Advertising is critical to the success of every Las Vegas small business owner.  One of the most powerful elements of any advertising campaign is how many people it reaches.

Nielsen, the world's largest consumer insights company, found that advertising reach has a more significant effect on sales than branding, recency, and context.

There are many ways a local business owner can advertise. This includes traditional media like Las Vegas radio, local TV, and newspaper. It also includes online advertising options such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pandora.

They type of customer an individual business needs to reach depends on the goods and services the company sells. For instance, a daycare operator might want to reach households with young children. On the other hand, a real estate agent could be looking for consumers in the market to purchase a new home.

When a Las Vegas small business owner advertises on a local radio station, the first words determine if consumers will pay attention. The article "Be Heard: The #1 Job of Commercials on Las Vegas Radio" discusses this topic in-depth.

When it comes time to buy, however, getting in the final word can be equally important.  Advertising on Las Vegas radio is often the last voice a customer hears before making a purchase in-store or online.

Being the last voice serves as a potent reminder to consumers that a business or product exists.  Especially since our brains make things very easy to forget. Science says it's so.

Mark Twain has some script writing advice for Las Vegas small business owners who depend on radio advertising to market their goods and services.

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning," advises Mr. Twain.

In other words, fill your commercials with lightning, not bugs!

Currently, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, there are 171,476 words in the English language. A handful of these words, Las Vegas small business owners can't use in their radio commercials. The Supreme Court of the United States says so.

Of all the words that can be used in broadcast advertising, however, there is one word that should be shunned: 'get' and all of its nasty derivative forms including 'got' and 'gotten'.  Here's why.

The typical 60-second commercial on Las Vegas radio consists of 160 words.  Depending on the station, each word in that ad could cost around $2.00.  It is important, then, that each word is carefully selected to engage listeners and then compel them to action.  This is especially crucial when using verbs. 

"One of the best ways of grabbing and keeping an audience is to use strong, descriptive verbs," says the Writing Center at the University of Houston.  'Get' is not that kind of verb.

In 1930, the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation put the first car radio on the market. They called it the Motorola. This in-car entertainment would setback a Las Vegas consumer about $120 which would be equivalent to $1200 today.

But, if you had that kind of cash, you would be able to cruise around in your Ford Model-A, DeSoto, Packard, or Studebaker and hear the music of the day from radio stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Reno.  

It wouldn't be until 1940 when Las Vegas would have it's own full-time radio station.

Today, there's a radio in almost every vehicle on the streets of Clark County. Despite the competition on the dashboard from other sources of entertainment, AM/FM radio remains the dominant choice for in-car entertainment.  This is great news for local business owners who depend on Las Vegas radio to market their goods and services.

Suppose you woke up one morning and found a 100-year-old machine in your basement. You soon discovered that every time you put a dime in the machine, one dollar came out.  How many dimes would you drop in that machine?

Good news for Las Vegas small business owners: such a machine exists and you probably have one in your car, at work, at home, even on your phone. It's called local radio.

Over the past few years, Nielsen has conducted over 20 studies to determine what type of return-on-investment (ROI) a business can expect from radio advertising.  Although the results varied by industry, the average company generated $100 in sales for ever $10 invested.  Turning dimes into dollars.

Next year marks the 80th anniversary of KENO, the first radio station in Las Vegas.

Since 1940, Las  small business owners have depended on radio advertising to market their goods and services to local consumers.  During the next 12 months, these consumers are expected to spend $39 billion.

By any measure, radio is still the best way to advertise in Las Vegas. Last week, for instance, significantly more consumers tuned-in to a Vegas radio station than watched local TV; read a local newspaper; or logged-on to Pandora and Spotify.

To buy radio advertising effectively, there are some terms every Las Vegas small business owner should know.  Here is a list of helpful definitions.

This year marks 79 years since KENO became the first radio station in Las Vegas.  From that time, local, small business owners have depended on radio advertising to market their goods and services.

So, it is a fair question for a 21st-century business owner to ask: Is Las Vegas radio still relevant in the life of local consumers?

"You wouldn’t know it from all the media coverage focused on streaming video and streaming music," said media expert Doug Schoen in Forbes Magazine, "but recent Nielsen data shows radio actually has the most reach among American media consumers." 

Last week, for instance, significantly more local consumers tuned-in to a Las Vegas radio station than watched local TV, read a local newspaper, or logged-on to a streaming audio site like Pandora and Spotify.

If you were one of the 1,502,89 adults who tuned-in to a Las Vegas  radio station last week, it is likely you heard a commercial for Indeed.  That's because, last week, Indeed, the world's largest online job site was also radio's biggest advertiser.

The reason Indeed invested so heavily in radio advertising is that they have far more job openings posted on their than site than there are job-hunters to fill them. 

This is not unlike the predicament of Las Vegas small business owners who are also having difficulty finding and hiring qualified candidates.

What Indeed has figured out is that there are not enough unemployed people or disgruntled workers looking for jobs, especially among those in white-collar professions. So, the company is looking to attract what human resource experts call the 'passive job seekers'.

It turns out that advertising on Las Vegas radio is also the best way for any business owner to recruit, hire, and retain those passive, white-collar job seekers.

The National Retail Federation has predicted that this year's back-to-school shopping season will set a new record. Households with school-age children are expected to spend, on average, $696.70 preparing their kids for the first day of classes. This tops the previous record set in 2012.

For Las Vegas small business owners, this means there is $453,926,560 of back-to-school bucks in play between now and the first bell of the school year.

According to the NRF, here's how the $696.70 per household will be spent.

• Clothing & Accessories: $239.82
• Computers & Electronics: $203.44
• Shoes: $135.96
• School Supplies: $117.49

To grab the largest share of back-to-school spending will require small business owners to advertise.  By any metric, advertising on Las Vegas radio stations will be the most effective.  Here's why.