The truth? Radio advertising, especially today, can be expensive. On the other hand, radio advertisements have the ability to reach thousands upon thousands of people in one shot. The trick is to maximize the value of your radio advertising campaigns by making them as profitable as possible. Here are three things to keep in mind.

Know Your Audience

Before you purchase any type of advertising package you need to know two things. First, you need to know who your own target audience is. Second, you need to know what type of audience the radio station in question targets. Write down the age, gender, and important factors about the audience you’d like to target. Compare your information to the information the sales rep gives you when you inquire about advertising. If you don’t have similar goals, move on to another radio station.

Be Entertaining

The reality of the situation is that you are not the only advertisement someone sitting in his or her car is hearing. They hear one after the other and some people flip stations to find better entertainment during commercial breaks. This means your commercials themselves need to be entertaining in order to keep the attention of your audience. You may need to incorporate humor or an ongoing theme. If you’re not captivating, you’ll never earn the attention of the station’s listeners.

Take Advantage of Opportunity

A lot of radio stations like to run special promotions. Sometimes they cost a bit more but the cost is nothing compared to the added benefit. If you sponsor the weather report, for example, they’ll mention your name before the report and then your advertisement might be first after the report – meaning more people will hear it because they haven’t flipped stations yet. You might even find yourself mentioned at off-air events as well.

Radio advertising is costly but profitable – if you make it profitable. You can’t run out and buy an ad from the first station that gives you a deal. Make sure you remain focused and your ads will eventually begin to pay off!

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

There’s a key difference between radio advertising and print advertising that you need to know about.

Get a pad and pen. Write this down.

When designing a radio advertisement you should only have ONE call to action.

In your print advertising you will find that you usually encourage more than one. You may ask a prospect to call you, visit your website, email for details, etc.

The problem is that those listening to the radio don’t necessarily have the luxury of writing down your requests, saving your email, or doing anything that will “remind” them later of what you asked them to do.

If they only have to remember ONE thing they’ll be more likely to make that call or visit that website. Asking them to do both will overload their response mechanisms and, more likely than not, will cause them to forget BOTH pieces of information.

Remember, many people listening to the radio are multi-tasking. Very few people sit and listen to the radio for the sake of listening to the radio. You’re lucky if you’ve grabbed their attention to start with, so asking for too much will only cause you to lose it again.

Keep your instructions simplistic and direct. If you ask your listener to make a choice he’ll probably choose not to take any sort of action at all!

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

Perhaps your marketing campaign isn’t producing the results you expected. Maybe it simply needs a few fresh new ideas. Truth be told, the internet, postcards, and print advertisements aren’t the only effective marketing methods being used by successful businesses today. Radio advertisement, despite popular belief, is still very popular and effective.

Radio advertising, like most methods of marketing, has both its advantages and drawbacks. Let’s start with some of the advantages of radio advertising:

• Radio advertising costs less than television advertising and may reach a broader audience.
• Most radio advertisements are informal and tell a story that engages and captivates the listener. Most do this by taking advantage of popular radio personalities or by including a catchy and creative jingle.
• Radio advertisements are effective because they’re run several times over the course of a day, week, etc. This means your market is likely to hear the ad multiple times as opposed to a print ad which they may only see one time.

Radio advertising is incredibly effective, but it simply isn’t right for everyone. Some of the drawbacks include:

• Because radio ads are so short, someone who is listening to your ad while driving may not catch all of the pertinent contact information and may not necessarily hear the ad again.
• The cost of radio advertising may be inexpensive compared to other advertising methods, but if you want prime-time slots early and late in the day the costs can be very high.
• Radio advertising is only effective if you know large parts of your target audience regularly listen to the radio.

Radio advertisements are incredibly effective, but only if planned and used properly. If you’re not already advertising on the radio, it may be worth contacting your local broadcast stations to find out what types of packages are available. You might want to incorporate radio advertising into your marketing budget for the rest of the year!

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

While more expensive than print ads, radio advertising is another great marketing tool that shouldn’t be ignored. The trick is to design your radio advertisements in a way that will reach your target customer base without wasting your time or money. Here are a few things you can do to make sure you’re getting the best rates and time slots possible without breaking the bank.

Vertical Frequency

Vertical frequency is a radio advertising tactic in which you choose one or two days to play all of your ads as opposed to spreading them out over an entire week. This works best if you can find a radio station on which listeners tend to linger for a long period of time. You’ll want to try and get spots on Monday or Tuesday as the rates for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are usually higher because of weekend sales.

Haggling

Do not accept the first price your radio station salesperson offers. They might claim to be giving you the best price possible but they usually aren’t. They expect you to haggle and will give you a higher price so that they can make you happy by lowering it later. If you don’t argue, they benefit from you paying a higher rate.

Avoid Humour

Humour can be a very creative addition to any marketing campaign, but unless you have a spectacular brand of humour you’ll likely offend or bore your listeners. They will, after all, hear your advertisements day after day, week after week – especially if they’re loyal listeners of the station you choose. Either avoid humour or be prepared to revamp your radio advertising campaign on a regular basis (which will be costly).

Voice versus Paper

Make sure the copy you give your radio advertiser sounds good when read out loud. There is a huge difference between the written word and the spoken word. Not everything you write out on paper will sound as good when read out loud – it might instead sound stiff or boring. Your radio advertisements should be conversational, not readable. Know the difference.

Failure is Inevitable

Almost no one succeeds with their first radio advertising campaign. The first campaign is more of a test to make sure you have chosen the right times, messages, and markets. You’ll gain enough information from this experiment to determine what changes will make future campaigns profitable. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see top notch results right away.

Radio advertising is a great way to reach thousands of potential customers at a time, but will only be profitable if you’re willing to put in the time and work to formulate a winning plan. Are you prepared?

Sean

Sean McPheat

Telephone 0800 849 6732