The reach of radio is well-documented – AM/FM broadcast radio reaches 93% of U.S. adults each month. Additionally, 99% of the population is reached by audio each month, which consists of broadcast radio, podcasts, streaming, and satellite radio. Audio reaches more Americans every month than any other platform, linear or digital, according to the Nielsen Audio Today Report 2022.
The stats make for a good recipe to help build brand awareness through audio advertising, says Anita Oshin-Harrison, Marketing Specialist at Ad Results Media, which specializes in influencer-based audio and video media. She offers tips on how to do just that in a recent blog post.
The first step – know your target audience.
“It is critical to use both audience affinity data and historical performance data to select the shows or types of content that will be the most effective for your brand to lead its foray into audio advertising,” Oshin-Harrison writes. “We recommend you identify the top two-three affinities that index high with your audience and search for programs or podcasts that focus on the lifestyles and passion points of your customers.”
Once the audience is identified, it’s time to develop an audio branding strategy. This can be done by identifying podcasts that do live reads; capitalizing on your commercial intro and outro sounds, or sonic branding; making sure host-read ads and produced ads share similar sonic components; and making sure media partners, agencies, hosts, and producers create similar branding throughout creative content.
Oshin-Harrison also stresses the importance of placing ads on the right programs and platforms. According to Infinite Dial 2021, the platforms with the greatest consumer awareness are Spotify (82%), Pandora (79%), Apple Music (72%), iHeartRadio (72%), Amazon Music (69%), YouTube Music (69%); Soundcloud (43%), NPR One (21%), Audacy (18%), TuneIn (17%).
When advertising on podcasts, she warns about being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of shows available, which reach into the hundreds of thousands.
“Once you make a list of potential podcast advertising partners, you need to begin vetting them for campaign fit by downloading and listening to at least two or three of their episodes,” she writes. “This will help you get a feel for the content and tonality of their show and what type of ad creative may resonate best.”
The final steps are developing creative ads and buying and implementing an audio campaign. Finally, “measuring the impact of your audio branding campaign is essential to generate learnings to iterate and optimize your approach and ad creative,” she writes.