Forecasting monthly revenue has always been challenging. After surviving 2020, we all had to adjust to new trends in buyers' habits and ever-changing monthly behaviors. Pre-COVID, many stations would budget March to be larger than any other month in Q1 with the possible exception of Super Bowl/Olympic years. Since the NFL added an extra week to the regular season does it make sense that March would be bigger than January? Maybe not – especially in new sports betting markets that can’t seem to dodge the money getting thrown at them while football is in full swing. Patterns for the NBA have been skewed in the past couple of years with the finals getting delayed. March Madness was completely canceled in 2020 and was handled differently in 2021 than in past years
Remember the good ole days of quarterly buys? Sometimes later in the quarter, we would get a second wave. Quarterly buys have become monthly if not week-to-week, purchases depending on the buyer so revenue looks later in current years than it did in the past. So how can you determine the best way to price and forecast your expectations?
For the organized among us, keeping a journal of month-to-month “outliers” from each year can be helpful. Was the previous year's core revenue crowded out by political? Did you get COVID money that is no longer in play now that the worst (we hope) is behind us?
ShareBuilders offers many tools to analyze your historical trends. We have month-to-month revenue and market comparison tools that can separate political from non-political years. We keep track of current and past historical landmarks (who had the Super Bowl, when Easter fell, what day the Presidential election fell, etc.) that can help us make better decisions regarding the current year's forecasts. We keep all your history and can easily pull up finals from each month along with notes about local market events. Our data combined with your knowledge of current local market trends is a perfect example of Science and Art working together to make smart, educated decisions.