Despite the rise of digital, high-quality radio content continues to keep listeners engaged. Thirty-seven million people in South Africa still listen to the medium at least once a week. More than 29-million listeners tune in on an average weekday.

To grow your business, you need to tell someone about it and radio is most definitely the way to go about this. Radio brings campaigns to life in a way that speaks to the greatest form of marketing: word of mouth.

While digital word-of-mouth marketing has become popular over the years, thanks to its wide reach, radio offers more control. Social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, are saturated with ads that sometimes leave even targeted audiences feeling confused. They sometimes come across as being less authentic and untrustworthy.

The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, which measures consumer confidence in business, government and media, revealed that social media was in "crisis" with just 43% of respondents trusting information distributed on social networks.

Traditional media, meanwhile, was sitting at 66%. Who better to trust than your "friend" on radio? Using the power of authentic presenters to speak about your products will help shift mindsets to consume the product being pushed.

Here are the two main reasons why radio marketing works:

  1. There is better control over guiding audiences — especially when it comes to call-to-actions.
  2. Radio stations are experts at audio storytelling; sound helps to drive emotion, which is important when you are trying to send out key brand messages.
According to the NAB's latest State of the Broadcasting Industry 2014-2018 report, radio's advertising revenue grew from R3.9-billion to R4.2-billion. Many companies have been talking about digital-first and pushing marketing spend into digital and for some, it has worked. 

This is great, but the majority of our market is not ready for — and able — to consume digital marketing in the way that we are headed. This does not mean that digital should be taken lightly, as a partnership between traditional radio and digital can be extremely beneficial.

The way to use radio marketing in the digital era is to mix the old with the new and look at radio spend as a 360 approach. For marketers, that will mean to hear, see and engage. You need to talk about your product on-air and then push to the radio station's webpage, where customers can engage with relevant content that will have a call-to-action.

Good Morning Angels on Jacaranda FM is a good example of how radio is used to tell powerful stories that spring listeners and brands into action. The reason that the feature is so impactful is that the stories being shared come from fellow listeners and the content is relatable.

It shows that listeners care for each other in a very special way and are willing to dip into their pockets to invest in things that are important to them. Jacaranda FM does many drives throughout the year to raise money, which is then used to impact someone's life for good in the community.

People resonate with stories more than with the product itself and radio is a great way to allow people's imaginations to run wild.

For more, visit www.jacarandafm.com. You can also follow Jacaranda FM on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.