Strengthen Corporate Support Retail Prospecting with RAB’s Top Business Trends Info

As part of corporate support planning and prospecting efforts already underway for a new calendar year, it can make sense to think about when different retail categories make the majority of their revenue in any given quarter. This can shed light on these businesses’ potential marketing needs in the year ahead as well as inform our own strategies about when we approach certain prospects with public media’s unique value proposition. 

Helpfully, the RAB has just updated the data behind their annual top business trends chart, which is available to Greater Public member stations to use in their 2026 planning. The RAB chart maps out trends across a wide array of retail categories in terms of “hot,” “average” and “below average” sales months, so you can see at a glance which quarters generate the most – or the least – amount of revenue for each retail category. 

And while this chart includes all kinds of retail stores, you can easily pull out some highlights for those retail subcategories which have traditionally been strong for public media. For example:

• For book stores, strong sales months include December, January, August and September – not surprising considering the timing of the holiday season and back to school. Same for office supply stores.

   

• Paint & wallpaper and hardware stores do a lot of their business in the second quarter of the calendar year, which tracks with the weather getting warmer and being more conducive to home improvement projects.

   

• Restaurants heat up in the spring and early summer, while grocery stores are notably consistent from quarter to quarter. 

See what trends make sense here for your own market and experience. Remember too that sales trends info not only helps you strategize about when and how to approach certain categories, but the seasonality of it all can also be effective in creating a sense of urgency to close the deal. Data-driven sales conversations also help you stand out to your underwriters as a consultative media planner. 

Good luck with your efforts! Here’s to strong prospecting and planning practices helping our own public media corporate revenue to trend up for the year.