If you were one of the 416,300 adults who tuned in to Wilmington, Delaware radio last week, then chances are excellent that you heard advertising for ZipRecruiter.  That's because the company purchased more than 120,00 advertisements to air on local stations across the country during the month of August, according to Media Monitors.

ZipRecruiter is an online recruitment site that helps companies of every size advertise open jobs. Overall, more than 2.8 million companies have posted an opening on ZipRecruiter.com

It is no wonder that ZipRecruiter and its competitors like Indeed have been making significant advertising investments on Wilmington radio. Finding qualified workers is one of the toughest challenges facing local business owners. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of job openings in the U.S. has reached a record high 10.1-million jobs with just not enough candidates to fill them.

If you've heard these commercials on Wilmington radio, then you know that ZipRecruiter is not advertising to attract job seekers to its website.  Rather, the company's goal is to convince local business owners to buy help wanted ads from them.

So, why has ZipRecruiter chosen Wilmington radio as a business-to-business (B2B) advertising resource?  The first reason is revealed in the first line of their commercial.

"According to research," says the announcer, "82% of people remember radio ads."

When Wilmington, Delaware's first radio station, WDEL, began broadcasting on July 22, 1922, the station needed a tall antenna and lots of buried copper cable to transmit its signal.  Radio receivers at the time were mostly homemade and involved a piece of crystalline mineral and a wire coil.

Over many decades in Wilmington, both the broadcasting and receiving equipment improved. In the mid-1920s this meant store-bought radios. In the 1930s this meant car radios. In the 1960s this meant transistor radios. In the 1970s this meant boom boxes. And, in the 1980s this meant Walkmen. But, despite these improvements, the fundamental technology of big towers sending a signal through the air to a radio receiver remained the same.

In 1994, there was a new way for Wilmington consumers to listen to the radio. That was the year local stations across the country began streaming their signals over the internet and listeners could use their computers (later their smartphones and smart speakers) as receiving devices. No big antennas, no wires, and no actual radio needed.

In 2021, according to Nielsen, Wilmington radio reaches more local consumers than any other advertising media option.

Neilsen finds, too, that 34.4% of all consumers who listen to a Wilmington radio station over-the-air will, at some point during the month, also connect to a local station via the internet. 

Every week, according to Nielsen, Wilmington, Delaware radio reaches 416,300 adult consumers. This is significantly more people than are reached by local TV, cable, social media, streaming video, streaming audio, or newspapers.

Because of its humongous reach, area small business owners advertise on Wilmington radio to successfully market the products and services they sell.

Many first-time advertisers on Wilmington radio will ask how many times a consumer needs to hear a commercial before they become a customer.  Often the business owner is told that to be effective, a consumer needs to be exposed to a message three times before they will buy.  Unfortunately, this prescription for a three-time frequency is more myth than substance.

A study by Nielsen provides some data-based insights about effective frequency, But first, here's the origin of the mythological rule of three.

To maximize success, every Wilmington, Delaware business owner needs to advertise.

"Think you have a great product?" asks the US Small Business Administration. "Unfortunately, no one’s going to know about it unless you advertise.”

The SBA goes on to say, “Advertising, if done correctly, can do wonders for your product sales, and you know what that means: more revenue and more success for your business.”

According to the US Census Bureau, there are 15,190 small business establishments in the Tri-state area. This geography includes New Castle County in Delaware, Cecil County in Maryland, and Salem County in New Jersey.  Most of these diminutive companies have limited dollars to invest in advertising.  

Advertising successfully in Wilmington is achievable, though, with a small budget if the available funds are invested wisely.  Oftentimes, this means selecting one medium rather than spreading money over several.

So which medium makes the most sense for small business owners with limited budgets? By most key advertising metrics, advertising on Wilmington radio is the best option.

There are 107,400 school-aged children in the Wilmington, Delaware area.  Based on forecasts from the National Retail Federation (NRF), local parents are expected to spend a record $83.4 million to prepare these kids to return to the classroom this fall. 

Overall, the NRF expects back-to-school shoppers to spend almost 10% more in 2021 than they did last year.

“The pandemic forced parents and their school-aged children to quickly adapt to virtual learning, and they did it with an incredible amount of resolve and flexibility,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “We enter the new school year with plans to return to the classroom and retailers are prepared to help Americans find and purchase whatever they need to make this transition as seamless as possible.”

According to the NRF, more than 51% of parents have already started buying for their K-12 students.  But, for Tri-state area business owners there is still time to benefit.

The NRF reports that nearly 76% of K-12 shoppers are still waiting on lists of school supplies needed. On average, consumers have only completed 18% of the shopping.

