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Targeting the PPM People: How Are They Different? (Part 6: Active on Facebook and much more likely to read traditional and electronic mass mailings)
May 21, 2012
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By Joel Lind
To succeed today, stations must maximize their appeal to those who control that success: those who wear a PPM. And the PPM-friendly population, pure and simple, is nowhere close to a representative sample of the population in general. NuVoodoo’s national study of 1000 adults 18-49 shows that there are several key differences between radio users who will agree to take the PPM and those who will not. This is the seventh article in our series discussing those differences and how they can help stations win and change the future.
First, please bear in mind that 100% of our sample are already research-receptive people: people who at least agreed to answer a few questions. Experience tells us that only about 30% of the population will participate in any research. Therefore, any information we share about “Arbitron-friendlies” should be considered in this context. We also know respondents are always quicker to agree to a theoretical question than to commit to the actual behavior. So the percentages who say they will do something are always greater than the percentages who will in fact do so.Â
Here’s possibly the best news about what differentiates PPM People:Â They are much more receptive to communication!
PPM Prospects Are Much More Active on Facebook than Non-Prospects
When we think about it, of course this makes sense: There is a significant correlation between willingness to jump into the global personal-data-sharing fishbowl community and willingness to display your listening habits in a fishbowl watched by the Radio industry. Among PPM non-prospects, Facebook non-users are nearly as common as more-than-once-a-day power users. Meanwhile, PPM prospects are two and a half times more likely to be power users than they are to be non-users!
PPM Prospects Are Much More Reachable By Mass E-mails
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We all know that inboxes are often stuffed with mass quantities of spam, and it is thus very hard to cut through with our own messages (which of course, we don’t think of as spam, but the user just might). While we know that the messages are frequently being deleted without being read, we pray that those recipients who do read them are the “right” people, not just people without a life. So the above chart, although confirming the “duh” that deleting is the more common behavior, nonetheless provides great news: Survey respondents who are not PPM prospects are four times as likely to delete an e-mail (from an unspecified advertiser) as they are to read it. So what? We don’t really care about them. Meanwhile, respondents who are PPM prospects are only two times as likely to delete. And remember, the real “delete” ratio among non-prospects is dramatically worse, because we didn’t even get to ask the question to the vast majority of the population who are not open to research! A two-to-one “delete” ratio sure beats the probable twelve-to-one “delete” ratio among the population in general!
PPM Prospects Are Much More Reachable By Direct Mail
And that pattern continues, uncannily in nearly the same ratios, when we switch from the “E” variety of junk mail to the “Snail” variety. Once again, those research-amenable respondents who won’t be impacting our ratings are four times as likely to pitch an unsolicited pitch (from an unspecified advertiser) as they are to read it. And who cares? Again, the real number is much worse when we figure in those who are not open to our unsolicited research request. Meanwhile those who do impact us, those who are favorably disposed to carrying Big Arbitron Brother around with them, are only twice as likely to discard a mailer as they are to read it.
What this means to you
Naturally, your listeners who are on Facebook, and/or read their “junk” e-mail, and/or read their “junk” direct mail will be easier than other listeners for your station to target and communicate with. So our findings about PPM Prospects are exciting news for station marketers. Sometimes we fret over what a tiny percentage of the population might actually read our brilliant tactical Facebook/Email/Direct Mail communications. We shouldn’t. Because now we know that low “general population” hit rates are not relevant. A radio station’s hit rate for those tactics, among those whom we most need to reach, those who will control our fate, is remarkably higher than it is among those we don’t care about. That’s what we call efficient target marketing.Â
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