Radio Advertising Facts

Tag: commercial

  • How to Avoid The Five Biggest Radio Advertising Mistakes

    How to Avoid The Five Biggest Radio Advertising Mistakes

    Have you ever said the following: “I tried radio but it didn’t work”? Many business owners have that complaint. The fact is radio is just as effective (if not more effective) as any other advertising medium. The reason a spot (commercial) fails is more often due to one or more of these five mistakes given below.

    Mistake One: Phone Numbers.
    Especially if more than one are given. Now I understand that if your phone number is the ONLY WAY a customer can possibly do business with you then you must have a phone number in your commercial. But for everyone else – phone numbers are a waste of time, which is something you can’t afford to do with just 30 or 60 seconds of commercial time.

    Why? Because most people are listening to their radio in their cars or at work. In both cases trying to remember or even write down a phone number is expecting way too much from the listener. And if, as some advertisers do, you have more than one phone number the listener just isn’t going to bother at all.

    The best solution is to not give out your phone number at all, but instead offer a very compelling reason why people should seek your business. They’ll find it if they’re interested. Remember there are many ways to find a business’ phone number… phone books, the internet, even calling the radio station (many stations keep lists of current advertisers handy with contact info).

    Mistake Two: Price points.
    If you think it’s hard for a radio listener to remember a phone number just try adding a bunch of other numbers. I’ve heard many business owners tell me, “Well so what if they don’t remember the prices? This way they’ll know we have a lot of items on sale!”

    The problem here is you are again assuming that the listener cares enough to not totally tune out all those price points. That’s a very dangerous assumption. Do you ever hear the radio personalities reciting lots of numbers or price points when they’re talking (outside of reading commercials)? No. Why? Because they know that the typical radio listener expects to hear clear and concise information. Not a lot of numbers that don’t relate to anything.

    You’re better off keeping price points in your print advertising where people can take the time to look over all the information. For radio spend your time giving people compelling reasons to do business with you instead of sale prices.

    Mistake Three: Confusing locators (the way you describe where your business is located).
    “We’re located just a half mile off Interstate 512 in the Gas-Lamp Strip Mall, 2899 West 333rd Street, with convenient free parking four days a week.”

    Again, you’re expecting a lot from your listener.

    Don’t do lengthy directions. State your location as simply as possible:
    “Downtown at the corner of State and Lake.”
    “Just off I-512 at the Big Town Exit”

    What about street address numbers?

    Unless your address can be seen perfectly from at least a half a block away, don’t use it. Most businesses don’t have street numbers on their doors anyhow or if they do it’s so small you can’t read it until you’re right in front of it.

    The best solution for a locator? Direct people to your website. You can insert a Google Map or Yahoo Map locator that can give anyone precise details on how to get from where they are to where you are.

    Mistake Four: Too many advertising cliches = Major turnoff.
    “Friendly Professional Staff”
    “Storewide Savings”
    “Number One In Customer Service”
    “Dependable and Trustworthy”
    “The Best Prices”
    “We Will Not Be Undersold”

    There are dozens more of these tired cliches. Why are they tired? Because you can hear them in radio commercials right now, and if you were to get in a time machine and go back 50, 60, 70 years you’d hear them in commercials from then. They’re worn out because everyone uses them and to most consumers they’re pretty much meaningless.

    If everyone is using them then what makes them special? Nothing. If every business is using them then what sets you apart and helps a listener remember who you are? Nothing.

    The old adage from Lenny Bruce says it best: “If you have to tell them you’re hip, you’re not.” That holds true for all of those advertising cliches. There is a basic expectation of service from all businesses that includes most of those above cliches. You can’t be in business without meeting those basics, and everyone knows it.

    So why waste your advertising time with it?

    Instead give people meaningful (personal) compelling reasons to do business with you. And by personal I mean your customer. What are your best customer’s personal reasons for doing business with you? Find that out and talk about that in your commercials. You’ll be amazed at the difference in response.

    Mistake Five: Not being convenient.
    I don’t mean in terms of hours or location, though those are definitely factors. But more important, does your radio commercial (or any of your advertising) make it hard for people to get what they want?

    “Mention this ad for a free can of cheese whiz”.
    “Bring in the coupon from last Sunday’s newspaper”.
    “The first 12 people to call in the next five minutes get a five percent discount”.

    Making people do extra work to get something is only worthwhile if the payoff is incredible (i.e. “The first caller right now gets one million dollars!”). Very few customers will actually care enough to jump through hoops to get a five percent discount or even a 15 percent discount. But more importantly you’re telling the vast majority of potential customers that they have to do something extra besides just showing up at your store. And most people don’t want that extra hassle. What you should be doing is rewarding them equally for showing up. Remember, your customer is doing you a favor by showing up – not the other way around.

