Enjoying your digital radio? Isn’t it fun to create customized channels and not have to flip around the dial to find songs you like? Don’t you love skipping the songs you don’t want to listen to?

Just about everyone is familiar with Pandora, iHeartRadio and Spotify. But let’s take a more in depth look at some of the other choices that are available. Inching up on its one-year anniversary, iTunesRadio now attracts over 10 million unique weekly listeners. There’s also Prisia, Slacker, Grooveshark, TuneIn, Rdio, Jango, and many others that are reaching music lovers every day and making their music listening experience more enjoyable. With most of these services you can customize your own channels, discover new artists and connect with your friends to share your music and discover the music they enjoy.

Gone are the days of having your listening experiences dictated by program directors and DJs (unless that’s what you want!). You can be the DJ, hop-skipping stations and tracks to choose whatever you want to listen to. Most of these stations and platforms can be listened to online, on mobile, and on tablets; in your car, and maybe on connected devices including Xbox and GoogleTV.

Shifting from listener’s perspective to the advertiser’s, let’s talk about why digital radio merits inclusion on your media plans. For one thing, targeting capabilities with most digital radio are incredible. You can geo target down to zip code level. You can pinpoint target by age, gender, and genre. Additionally you can even do behavioral targeting. That means there is almost no waste with digital radio. Only people in your target demo will hear your commercials. And not only will they hear your audio, but also they will be served a banner ad which to make it easier for listeners to take an action upon hearing your commercial; especially if your call to action is drive to a website.

So, no matter if you are a national advertiser looking for ways to efficiently reach your potential customers or a local advertiser looking for ways to advertise to people only in your area…this is your calling. Digital radio could serve your entire ad campaign or it could be a complement to your traditional media. By including it into your mix you will expand your market penetration.

Keep an eye on all the digital radio options we mentioned on this blog. They are all growing quickly and more will join the mix. Not sure which ones offer the best marketing match for your brand? Ask us!

Greg McGlone is a Media Buyer at The Radio Agency. Please follow The Radio Agency’s Blog “Sounding Board” by subscribing to the email or RSS links above. Visit our website TheRadioAgency.com