reveals that 93% of radio listeners stick around for the ads.

This raises the question: Consumers are not button-pushing during radio commercials, but are they paying attention to the content of the advertising? Research says YES.

Radio advertising is converting listeners to customers. Here is the proof.

The number one job of a radio commercial is not to sell products for the sponsoring Fayetteville small business owner. 

The number one job is not to build store traffic or to create top of mind of awareness.

The number one job of a radio commercial is not to build brand or deliver ROI.

The number one job of every commercial on Fayetteville radio is to be heard. Period. When a commercial is heard, then all the rest will follow. But being heard is not easy.

At the exact second a radio commercial begins, 11,000,000 other pieces of information are all wrestling for the listener's attention.  Sadly, a consumer's brain is only capable of dealing with about 50 bits of that information at a time.

If you are a local business owner who would like to secure a larger share of the $7.1 billion Fayetteville radio listeners will spend this year, then what you say first in your commercial is crucial to winning the battle for a consumer's ear.

Of all the advertising options available to Fayetteville small business owners, streaming audio services like Pandora and Spotify are the least effective.  Here's why.

According to Nielsen, after the content of a commercial is considered, the element of an advertising campaign that drives sales the most is reach. In other words, making sure the most people possible are exposed to the advertiser's message is crucial.

When it comes to achieving reach among consumers, Pandora and Spotify rank dead last.  Advertising on Fayetteville radio, actually, can reach 300% more consumers than these two streaming-audio platforms combined.

Hundreds of Fayetteville small business owners depend on radio advertising to successfully market their goods and service.

Take Carolyn Barbour, for instance. She and her husband Tommy own Budget Rooter, a local plumbing company. They have been advertising consistently on Fayetteville radio since 2007.

“I can testify,” says Ms. Barbour, “our radio advertising has created lifetime customers for our company. We’ve tried other forms of advertising, but they have all failed us.” 

Joe Quigg, owner of Ed's Tire & Auto Service, has been advertising on Fayetteville radio since he bought the business in 2004.

“When it comes to spending money, I am very conservative,” says Mr. Quigg. “I don’t like spending money I don’t have to. Our sales have grown every year since I have owned the business. Radio has been a big spend for us, but it has also been a big part of our growth. I wouldn’t be willing to do without it.”

There's a right way and a wrong way for North Carolina small business owners to advertise on Fayetteville radio.  Fortunately, there is a free resource at AdvertiseInFayetteville.com that can help replicate the successes of Ms. Barbour and Mr. Quigg.

Ahhhh. The good ol' days!

Remember when you had a job opening at your Fayetteville small business, and you would put a help-wanted sign in the window? Then, in a matter of days, qualified candidates would present themselves.

Well, those days ended 100 months ago when a raging employment boom seemed to suck up every available worker. Now, there are more jobs openings than interested candidates.

What's a small business to do? The shortage of workers is hampering growth and challenging the survival of some companies.  Recruitment advertising on Fayetteville radio can successfully fill your open jobs.

Over the next 12 month, Fayetteville area consumers will spend $7.1 billion on retail products.

Small business owners who want to compete for a share of this cash will need to advertise. As Professor Jef Richards at Michigan State University points out, “Advertising is totally unnecessary…unless you want to make money.”

Bottom line: Fayetteville consumers will only buy from retailers they know about.

There are many ways for Fayetteville small business owners to advertise. This includes local television, newspapers, or streaming media platforms like Pandora and Spotify.

But regardless of what product a retailer sells, the best option is advertising on Fayetteville radio. Radio reaches significantly more consumers in every major retail category than all of the other media choices.