How important is Twitter to Fayetteville area consumers? Yesterday, for instance, the social media platform was mentioned in at least ten articles published by the Fayetteville Observer yesterday.  Almost every local TV newscast included references to the site as well.

Twitter's outsized presence in the news, however, is enormously disproportional to the importance of the micro-blogging app in the life of Fayetteville's consumers.

According to Nielsen, only about 16% of adults in Fayetteville use Twitter during the course of a month. This is minuscule compared to other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter offers 20 different options that North Carolina small business owners can utilize to market their goods and services to local consumers.  The platform's minimal reach, however, can hamper the success of any advertising campaign.

The first radio station in Fayetteville, WFNC, was granted a license from the Federal Radio Commission in 1939. The owner was Wall Christian Ewing who, at the time, also owned a wholesale fertilizer business in the city. He had also been the Chairman of the Cumberland County Democratic Party. and had spent time serving in the North Carolina legislature.

For almost 80 years, North Carolina business owners have depended on local radio stations to successfully market their goods and services through depressions, recessions, wars, and natural disasters. Even now, during a pandemic, advertising on Fayetteville radio remains a dependable way to make cash registers ring.

Here are five facts every Fayetteville small business owner needs to know about local radio in 2020.

Ninety-four percent of Fayetteville adults have access to the internet, according to Nielsen. Almost 60% of these consumers spend more than five hours a week connected.

Nielsen reports that Fayetteville consumers go online to stay connected to friends and family; research products and services; learn the latest news, and obtain directions to where they are going and know what the weather will be when they get there.  

Here are some of the many reasons why Fayetteville internet users go online each month

• Social Media: 72%
• Weather: 46%
• Maps/Directions: 43%
• Online Banking: 35%
• Product Reviews: 29%
• Sports Scores/News: 22%
• Current Events: 22%
• Restaurant Reviews:19%
• Job Search: 17%
• Real Estate: 12%

And, of course, there is shopping.  Over the past three months, according to Nielsen, 71.8% of Fayetteville consumers shopped online for every imaginable product and service including, cars, golf clubs, office supplies, wedding rings, mattresses, tires, medicine, shoes, socks, and eyeglasses.

To reach local consumers while they are online, Fayetteville businesses will spend $65 million for digital advertising in 2020, according to Borrell Associates.  Here is how the money is being spent:

There are 66,000 adults in the Fayetteville area who have earned a four-year college or postgraduate degree, according to research from Nielsen. A study from the Federal Reserve indicates that these educated consumers have been least affected by the economic consequences of the pandemic.

"While the labor market disruptions have affected workers in a wide set of industries and occupations, those without a college degree have experienced the most severe impact," say Mary C. Daly, Shelby R. Buckman, and Lily M. Seitelman authors of The Unequal Impact of COVID-19 in the Economic Letter published by the Federal Reserve of San Francisco.

Although the unemployment rate increased among consumers of every education level in late March when the Governor of North Carolina locked down the state to slow the spread of the Coronavirus, the smallest increase was among those with bachelor or postgraduate degrees, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics..

Seven months later, job recovery among those with college degrees is closer to pre-pandemic levels than consumers with lower levels of educational attainment.

Many small business owners have seen the correlation between advertising and survival during the economic crisis inflicted by the pandemic.  With precious few dollars to invest, it is crucial that every advertisement reaches consumers who have disposable income to buy. Right now, the most likely spenders are customers with college degrees.

By key advertising metrics, the best way to reach consumers with higher education is on Fayetteville radio.

There is cheerful news for small business owners from Lumberton to Dunn and every city and town in between.

Based on the latest projections from the National Retail Federation, holiday sales are expected to grow 3.6%-5.2% over 2019.  This means despite the economic ravages of the pandemic, Fayetteville area shoppers will be spending between $1.1 and $1.2 billion on gifts and other trappings of the season.

The NRF forecast is based on an economic model that takes into consideration a variety of indicators including employment, wages, consumer confidence, disposable income, consumer credit, previous retail sales and weather. NRF defines the holiday season as November 1 through December 31. Numbers forecast by NRF may differ from other organizations that define the holiday season as a longer period or include retail sectors not included by NRF, such as automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants.

