What We Have Learned About The 1010XL Listener - And You Should Know Too

The last few months as 1010XL's Director of Sales and Marketing has been an incredible learning experience.  Since I had been with the station for over a year, I had seen the response our sponsors had been receiving from their commercial campaigns.  From conversations with them, from the fact that they had purchased additional campaigns and the extremely large percentage of continual advertisers, it had been apparent that 1010XL had been an extremely efficient marketing medium for reaching men and generating business in Jacksonville.

But it was important to learn more.  It was important to learn more about our listener.  Who are they ?  What role do they play at work?  What role do they play at home?  Are they fathers that have kids at home that they are still raising? There were a number of questions that we wanted answered.  So we launched a survey and asked our listeners to tell us who they are.

And we learned a great deal about the 1010XL listener.  Facts that we want to share so that the businesses of Jacksonville, planning for their upcoming marketing year, will have a better understanding and so they may reach this educated audience that has money to spend on themselves, their families and their businesses.

So here is what we learned:

56% have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

 

We have an educated audience.  We had already known that from the conversations we have with them as callers.

68% are Married, while 32% are single or divorced.

44% have children under the age of 16 living in the house.

These are family men and fathers who make big ticket financial decisions.  They are planning family trips, buying toys and gifts, taking the family out to events.

83% own a home.

48% are considering home improvement projects.

Which means that they have a "honey-do" list to accomplish on a regular basis.  And they are willing to pay for the right  companies to help them clear that list.

21% own their own business.

55% describe themselves as a decision maker for their business.

That is a large number of people.  One out of five of our listeners own their own business.  Businesses  should take notice of this and reach out to these men.  If you are looking to create new revenue for your business to business company, our listeners can help you do that.

63% plan to buy / lease vehicle in the next twelve months.

Car dealers, take note.  Our listeners are shopping for cars.  Constantly.  You would want to be in front of them to help with that decision.

Fast Food

44% eat fast food three times per week.

21% eat fast food once per week.

20% eat fast food once per month.

Our men are eating on the run.  We have a few fast food businesses on the air that have benefitted from this.  But options are good and reaching out to our listeners will help drive more sales in this market for you.

 Fine Dining Frequency

42% eat at a fine dining restaurant one per week.

33% eat at a fine dining restaurant one per month.

They are also taking clients and their significant other out to dinner.  On a regular basis.  A nice campaign from a local restaurant would create a strong result.

We are very proud to provide live and local sports information to our listeners and also to provide the opportunity for advertisers to reach them.  This should provide a strong blue print of who they are and how they can help your business.

We know the stories of our current advertisers success and we are developing case studies to help tell those stories to our prospects.  If you would like to learn more about how a similar business has fared or would like to see a proposal, please email me at howardw@1010XL.com.  We would like to be able to help you exceed your revenue budget this coming year.

 

Following Mo on my Phone

I grew up in New York, in a neighborhood that was located in the Bronx.  I was a big sports fan.   I followed all sports, but baseball was my first love.  I watched the great Yankee teams of the mid 70's and the painful Bronx Zoo teams of the early 80's.  I read magazines and baseball books.  I read the paper every day, starting with the sports section.  New York was a great place to grow up as a baseball fan.

When I got older, I had the opportunity to work in baseball, however it was for the New York Mets organization.   But that is a story for another time.  I also had the opportunity to watch the Yankees go to the playoffs every year.  From 1995 - 2007, they made the postseason and won four World Series Championships.  They missed in 2008, but won the World Series again on 2009 and made the playoff each year since until this year.   Considering the injuries, specifically to Derek Jeter and significant major components of their lineup,  they did remarkably well and came incredibly close.  A couple of games here and there they would've made the playoffs and possibly won the division.

The end the season brought to a close the careers of two great Yankees.   I had the opportunity to witness a lot of great Yankee baseball my lifetime and take attend a number of the games that they honored the team's legends.  I was in attendance when they paid tribute to Joe DiMaggio right after his death and the day they celebrated  Yogi Berra when he came back into the Yankee fold.  It was also the day the David Cone threw his Perfect Game.   The pomp and circumstance of what is Yankee baseball is truly an experience all its own.  The legends that played for the team line the walls of Hall of Fame and the team's own Monument Park.  The two men that retired at the end this year, rank among the team's best.   Andy Pettitte was one of the best left-handers to ever pitch for the team.   He holds a number of records with this remarkable team,  a remarkable post season performer, and, best of all, he was developed from the team's farm system.

