New Data Shows Opportunity To Guide Local Ad Buyers.

As anyone who has tried to get a local business owner on the phone or into a sales meeting knows, it can be quite a challenge. Many are hands-on across their business. And while that makes getting those sales calls across the finish line challenging, new data from Borrell Associates also shows the size of the opportunity.

Six in ten (59%) of local business owners make all the decisions about their advertising strategy and execution. Borrell’s spring survey of local advertisers also finds that just 6% use an ad agency for all of their buys.

With 59% of businesses and another 27% doing at least some direct buying themselves, this tells us that there’s plenty of opportunity to influence decision makers directly,” says Center For Sales Strategy CEO Matt Sunshine. In Borrell’s summer chart-of-the-week series vlog post, he points out that the research also finds three-quarters (76%) of decision makers admit they aren’t a master at marketing skills.

Sunshine says that points to another great opportunity for marketing leadership among sales reps, especially combined with Borrell survey data showing that six in ten local business ad buyers lack confidence in the amount of money they are spending. That includes three in ten who say they are probably putting too little money into marketing, which is twice the number that think they are overspending on advertising.

“A real profile is emerging that shows us that most businesses aren’t confident that they’re spending the right amount of money on advertising. Most don’t have a single full-time marketing person on staff, and we see that the vast majority are doing at least some ad buying all on their own,” Sunshine says. He says the research is “providing strong evidence that the winning sales staff will be the one that provides marketing leadership to its customers.”

Borrell executives said last month that radio still matters in media plans, even if it isn’t one of the trendier choices named most effective, or most likely to attract greater interest or increased spending. The local ad buyer survey puts AM/FM radio among the top 10 ad formats that respondents consider “very” or “extremely” effective, named by 34% of the direct ad buyers surveyed by Borrell this spring.

The data also shows that businesses established since 2020 are nearly twice as likely as those established before 2020 to increase spending on AM/FM radio this year. Borrell says that many of the newer businesses see radio as a “differentiator” in their marketing plan.