Marketers face enormous pressure when pitching marketing strategies to their organizations. They have to present the idea in a compelling narrative that ties the campaign's objectives to those of the company. And, with ever-tightening marketing budgets, they must be prepared to back every assertion with research that proves tangible results. The good news is that proving ROI from public media sponsorship to your executives and tracking its success is completely within reach.
Sponsoring Public Media Creates Brand Lift
Public media connects with expansive audiences that are engaged and loyal to their stations. Public media patrons view sponsor messages as less intrusive than traditional advertisements. They view the sponsor brands as benefactors with similar values to their own. That's why savvy public media audiences identify more with sponsors than with brands using traditional ads.
Public media sponsorship doesn't just increase brand recognition, but it creates brand lift. Even in times of crisis, sponsorships can reap incredible benefits for the stations and sponsors. WAMU, a public radio station in Washington, D.C., saw an 11% growth in average quarter-hour share since NPR began covering the spread of COVID-19. This increase in listening resulted in brand lift for local sponsor Politics and Prose once the listeners heard how the bookstore was working to keep customers and employees safe.
Campaign Attribution Models Are Closing the Gap
The days of being unable to prove the ROI of public media sponsorships are past. Campaign attribution platforms such as Enginuity Audience Analytics provide data-rich insights that allow you to optimize your marketing campaigns and prove your return on ad spend for public radio campaigns. The platform delivers real-time campaign performance data to reveal opportunities for optimization.
Enginuity Audience Analytics gives you what you need to counter objections from executives who want to know how you can measure the ROI of a sponsorship. It correlates web traffic with broadcast air times, tracking the incremental visits to a website within 8 minutes after the airing of a broadcast and quantifies the impact of your on-air messages to your online traffic while comparing it to industry benchmarks. With this invaluable tool, you can demonstrate success. Enginuity Audience Analytics is available for sponsors of stations represented by Market Enginuity.
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Data is undoubtedly critical for any campaign —however it's not just a numbers game. Qualitative data is equally important as quantitative data, and both methods are required to decode your public media sponsorship’s effectiveness. Qualitative market research is gathered by observation of consumers in response to the broadcasts. It gives marketers insight into the motivation and emotion involved in customer decision-making.
Frequency, Reach, and the Halo Effect
The frequency that the audience is exposed to public media sponsorships on TV and radio is another vital component of your campaign strategy. Frequency is calculated by how many times your messages are broadcast on a single station over time, so the higher the frequency, the more often your audience hears about your brand. Reach correlates to how many people hear the message, so the higher the reach, the greater your audience. You can extend the reach of your public media sponsorship by including the multiple media platforms that your station offers, such as digital, streaming, podcasts, newsletters or events, in your campaign.
The real magic of public media sponsorship happens in a phenomenon called the Halo Effect. When the audience holds a public station in high regard, an unconscious and automatic positive bias occurs, transferring those same positive feelings to the sponsors. Seventy-two percent of NPR listeners reported they have more positive opinion of a company when they learn it supports public radio.
Public Media Sponsorship Is a Smart Investment for Businesses
Public media is influential, wide reaching, and is regarded as a trusted source of information. Public media sponsorships provide brand lift due to frequency, reach and the Halo Effect that raises the sponsor's public perception. Now, campaign attribution models can help marketers exhibit the value of public media sponsorship to their businesses. To learn more tips on creating highly impactful and effective marketing campaigns, subscribe to our blog.
