Right now, at least one of the 32,556 businesses located in the Southwest Florida area is thinking about using the phrase 'March Madness' as part of upcoming advertising and marketing plans. Why not? It's a great use of alliteration. It's a familiar term. And, it's that time of year.

A furniture store in Naples might think it would be clever to use 'March Madness' in its commercials on Fort Myers radio to promote a big spring sale. A non-profit in Cape Coral feels it would be a good way to describe its charity fun run on social media and online advertising. A sports bar in Bonita Springs believes it would be a no-brainer to use the term in streaming video and audio ads to bring in scores of basketball fans.

It is, indeed,  tempting for a Fort Myers small business owner to use this term for advertising or marketing purposes. But,  to avoid a costly legal battle, the use of this trademarked phrase should be a non-starter. Here's why.

Every week, 611,000 Southwest Florida adults watch video programs delivered via the internet. This content goes by several interchangeable names, including OTT (Over-The-Top Television), CTV (Connected TV), and Streaming Video. For this article, we will refer to this type of content as Streaming TV.

Unlike traditional TV, cable, and satellite where the viewer needs to be in a fixed location, Fort Myers area consumers can access streaming TV anywhere using an internet-connected device. These include SmartTVs, Firesticks, Roku, smartphones, computers, laptops, tablets, and gaming consoles.

In all, according to Nielsen, 95.7% of SWFL households have one or more devices capable of connecting to streaming TV. Although this medium is still new, streaming TV now rivals legacy media in its ability to reach local consumers.

Every week, Fort Myers consumers are spending more-and-more time engaged with streaming TV.

No matter which Fort Myers television station or cable channel adults tune to in 2022, they can expect to be assaulted by a deluge of political advertising. Often entire commercial breaks are stuffed with back-to-back pleas and promises to secure viewers' votes.

But is advertising on WINK, WBBH, WZVN, WGCU, or WFTXthe most effective way to reach likely voters in the Fort Myers area? Or is advertising on cable channels provided by Xfinity, DISH, and DirecTV the way to go?

The answer is neither. According to research from Nielsen, the best way to reach local adults who are most likely to vote is by advertising on Fort Myers radio.

Every week, 548,000 likely voters will listen to Fort Myers radio stations. This is significantly more than watch local TV, cable, and streaming video. More that use social media and streaming audio. More than will read newspapers.

The current high rate of inflation is tempering how much Southwest Florida business owners can spend on advertising.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are approximately 31,000 small businesses in the Fort Myers area. There is one thing each of the owners of these companies has in common, whether they own a hardware store in Naples, a furniture store in Cape Coral, or a restaurant on Sanibel Island. They are all experiencing the negative consequences of inflation.

In a monthly survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business Owners (NFIB), inflation now ranks second as the single most important problem companies face. A year ago, inflation was barely an issue.

Inflation has not hampered the enthusiasm to spend among Fort Myers area consumers keeping retail sales hovering above pre-Covid levels. But, inflation is taking a dramatic toll on the amount of revenue business owners can keep.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, small business owners see inflation-fueled price increases in almost every cost of operation, including inventory, utilities, rent, and wages.

Because of these rising operational costs, Fort Myers business owners are looking to cut expenses where they can, including advertising expenditures. But, because there is still robust consumer demand for goods and services, these companies need to make sure that the amount they do invest in advertising has the best return possible.

By almost any marketing metric, advertising on Fort Myers radio provides the greatest return-on-investment (ROI) of any medium available to local business owners.

Fort Myers-Naples area business owners are expected to spend $620 million advertising online in 2022. This, according to Borrell Associates, a company that tracks advertising expenditures across the country.

Borrell's forecast indicates that almost 50% of Southwest Florida's online expenditures will be in the form of paid search. The most recognizable type of this advertising is the paid ads that appear adjacent to the results of almost every search query on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Borrell's forecast also indicates that approximately 27% of online expenditures will be in the form of display advertising. This consists of traditional banner ads that appear across millions of websites and apps, including social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. According to SmallBizGenius.net, the average SWFL area consumer is served more than 1700 of these ads per month.

Video advertising in Fort Myers is forecast to account for 23% of all online ad dollars in 2022. Like search and display, millions of websites can support this type of advertising. This includes sites, apps, and platforms like YouTube, Roku Channel, Hulu, Paramount+, and most social media sites.

