Radio Programmers putting ZIP into PPM.

While programmers have long zeroed in on hot ZIP codes — those that produce the most Average Quarter Hours for their station — PPM data and new tools are helping facilitate finer targeting for marketing campaigns. That’s given rise to new strategies and tactics about how to more effectively market to not only where the listeners are but where listeners with meters are.

Story by Inside Radio

Running a Key ZIP codes report in Arbitron’s PD Advantage Web software will spit out a list in descending order of the ZIP codes that produced the largest amount of AQH for an individual station. The reports so far can only be run on broad adult demos, although Arbitron is considering making them available based on gender.

Unlike diary measurement, where anywhere from 25-75 ZIP codes deliver the bulk of a station’s listening, it’s not unusual for as few as 10-15 ZIP codes to produce as much as half of a station’s quarter hours under electronic measurement — even in a market with 200 ZIP codes. That’s consistent with an Arbitron/dmr finding that, on average, 20% of a station’s cume accounts for 63% of its total AQH. The Key ZIP codes report filters out zips where listeners only cume the station occasionally and zeroes in on those that provide substantial listening. Unlike the diary, where the sample turns over every week, the average panelist remains in the sample for nine months. That makes Key ZIP codes reports more telling.

“This is telling you that these are the places where your listeners are and there’s a very good likelihood that they’re still there right now,” Arbitron director of programming services Jon Miller says. “These are the zips that have really paid dividends for you.”

Programmers say a better understanding of where their listeners live helps maximize marketing efforts. “Because PPM holders participate for an average of nine months, our follow-up contacts and inclusion in multiple marketing pieces have shown positive results,” Wilks Broadcasting EVP of programming Jeff Sanders says. “There are definitely less swings in the PPM versus the diary world, but when a PPM panelist switches stations, or comes off the panel, the impact is dramatic and can definitely be seen.”

Hot ZIPs have always played a role in station marketing campaigns — both to reinforce listening and win over converts from the competition. Under PPM their significance is growing. “We don’t have to spend an exorbitant amount of money targeting 100 ZIP codes when there are ten contributing half of my quarter hours,” Cox Media Group director of radio ratings research Paul Douglas says. One school of thought is to fish where the fish are: ratchet up marketing in those ZIPs, from station appearances to van hits to direct marketing http://www.radio-info.com/programming/newstalksports/the-st-p-strategy. “We start with these ZIPs, and if there’s still marketing money left over, we may spread out further,” Sanders says. Even on-air messaging – traffic reports and jock shout-outs — can be aimed at specific locales. Another tactic involves stations comparing the hot ZIPs of their competitors with their own. “Your competitor might be strong in a ZIP code right next door to one of your hot ZIPs,” Douglas says. But it’s not as simple as running a report. “Like a lot of things in PPM, it requires further research, such as cross-checking the list with station databases and perceptual research,” Douglas says.

Understanding the demographic, ethnic and socioeconomic lay of the land is also a factor. For example, a rhythmic CHR in a market with a large Hispanic population might find success marketing exclusively to areas of the metro with high concentrations of English-primary 18-34 year-old Hispanic men. An urban AC station benefiting from a couple of heavy-listening meters that are about to reach the average ten-month panel shelf-life in a primarily African-American ZIP code might step up marketing in that area http://www.radio-info.com/programming/newstalksports/the-st-p-strategy. Since Arbitron will attempt to replace those households with ones in the same ZIP code, marketing efforts there may increase the likelihood that the new panelists also listen to the station. A caveat to consider in marketing to ZIPs is so called aberrant listening — that sometimes puzzling phenomenon when a station that primarily appeals to white, upper demo suburban females suddenly posts off-the-chart teen listening. It can sway station ratings and Key ZIP code reports.

When examining a list of the ZIP codes that net the most listening for their station, programmers confront a vexing question: Is the hot ZIP still hot? Because the reports are based on six months of aggregated data, some participants will have fallen out. So there’s no way of knowing with absolute certainty that a ZIP code that produced 1,000 quarter hours for a station will continue to bare ratings fruit. Arbitron chose the six month time frame for panel security reasons. “If we told the station where its ZIPs were for last month it would pose too much opportunity for abuse,” Arbitron’s Jon Miller says. “It might inspire people to send the trucks out.”

For the same reason, meter counts are left out of the Key ZIP codes report. But stations and researchers are coming up with crafty ways of getting at that information. Research Director Inc., for example, produces experimental client reports that show the number of quarter hours from individual meters within a ZIP code that went to specific stations and formats. The system isn’t perfect. The reports are produced through a process of elimination and are subject to rounding errors. “We have station clients directing their marketing efforts http://www.radio-info.com/programming/newstalksports/the-st-p-strategy at the ZIP codes where their format meter listening is coming from,” Research Director president Charlie Sislen says. The reports may also help programmers spot when they are benefiting from aberrational listening.

While Arbitron’s Key ZIP codes report doesn’t reveal meter counts, the company does issue a monthly list of the number of in-tab meters for each ZIP code in the market sample. Clients are eager for Arbitron to put the two datasets together. “That topic is part of a broader conversation about what we can see each month about our meters that is valuable to the broadcasters and Arbitron is comfortable releasing,” Miller says. “That is an ongoing conversation.”