14 Jul 5 Ways to Improve Your Radio Advertising
5 Ways to Improve Your Radio Advertising
When you make the decision to advertise your business on the radio you definitely want to do everything you can to maximize the return on your investment in your business.
These 5 tips will help you maximize the ROI on your advertising dollars.
1) Do your research on the radio station’s audience. Radio is like any other media that you would use to advertise your business. Different stations will reach different demographic groups of people. You should advertise on a station that will reach your target demographic. If you’re advertising hearing aids, you’re probably not going to want to advertise on the local hip hop station which will likely have mostly younger listeners.
All radio stations will be able to give you some sort of audience data that describes who they reach and what kind of person will be hearing your commercial. The station itself will generate some of this data, but you’re better off with data from a third party.
Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is the biggest player in the radio ratings game. They measure a station’s audience and report on which stations reach the most people in each demographic group. Completely independent, Nielsen is a good source of solid audience research data. Radio stations will often have access to the Nielsen ratings data.
2) Negotiate your schedule. As the old saying goes, “Everything is negotiable.” This is also true with your radio advertising schedule.
Your advertising representative from the station should discuss your needs with you then put together a plan for you based on those discussions. Usually they will come back to you with a plan that spans several weeks and multiple day parts.
When they come back with the plan, ask what else they can do for you or if they have any current or future specials they can offer you. Once they know you’re looking for more, the pressure is on them to meet your request. They have come this far and can smell the sale so they’ll do anything they are able to close the deal.
3) Consider a sponsorship. Stations offer advertisers sponsorships of popular segments like traffic, weather and even less common segments like horoscopes. These sponsorships may be more expensive, but they likely will get a very good listenership
You could even get creative and pitch the idea of a customized sponsored segment that fits like a glove with your business. This will make your business stand out with listeners and with the station.
There is also the option of sponsoring a contest. Radio stations love contests because they really engage listeners. Plus you can drive tons of foot traffic into your location by asking that the listeners have to enter the contest at your location. This could be a pricey promotion but should have a very good return for you.
4) Make your commercial more memorable. The more memorable your commercial is, the more return you will get on your advertising investment.
The easiest way to make your commercial more memorable is to get a custom commercial jingle produced. A custom commercial jingle will be produced to fit your business’ branding and really make an impact with the audience.
Think about all the great jingles you have heard over the years. You probably still remember some of them form when you were a kid.
Music combines rhythm and melody to activate a listener’s brain and instantly create that audio memory.
5) Interact with the on air staff. For example, if you own a bakery you could send cupcakes to the morning crew each Wednesday. They’ll love the gesture and likely talk about it on air. You could suggest they call it cupcake Wednesday and they might even invite your delivery boy or girl to spend a minute or two on air with them.
There are a lot of options for this strategy. The key is to get creative without getting too invasive. The station won’t allow you to take over the programming, but if you come up with something fun that doesn’t overwhelm their on air content, they might go for it.
These 5 tips will help your radio advertising ROI skyrocket.
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