What does it mean to a sponsor to have a “Halo” associated with their brand?    

Everything.

The Halo Effect is a selling point unique to public media. It is the idea – supported by research – that Americans attribute specific qualities of brand trust, excellence, and community to public media, and that these qualities translate to our sponsors by association.

Because our audience trusts and values public media, they are predisposed to trust and support companies that support us. 

Now more than ever sponsors are looking for a trusted environment for their message to protect and elevate their brand. In commercial environments sponsors don’t always know what other brands they may be associating with.

The very characteristics that define non-commercial public media create a trusted, quality media environment that translates to real value for our sponsors by association.            

Consider this quote from “Inside Radio” on September 7, 2021:

Eight in ten (82%) advertisers say they are vetting media partners based on trust-related attributes. That is up from six in ten (58%) a year ago. This is according to the 2021 Advertiser Perceptions Trust Report.

All indicators show that online sports betting will grow exponentially in the next five years, so whether or not public media can accept online sports betting sponsorship is potentially a real “million dollar question.”

Some believe that online sports betting will get as granular as betting on who gets the first home run in a baseball game or if a football team will make the next first down. Don’t forget soccer and tennis. It could become quite the tax money-maker for the 18 states that currently allow it.

Recently one of our Greater Public member stations asked if they could take online sports betting sponsorship since it’s legal in their state. Keep in mind that online sports betting is legal federally.  We asked our Greater Public FCC lawyer for advice.

There is nothing like having the phone ring or receiving an email from a prospect who wants information about how they can become a station sponsor. Call-ins and leads represent companies or organizations that are already interested in buying sponsorship. These leads are “sweet” for sponsorship representatives because they know they have a much greater chance of closing.

Before I give you the list, I want to give a “shout out” to the Middle Market Underwriting Group that I have the pleasure of working with, who shared some of the ways that they are increasing sponsorship call-ins and leads. It’s important to remember how many touches it takes (more than eight) to educate and start building a relationship with a potential sponsor. 

Marketing to prospective sponsors is important and supports the work of your sponsorship representatives. It reinforces your brand and value. You can harness the power and reach of your broadcast and email lists to educate listeners on your unique value proposition and how easy it is to become a sponsor.

It’s exciting to see performing arts come back, events being scheduled, and the return of concerts and festivals of all kinds. We’re all hungry to go out again.

But, wait, let’s not forget what lesson we learned in sponsorship from the absence of all our beloved performing arts during the pandemic. It’s important to always, always keep a vital list of sponsorship accounts across a range of business categories including healthcare, professional services, local and state government, financial services, colleges and universities, senior living, and retail.

If you took time during the  pandemic to prospect every other business category while performing arts were dormant, good for you! You may have made progress and brought in some new sponsorship business. So don’t stop now. Welcome back your performing arts friends and clients, while still focusing on the addition of new business in other categories to your account list.

Recently the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) presented a “Radio Works for Recruitment Advertising” webinar that focused on the future of the job market. The RAB shared Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by the American Staffing Association (ASA) which identified the top five sectors for wage and salary jobs through 2029.

What is the “Cookie Apocalypse?” Sounds like a chocolate chip-ageddon, which really wouldn’t be all that bad if you like chocolate chip cookies. But, the “Cookie Apocalypse” is the current name for the disappearance of tracking cookies in digital ads. Browser cookies identify a computer and its user(s) and help advertisers serve up more relevant ads. But have you noticed that websites now ask your permission to “track you across apps”?

When you say “No, don’t track,” then the tracking cookie can’t be used and those programmatic digital ads that used to follow you around everywhere are no longer viable. This is a new IAB best practice that advertisers are adopting.

“Yay!” many say, and rightly so.

The IAB published in their Post-Cookie Whitepaper that "the proliferation of cookies has increased anxiety over online privacy. Data collection is fragmented over many websites, devices, browsers, apps, etc. making it exceedingly difficult for consumers to understand who may be doing what with their data and to apply privacy controls centrally and consistently, while ensuring these choices persist over time. For third parties, the reliance on cookies has resulted in a battle between a rapidly degrading economic model, and the costly, persistent, and high-volume deployment of cookies.”  

What does this mean for public media digital sponsorship?

We’ve all been through a tough year. We adjusted to a pandemic, worked and stayed safe at home, and brainstormed our way through a very soft economic environment.

But now, it’s time to plan for rebound success.

Radio is still America's #1 reach medium. 90% of all Americans aged 25-54 listen to the radio each week. I know you’ve heard this before, but it’s important to remember the power of reach that radio represents.

Consider that the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) projects $2 billion in podcast ad revenue by 2023, doubling this year’s 2021’s $1 billion. And BIA Advisory Services says that local radio’s digital revenue will grow 9.7% in 2021 and is expected to keep growing.  

