Don’t get me wrong! I am all for the medium of radio when it comes to selling your product or service. In fact I swear by it! There are two primary elements involved in the process of using Radio to effectively promote whatever it is you are selling.
“THE BUY”.
If you are buying and placing the time yourself, then YOU need to do some research. You want to find the radio station(s) in your market(s) whose format and listeners will meet the criteria for your prospective customers. Now if you are simply buying radio in a single market in which you happen to live, the task becomes less complicated. Your familiarity with those stations will help you make that decision; on the other hand, you still must decide at what day part to run the spots. You need to look at the stations’ research to help you make that decision.
Should you need to buy airtime in multiple markets, more research is required. However, if you hire a media service to do all this work for you, the savings will be twofold. First a media buying service will have the statistics you need for every radio station in every market at their finger tips, They are experts at determining which radio stations target your prospects and when those listeners are most apt to be listening. You will save lots of time. Secondly, because the media buying service is making a multiple station buy for you, their leverage and their negotiation with those stations (sometimes group owned) may earn discounts and thereby save you some money.
So is that “all there is’? Will the proper placement of the buy insure you that you will be getting your money’s worth when using the medium of radio? Many business CEO’s, owners, and marketing directors may think so. But unfortunately, they are wrong!
“The Message”
Most of my youth, BT (before TV) was spent in front of a radio listening to” Heigh-ho Silver” or the “The Shadow Knows” , or Arthur Godfrey, Charlie McCarthy, etc. I was entertained. I was glued to the radio. I was emotionally invested in what I was hearing. Here’s my point. Radio is still one of the most intimate and entertaining media forms available to us.
Unless your message is entertaining and makes an emotional connection to the listener, why should anyone pay attention to it. Don’t under estimate the need for good creative radio commercials. If only ½ or ¼ of the listeners hear your message, then your investment in radio has been shortchanged. How many times have you changed the station during a commercial to avoid having to listen to someone making an announcement or someone shouting at you? Your message has to draw the listener “in”. The listener must find your message entertaining or compelling in order to identify with your product or service.
So, unless you want “little bang for your buck” with your radio advertising budget, don’t settle for getting half the job done. Find a good media buying service and find a company or ad agency whose business it is to understand the writing, the talent and the production you need to make your radio commercial the most effective it can be. Make sure your investment in RADIO doesn’t go in one ear and out the other.