 

 

Mariano Rivera was also developed in the Yankee system and became the greatest closer of all time. I had the privilege of watching his major-league debut on TV and being in attendance 60-70 games where the doors swung open, the sounds of Enter Sandman blared from the speakers and he took the mound to shut down the opponent.   He was truly remarkable, not only has a baseball player but as a human being and it was an honor to watch him play.

The reason I bring this all out is because of how I participated in his ceremony at Yankee Stadium on September 22nd. If I still lived in New York, I would have been in attendance.   However as a father of three that now lives in Jacksonville, FL, I spent those moments at The Bolles School football field watching my two sons play in their soccer league games.   So I was unable to even watch the ceremony live.  Using the technology in front of me, I used my smart phone and the DirecTV app to record anything and everything I could have been able to watch.   That would be great for later, but I wanted to feel it live.  So I logged on to Twitter and became a part of the ceremony.   

The people in the ballpark tweeted.  The news media tweeted.  Those involved in baseball who have a love and reverence for Mariano Rivera tweeted.  Not only did they tweet, but they provided pictures and video.  They provided live commentary of this amazing event going on so I was able to see the activity and feel like I was part of it.  Even though I was in Jacksonville, FL.   

Twitter, and social media in general, have become tools that are necessities to my daily activity, that of 1010XL and the daily activity of companies around the country.  It is also an important distribution vehicle for sports information to be generated.   Whether it's the news reporter tweeting out information teasing his upcoming broadcast, or an announcement of a player injury.  Whether it's commentary from people watching games and giving their analysis or  used by teams to sell tickets and merchandise.  Whether it's just for branding and marketing purposes, teams, media outlets, fans are tweeting about games and major sports activity minute by minute.

Hashtags are set up for specific games and events.  Athletes tweet their feelings and thoughts and interact with the fans.  You get raw exposure.  Real personality.  Some very funny and behind the scenes pictures. 

At 1010XL we use Twitter on a daily basis and will tweet out information about guest that are coming on the show, big stories that we put on to our website and fun observations to have our listeners respond to.  Our on air hosts have their own twitter handles and tweet throughout the day.  And the station will then retweet them and interact with them.   We also use Twitter as a marketing tool to extend the relationship we have with our partners and for them to get additional exposure through our 4000+ followers.

What is more remarkable is the amount to Twitter activity that takes place during a major sports event.  A playoff game, a championship game.   Sports Illustrated just published this list of the five most tweeted sports events of 2013.  They are:

Super Bowl - 26,131,270

NBA Finals Game 6 - 7,796,860

NCAA Final Four - 4,592,598

BCS Championship - 3,989,642

Stanley Cup Finals Game 6 - 1,075,234

yes, those numbers are in the millions...

So...are you tweeting?  Are you following me or our station?  I am @hwolpoff and the station is @1010XL. 

 

 

 

Time to Rethink Your Message: Now the Cart Belongs to Daddy

Here is a powerful article that ran in Ad Age by Jack Neff.  If you had not already noticed, Men are becoming the primary food shopper for the family....and are not being advertised to properly...

 

Survey Finds 51% of Men Are Primary Grocery Shoppers, but Few Believe Advertising Speaks to Them

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Mom is losing ground to Dad in the grocery aisle, with more than half of men now supposedly believing they control the shopping cart. The implications for many marketers may be as disruptive as many of the changes they're facing in media.

Through decades of media fragmentation, marketers of packaged goods and many other brands could take solace in one thing -- at least they could count on their core consumers being moms and reach them through often narrowly targeted cable TV, print and digital media.

But a study by Yahoo based on interviews last year of 2,400 U.S. men ages 18 to 64 finds more than half now identify themselves as the primary grocery shoppers in their households. Dads in particular are taking up the shopping cart, with about six in 10 identifying themselves as their household's decision maker on packaged goods, health, pet and clothing purchases. Not surprisingly, given that such ads long have been crafted for women, only 22% to 24% of men felt advertising in packaged goods, pet supplies or clothing speaks to them, according to the Yahoo survey.

The Great Recession has thrown millions of men in construction, manufacturing and other traditionally male occupations out of work and by extension into more domestic duties. At the same time, gender roles were already changing anyway, with Gen X and millennial men in particular more likely to take an active role in parenting and household duties.

