Southwest Florida consumers are expected to spend upward of $16.3-billion at retail in 2021. This would be, at minimum, a 6.5% jump over 2020. The forecast is based on newly released estimates by the National Retail Federation.

“Despite the continuing health and economic challenges COVID-19 presents, we are very optimistic that healthy consumer fundamentals, pent-up demand and widespread distribution of the vaccine will generate increased economic growth, retail sales and consumer spending,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said.

“From the outset of the pandemic, retailers have gone above and beyond even the most conservative safety guidelines to protect and serve their associates and consumers alike."

To capture the largest possible share of spending growth, local retailers will need to advertise. By the most crucial marketing metrics, the best best way to reach consumers is by advertising on Fort Myers radio.

Southwest Florida business owners are expected to invest $265-million during 2021 to advertise to consumers connected to the internet. This forecast was produced by Borrell Associates, a company that tracks business advertising expenditures across the country.

These online marketing dollars will be spent on banner advertising, search engine marketing, email, as well as audio and video advertising. This is all to capture the attention of shoppers and buyers as they go about their connected days.

According to Nielsen, 96.3% of adult consumers in the Fort Myers-Naples area have access to the internet. They connect, primarily, with desktop and laptop computers; smartphones; or tablets.

Ninety-six percent of SWFL adults spend at least one hour per week online, with most spending at least 10 hours connected.

Since 1940, advertising on Fort Myers radio has helped small business owners survive and thrive during times of peril. This includes world wars, natural disasters, depressions, and recessions.

Even during a pandemic, by almost every key marketing metric, radio advertising remains the best way for a Southwest Florida business to market its goods and services.

To prove the point, here are five statistics that vividly demonstrate the value of advertising on Fort Myers radio.

There are 501,500 adult women in Southwest Florida. Based on research from the Harvard Business Review, as a consumer group, females account for 70-80 percent of all consumer purchasing through a combination of their buying power and influence.  According to Nielsen, this will amount to between $16.7 billion and $19.1 billion this year.

Overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau:

• Single women across all income brackets spend, on average, $34,817 on goods and service
• Working married women contribute over a third of their families’ incomes
• Over a quarter (29.4%) of wives earned more than their husbands in 2018, an increase from 15.9% in 1981.

Furthermore, according to research published by Forbes:

• The top homebuyers after married couples are single women (18%, double the percentage for single men at 9%).
• Women are 50% more likely than men to regularly watch online how-to videos.
• 94% of women between the ages of 15-35 spend over an hour per day shopping online.
• 70% of travel consumers are women.
• 85% of women say that if they like a brand, they will remain loyal to it.

For SWFL small business owners to successfully capture a meaningful share of the local female economy requires advertising.

Southwest Florida's first radio station, WFTM-AM, began in 1940.  The process of getting the station's programming from the studio into the home of local listeners required tall-transmitting towers with miles of underground copper wire in the middle of massive fields.

For the next 53 years, this massive investment in real estate, steel, and cooper was the only method of delivering a radio advertiser's message into the ears of Fort Myers consumers.

In 1993, however, new technology permitted Fort Myers radio stations to augment the reach of their tall towers by simultaneously streaming its over-the-air programming via the internet. This provided local consumers with the choice of listening to their favorite stations on their car radios, clock radios, and boom boxes or on an internet connected devices like computers, smartphones, or tablets.

Today, based on estimates from Edison Research, 11% of listening to local radio stations occurs on a streaming media device.  The ability for AM/FM to migrate from their tall towers to internet streaming allows Fort Myers radio to reach more local consumers every week than all other media.

There are 32 radio stations that reach listeners in Southwest Florida. Each provides a unique format of news, sports, music, entertainment, and inspiration. Some stations broadcast in English. Others serve Spanish speakers. Some stations cater to millennials. Others appeal to Baby Boomers.  No doubt, there is a local radio station that fulfills the preferences of every listener.

Each week, according to Nielsen, 839,400 adults tune-in to their favorite Fort Myers radio stations. This is more people than watch local TV, cable, or streaming channels. This is more than use Facebook and Instagram. This is more than read newspapers or connect to Pandora and Spotify. 

Despite the abundance of Fort Myers radio stations to choose between, Nielsen reports that, on average, adult consumers only listen to 2.4 each week.  So, which stations do local consumers choose?

In 1921, radio came to Florida. Listeners in the Fort Myers-Naples area could tune-in signals from either WQAM in Miami or WDAE in Tampa.

From that year, many predicted radio's success would succumb to advances from new technologies. In 1927, the challenge came from talking movies. In the 1940s, the predators were 13-inch TV sets. In the 1970s, it was 8-track and cassette tapes. In the past 20 years, there was a multi-flank attack from iPods, Zunes, YouTube, Sirius, XM, Pandora, Spotify,

So far, all of these challengers have failed. Not even a pandemic has been able to remove radio as a vital force in the life of Southwest Florida consumers.

Every week, according to Nielsen, more adults tune-in to Fort Myers radio than watch TV or cable. Use social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Read newspapers. Or, stream music from Pandora or Spotify.

How important is Twitter to Fort Myers area consumers? Yesterday, for instance, the social media platform was mentioned in at least ten articles published by the News-Press yesterday.  Almost every local TV newscast included references to the site as well.

Twitter's outsized presence in the news, however, is enormously disproportional to the importance of the micro-blogging app in the life of Southwest Florida consumers.

According to Nielsen, only about 12% of adults in the Fort Myers area use Twitter during the course of a month. This is minuscule compared to other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter offers 20 different options that Fort Myers small business owners can utilize to market their goods and services to local consumers.  The platform's minimal reach, however, can hamper the success of any advertising campaign.

In 1921, radio came to Florida. Listeners in the Fort Myers-Naples area could tune-in signals from either WQAM in Miami or WDAE in Tampa. 

In 1939, however, The Fort Myers Broadcasting Company was granted a license to build and operate WFTM. The station went on the air in 1940 serving listeners in Southwest Florida.

WFTM switched its call sign in 1942 to WAAC and became an affiliate of the CBS radio network. Two years later, the call letters changed once again. This time to WINK.

Here are five facts every Southwest Florida small business owner needs to know about local radio in 2020.

Over 96% of Fort Myers-Naples area adults have access to the internet, according to Nielsen. Almost 63% of these consumers spend more than five hours a week connected.

Nielsen reports that Southwest Florida consumers go online to stay connected to friends and family; research products and services; learn the latest news, and obtain directions to where they are going and know what the weather will be when they get there.  

Here are some of the many reasons why Fort Myers internet users go online each month

• Social Media: 77%
• Weather: 52%
• Online Banking: 50%
• Maps/Directions: 48%
• Product Reviews: 39%
• Current Events: 37%
• Restaurant Reviews: 31%
• Sports Scores/News: 29%
• Real Estate: 14%
• Job Search: 14%

And, of course, there is shopping.  Over the past six months, according to Nielsen, 73.9% of Fort Myers consumers shopped online for every imaginable product and service including, cars, golf clubs, office supplies, wedding rings, mattresses, tires, medicine, shoes, socks, and eyeglasses.

To reach local consumers while they are online, Fort Myers businesses will spend $260 million for digital advertising in 2020, according to Borrell Associates.  Here is how the money is being spent: