Radio approaches 2014 with a new arsenal of marketing tools and tactics that make the medium a must-buy part of your media mix.  Last week, we covered Pandora’s ability to laser-target an audience by very exact age, gender and geography.  Today, we’ll drill down deeper into consumer behavior and product purchases, leveraging radio to deliver advertising messages with precision efficiency.

RADIO CAN DELIVER AUDIENCE BY LIFESTYLE PREFERENCES. 

Beyond the broad market trends of services like Scarborough and PRIZM, radio can now match-make marriages between advertiser and audience with listeners bearing lifestyle-compatible interests.

For example, you don’t hear many radio commercials for expensive, extra virgin olive oil.  That will change, as brands discover the power of PODCASTS, where tens of millions of Americans download podcasts on every topic from gourmet cooking to surfing and foreign travel.  Audio commercials are embedded in content, often voiced by the personality hosting the podcast.  And once someone downloads your commercial in a podcast, your commercial is part of that download until the user deletes it.  Podcast collectors will hear your ad every time they play and replay the program.

Above and beyond podcasting, iTunes enters the marketplace with over 200 Million Apple customers already using iTunes to download music and podcasts.  iTunesRadio will be in various forms of Beta testing through the middle of 2014, but among the promised features will be the ability to target audience based on their history of downloaded apps.  So now, at least in theory, that olive oil brand – instead of reaching perhaps 10,000 people through a single cooking podcast – can now reach millions of iTunesRadio listeners who, at some point, downloaded a cooking app from The App Store.

Finally, Triton Digital – which delivers AM/FM stations and other audio programming online to roughly 40,000,000 people weekly – has partnered with the three largest Big Data companies to match an advertiser’s offerings with a consumer’s browser history.  Searching “cookie pools” when a listener starts an online radio session, your ad is served only to those listeners who match your browsing and behavioral criteria, chosen from thousands of category options.

It’s a new day for radio; one that starts on even footing with media’s most precise marketing options.  “Ink in” radio for your 2014 budget and contact us to make the most of the medium.  And check back next week for more amazing things radio can do in Part Three…

Mark Lipsky is the President and CEO of 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