Advertising is crucial to the success of Tri-state area business owners. According to Investopedia, "lack of adequate marketing and publicity are among the issues that drag down small business".

According to Borrell Associates, a company that tracks advertising trends across the country, Wilmington, Delaware area business owners are expected to spend $337 million to advertise the goods and services they sell. This represents a 6.5% increase versus last year.

The majority of these dollars are being spent by Wilmington business owners to capture a significant share of the $10.2 billion dollars local consumers will be spending this year. These estimates are based on a revised forecast from the National Retail Federation (NRF).

Of course, there is an over-abundance of ways a local business owner can advertise. Perhaps the best way to generate sales from local consumers is with Wilmington radio. Here are the top five reasons why...

More than 96% of Wilmington area adults have access to the internet.  Ubiquitous technology such as computers, tablets, smartphones, and connected TVs allow Delaware consumers to go online whenever they choose, which, for some adults, is always.

The Pew Research Center, a public opinion research company, reports that one-in-three consumers say they are online constantly. A 50% increase from 2015.  In total, 85% of consumers say they connect at least one time every day.

So, how are Wilmington consumers spending all this time connected to the internet?

According to Nielsen, streaming audio and video content, social networking, checking the weather, and banking are the top online activities for Wilmington consumers each month.

Retail spending in the Tri-state area is expected to reach $10.2 billion this year, a 13.5% increase versus 2020. These estimates are based on a revised forecast from the National Retail Federation (NRF).

Since 1922, when WDEL-AM signed on as the first station in Wilmington, local business owners have depended on radio advertising to help market their goods and services to Delaware consumers.  But has the Coronavirus pandemic altered the medium's ability to deliver customers to ring up sales for local retailers?

Two critical marketing metrics indicate that advertising on Wilmington radio remains the best way for a small business to advertise.

The first measurement is reach. This is the number of different consumers who are exposed to an advertising campaign.

The second measure is return-on-investment (ROI). This is the amount of sales a business can expect for every one dollar invested in advertising.

Based on these metrics, here is how advertising on Wilmington radio measures up to other options available to local small business owners.

Broadcast television came to Wilmington, Delaware in 1949 when WDEL-TV signed on for the first time. In those days, only about 0.5% of local households actually owned a set, a number that would grow 10-fold by the mid-1950s.

At first, local consumers needed rabbit-ears or outdoor antennas to receive signals from a small handful of Tri-state area stations. The quality of reception varied day-to-day.

By the early 1960s, however, local cable systems began to bring higher-quality, reliable reception to households throughout the Wilmington area. The number of programming options, though, remained limited to affiliates of ABC, NBC, and CBS.

In 1972, viewing options began to expand as local cable began offering Wilmington area consumers the opportunity to purchase premium services, including HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax.  Five years later came an explosion of non-premium cable channels such as TBS and CNN.

In the early 1990s, Wilmington viewers could not only receive their television programming over-the-air or by cable, but options expanded to include satellite delivery by DishTV and DirectTV.

The next TV innovation came in 2007 as Wilmington consumers started turning to the internet to watch streaming channels like Netflix and Hulu.  These new services allowed viewers to watch TV on their phones, computers, and tablets as well as their living room LCD and Plasma screens.

Today, all of this video technology offers viewers the ultimate flexibility to choose how, when, and where to watch TV.  So, what are they watching?

Earlier this year, based on projections from The National Retail Federation, Wilmington Delaware area consumers were expected to spend more than $9.7 billion at retail this year, a 6.5% increase versus 2020. New data, however, indicates spending will be remarkably higher.

The NRF revised its data this month, and now expects annual growth of 10.5% to 13.5%. Based on these revisions, the Wilmington area retail economy could now top $10.2billion. Excellent news for Tri-state area small business owners.

“The economy and consumer spending have proven to be much more resilient than initially forecasted,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “The combination of vaccine distribution, fiscal stimulus, and private-sector ingenuity have put millions of Americans back to work. While there are downside risks related to worker shortages, an overheating economy, tax increases and over-regulation, overall households are healthier, and consumers are demonstrating their ability and willingness to spend. The pandemic was a reminder how essential small, mid-size and large retailers are to the everyday lives of Americans in communities nationwide.”

To put in historical context for Wilmington small business owners, Mr. Klenhenz noted that he anticipates the fastest growth the U.S. has experienced since 1984. The reopening of the economy has accelerated much faster than most had believed possible a year ago.

To capture the largest possible share of spending growth, local retailers will need to advertise. By the most crucial marketing metrics, the best best way to reach area consumers is by advertising on Wilmington radio.