Of course, in the survey, men could be overestimating their own role in shopping for the family. Lauren Weinberg, director-research and insights for Yahoo, acknowledges that could be possible -- and that women don't see them making as much progress on that front. But she said the fact that so many men now see themselves as masters of the shopping cart not only reflects real shifts but also means any stigma once attached to men as shoppers is fading fast.

Yahoo's interest in the subject is obvious: The portal has a lot of inventory geared toward men, such as page after page of fantasy-sports content, that could use more advertisers. But its research on men nonetheless seems to describe a new and disruptive reality.

Behavioral research of shoppers shows a number more like 35% of grocery and mass-merchandise shoppers are now men, said Mariana Sanchez, chief strategy officer for Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi X. That number has been growing thanks to the economy and changing gender roles, she said.

And while that figure may be far from a majority , the fact that a third of a brand's shoppers are male is an awful lot to ignore. As a result, shopper-marketing efforts are increasingly gender-neutral rather than targeted for female shoppers, Ms. Sanchez said.

A subtle case in point came during the latest Procter & Gamble Co.-Walmart collaboration on "Family Movie Night" Jan. 8 on Fox. The program itself, "Change of Plans," did show a new dad more domestically impaired than a mom when unexpectedly thrust into adoptive parenthood. But in the commercial pod "story within a story" via Martin Agency, Richmond, the dad made a shopping trip to Walmart to load up on P&G and private-label Great Value products.

Such scenes could be a wave of the future for more categories as consumer packaged brands must elbow their way past car insurers, pickup trucks and erectile-dysfunction drugs into one of the surest and most-DVR-proof forums for reaching men: football.

P&G's Head & Shoulders and Prilosec already have become deeply involved in NFL marketing. But most P&G brands still primarily target moms, and it's not always easy to please both. While last year's tear-jerking "Behind Every Olympic Athlete is an Olympic Mom" Winter Olympics ads for P&G from Wieden & Kennedy were generally well received, the Twitter stream about them included an undercurrent of resentment from dads, who still make up the vast majority of volunteer coaches for youth sports.

The shift toward male shoppers, of course, didn't happen overnight, and that may also help explain why some brand managers for years have privately said more broadly focused network prime-time programming delivered better for their brands than more female-focused cable buys, regardless of the cost and what media optimizers indicated.

Perhaps favorably for marketers, Yahoo research finds men are more brand-loyal and less focused on promotions than women shoppers, Ms. Weinberg said. In advertising, they do more product research in packaged-goods categories than women, she said, and, because they're often newer to the categories, prefer ads with more information.

John Badalament, author of "The Modern Dad's Dilemma" and operator of ModernDads.net, does see more ads that speak to men, including recent ads for P&G's Old Spice and Kimberly-Clark Corp.'s Huggies. But many ads featuring men still portray them as hapless domestically, which he doesn't believe helps marketers. He likens such ads to the once laughable, now anachronistic grocery scene from 1983's "Mr. Mom."

"Men," he said, "need to be something other than invisible or buffoons in advertising."

As the Jaguars Go, So Do The Men of Jacksonville

So as a fan of the Jaguars, I attended Sunday's season opener.   In all honesty, it was one of the most painful games I have ever sat through.  While the team's management did a great job in getting the stadium ready, making improvements and adding amenities, providing more staff than I have ever seen to offer help and directions, the game itself was brutal.  2 points...That's right, a safety on a blocked punt early in the first quarter..that's it.  11 Punts.  A new team record.  The Jaguars only crossed midfield twice, and not until the middle of the 3rd quarter.  Starting quarterback Blaine Gabbert was ineffective and went out in the 4th quarter with a hand injury, after coming back from another hand injury to even play in this game. 

 

It was not the way the team wanted to start the season. 

 

And the fans were angry, disappointed, concerned, frustrated...all of the above.  And they had their opinions about the game and the challenges yet to come this season.  So what did they do?  They turned to 1010XL on Monday to hear our analysis.  Were you aware that the combined years of providing sports news and information of the on air talent on 1010XL exceeded 165 years?  Our own Sports Authorities have been talking sports in Jacksonville for the equivalent of over 16 decades! 

Not some listeners, not just more than a usual Monday...an abundance of listeners. A Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena full.   How do we know?  Aside from the high demand of calls from people trying to share their opinion on air, and from the activity that we had on our Facebook and Twitter feeds, we set a station record for online streaming.  We did not just break our daily record, we shattered it. 

