Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

What a great question. I've tried radio advertising in my own businesses, but usually judged the success of the advertising by monitoring the increase in sales, or increases in inquiries. I seeded the radio ads by requesting listeners to ask for a certain employee (which was usually a 'made up name') or requesting a certain package (which was a code word encoded back to the radio station or ad running).

How to use this trick to monitor increases in listenership would be tricky. Do you now how many listeners you have now, or do you know how many calls or enquiries you are currently generating? I would assume stations monitor how many song requests they get a day, or how many phone calls they get, but then again, perhaps not. I would assume that the more calls you get, the larger your audience is.

It stands to reason that smaller stations don't get as many calls as say, a station with Howard Stern would get.

Perhaps there is another way...I'll be watching this question with interest as I'll be learning something too.

Thanks for asking.

Darcy Moen
www.customerloyaltynetwork.com

Is the goal increased listeners or increased advertising revenue? How do you currently tell advertisers how many listeners will hear a spot? How do you know? Whatever method you use for that can be used to measure any increases following your event.

If you subscribe to a syndicated service that measures listeners, you might ask them how much it would cost to have a custom sweep for you.

Finally, WHY do you want to know if your events increase listenership? What will you do differently if you know that? And how much would listenership have to increase in order for you to consider the event a success? It's possible that the measurement tools are not precise enough for what you need, in which case it doesn't really pay to spend a lot of energy, time or money measuring, does it?