"Consumers have shown they are excited about the holidays and are willing to spend on gifts that lift the spirits of family and friends after such a challenging year," says NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. "We expect a strong finish to the holiday season." 

“Given the pandemic, there is uncertainty about consumers’ willingness to spend, but with the economy improving most have the ability to spend,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said. “Consumers have experienced a difficult year but will likely spend more than anyone would have expected just a few months ago."

Fayetteville shoppers are expected to spend a record $1.1 billion online in 2020, based on the most recent projections from eMarketer. This would represent year-over-year growth of 32.4%.

During the same period, according to eMarketer, receipts at brick-and-mortar stores have contracted by 3.2%.  Overall, excluding gas and auto sales, e-commerce will account for 20.6% of all retail sales this year.

The Coronavirus pandemic is credited with this seismic shift in shopping behavior as consumers continue to avoid stores and opt for online shopping.

“We’ve seen e-commerce accelerate in ways that didn’t seem possible last spring, given the extent of the economic crisis,” said Andrew Lipsman, eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “While much of the shift has been led by essential categories like grocery, there has been surprising strength in discretionary categories like consumer electronics and home furnishings that benefited from pandemic-driven lifestyle needs.”

Even before the onset of the pandemic, 71.8% of Fayetteville consumers had bought goods online over the prior six months, according to Nielsen research. Purchases included clothing, health & beauty products, travel reservations, books, furniture, and groceries.

There is positive news for the 8,600 small businesses in the Fayetteville, North Carolina metro area.  A majority of consumers say they are ready to start shopping again.

A lifestyle survey just released from Nielsen indicates 53% of Americans believe that despite the continuing pandemic, life is beginning to normalize, and they are likely to resume typical activities.  Nielsen refers to this majority as "Ready-To-Go".

According to the survey, Ready-To-Go consumers now perceive less risk, feel safer, and believe their cities are emerging from crisis.

The key takeaway for Fayetteville small business owners is that Ready-To-Go consumers are significantly more likely to start shopping within 30 days than the total population.  These buyers, according to Nielsen, are looking to spend on home improvement, professional services, auto parts/repair, shopping, food & dining, and travel.

To capture a meaningful share of the money Ready-To-Go consumers will be spending requires local small business owners to advertise.  By almost every metric, advertising on Fayetteville radio is the best advertising option.

Every week, according to Nielsen, significantly more consumers are reached by local radio than by Fayetteville area TV options.

For Fayetteville small business owners whose marketing budgets have been ravaged by the pandemic, though, the question is which of these media can provide the best return for their advertising investments. An ROI study conducted by Nielsen and commissioned by Cumulus Media | Westwood One provides a conclusive answer.

Between April 30 and May 27 of this year, Nielsen analyzed the sales results of a major retailer who conducted an advertising campaign on both radio and television during that period.  

Using  their Portable People Meter panel of 80,000 consumers, Nielsen measured the purchase behavior of consumers who were exposed to the advertiser's commercials on both radio and television. To learn more about the methodology, click here.

The result of the study indicates that the money invested in radio advertising had a much stronger return than the money spent on TV.

Here are the key findings of the ROI study:

Before we explain AVOD, it is important to understand SVOD.

Fayetteville small business owners may not be familiar with SVOD, but chances are they let it into their homes and onto their phones.

SVOD is the abbreviation for Subscription Video On Demand. That is the collective name for streaming networks like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime.  For a monthly fee, these services provide commercial-free access to TV shows, original content, and movies.

These SVOD networks are delivered to viewers' phones, tablets, computers, and smart-TVs via the internet and not over-the-air or cable systems.

SVOD makes up a significant part of what advertisers refer to as OTT (Over-The-Top-Television) and CTV (Connected-Television). OTT/CTV is video-programming content that viewers can only watch on smartphones, tablets, computers, smart-TVs, Amazon Firesticks, and Roku Sticks.  Nielsen reports that 94.2% of Fayetteville adults own at least one of these devices.

There are more than 267,000 car radios in the Fayetteville area. On March 30, though, many of these devices became quarantined along with their owners. That was the day when the Governor of North Carolina shut down the state to slow the spread of COVID-19.

