 Jeremy Juhasz |
I’m a Millennial, and guess what? I love radio. As a consumer, I love its history and ability to adapt over the years. I love it for its array of content and programming. Its roots foster creativity, and there’s something for everyone. Talk shows and programming during our daily commute enrich our lives.
C’mon! What’s not to love?
I also love radio as a public relations pro. As a vehicle of a tried and true broadcast medium, it allows for uninterrupted, free-flowing messaging to reach the masses and make an impact for any business or service. In my near decade of work in public relations, I’ve seen it happen. As a consumer, without question, I know I’ve been influenced by radio to make a purchase or visit a website when directed to do so.
So, I want to highlight the power of radio here in series of blogs, focusing on Audio News Releases as a viable PR tactic. For this piece, I’m going to lay out the added benefits of pairing an Audio News Release with a Radio Media Tour.
After several hours producing an RMT that nets one-on-one interviews with local, national and syndicated radio outlets, an ANR greatly supplements that coverage. Think of an ANR like the vitamin or wellness enhancer you add to your post-workout protein drink. Sure, you’ll get great results with consuming protein shakes by themselves, but what if you added a multi-vitamin or probiotics for additional health benefits? An ANR does the same for your entire radio campaign. Like an enhancer in your protein smoothie, an ANR segment specifically fills a void in your overall radio campaign wellness. The ANR also offers flexibility and can air in some of your target markets missed by the RMT or reinforce messaging to your top target markets anywhere in the country.
On its own, an Audio News Release is a powerful standalone broadcast PR tactic, too. This narrated and produced :30 or :60 second news package airs nationally or locally, depending on your goals. Since ANRs are distributed via radio, pairing these featured segments with a Radio Media Tour make a ton of sense to get more mileage out of your campaign and augment results.
Public relations executives and marketers thinking about a radio tactic should feel secure with the medium as well. Contrary to popular belief, radio is not dying. In fact, radio is the most popular entertainment medium in the United States. It reaches 93 percent of people in the country still besting the adoption of TV, computers and even smartphones.
If anything, we’re observing listener’s behavior and preferences transforming the industry. From its terrestrial origins, radio is now offered in alternative formats like iHeartRadio’s format, other streaming services, SiriusXM and applications readily available on our smart devices. Additional on-demand platforms—like Spotify and YouTube to name just a couple—are slowly changing the way we consume radio, but the fact remains that people are still listening. Radio remains the hub for music discovery in the U.S., with 49 percent of people listening to find their favorite new music.
Like I said, what’s not to love?
Check back soon, as I’ll return to talk about ANRs paired with Satellite Media Tours.
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Jeremy Juhasz is senior director of demand generation at Definition6.
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