Category Archives: The Halo Effect

Your Brand Can Thrive in the Age of Advertising Overload

Digital media has changed our media landscape, allowing users 24 hour access to content and giving advertisers another avenue to reach consumers.

As a result, consumers are now the target of more advertising than any other time in history. There has been a 500% increase in commercial ads over the past 20 years.

Despite $200 billion being spent on advertising each year, businesses are only reporting a 2% growth.

Advertising burn out is causing the opposite of the intended effect of marketing. For example, digital ads experienced as intrusive are inadvertently causing consumers to stop using those very brands.

So, how can your brand break through the noise?

Michigan Radio sponsorship offers a solution to this marketing conundrum.  Your message takes on value to your customers and prospects when you attach it to something that’s important to them.

Our audience is tuned in to Michigan Radio because they care about the programming that we provide. They listen longer than commercial radio listeners and they don’t change the station during breaks.

 Our listeners don’t skip our breaks because our sponsorship messages are part of the programming and they’re brief.  The Michigan Radio audience is curious to know who is supporting us and they want to support our sponsors.

Your message can reach an audience that is engaged, both with our programming and sponsors.

Lift your brand above advertising overload with a Michigan Radio sponsorship.

 

The Core Values of a Michigan Radio Listener

Michigan Radio’s audience growth in 2016 and 2017 was unprecedented.  More important, perhaps, than knowing that more people are listening, is understanding WHY they are listening.

Michigan Radio listeners have a commitment to core values that translate to a level of support for the station that goes far beyond their financial membership. Michigan Radio listeners are more likely to highly recommend the station in general, and their favorite programs in particular, to others.

The Public Radio Techsurvey from Jacobs Media helps to provide an understanding of why our audience listens to Michigan Radio in the first place and underscores the values-based nature of the relationship between stations and listeners.

Learning, credible and objective programming, new perspective, respecting the listener’s intelligence, and balance are all key components in explaining the appeal of Michigan Radio to those who value it most.  The programs, the hosts and the specific content are, of course, important, but it’s the core value that Michigan Radio stands for that make it the most appealing to our listeners.

Simon Sinek discusses in his TED Talk why it’s essential for brands to “start with why.”

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it,” says Sinek.

This is where the value to your brand comes in.

Our listeners are loyal to Michigan Radio because they value what we provide – they value it enough that they recommend it to their friends and family, and they value it enough that they pay for it, even though they don’t HAVE to.

Your sponsorship message on Michigan Radio lets our listeners know that you value what they value.  Your association with Michigan Radio creates the halo effect, which lends YOUR brand credibility, just by association with us!

Contact your account executive today to reach listeners who are passionate about Michigan Radio!

Align Your Brand with Michigan Radio

We’re proud to share that NPR has been named 2017’s ‘Brand of the Year’ by the  Harris Poll EquiTrend News Service. More than 100,000 U.S. consumers voted on 4,000 brands. The “News Service” category includes newspapers, news websites, wire services and news aggregators.

NPR ranked the highest in this category when voters considered familiarity, quality and consideration.

“Forty one million listeners trust their local public radio station each week to deliver the fact-based, unbiased journalism they need to stay informed about the news in their communities and the world,” said Meg Goldthwaite, NPR’s Chief Marketing Officer. “But listeners love NPR because public radio provides insights on life and culture—authentic voices they may not hear anywhere else and stories that will spark their curiosity.”

As Michigan’s most listened to NPR station, Michigan Radio provides award winning, locally produced coverage and content, as well as delivering NPR news and cultural programming to more than 530,000 people each week.

With record-breaking audience increases in 2016 and a wildly successful spring 2017 Member Drive, Michigan Radio listeners continue to demonstrate their appreciation and support of the unbiased, informative and authentic journalism that we provide.

Their support also extends to our corporate sponsors.

“Sponsors are increasingly concerned about the quality of the environments their brands align with and how it reflects on their business,” says Gina Garrubbo, President & CEO of National Public Media, NPR’s sponsorship subsidiary. “This affirmation of trust and quality reinforces our research demonstrating the halo effect that sponsors of NPR programming benefit from.”