The remainder of online advertising dollars is expected to be spent on audio advertising, including streaming sites like Pandora and Spotify; or email marketing campaigns.

There are 30,689 small businesses in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL Metro Area, according to the US Census Bureau. Based on projections from the National Federation of Independent Business Owners (NFIB), nearly half of these companies have job openings they cannot fill.

As a result of the acute labor shortage, says the NFIB, 29% of small business owners rank the quality of labor as the most important problem they face. A year ago, only 21% said finding workers was their biggest issue.

The labor crunch in Southwest Flordia is being driven, in big part, by a record-high number of employees voluntarily quitting their jobs. Just last month, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.5 million employees across the country left their current place of employment.

According to the Wall Street Journal, those who are not currently working say they are in no hurry to return to the workforce. The lack of urgency stems from five primary reasons:

• 29% say they don't need to work right now because their spouse is employed
• 28% say they cannot return to work because of care responsibilities at home
• 25% say they don't need to return to work because they have a financial cushion
• 20% say they are fearful of returning to work because of COVID-19
• 5% say they do not need to return because of current unemployment benefits

There seems to be little chance that these resigned workers can be lured back into the labor force. Therefore, to fill open jobs, local business owners will need to focus their efforts towards recruiting among Fort Myers's "passive" job candidates.

To ensure success, every Southwest Florida business owner needs to advertise.

"Think you have a great product?" asks the US Small Business Administration. "Unfortunately, no one’s going to know about it unless you advertise.”

The SBA goes on to say, “Advertising, if done correctly, can do wonders for your product sales, and you know what that means: more revenue and more success for your business.”

There are dozens of ways for local small business owners to advertise. By most metrics, the best way to advertise is on Fort Myers radio. These measures of effectiveness, however, are often obscured by the glimmer and glitz of newer technologies. 

To help reduce the glare that often blinds business owners to the potency of advertising on Fort Myers radio, here are the top five things many local business owners get wrong.

It wasn't too long ago when advertising on Fort Myers television stations was considered the gold standard for marketing by local business owners. But over the past few years, the number of viewers reached by WINK, WBBH, WZVN, WGCU, and WFTX has plummeted. In all only 77% of adult consumers now tune-in to at least one of these channels during the week, according to Nielsen.

The consumption of video content isn't diminishing among Southwest Florida consumers. What has changed, though, is how they are watching it.

In November, according to Nielsen, the share of time watching broadcast television has fallen behind other video options including cable programing and internet-delivered choices such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and hundreds of other streaming networks.

It used to be so simple. When a small business owner wanted to advertise on Fort Myers area television, there were only a few options including, WINK, WBBH, WZVN, WGCU, and WFTX. But slowly, the number of options expanded to include cable channels provided by Xfinity, DISH, and DirecTV.

Heading in 2022, local advertisers have even more options as internet-connected devices deliver hundreds of more programming choices to Southwest Florida consumers. Collectively, this type of content is called OTT (Over-The-Top-Television) or CTV (Connected-Television). For the purpose of this discussion, OTT & CTV will be referred to singularly as streaming video.

Streaming video can be viewed on any device that can connect to the internet. This includes computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Programing can also be accessed using a smart-TV, Roku Stick, Amazon Fire Stick, or a game console. In all, according to Nielsen, 95.7% of Fort Myers-Naples area households own a device capable of receiving streaming video.

In all, says Nielsen, 610,634 SWFL consumers watch streaming video content every week. Combined, these internet channels now reach more adults every week than local newspapers, podcasts, and digital audio services like Pandora, Spotify, Sirius/XM. Amazon Music, and iHeart Radio.

Surprisingly, streaming video now reaches almost as many SWFL adults as local TV and local cable.

When WFTM-AM became Southwest Florida's first radio station in 1942, there was no Facebook, no Xfinity, no Sirius/XM, no Netflix, and no podcasts. It would be 12 years before there was even a local TV station.  Consequently, it was pretty easy for radio to become the number one reach medium among local consumers.

Over the past 80 years, Fort Myers-Naples area business owners have come to depend on the mammoth reach of radio among local shoppers to successfully market the goods and services they sell. Advertising on Fort Myers radio has helped SWFL companies to survive and thrive during world wars, natural disasters, recessions, depressions, and even a pandemic.

Heading into 2022, local consumers have more media choices than ever before. But, despite the overabundance of social media, video streaming, audio streaming, cable, and other technological marvels, Fort Myers radio is still the most used advertising medium.