Advertising is crucial to the success of Tampa Bay 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, Tampa Bay business owners are expected to spend $1.9 billion to advertise the goods and services they sell. This represents a 6.9% increase versus last year.

The majority of these dollars are being spent by Tampa Bay business owners to capture a significant share of the $46.3 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 Tampa Radio. Here are the top five reasons why...

Since March 2020, when the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the Tampa Bay area, more than 281,015 local people have been infected, according to data collected by USA Facts. The measures imposed to contain the outbreak have transformed the way consumers work, shop, commute, and conduct the business of everyday life.

One aspect of daily life in Tampa Bay that remains little changed due to the pandemic is radio listening. Despite the Coronavirus crisis, radio has held its long-held position as the most used of all local media. This is good news for area business owners who depend on radio for marketing their goods and service.

Each week, according to Nielsen, 2.2 million adult consumers tune-in to a Tampa radio station.  This is significantly more people than are reached by all other local advertising options, including TV, cable, streaming video, streaming audio, social media, and newspapers.

In 1922 when WDAE-AM became the first radio station in Tampa Bay, many considered the medium a fad.  Even in 1937, a hit song by George Gershwin, Our Love Is Here To Stay, considered radio to be a "passing fancy and in time may go".

Tampa radio, however, has survived the advent of talking-movies, television, eight tracks, and cassettes in stereo.  More recently, radio has withstood a tsunami of digital options including, YouTube, SiriusXM, Pandora, and Spotify.

As the Coronavirus pandemic rolls over into a second year, Tampa radio has hung tough and not ceded its ground despite listener's shifting lifestyles.  This is crucial news for local small business owners who depend on local stations to market their goods and services.

Local radio came to Tampa Bay on May 31, 1922, when WDAE signed-on. The station was owned by three-time Tampa mayor and publisher of the Tampa Daily Times newspaper, D.B. McKay.

The station broadcast from the sixth floor of the Citrus Exchange Building at the corner of Zack and Tampa Street. The building would later become the downton location of the Maas Brothers department store.

Early programming on WDAE consisted of phonograph music as well as baseball scores. The station had also been licensed by The U.S. Department of Agriculture to broadcast weather reports and bulletins.

In remarks celebrating WDAE's inaugural broadcast, Tampa Mayor Charles H. Brown said radio was "the wonder of the age that the human voice can be sent throughout the country."

For almost 100 years, small business owners have depended on local radio stations to successfully market their goods and services through depressions, recessions, wars, and natural disasters. Even now, during a pandemic, advertising on Tampa radio remains a dependable way to make cash registers ring.

Here are five facts every Tampa Bay small business owner needs to know about local radio in 2020.

Before COVID-19, most listening to Tampa radio happened outside the home. Consumers were tuning-in to their favorite stations from the car on the way to their job. Then, they tuned-in when they arrived at work. They listened again during the commute back home.

Nielsen recently surveyed consumers who worked from home before and during the novel coronavirus outbreak. The results show, as of June, 66% of respondents now work from home full-time as a consequence of the pandemic.

As consumers are compelled to work from their houses and curtail their commutes, the share of at-home listening to Tampa radio has grown by 23%, according to Nielsen.