According to the Apple Mobility Index, the Governor's public-safety order caused traffic on Fayetteville roadways to plummet to 55% of pre-pandemic levels.

By the beginning of July, however,  the AMI indicates that traffic in Fayetteville began to exceed pre-Covid levels. The surge in mobility is due, in part, to work-from-home, furloughed, and laid-off employees returning to their workplaces.

According to Nielsen, during the week of April 30, only 39% of adults with jobs were working outside-the-home.  During the week of October 1, though, that number had expanded to 61%.

Now would be a good time for Fayetteville small business owners to consider increasing their advertising expenditures.

There are just over 8,600 small businesses in the Fayetteville, North Carolina metro area, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  Based on some promising retail sales data, the Overall  Sentiment Index among local small business owners has improved 32.4% between April 26 and October 12 of this year.

The best news for business owners came from the Commerce Department on Friday when it reported that retail sales rose by a seasonally adjusted 1.9% in September.  This is the fifth straight month of gains.

Local retail gains are being powered by improving consumer confidence and a large pool of cash sitting in people's savings accounts.

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index jumped to 101.8 in September, up 17.9% from August. This means consumers are in the mood to spend. Fortunately, they have money in the bank to do so.

Fayetteville area business owners are expected to spend $6.1million on newspaper advertising in 2020. This will be 35.8% fewer dollars than were spent in 2019, according to a study by Borrell Associates, a company that analyzes local media expenditures across the country.

Of course, the pandemic is part of the reason advertising revenues have plummeted at Fayetteville newspapers. But, the more significant factor is the sustained erosion of readership.

For example, between October 2017 and March 2019, the Monday-Saturday circulation of the Fayetteville Observer has decreased by 46%. The Sunday edition suffered a 49% decrease.

Among all advertising media available to small business owners, newspaper's ability to reach adult consumers now lags significantly behind Fayetteville radio, cable, broadcast TV, and social media.

Fayetteville business owners are forecast to invest $800,000 in 2020 on email advertising campaigns to market their goods and services, according to Borrell Associates, a company analyzes ad spending by local companies across the country. 

Borrell predicts overall spending on email marketing by Fayetteville companies is expected to be down by nearly 12% versus last year, primarily due to the pandemic. Regardless, now might be a good time for small business owners to consider engaging current and prospective customers with emails.

"Email is on-fire right now," says Jay Schwedelson, President of Worldata, a company that builds and measures email marketing success for Fortune 100 companies. "Since the start of the pandemic, consumers are spending 22% in their email inbox than they were in January."

Mr. Schwedelson speculates the increase in inbox time is due, in part, to many consumers working from home and depending more-and-more on written communication from co-workers and customers.

"It could also be that consumers are finding comfort in their email boxes rather than from all the noise on social media."

"Either way, email marketing is performing better than ever," says Mr. Schwedelson. "We've studied more than 200 million emails sent over the past 30 days to both business-to-consumer and business-to-business. We found that B2C open rates are up 16% since January, while B2B open rates are 25% higher."

There are over 349,000 adult consumers in the Fayetteville area. Collectively, in a typical year, these shoppers would generate $8.5 billion in retail sales. This money would be spent on cars, shoes, fast-food, entertainment, groceries, mattresses, adult beverages, haircuts, makeup, and an over-abundance of other of goods and services. Their money was being spent on both the essential and the frivolous. 

The way Fayetteville consumers spend money changed radically in March as COVID-19 began to spread. Six months into the pandemic, shopping strategies are about to change again.

It started with panic buying. Consumers began ignoring prices and were paying what was ever necessary to ensure the safety, health, and comfort of their families.  According to Nielsen, this sudden spike in demand caused widespread price increases. To put it in perspective, retail prices shot-up in 64% of all product categories stocked in grocery stores.

Almost immediately, advertising messages from local retailers shifted from promises of low prices and convenience to product availability and shopper safety.

Based on new research from Nielsen, consumers' shopping strategies are beginning to shift again. This will require Fayetteville small business owners and retailers to also change their advertising strategies, too.