As research has shown, our audience is also committed to supporting our sponsors: 74% of listeners say they’re more likely to do business with a company that sponsors public radio.

Take the opportunity to align your brand with Michigan Radio and NPR. Deliver your message to our engaged, intelligent and supportive listeners across Michigan.

Check out our series on Branding with Michigan Radio to learn more.

Converting Obstacles to Opportunities: Timing Your Message by Buying Cycle

buying-cycle-11-1At any given time, Michigan Radio listeners are thinking about making important purchases.  Researching is the first step of the ‘buying cycle’, and according to marketing studies, most people research major purchases for several weeks before buying.

We’ve listed some top categories of purchases along with the average number of days a consumer spends in the buying cycle before the purchase is made.

Michigan Radio reaches an educated and affluent demographic across the state, Both our members, who support the station financially, and our listeners in general, tend to patronize Michigan Radio sponsors.

Your long-term sponsorship campaign on Michigan Radio keeps your brand top-of-mind with our listeners, no matter where they are in the buying cycle.

In addition, the public radio halo effect also ensures that our listeners have positive feelings about your brand – feelings that only get stronger the longer your message runs on Michigan Radio!

 Contact us to plan your messages for 2017!

Converting Obstacles to Opportunites: Sponsorship Copy & The Halo Effect

As you consider Michigan Radio sponsorship as a way to promote your business, mission or event, you should also be considering the copy message you’d like to air.

Your copy message is an important consideration: not just any message, but the right kind of message.

An appropriately worded sponsorship message is one that resonates with the listeners and fits in with the sound of the station.

Just as you wouldn’t pair brown shoes with a black tuxedo at a formal event, you don’t want a message that strikes listeners like an out-of-tune piano in a symphony orchestra. You want copy that fits in with the sound of the station.

The things that make Michigan Radio unique in sound and substance are why our listeners tune-in. In addition to providing exceptional programming, it’s important that we maintain an uncluttered environment, so that listeners are engaged during breaks, stay tuned to the station, and hear our sponsor’s messages.

That’s why crafting underwriting messages that are in keeping with our programming values is important.

When it comes time for writing copy, there are important questions to keep in mind:

  • Does the copy focus on brand and community messages instead of just a list of the sponsor’s products?

  • Is the length of the message appropriate?

  • Is the tone appropriate? Is it produced in a calm, authentic voice?

  • Is the copy reinforcing a trust relationship?

We’ll take a look at two ways an sponsorship message can be written for the same sponsor. Here’s an example of a credit for a business that’s in the finance category.

 

The first of the two is a good message, FCC-compliant, and written with the focus on the product:

Support for Michigan Radio comes from Wealth Investment Advisors, providing a wide range of investment options, from stocks, bonds and mutual funds, to comprehensive portfolio management since 1995. On the web at Wealth Investment Advisors dot com.

Here’s a second version, also a good message and FCC-compliant. It’s also a message that’s locally oriented and supportive of the local community:

Support for Michigan Radio comes from Wealth Investment Advisors, helping local families navigate the investment landscape since 1995. On the web at Wealth Investment Advisors dot com.

Both examples are good copy and FCC-compliant. The second is to-the-point, an example that makes for a clear, uncluttered message that resonates with the listener. When fewer words are used, it’s easier for a listener to remember the details, compared with a longer list of product or service offerings.

Information in shorter spots is easier for the listener to remember. That’s a good guide to use when choosing the wording that will resonate with the listener. The second credit is poised to deliver on the halo effect, creating the image of the business that supports the station.

Sponsorship messages should resonate with the listeners. When you’re listening to the radio everything that comes out of the speakers is heard as programming, and that includes the sponsorship messages.

Contact us for more information about how we can help you get your clear, concise message out to our audience with a Michigan Radio sponsorship.

Looking Beyond Ratings

Marketing professionals, like gourmet chefs, are on the lookout for key ingredients when they are planning their strategy.

