Radio Advertising Facts

Tag: business

  • Where Should You Advertise?

    Where Should You Advertise?

    What’s the best medium for local advertising? According to Michael Corbett, author of “The 33 Ruthless Rules of Local Advertising”, it’s NOT the newspaper. According to Corbett, “the readers of most newspapers are middle aged and older. If you are looking for buyers under the age of forty, you’ll find fewer of them in the newspaper than in any other media.” Corbett says that newspapers are “a place for shoppers to compare prices and information after they’ve already been motivated to buy.”

    Why then do many local business continue to spend the bulk of their advertising budget in the newspaper? According to Corbett, “he newspaper has been the traditional medium for many local businesses. For centuries, it was the only medium. But most consumers don’t rely on the newspaper as much as they once did. They get their motivation and information from many sources. The readership ages have changed; buying habits and priorities have changed; media choices have changed. The only thing that hasn’t seem to change is the tradition of thinking that the newspaper is still the motivation source for most consumers. It clearly is not. That role has been taken over by TV and radio, either of which consumers spend more time with than they do newspapers.”

    Corbett concluded by saying, “newspapers, in my experience, are neither appropriate nor affordable as your primary vehicle for domination or impact.”

    So, where do you advertise to get the most impact? Corbett suggests one of the two “motivational mediums”, radio or broadcast TV (not cable). Corbett also suggests you “dominate” a medium in order to achieve maximum effectiveness. Since most local advertisers cannot afford to dominate TV, the logical choice is radio.

    Quoted from “The 33 Ruthless Rules of Local Advertising”
    by Michael Corbett
    Pinnacle Books, Inc

  • How to Budget Advertising Costs

    How to Budget Advertising Costs

    Build it and they will come… a motto which is the downfall of many new, small businesses.

    The problem is, “they” often don’t know you exist! Ideally, you have figured out that you will need to advertise your business in order to attract customers.

    That leads to the question, how much money should be spent on advertising?

    The U.S. Small Business Administration has a lot of wonderful resources for the small business. There is a very helpful section on their website that addresses this:  Click here.

    In creating an advertising and marketing budget, the SBA says: “Because marketing needs and costs vary widely, there are no simple rules for determining what you marketing budget should be. A popular method with small business owners is to allocate a small percentage of gross sales for the most recent year. This usually amounts to about two percent for an existing business. However, if you are planning on launching a new product or business, you may want to increase your marketing budget figure, to as much as 10 percent of your expected gross sales. Another method used by small business owners is to analyze and estimate the competition’s budget and either match or exceed it.”

    That information is also available from the SBA: Click here.

    So how much will advertising cost you? Perhaps a better question to ask yourself; “How much is NOT advertising costing you?”

  • Reasons NOT to Advertise

    Reasons NOT to Advertise

    There are plenty of reasons to not advertise. Here are some of our “favorite” excuses for not engaging in an effective, consistent marketing campaign. If you’ve ever found yourself using any of these excuses to avoid promoting your business, you’re missing out on the opportunity for increased traffic, increased sales and increased profits.

    Everybody knows me. I don’t need to advertise.
    Really? There are new people moving to town every week, plus plenty of visitors. Just because you’ve been on the same corner since 1972 is meaningless to newcomers. A successful business reaches out to new customers on an ongoing basis. Without new customers, even long-established businesses eventually die.

    I don’t advertise. Word-of-mouth is all I need.
    Word-of-mouth is one of the most ineffective forms of advertising there is. First of all, you can’t control it. You don’t know what’s being said and to whom. Plus, word-of-mouth is usually negative. People who have an acceptable business transaction with you likely tell few, if any, other people. Those who have a bad experience tell everyone they know. Relying solely on word-of-mouth is a serious marketing mistake!

    Business is great. I don’t need to advertise.
    That’s great, for now. But why wait until things slow down to seek out new customers. Effective advertising keeps potential new customers “in the pipeline.”

    Business is too slow. I can’t afford to advertise.
    And business will stay slow if you don’t. Advertising is nothing more than inviting people to do business with you. If things are slow, you need to be inviting more people to your store.

    I tried Radio before and it didn’t work.
    If your offer was weak, chances are your results were too. People respond to the need, not the ad. Or perhaps you advertised on a station that didn’t reach your target demographic or you didn’t have enough frequency to be effective. Radio works!

    I don’t listen to your station.
    But many of your customers and potential customers do. Advertising is like going fishing – do you bait your hook with what you like, or with what the fish like?

    I don’t do Radio advertising.
    It’s foolish to overlook an entire medium because of some silly preconceived notion. Radio works! And with the right offer and enough frequency, Radio can produce results unmatchedby any other media. If you exclude Radio from your marketing plans, you’re missing out.

