You, like most Americans, are now a digital creature of habit. Your online behavior is becoming as habitual as brushing your teeth [let’s all hope].  But let’s not forget that, as a marketer with important connections to make, traditional media continues to create important relationships for you with your consumer.

And when it comes to producing the best ROI from your digital spend, radio is your best companion.  And if you include digital radio even stronger results await.

A TargetSpot study done for the Interactive Advertising Bureau showed that online ad recall and response DOUBLES with the use of online radio.  Unaided recall of your campaign is 4.5 times better with radio supporting it than without.  Why?  Remember the inherent strengths of radio: It is a mobile, personal, frequency-driven medium.  Take away the buzzwords.  People use radio wherever they are as part of their daily routine.

According to e-Marketer, U.S. digital ad spending will continue its meteoric climb in 2015, growing  +15% to $137 billion.  Radio ad spending will hold its own at a projected $34 billion.  Want to do something really innovative without radically altering your overall advertising mix [which, we know, needs to include a strong boost in digital/mobile]?  Shift a reasonable percentage of your media mix to radio.  Or if you haven’t budgeted any of your marketing to digital’s greatest mouthpiece….do so!   Play to radio’s strength and use it as a word-of-mouth workhorse to drive digital behavior.  And make sure to include digital-specific radio.  A rising tide lifts all boats.  But your boat needs more lift than the others.  A well-crafted radio campaign can lift most the important metrics of your digital campaign – clicks, visits, shares, purchases.

Radio is one of your most important paid sales representatives.  Radio evokes your brand personality and invokes action.  You make that action digital and it’s digital.  And don’t go thinking that if you just increase your digital spend you will increase digital ROI.  Radio has been found to have a “profound synergistic impact” when used in conjunction with digital efforts.

It is personality, emotion, and repetition that can drive online ROI.  It’s also cost-effective, incremental reach.  There’s simply no better medium to integrate with digital than radio.  Test it!  Like brushing your teeth, you’ll get so used to the results it’ll just become a healthy habit [let’s all hope].