(By Marc Greenspan) How many times have you pulled out all the stops to close a piece of business only to lose it? How do you differentiate yourself and your station from the rest of the pack? Would you like a secret weapon to close a piece of business? This weapon is Closing Ratios.
If you subscribe to Nielsen Scarborough, you can run a Shopped vs. Purchased report. This report shows you how many listeners shopped (walked into the store), purchased (bought something), and the Closing Ratio (% of those who walked into the store that made a purchase). There are six retail store categories to select from: Department Stores, Carpet/Floor Covering Stores, Furniture/Mattress Stores, Large Appliances Stores, Consumer Electronics Stores, and Stores with Hardware/Paint/Lawn/Garden Items.
Let’s take a look at a furniture/mattress store report for KAAA-FM. The selected stores shown in the table are for demonstration purposes only and this is not real data.
You can quickly see that different stores pop up to the top depending on which metric you analyze. IKEA shows the most shoppers and purchasers, yet not the highest Closing Ratio. Closing Ratio also demonstrates the efficiency of your audience. Fewer people need to walk into the store in order to increase sales for the store. For the above JCPenney example, “More than 8 out of 10 of our listeners who walk into your store will make a purchase.” Remember, it’s our job in radio to get people to the store. It’s the store’s responsibility to close them. Higher Closing Ratios make it easier for the store to increase sales.
There are many ways you can use the information in this report. For additional ideas and help in closing more sales … give us a call.
This column is part of a series titled “Growing the Radio Pie.” To view past articles, visit The Ratings Experts at Research Director, Inc. online here.
Marc Greenspan is the CEO and founding partner of Research Director, Inc. He can be reached at 410-295-6619 x11 or by email at [email protected]. Research Director, Inc. offers consulting services to media companies to help them grow their audience, ratings, and revenue. Read Marc’s Radio Ink archives here.