Are you ready to raise even more sponsorship than before? Here’s a checklist to help you accelerate preparations for success in FY22.

Review Your Digital Sponsorship Offerings

If you have been thinking about adding streaming audio pre-rolls to your mix of digital sponsorship offerings, now is the time to jump in and  jump in all the way.  If you have just been offering a “baked in” single or dual streaming audio sponsorship and are only selling it to one or two sponsors,  it’s time to change to dynamic pre-roll insertion and sell to multiple sponsors.  

Stations can more than make up the monthly service cost for dynamically inserted streaming audio pre-rolls through added sponsorship sales and increased digital revenue.  Borrell Associates recently released “The 2021 Mindset of Streaming Audio Advertisers,” including their survey of 2,262 local advertisers and agencies conducted in Q2 and Q3 2020.  The results showed that almost half of local agencies were buying streaming audio, while only 11% of local advertisers were doing the same. This may indicate that streaming audio is currently bought by more sophisticated marketers, but is starting to gain traction on direct buys, too.  With smart speakers now in over 87.7 million U.S. households (up over 32% year over year) and the ubiquitous use of smart phones, it just makes sense to capture the most sponsorship revenue you can with streaming audio.

The Borrell Associates study mentioned above goes on to show that half of streaming audio sponsorship buyers are in arts & entertainment, retail, civic organizations, and health care.  Most of these are strong public media sponsorship categories. And indicators suggest that streaming audio buyers have bigger budgets.

Reaching the public radio and television audience has always been a selling point with sponsors, and is the unique value proposition of all stations. The public media audience is unparalleled in reaching decision-makers and is an ideal highly qualified audience for sponsors. But as listening and viewing habits change, as well as behaviors due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, there may also be another reason to sponsor public media that is even more compelling.

A recent study reported by Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB in her blog post “Radio Covers Auto Insurance,” showed attribution data analysis by Analytic Owl on the recent large ad spends by insurance companies like Progressive Insurance. The data showed that of nearly 36,000 radio ads throughout 2020, radio increased web traffic by 12%, according to NumericOwl data (powered by AnalyticOwl). For every radio ad aired, it generated 2.2 new website visits for a total of over 135,000 visits.

Everyone wants increased web traffic! Think of all the professional service companies, attorneys, healthcare, and others that have spent a lot of money updating their websites to make them current and user-friendly. If you can increase their web traffic it can help make that investment worthwhile. Oh, and what about automotive dealerships? Driving traffic to their website is exactly what they want.

BIA Advisory Services, which tracks the local advertising spend for 16 different media, half of which are traditional and half of which are digital/online, is reporting that radio advertising spends will be up slightly this year. To get more revenue, and deliver stronger sponsor results, we in public radio sponsorship can work on getting more “share of wallet.” 

“Share of wallet” is defined in this context as the dollar amount a client spends with a particular advertising media. Radio, historically, has not asked for enough “share of wallet” compared to the unparalleled reach that radio offers. This year, if you change your expectations and your “ask," you can change your sponsorship revenue results.

The Radio Advertising Bureau reports the total number of radio listeners from Nielsen’s RADAR data every year.  92% of all Americans over the age of 18 listened to radio in 2019. As of August 2020, in Nielsen’s Total Audience Report, approximately 91% of all Americans over the age of 18 were listening to radio. According to Nielsen  this means that Radio is America’s #1 reach media. 241.6 million people listen to radio each week. How does this compare to TV? Television reaches 80% of Americans over the age of 18 according to the same Nielsen data. 

Corporate support proposals are often thought of as a key part of the selling process. In fact, they are part of the implementation process. Your sales efforts will include the conversations you have with a prospect to understand what they want to achieve with a sponsorship, and how they are currently marketing to meet those goals. 

The proposal is what comes next. It’s a written statement of the conceptual agreement you’ve already gained in your needs analysis with your prospect. When a proposal is done well, it’s easy to get to ‘yes.’

Before All Else: The Needs Analysis

If you have not reached a conceptual agreement and understanding with the client before presenting a proposal, your written document is unlikely to meet your client’s needs and may waste both of your time. A well-conducted needs analysis and meeting of the minds with your client before you write your proposal is the critical foundation for any proposal.

What Your Proposal Should Accomplish

The purpose of a proposal is to:

• Demonstrate that you have listened to your client, understand what they need and how they are marketing, and feel confident about what you can provide.
• Reaffirm the conceptual agreement and understanding already gained from prior meetings/conversations.
• Explain the options you have and how you can help the client reach their stated goals.
• Clearly state the sponsorship investment you’re inviting the client to make.
• Formally sign off and launch the partnership.

Additionally, your proposal can serve as a persuasive document that can be shared with others who have not been part of the decision-making process.