    Just offer great values and great service to everyone all the time. Also remember, value doesn’t mean low prices. It means CONVENIENCE. All your customers really care about is how fast you can give them what they want and how nice you are about it. As pointed out in Mistake Four – let your best customers tell your story. Nothing compels people to act more than hearing why other people prefer your business over everyone else.

    Article courtesy of John Pellegrini.

  • How Advertising Works

    How Advertising Works

    The successful Philadelphia retailer John Wannamaker once said, “I know that half of my advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half.”

    That feeling of uncertainty about advertising plagues many business people. They know they should advertise, but they don’t really understand the process … so most of them simply end up doing, as one local businessman said recently, “what my father did.”

    Regardless of what medium or media you choose – they all have their strengths and weaknesses – there are certain principles that always apply.

    Effectiveness is a Combination of Reach and Frequency
    “Reach” can be defined as the number of people who hear or see your message over time. “Frequency” is how many times the average person hears or sees your message. Your advertising needs to reach as many people as possible, as often as possible.

    Those million-dollar ads you see on the Super Bowl have great reach but lousy frequency. An ad run on the front page of every edition of the Left-Handed Accountants’ Daily (if there were such a thing) would have lousy reach but good frequency.

    Research shows that your prospect has to hear or see your message more than three times before they’ll act on it. So you need to make sure that the advertising medium you select has a wide enough audience for your needs, but more importantly, is designed and priced for frequency.

    Keep Your Message Simple and Consistent
    Many people don’t realize that if they run two or more ads in their schedule, they are reducing their effective frequency. So the best plan, for maximum results, is to run one and only one ad at a time. If you absolutely need to run different copy, have your advertising consultant construct a “shell” that remains the same, with the different copy inserted into that shell. That way the first thing your listener hears or your reader sees is that consistent impression, even though the middle or your ad may vary.

    If you are running in more than one medium, you’ll get the maximum impact if your message is the same in all media. You should coordinate the efforts of all your media representatives to make sure that your message is consistent everywhere.

    Concentrate Your Advertising
    A common advertising mistake is to do too little in too many media. It is better to dominate one medium than to water down results by spreading out your ads.

    On the other hand, a “media mix” is a powerful way to get your message to as many people as possible. There is research that shows how you can reduce your investment in one medium without significantly affecting effectiveness – which frees up budget that can be used in another medium. (Our radio marketing consultants have the details on this.)

    Test Your Advertising
    Most of the time you don’t just throw money down a hole and expect it to work for you … and you shouldn’t do that with advertising, either! Advertising should be an investment, not an expense.

    If a friend of yours told you about an investment that produced a guaranteed 50% return – and you could verify it absolutely – you’d scramble to find as much money as you could to put into it. Similarly, if you are getting measurable results from your advertising program and you know how and why, you’ll advertise more!

    Smart business people test their ads, their schedules, and their media – but not all at the same time! You need to test only one variable at a time.

    How do you test? Well, you don’t test a medium by asking customers to “Mention you heard about it from …” People don’t do that! The best way to test is to run one ad, one schedule, one medium at a time – and see what happens to your traffic and your cash register. (Be sure you understand how much time you need to give the medium and the schedule to work; your advertising representative can help you with this.)

    Keep Testing
    Once you’ve found the ideal medium or media for your business, understand that things can change over time. Here are some reasons to reopen the issue:

    The competitive situation among media has changed (more media competitors, new opportunities, different rates, etc.).
    Your “share of voice” on your medium or media has changed (your competitors are advertising more, so your message is cutting through less).

    You have saturated the prospects of a given medium (declining traffic is one indicator of this)

    Keep Advertising!
    There’s an old saying: “A funny thing happens when you don’t advertise – nothing.” If you want your business to grow, you have to get your name and your products or services in front of your customers and prospects – and keep them there.

    Even if you just want your business to stay where it is, you need to advertise – because it’s a proven fact that you will lose up to 25% of your customers each year to relocation, competitors or death.

    A Brief Commercial
    As we’ve said elsewhere, our Radio stations and website are not in the business of “selling ads.” We sincerely want to help you achieve the greatest possible success, and advertising is an important part of that success. We want to work with you in a marketing partnership to suggest proven, creative ways to achieve greater success through advertising. If we mutually determine that we can help you, nobody will work harder to earn and keep your business – and we’ll even suggest complementary media when appropriate.

    But if our exploration shows that one or more of our stations are not right for you at this time, we’ll suggest media that are more on target. We’d rather part friends than rope you into something that doesn’t work!