Father's Day this year is on Sunday, June 19. Based on projections from the National Retail Federation (NRF), Fayetteville, North Carolina shoppers are expected to spend $27.5 million on the dads in their life. This is on par with the record-breaking $27.7 million spent in 2021.

“Despite growing concerns about inflation, consumers plan to spend approximately the same amount as last year in celebration of Father’s Day,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “Spending patterns also reflect the sentimental nature of the holiday as consumers are prioritizing unique and meaningful gifts.”

The NRF projects that nearly 60%, of all Father's Day purchases in Fayetteville, will be for special outings, clothing, gift cards, and electronics. Although most category spending will be down slightly from last year, the amount of money spent on special outings such as dinner is expected to increase by over 8%.

Here is how this large pool of Father's Day cash in Fayetteville is expected to be distributed in all retail categories.

Each week according to Nielsen, 323,000 consumers tune in to a Fayetteville, North Carolina radio station. This is significantly more adults than watch local TV stations, cable, or streaming video. It is more than browse social media. It is more than listen to streaming audio services or podcasts. It is more than read local newspapers.

There are two traits Fayetteville radio listeners have in common. First, they are very loyal to their favorites, tuning-in to, on average, only 1.8 different stations each week.

Second, and of particular importance to Fayetteville small business owners, radio listeners are returning to 'normal' at a faster rate than the general population after more than two years of pandemic.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, Nielsen has been measuring consumer sentiment in regard to normal behaviors. In a survey conducted in March of this year, 83% of adults say they are "ready to go and feel life is becoming more normal". This is up dramatically from the same time last year.

Eighty-four percent of all adults say they will celebrate Mother's Day in 2022. Based on per capita forecasts from the National Retail Federation (NRF), Fayetteville, North Carolina consumers are expected to spend $43.7 million on the moms in their lives. This is a 13% increase over last year.

“Consumers are eager to find memorable ways to honor their mothers and other important women in their lives and are willing to spend a little extra on this sentimental holiday,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay.

The NRF spending projections indicate that Fayetteville consumers will spend $9.6 million on jewelry and another $7.2 million on special outings such as dinner or brunch. This will be the highest level of Mother's Day spending ever in these categories.

Here is how this large pool of Mother's Day cash in Fayetteville is expected to be distributed by all retail categories.

The NRF research indicates that men will outspend women 3-to-1 this year on Mother's Day gifts. Most of these dollars will go towards presents for their moms, stepmoms, and wives.

Of all the money spent, Fayetteville consumers are expected to spend 36% online, 30% at department stores, 27% at specialty stores, and 23% at local small businesses.

To compete for a share of record-high Mother's Day spending this year, local business owners will need to advertise. By most key marketing metrics, the best way to reach holiday shoppers is by advertising on Fayetteville radio.

There are 8,690 small business owners in the Fayetteville, North Carolina area, according to the US Census Bureau. Each of these companies will need larger advertising budgets to successfully compete for a fair share of the expected explosion in consumer spending this year.

Based on new forecasts from The National Retail Federation (NRF), Fayetteville area consumers are expected to spend between $6.7 and $6.8 billion at retail in 2022, a six to eight percent growth over the previous year.

The NRF's forecasts exclude restaurants, gas stations, and automotive dealers. Included in the numbers, though, are non-store and online sales, which, in Fayetteville, could reach as high as $1.6 billion this year. This level of spending would be 13% more than in 2021.

Even though the rate of growth rate for 2022 is lower than the 14% jump in 2021, the NRF points out that this year's spending will be well ahead of the 10-year,  pre-pandemic growth rate of 3.7%

To participate in the expected surge in retail spending will require Fayetteville business owners to advertise. Especially if retailers want to hold their own against the continued growth of non-store and online competition.

There are about 267,000 registered passenger vehicles in the Fayetteville, North Carolina area. Some are cars. Some are trucks. Some are Hondas. Some are Fords. Some are Teslas. Some have four doors. Some have two. Some go fast. Some go slow. Some guzzle gas. Some sip. Some are red. Some are blue.

The one thing that almost every car and truck in the Fayetteville area have in common, though, is the AM/FM radio smack-dab in the middle of the dashboard.

The first car radio went on sale in 1930. It was an invention of the Galvin Manufacturing Company. The company named the radio 'Motorola,' and its cost was $130, around $2000 in today's dollars. By 1935, more than three million car radios had been installed.

Today, AM/FM radio is part of every car and truck on Fayetteville area roads. In addition to the radio, many of these vehicles also provide drivers with other audio options, including a CD player, Sirius/XM, Pandora, Spotify, podcasts, and easy access to personal MP3 collections.

