As the pandemic rages on, advertising is no longer a luxury for the 5,000 small businesses in the Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC Metro Area. Advertising has become a tool for survival.OTT & CTV Viewing Soars In CSRA
Advertising on Augusta television and cable is becoming less attractive to Central Savannah River Area business owners as viewers rapidly defect to alternative video entertainment sources including, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Amazon and Disney+.
Collectively these streaming services are referred to as Over-The-Top Television (OTT) and Connected-TV (CTV). Viewers can only access this OTT and CTV content via smartphone, tablets, computers, smart-TVs, Amazon Fire Sticks, and Roku Sticks, Nielsen reports that 91% of Augusta area adults own at least one these devices. Furthermore, they are using them.
According to Nielsen projections, OTT and CTV networks now reach 43.4% of CSRA consumers every week.
Although both broadcast and cable TV still maintain a reach advantage, the amount of time consumers are spending with OTT and CTV programming is staggering.
Who Listens To Commercials On Augusta Radio?
Every week, 412,144 adult consumers tune-in to an Augusta radio station. That is way more than are reached by other media, including local television, newspaper, social media, or streaming audio sites like Pandora and Spotify.
A more significant number for thousands of Central Savannah River Area small business owners who advertise on Agusta radio is how many of these listeners stick around when their commercials come on.
A 2011 Nielsen study discovered that, on average, 93% of listeners stayed with the radio station they are tuned-to when the commercials come on. That number amazed many advertisers at the time who believed that audiences were far more likely to defect when the music stopped.
A lot has changed since 2011. CSRA consumers have many more media options and can instantly connect to each with a button-push, mouse-click, screen-tap, or voice command. With all of these choices, do radio audiences still stay tuned during commercial breaks?
According to a new study from the Journal of Advertising Research, audiences in 2020 are more than twice as likely to stick with the radio station they are tuned to during commercials than they were nine years ago.
In the current study, the authors combined portable people-meter data ratings to measure loss of audience during advertising. They discovered a new benchmark of 3% for avoidance of radio advertising.
Newspaper Advertising In Augusta: Advice For CSRA Business Owners
Augusta area business owners are expected to spend $9.1 million on newspaper advertising in 2020. This will be 29% 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 Augusta 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 Augusta Chronicle has decreased by 27%. The Sunday edition suffered a 32% decrease.
Among all advertising media available to small business owners, newspaper's ability to reach adult consumers now lags significantly behind Augusta radio, cable, broadcast TV, and social media.
What Is The Best Way To Reach Online Shoppers In The CSRA?
Central Savannah River Area shoppers are expected to spend a record $1.4 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, 76.7% of CSRA 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.
Radio Listening In Augusta Holds Its Own During Pandemic
Some advertising experts had predicted that as consumers spent more time at home because of COVID-19 concerns, the hours devoted to radio listening would decrease. That, however, was not the case.
In the Spring of 2019, according to Nielsen, 38.4% of radio listening occurred at home. During July of this year, in-home listening jumped to 45.4%. Despite the reduction in out-of-home activities, though, CSRA consumers still spent the almost the same amount of time listening to Augusta radio.
More Advertising Advice For Augusta Small Business Owners
- Who's Spending Now? CSRA Small Business Owners Ask.
- Advertising In Augusta: Still Time To Ring Up Holiday Sales
- What Is The Best Way To Reach Online Shoppers In The CSRA?
- Small Business Advertising In Augusta: Consumers Ready To Spend
- Advertising ROI In CSRA: Television vs. Radio
- AVOD: Four Letters Every Augusta Small Business Owners Should Know