 

On Monday (September 9^th ) we recorded the most-listened to day in the history of our web streams with 18,596 combined listening sessions on the AM and FM streams combined.  The previous record was on January 10^th, 2013 with 14,673 (Jaguars GM David Caldwell’s introductory press conference).  For reference, the previous Tuesday (the previous Monday was Labor Day) totaled 11,106 combined listening sessions.  That’s a strong number, a number driven by the opening weekend of college football and it falls far short of this Monday’s. 

This Tuesday, we had 12,164 combined listening sessions as our Googans, our name for our passionate listeners, continued to be interested in the story.  All the numbers aren’t in, but it’s almost certain this will be the most listened to WEEK on the streams as well. 

 

And this is just the online stream.  It does not take into effect those listening in their homes, cars and offices on the radio. 

This provides me with additional confirmation, and hopefully tells you as well, that we have a passionate audience that lives for football and wants to listen to and participate in the conversation.  And this is just week one.  Wouldn't you want to be in front of an audience this passionate and large?

There are great ways to participate in the conversation - Like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/1010xl), follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/1010XL), or follow us on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/user/1010XLVideo).  You can also listen to us on 1010 AM or 92.5 FM or on one of our live streams that can be found on our website (www.1010XL.com).

Or you can call (904-638-2103) or email me (howardw@1010XL.com)

Is the marketing world correct when it comes to men?

 

 

It's amazing how the marketing world looks at men.  Are they viewed as the bread winners? The family decision makers? People of influence?  No.  They are seen as beer drinkers, doing goofy things with their buddies and not knowing which end of a baby to diaper.  All of which are far from the truth.

Well, maybe not far from the truth, but it is clear that Madison Avenue does not see men for who they are and for their true buying potential.  Did you know that:

·         Three in ten (29%) men say they’re “the best shopper in the household,” and one-fifth (21%) of married men concur.

·         Nearly six in ten (57%) men say they totally or mostly use research and planning for their purchasing, rather than rely on impulse.

·         When it comes to major expenditures – buying or leasing a car, buying or renting a home or apartment, purchasing major appliances (washer, refrigerator, TV) – six in ten men (59%) say it’s their call or that they have a key role in the decision

·         As importantly, more than three-fourths (77%) of married women say that the recommendation of their spouse is “very important” when it comes to buying expensive items for the family.

·         For smaller items – costing under $500, such as clothing, small electronics, and entertainment – men are big players, too. Seven in ten (69%) of the men say they make the decision themselves or are a key player.

·         On many items, men are either major influencers or they lead the way toward making the key spending decisions. Looking at purchases where each gender is the sole decision maker or mostly makes the call, men trump women in the following key areas:

o   Automotive related (model/brand, selection of dealership, maintenance)

o   Investing

o   Alcohol

o   Sporting events

o   Electronics & media

o   Home improvements

o   Landscaping & gardening

 

·         Two-thirds of men (67%) and more than half (55%) of the females in our sample agree that “today’s male is more involved in the shopping/buying decisions than when I was growing up.”

·         Three in ten (31%) of men are single. Clearly, these are the guys who are making all the decisions in their households. Pass on them, and advertisers miss out on a big part of any male-based radio station’s influential audience.

·         From a real estate standpoint, men have clout. They are more likely to be home or condo owners. More than seven in ten (71%) are in this role, compared with only two-thirds of our female sample.

·         Men are also into loyalty/frequent shopper cards. Eight in ten (80%) have one of some kind, especially those who are married and/or have children living at home.

·         Men lead the way for card usage for hardware, travel (airlines, car rental, hotels), and electronics.
 

 This data comes from the Jacobs Media Marketing to Men survey.  It shows that not only should men be considered when planning a marketing campaign, they actually should be directly marketed to.  Not just for beer, but for everyday products, for big ticket items and for products in between.

So what would be the best method of marketing to men in Jacksonville, Florida?  It would make the most sense to direct your marketing dollars where you know the men are.  Where the men of this city have developed an interactive relationship.  On air.  On line. Through social media.

1010XL - 92.5 FM is the top sports radio station in North Florida and one of the leading stations for male listeners in the market.  We are very proud of the relationships, and response our sponsors have received form our listeners.  Perhaps we can provide the same strong marketing ROI for you and your business.

Look forward to creating an interactive dialogue about marketing to men in Jacksonville (and to women too) and how 1010XL can provide the marketing edge your business has been seeing