In a single week, radio reaches more than 228 million Americans. That's 94 percent of everyone age 12 and older, according to. So no matter what types of prospects you want to reach, radio advertising will help you do it. Plus, radio is mobile.
Eighty percent of adults listen to radio in their cars, and a quarter of the population also listens while at work.There's a lot that's new in radio. Many stations now stream their programming on the internet and reach additional local and even national audiences. What's more, if online listeners like what they hear in your streaming radio spot, they're just one click away from your website.Radio provides an ideal advertising medium for small businesses, but running an effective campaign takes a bit of know-how. Just follow these four tips for navigating the radio waves.1. Pinpoint Your Audience.Every radio buy must begin with a clear understanding of the listeners you want to reach. Write a one-sentence target audience profile based on the demographics of your prospects. This should include their age, gender, where they live and other factors, such as household income.
Then share this information with the sales reps from the stations you're considering. They'll tell you what percentage of their stations' listeners match these demographics and at what times of the day or during which programming you'll reach your best prospects.There also may be qualitative characteristics of your ideal prospects you should consider when making your radio buy. A restaurant owner, for example, would look for a radio station whose listeners dine out frequently. The radio station sales reps have access to both qualitative and quantitative information concerning their listeners and should be able to give you customized proposals that include schedules with ratings breakdowns. They should also provide signal coverage maps that show precisely where their stations are heard.2.
Know What You're Buying.The three most important elements when evaluating proposals are reach, frequency and cost-per-point. Reach is the number of your prospects that'll hear your marketing message. Frequency isn't the number of spots you run, but the average number of times your prospects will actually hear your message. Cost-per-point is the basis for evaluating cost effectiveness. CPP is what it'll cost to reach 1 percent of your target audience population, so it's the best way to compare the value of competing stations.
Buy enough frequency to ensure your message is heard at least several times.3. Look for Special Sponsorships.Radio stations are promotional engines, and there are at least two ways you can get on board. First, most stations offer the opportunity to sponsor news, weather reports or other types of regular programming.
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As a sponsor, you'll typically get additional mentions, such as with 'billboards,' which are announcements of your sponsorship that lead into special programming. Often, sponsorship will guarantee your spots air first in the commercial breaks, or pods, so you'll reach more listeners before they have a chance to switch stations or tune out during long breaks.Radio stations also get involved in the community with special events. Look for sponsorship opportunities that include on-air mentions, as well as visibility at the events themselves. And be sure to seek out events that are well attended by your target audience and put your company in the spotlight.4.
Entertain the Audience.Once you've evaluated the proposals from the radio stations and negotiated and finalized your buys, you'll need effective spots. Since radio spot production is rarely a do-it-yourself job, you'll most likely work with a local production company, agency or station. But you should understand a few basics to be an effective part of the team and keep them on track.Great radio spots grab and hold attention, usually through humor. They may also use sounds, compelling music or unusual voices to grab attention. Your spots must tell stories or present situations your target audience can relate to. To keep your audience listening to your spots month after month, make them part of an ongoing campaign theme.
Your audience will listen for the newest versions, helping extend your message more successfully than if you were to run unrelated spots. For maximum results, make your call to action-a URL or phone number-easy to remember and tie it in with your company name or message.
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You know the routine.Your radio station introduces a new morning show and you sit back and wait for the magic to happen.And you waitand you wait.Still, the audience doesn’t know them, doesn’t care about them, or knows them and still doesn’t care about them.Why is this happening?Six reasons:1. Because they’re just not that goodIt’s true!
Radio managers are not famous for spotting and nurturing talent.And a corollary: Being good is hard!There’s a reason why Howard Stern was fired all the way to the top. There’s a reason why it’s a safer bet to plug in Ryan Seacrest than to take a chance on somebody nobody knows (for better or worse). There’s a reason why the freshest young voice with the most unique point of view prefers to launch a YouTube channel rather than work their way up the long, hard slog of the radio ladder.Radio fans know what they like and what they don’t like and everything else is likely to fall in the vast, bland, vanilla middle. And while that vast, bland, vanilla middle can be tweaked with a bit of coaching or a new producer, there’s an old saying:“You can’t polish a turd.”2. Because they’re not meaningfully different in a crowded fieldGuy’s name and Gal’s name in show title? Check.Impeccable technical execution? Check.Show producer/board op?
Check.What about plugging in all the radio morning show best practices? Check.The problem with formulas for what makes a great morning show is that every station has access to the same formulas. And when every radio station is playing the same morning show game for the same audience at the same time using versions of the same bits, the audience will default to the show they’ve listened to longest, even if it’s not necessarily the best – because it takes a lot of time and effort to find the “best” and no time or effort at all to succumb to habit.So why should I change my listening behavior that has served me well for years to sample YOUR show?3. Because listeners are barely exposed to themIt’s not only about how long a show has been on the air but also about much exposure that show has had while it has been on.I have a saying:Listeners don’t listen to your morning show today, they listen to every episode of your morning show they have ever heard – today.In other words, listeners bring their relationships with the talent to each listening occasion. This is what makes strong morning shows so powerful: They have a longstanding relationship with their fans. It’s also why you can fly into a market and listen to the dominant morning show and have no clue as to why it’s so successful.So when you envelop your show in music, or the host opens the mic to announce a song or do a live read or announce another contest winner or check the weather or emote some breezy phrase that dissipates into the radio ether within seven seconds, then the audience has less to know and fewer opportunities to know it.Why bother?4.
Because they’re DJ’s and not humansWhile there’s something comforting about a human voice on the radio, not every human voice appears to be actually human. I’m not talking about voice-tracking here, I’m talking about content.Humans are beings with three dimensions – strengths and weaknesses, flaws, and blemishes. All on display.When those dimensions are not on display in a movie we call the character “shallow.” And nobody (willingly) makes friends with shallow beings (although we’re happy to laugh at their expense in Reality TV).5. Because management doesn’t want a great morning show, they want a cheap morning show to be greatToo often, we’re not aiming for greatness, we’re aiming for great cheapness.Well, that’s not how Jimmy Fallon got the Tonight Show gig and that’s not how great radio talent is born.
We fool ourselves into thinking that the cheap voice can be the better voice if only the audience catches on. And then we are disappointed when they never do.This is not to say you always get what you pay for, but you certainly never get what you don’t pay for.I recently ran into an old radio friend – a former morning host – now long out of the business. He was approached by a station in his market to do a weekend gig – live. And for this he would be paid what he described as “the kind of money I made just out of school.”Either he will say “no,” or the station will get from him what it’s paying for, which is exactly what it wants and much less than it pretends it wants.6. Because “liking them” and “listening to them” are two different thingsYour new morning host may be a great guy and a model citizen, but if I’ve got twenty minutes of drive-time I intend to spend it with the most compelling, entertaining, or informative morning show I can find, not with an audio Boy Scout.