26 Feb 5 Things You Should Never Do With Your Radio Commercial
5 Things You Should Never Do With Your Radio Commercial
The best radio commercials grab your attention, involve the listener, spin a story, sound believable and make a call to action all while keeping the product center stage. Done right, the radio ad creates a personal conversation with an individual prospective target that leaves a positive impression and generates a desire to take further action. A really good radio ad speaks to you.
The first radio commercial hit the air waves more than 90 years ago. Radio has been successfully reaching consumers ever since. Today, radio advertising’s return on investment or ROI is approximately 17-percent higher than television, according to a study conducted by the Radio Ad Lab.
Radio commercials can be an extremely effective advertising tool but only if you avoid certain pitfalls. Consider the following five things to avoid with a radio commercial.
1. Miss the Connection
It’s important to make a connection with your audience, offering something that’s relatable to each listener. If you miss that connection, you lose your target. Connect with the audience by appealing to senses and emotions. Tell a story that could easily be their story. Your audience eats dinner each night and if you’re creating a radio commercial for a pizza place, make that connection: target needs convenient meal; ad appeals to that need.
2. Too Many Numbers
Often your audience is listening to the radio while doing something else like driving or working. Throwing too many numbers at listeners in a 30 or 60 radio commercial is not effective. A radio listener’s attention will wander when the music switches to an ad that contains mostly facts, figures and technical data. Avoid including lengthy URL addresses in a call to action or offering multiple phone numbers. For example, “Call local at 312-555-1234 or 312-555-4321 or toll free at 1-800-555-9191.” Too many numbers, too much information.
3. The Laundry List
Much like bombarding a radio audience with too much technical information or 15 seconds of phone numbers and URL addresses, a script that reads like a laundry list rarely is effective copy for a radio ad. Instead of listing the benefits of a product, show its benefits through snappy dialogue, a relatable vignette or a catchy jingle. A testimonial is another way to communicate the product benefits in a believable way without having to create a boring list.
4. Poor Word Choices
A radio commercial is not an academic dissertation. Create copy that sounds similar to the way people speak. Avoid verbiage such a therefore, thus, moreover and so forth. Actually, you may want to avoid the phrase, ‘and so forth’ as well. Slang terms also should be avoided in many cases. Using slang can be a tricky process with radio copy and often it’s best to simply create copy that can be communicated concisely without making your target audience cringe at the word choice.
5. Missing the Selling Idea
One of the biggest pitfalls to avoid with radio ads is missing the selling idea. Ads that are so focused on telling a joke or inspirational story can end up missing the mark because they forget to connect the joke or story to the actual selling idea. Creativity with a radio commercial can be an effective method for a memorable ad, but only if the listener can connect the story/joke/jingle to the company, product or service being promoted. Remember, your selling idea should always be the star of the radio commercial, it’s the reason the ad is created. If you can remove the product from the copy and it still reads as a complete concept, you’ve missed the selling idea.
Radio commercials can connect with a vast, diverse audience generating name recognition and product sales. Avoid the common pitfalls and your radio ads can go from forgettable to “Hey, did you hear that?”
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