It is fair, then, for small business owners who depend on Fayetteville radio to advertise their goods and services to ask: with all the audio options on today's dashboards, is anyone listening to local AM/FM radio in the car anymore?

If you're anything like the 323,033 Fayetteville, North Carolina consumers who, according to Nielsen, listen to or download a podcast every month, you probably already see the value in podcasting as a relatively new audio medium that entertains, enlightens, motivates, or informs listeners.

But if you're part of the 82% of local adults who are not regular podcast listeners, you're probably wondering why on earth would anyone want to listen to a podcast, let alone create one for their Fayetteville business.

Launching a podcast might seem like a daunting test for small business owners without much technical background or an understanding of how to structure a compelling conversation that will engage prospective customers.

In reality, local small business owners can easily reach new customers with podcasts and complement their traditional advertising in Fayetteville with a longer-form, conversational medium that showcases the company's knowledge in an authoritative manner.

Construction companies in the Fayetteville, North Carolina area will need to recruit 895 blue-collar workers on top of the normal pace of hiring in 2022 to meet the demands of the current building market. These statistics are based on forecasts from Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. (ABC), an association comprised primarily of U.S. firms that work in industrial and commercial construction sectors.

"The construction industry desperately needs qualified, skilled craft professionals to build America," said Michael Bellaman, ABC president and CEO. "The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in November and stimulus from COVID-19 relief will pump billions in new spending into our nation's most critical infrastructure, and qualified craft professionals are essential to efficiently modernize roads, bridges, energy production, and other projects across the country. More regulations and less worker freedom make it harder to fill these jobs."

The construction industry's appetite for new hires in the Fayetteville area will continue into 2023, according to ABC. It is expected that during that year,  an additional 813 blue-collar workers in addition to the normal pace of hiring.

No matter which Fayetteville, North Carolina area television station or cable channel adults tune to in 2022, they can expect to be assaulted by a deluge of political advertising. Often entire commercial breaks are stuffed with back-to-back pleas and promises to secure viewers' votes.

But is advertising on on Raleigh stations like WRAL, WECT, WTVD, or WUNC the most effective way to reach likely voters in the Fayetteville area? Or is advertising on cable channels provided by Spectrum, DISH, and DirecTV the way to go?

The answer is neither. According to research from Nielsen, the best way to reach local adults who are most likely to vote is by advertising on Fayetteville radio.

Every week, 162,000 likely voters will listen to Fayetteville radio stations. This is significantly more than watch local TV, cable, and streaming video. More that use social media and streaming audio. More than will read newspapers.

The current high rate of inflation is tempering how much Fayetteville, North Carolina business owners can spend on advertising.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are approximately 8,700 small businesses in the Fayetteville area. There is one thing each of the owners of these companies has in common, whether they own a hardware store in Dunn, a furniture store in Lumberton, or a restaurant in Hope Mills. They are all experiencing the negative consequences of inflation.

In a monthly survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business Owners (NFIB), inflation now ranks second as the single most important problem companies face. A year ago, inflation was barely an issue.

Inflation has not hampered the enthusiasm to spend among Fayetteville area consumers keeping retail sales hovering above pre-Covid levels. But, inflation is taking a dramatic toll on the amount of revenue business owners can keep.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, small business owners see inflation-fueled price increases in almost every cost of operation, including inventory, utilities, rent, and wages.

Because of these rising operational costs, Fayetteville business owners are looking to cut expenses where they can, including advertising expenditures. But, because there is still robust consumer demand for goods and services, these companies need to make sure that the amount they do invest in advertising has the best return possible.

By almost any marketing metric, advertising on Fayetteville radio provides the greatest return-on-investment (ROI) of any medium available to local business owners.

Every week, according to Nielsen, 334,000 adult consumers in Fayetteville, North Carolina watch something on television. But, of course, the definition of what it means to watch TV has changed since the time when the number of available viewing options could be counted on the fingers of a single hand.

Today, Fayetteville consumers have a gargantuan number of viewing choices. This includes programs from stations like WRAL, WECT, WTVD, and, WUNC (now PBS NC). Or maybe cable and satellite systems like Spectrum, DISH, and DirecTV.. There's also content delivered over the internet from Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime.

No longer are Fayetteville consumers tied to the 21-inch Zenith in their living rooms. Instead, TV can be watched on giant LCDs, smartphones, and tablets from any room in the house, in the backseat of their cars, or practically anywhere else.

The best way to think about TV watching in Fayetteville is in terms of three buckets:

1. Over-the-air...including all broadcast channels
2. Cable...including all premium and non-premium programming
3. Internet...including all streaming services. This is also known as OTT or CTV

Here's how many Fayetteville adult viewers fall into each bucket. Remember, viewers are not limited to a single bucket.

