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The African-American listening audience is rapidly growing and economically powerful. According to Nielsen’s monthly “State of the Media” report, there were 31.8 million African-Americans from coast-to-coast tuning into radio each week in September of 2016 – up from 31.2 million for the same period in 2015. The African-American audience now represents 13.3% of all radio listeners – a number that will continue to grow.
Acknowledging that this audience exists is one thing – actually reaching them with your message in a meaningful, effective and organic way is something else entirely. If you want to reach African-American listeners and have them connect with your message, you’ll need to keep a few key things in mind.
A Diverse Approach for a Diverse Audience
The ultimate success of your message can be greatly affected by the number of people you reach. To that end, there is truly no better way to reach African-American audience members than radio. According to the Radio Advertising Bureau, 93.1% of African-Americans over the age of 12 listen to radio each week.
When trying to more effectively reach these listeners, it’s important to understand the key market locations within this demographic. States in the continental US with the highest volume of African-American consumers tend to be centered in the mid-Atlantic and the South, for example. According to another Nielsen report, there are only two states west of the Mississippi River that index above the national average in this regard- Arkansas and Louisiana.
Achieving success in terms of audience engagement involves getting the appropriate message in front of the targeted listeners at the right time. Therefore, it’s important to start with “the right person” first and work your way back to the message that person would be most receptive to. Among African-Americans radio listeners, 92.8% of those between age 25 and 54 listen to radio each week—the highest listenership of any age group. Within this group, 91.9% of men listen to the radio, where women come in at slightly higher at 93.8%.
Make sure you begin with a message that African-American listeners will respond to by including statistics and information relevant to the African-American community. Know where your primary audience is located, know what age range they fall into and know if you’re reaching a larger number of men versus women. All of this will impact the ways in which your message is delivered and the response it may generate.
Every audience is unique- the African-American radio audience in the United States is certainly no exception, so it’s important to be targeted and relevant in your approach to listeners.
The MediaTracks Approach
The world around us is growing more diverse with each passing day – the companies that are able to adapt their message to embrace that fact are the ones that will continue to find success tomorrow, next week, a decade from now and beyond. As an industry leading provider of audio and radio services for public relations, our goal at MediaTracks is to help you engage with your audience in meaningful ways. Reaching African-American listeners is one of the many ways that we’re prepared to help you do precisely that.
To find out more information about this or any other related topic, please contact MediaTracks Communications today.