    Nobody ever tells me they hear my Radio ads.
    Because people respond to the need, not the ad. If they need a new refrigerator and they hear an ad for an appliance store, they respond by checking out your refrigerator selection. They DON’T come in and say “hey, I heard your ad for refrigerators.”

    Your rates are too high.
    Radio stations charge different rates, based on many factors. But a 30-second ad on Station A is not equivalent to a 30-second Station B. You can buy a $1 hamburger at Burger King or an $8.00 hamburger at an expensive restaurant. Both hamburgers, but there is a difference.

    I have to talk it over with my wife/partner/CPA/psychic/grandmother.
    Every day you’re not advertising is a missed opportunity for more business. While you procrastinate, your competitors are going after your customers.

    I don’t have any competition.
    Wrong! No matter what you’re selling, you’re competing with every cash register in town, plus online competitors and competitors in nearby towns. Effective advertising motivates customers to come to your store.

  • 12 Causes of Advertising Failure

    12 Causes of Advertising Failure

    1) The desire for instant gratification. The ad which creates sufficient urgency to cause people to respond immediately is also the ad most likely to be forgotten immediately following the “expiration” of the offer. Such ads are of little use in establishing an identity for the advertiser in the mind of the consumer.

    2)  Attempting to reach more people than the budget will allow. For a “media mix” to be effective, each element in the mix must have sufficient repetition to establish “retention” in the mind of the prospect. Too often, however, the result of a media mix is too much reach, not enough frequency. Will you reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way? Or will you reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way? The cost is the same.

    3)  Assuming the business owner knows best. The business owner is uniquely unqualified to see his company or his product objectively. He is on the inside, looking out, trying to describe himself to a person on the outside looking in. It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle. Too much product knowledge causes the business owner to answer questions that no one is asking. This makes for extremely ineffective advertising.

    4)  Unsubstantiated claims such as, “Highest quality at the lowest price. Advertisers will often have what the customer wants, but fail to offer any evidence. A cliché is nothing less than as unsubstantiated claim to the public is tired of hearing. You must prove what you say in every ad. The prospect will not make a new decision about your product until you have given him new information and a new perspective. Do your ads supply new information? Do they provide a new perspective? If not, prepare to be disappointed with the results.

    5)  Improper use of passive media. Non-intrusive media, such as newspaper and yellow pages, require the use of a reticular activator (such as a photo or illustration) because passive media tends to reach only those buyers who are actively in the market for the product. Passive media is very poor at reaching prospects prior to their need, which means it is extremely difficult for passive media to create a predisposition toward your company. With patience, the consistent use of intrusive media (such as radio and television) will win the heart of the customer before he is in the market for the product.

    6)  Creating ads instead of campaigns.  It is foolish to believe a single ad can ever tell the entire story.  The most effective, persuasive and memorable ads are those most like a rhinoceros. They will each make a single point very powerfully.  An advertiser with seventeen different things to say should commit to a campaign of at least seventeen different ads, with each ad being given sufficient repetition to accomplish retention in the mind of the prospect.

    7)  Obedience to unwritten rules.   For some insane reason, advertisers want their ads to look and sound like ads.  Why is this?

    8)  Late week schedules.  Advertisers justify their unreasonable focus on Thursday and Friday advertising with the statement, “We need to reach the customer just before he goes shopping.” Why do these advertisers choose to compete for the prospect’s attention each Thursday and Friday when they can have a nice, quiet chat all alone with the prospect each Sunday, Monday and Tuesday?

    9)  Overconfidence in qualitative targeting.  The importance of qualitative data has been grossly overestimated by many advertisers and media professionals.  In reality, Saying The Wrong Thing has killed far more ad campaigns than Reaching The Wrong People.  It is amazing how many people become “the right people,” when you are saying the right thing.

    10)  Event driven marketing.  A special event should be judged only by its ability to help you more clearly define your market position and substantiate your claims.  If one percent of the people who hear your ad for a special event actually choose to come, you will be in desperate need of a traffic cop and a bus to shuttle people from remote parking lots.  Yet your real investment will be in the 99% who did not come to the event!  What did your ad say to them?

    11)  Great production without great copy.  Too many ads today are creative without being persuasive.  “Slick, clever, funny, creative, and different”, are poor substitutes for, “informative, believable, memorable and persuasive.”

    12)  Confusing “response” with “results.”   The goal of advertising is to create a clear awareness of your company and its Unique Selling Proposition.   Unfortunately, most advertisers evaluate their ads by the comments they hear from the people around them.  The slickest, clearest, funniest, most creative and most different ads are the ones most likely to generate these comments.  See the problem?  When we confuse “response” with “results” we create “attention getting ads” which say absolutely nothing.

    Article Compliments of Roy H. Williams Marketing in Austin, Texas.