Specifically, when buying radio, those in the know are looking at things like reach, frequency and ratings.

Michigan Radio has the numbers that the professionals are looking for. As the most listened-to public radio station in the state, we reach more than a half a million listeners per week with our on-air broadcast – and that’s not counting our streaming or web audience.

Beyond the ratings, marketers today know they should also be looking at audience engagement. Put simply, audience engagement = how much the audience takes action as a result of the content produced by the station.

Taking action or audience engagement could look like:

  • social media interaction: liking, sharing, commenting on content;

  • web interaction: commenting on stories on the web or going to the web to follow up on a story they heard on-air;

  • calling the station with feedback;

  • contacting sponsors or advertisers;

For Michigan Radio, audience engagement also includes listeners who become donors/members of the station.  This is the ultimate in audience engagement: our listeners value our content enough to contribute financially.

This means that sponsorship messages aired and associated with our high-quality content, are HEARD by our audience.  Since we don’t have commercials and limit our sponsorship messages to only a few an hour, our listeners don’t change the station during sponsorship messages.

As a marketing professional, we know that you recognize the value in what Michigan Radio sponsorship has to offer – contact us to find out how to put your marketing dollars to work in our high-quality, content-rich environment!

How to Keep Your Brand Growing

Studies* have shown that sponsorship of public radio continues to benefit brands after years of sponsorship.   Not only that, sponsorship benefits actually INCREASE over time – the more your name appears on public radio, the more your brand awareness with our listeners increases.  There is no sign that brand awareness ever “levels off” – so the longer you sponsor, the better it gets!

Contact us to find out how you can get started with a Michigan Radio sponsorship to grow the awareness of YOUR brand exponentially!

 

Brand Awareness Graphic

 

*Source: Lightspeed Research NPR Sponsor Impact Survey, 2009-2012

Good For You, Good For Michigan: Stateside

Stateside  covers a wide range of Michigan news and policy issues — as well as culture and lifestyle stories. In keeping with  Michigan Radio’s broad coverage across southern Michigan, Stateside focuses on topics and events that matter to people all across the state.

Your sponsorship dollars support the programs and projects that we produce at the station as well as helping us remain an NPR News station. Let our listeners know that you care about what they care about.

Michigan Radio is good for Michigan.
Your sponsorship of Michigan Radio lets our audience know that
you are good for Michigan, too.

 

Converting Obstacles to Opportunities: Why Michigan Radio?

You already understand that radio is still relevant, but what makes public radio in general and Michigan Radio in particular a better place to air your message than commercial radio?

Here are the top reasons to air your message with Michigan Radio vs. a commercial station:

  • Your message reaches more of Michigan without losing the localized feel of radio

  • Your message stands out on our uncluttered air, since we only air 1-2 minutes of sponsor messages an hour (versus 15-20 minutes of ads on commercial radio)

  • Your message reaches an engaged, affluent and educated audience

  • Our audience is 74% more likely to do business with a public radio sponsor, due to the Halo Effect

  • We’re community minded – we care about what our listeners care about and what YOU care about

Public vs. Commercial

Contact us today to find out how a Michigan Radio sponsorship can benefit your business and your community!

Converting Obstacles to Opportunities: Building Rapport

Building rapport with a customer is the first step in the sales process.  Making that connection can sometimes be difficult, but a Michigan Radio sponsorship can help you start it before you ever speak with your potential customer.

The first and most important step to building rapport is finding common ground.  If you are selling bikes and a person enjoys biking, you have some common ground, but it is important to have something in common outside of what you have to offer your customer.

That’s where Michigan Radio comes in.

By becoming a sponsor, you are letting our listeners (your potential customer base) know that you care about public radio – something our listeners are also passionate about!  Your sponsorship opens the door, and the conversation, before you ever have the opportunity to meet our audience.

Your sponsorship message gives our audience two crucial pieces of information:

  1. Your message, delivered in our high-quality, content rich environment

  2. Common ground with YOU – because our listeners financially support the station, just like your sponsorship does!

Contact us to find out how we can help you start building rapport with our audience today!