Using Your Geographic Strengths During This Election Year

There is no question that political dollars will be the make-or-break category for most broadcasters this year. The flow of presidential candidate spending is in full force.

Near the end of 2019, we wrote an essay on how to prepare and take advantage of political dollars. As Research Director, Inc. has been assisting its clients in maximizing political revenue, it has become obvious that the role of geography is a game changer.

Geographic appeal is a dominant advantage for most radio stations. Few stations’ listenership is evenly spread across the entire metro. Because of signal and format appeal, most stations’ listenership is centered in a small portion of the metro. So how do you take advantage of your station’s geographic appeal?

Congressional Districts
Signs indicate that a tremendous amount of advertising is placed according to congressional districts. Knowing in which of these geographies your station excels can make the difference between capturing those dollars and being left behind.

With Nielsen or Scarborough data, you can build a congressional district as a custom geography and show how your station or cluster delivers listeners (voters) in that area. While it may be a time-consuming exercise to look at every one of your metro’s congressional districts, the payoff can be worth it.

An easier tool is now being offered by The Media Audit. The Media Audit has taken its vast database of consumers and segmented them by congressional district. With this data, a sales rep can show potential advertisers the following information based on congressional district:

• TV viewing
• Radio listening
• News consumption

You can also build a psychographic profile of the people in any congressional district.

In other words, this tool can help you document why your station or cluster is the right advertising medium for a particular candidate.

Political Segmentation
Segmentation is not limited to custom geographies. Using any available qualitative tool (Scarborough, The Media Audit, etc.), a station can focus on the political profile and habits of those who live in the areas of strong listenership. The two most important questions that can be answered are:

• How often do your listeners vote?
• What is their political affiliation?

Presently, the vast majority of political dollars flow to just a few formats. However, if you are not the ideal format (i.e., News/Talk), then you need to let the data do the talking. Are your listeners in the right geography? Does your listeners’ psychographic profile fit well for a specific candidate or issue?

Don’t assume that you can’t capture political dollars because of your format. If the data supports it, drive the pitch with that data. Make this election year a revenue winner for your station!