In 2020, there were 17,494 new cars and trucks registered in the Fayetteville metro area. This number is based on projections from the National Auto Dealers Associaton (NADA) and the U.S. Census bureau.

In all, says NADA, there are 249 new-car dealerships in North Carolina. Despite the pandemic, these dealers, including those in the Fayetteville area, sold $20.1 billion worth of new vehicles.

Through June of this year, these same dealers have already rung up $17 billion in new car sales.

When it comes to buying new vehicles, Fayetteville consumers have a broad range of preferences. Some buyers want Fords while others want Chevrolets, Toyotas, or Teslas.  Some buyers want pick-up trucks, while others want sub-compacts, SUVs, or sports cars. Of course, some want blue vehicles, while others want pearl white, orchard green, or redolent red.

There is one purchase criterion, however, that most Fayetteville car buyers can agree on. They want an AM/FM radio smack-dab, in the middle of their dash.

Fayetteville, NC consumers are on track to spend more than $5.9 billion at retail this year, based on projections by the National Retail Federation (NRF). Spending is expected to be 13.5% higher than last year.  

Some Fayetteville small business owners, though, are wondering if the spread of the Delta Variant may slow spending if consumers sense pressure on their own financial security. Shoppers, however, don't see it that way.

New research from Nielsen indicates that 82% of consumers believe their household finances will either remain the same or improve during the upcoming months.

The Nielsen study has another finding that Fayetteville business owners will find promising. Consumers are more likely to shop locally than they did before the onset of the pandemic, although in different ways.

According to Nielsen, 67,389 Fayetteville, North Carolina consumers listened to or downloaded a podcast during the past 30 days. This is 19.2% of the adult population.

A podcast is a downloadable digital audio file available to listeners on an internet-connected device like a smartphone, tablet, or computer. These files are typically part of series focusing on a particular theme such as true crime, professional football, politics, or pop culture.

Fayetteville consumers can listen to their favorite podcasts whenever they choose using apps like Spotify, Pandora, Google, and Stitcher. The most used podcasting app, though, is Apple Podcasts.

Research from PodcastHosing.org indicates that Fayetteville consumers can access more than 2,000,000 podcast series comprising over 48,000,000 unique episodes. According to data compiled by Edison research, the top 10 podcasts during the second quarter of 2021 were:

According to the US Census Bureau, there are 212,351 businesses in the Fayetteville, North Carolina area. Some of these companies are small. Some are large. Some sell machine parts. Some sell software. Some provide legal services. Some provide eyecare.

Regardless of the size of the business or what it sells, all of these local companies have one thing in common: they are struggling to fill open jobs with qualified candidates. This is true in Fayetteville as well as Lumberton, Dunn, Hope Mills, Raeford, and every point in between.

Right now, across the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 10.9 million open jobs. This is an all-time record.

To put this mammoth number of open jobs in perspective, the Federal Reserve says there are now five job openings per every four unemployed people.

Attempting to recruit Fayetteville workers from the ranks of the unemployed has proven fruitless for local companies. This is because many people who lost their jobs during the pandemic have no intention of returning to the workforce anytime soon.

There are several reasons so many Fayetteville workers are not coming back.

First, older workers have opted to retire earlier than expected. Second, childcare issues are making it necessary for some parents to stay home. Third, other workers cite health safety issues for the reason why they chose not to work. Finally, some of the unemployed are choosing to live off the savings they amassed during the pandemic.

So rather than focusing recruitment efforts among former employees and the ranks of the unemployed, local business owners need to target the 149,553 passive job seekers in Fayetteville.

If you were one of the 266,600 adults who tuned in to Fayetteville, North Carolina radio last week, then chances are excellent that you heard advertising for ZipRecruiter.  That's because the company purchased more than 120,00 advertisements to air on local stations across the country during the month of August, according to Media Monitors.

ZipRecruiter is an online recruitment site that helps companies of every size advertise open jobs. Overall, more than 2.8 million companies have posted an opening on ZipRecruiter.com

It is no wonder that ZipRecruiter and its competitors like Indeed have been making significant advertising investments on Fayetteville radio. Finding qualified workers is one of the toughest challenges facing local business owners. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of job openings in the U.S. has reached a record high 10.1-million jobs with just not enough candidates to fill them.

If you've heard these commercials on Fayetteville radio, then you know that ZipRecruiter is not advertising to attract job seekers to its website.  Rather, the company's goal is to convince local business owners to buy help wanted ads from them.

So, why has ZipRecruiter chosen Fayetteville radio as a business-to-business (B2B) advertising resource?  The first reason is revealed in the first line of their commercial.

"According to research," says the announcer, "82% of people remember radio ads."