Tampa Bay consumers are expected to spend nearly 7% more at retail in 2021 than in 2020. This forecast is based on recently released data from the National Retail Federation.
To lay claim to a significant share of growing consumer spending, Florida retailers will need to advertise.
“Think you have a great product?” asks the US Small Administration. “Unfortunately, no one’s going to know about it unless you advertise.”
“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."
Scientifically speaking, the fastest way a marketing message can reach the areas of a Tampa Bay consumer's brain responsible for purchase decisions is through the ear. That's why audio advertising can be far more potent than visual messaging.
"Our auditory brain may be one of the best things we have going for us," says Dr. Seth Horowitz, a leading neuroscientist and author of the book, The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind.
"Hearing is a vastly underrated sense," Dr. Horowitz told the New York Times, "We tend to think of the world as a place that we see, interacting with things and people based on how they look. Studies have shown that conscious thought takes place at about the same rate as visual recognition, requiring a significant fraction of a second per event."
"But hearing is a quantitatively faster sense," explains Dr. Horowitz. "While it might take you a full second to notice something out of the corner of your eye, turn your head toward it, recognize it and respond to it, the same reaction to a new or sudden sound happens at least ten times as fast."
There are several audio options Tampa Bay business owners can use to quickly reach the brains of local consumers. These include podcasts, or streaming platforms like Pandora or Spotify.
But the best audio option for reaching local consumers is by advertising on Tampa radio.
Each week according to Nielsen, more adults tune-in to their favorite Tampa radio stations than use any other ad-supported audio source. More impressively, radio reaches the most consumers, period.
Not only does local radio have the largest reach among consumers, it also commands a lopsided share of time adults spend with audio media.
According to new findings from Edison Research, consumers spend 74% of their time spent with audio listening to AM/FM radio. No other ad-supported media comes close.
For Tampa Bay business owners to survive and thrive requires advertising. For advertising to be effective, messages must affect the areas of consumers' brains where purchase decisions are made. Audio advertising can reach those parts of the brain ten times faster than visual messaging.
Of all the audio media available to local business owners, advertising on Tampa Bay radio has the most powerful command of consumers' ears.