Imagine your listeners arriving home from work. They start their daily workout, check their son’s or daughter’s homework or begin to fix dinner while streaming your radio station on their smart speaker. Now imagine that they can’t get your station on their smart speaker. You are missing an opportunity to reach your listeners, and they will be tuning in to another station.
In his recent article “Smart Speakers — What’s in It for Me?,” author Marc Greenspan, partner at Research Director Inc., reports that ownership of smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home exceeded 7 percent of the U.S. population in early 2017. Citing the study by Edison Research and NPR, 70 percent of these smart speaker owners are now consuming more audio at home since purchasing their device. He said that a study by comScore in the first quarter of 2017 agrees, which reported that 54 percent of households with smart speakers use it to stream music.
Radio stations need to fight for that time spent listening, or lose it to other sources, Greenspan said. “If listeners are spending time with smart speakers, then radio stations need to be there. We need to make it as easy as possible for listeners to find us and spend their smart speaker time with us.”
To read the full article, which includes links about how to get your station on Amazon Alexa or Google Home, click here.
