RadioActive Media : Marketing, Promotions and Advertising: Radio, Television, Magazine, Internet.

By the RadioActive Media Team

It seems like every advertiser is only interested in one of two demographic groups: those who are 25-54 or those who are 18-49. These are pretty large demo groups and cover a lot of different types of people. There are so many radio stations to choose from and their ratings  can be within tenths of each other. How do you decide?

Direct response advertising doesn’t necessarily rely just on ratings. Your focus needs to be more on the psychographics of the individual station. If you are selling lawnmowers, you don’t want to advertise on a station where the majority of listeners live in an apartment even if they have the highest ratings in the 25-54 demo. That would be a waste of money and your results would not be stellar.

Most radio stations should have available some type of psychographics for their station. The information can be syndicated like Scarborough or Media Audit or proprietary, gathered by station personnel or a third party. This data can give a better insight into the people behind the numbers. It can tell you where they fall in the 18-49 demo. Are they on the younger end or the older end? Do they have children? Do they own a home? Are they planning on buying a home, a car, a computer or a pair of eye glasses? What is their household income? Where in the metro area do they live?

This type of information is vital to you when you are deciding where to place either your short form or long form advertising. At RadioActive Media we can direct your advertising to the best station for your product.

More articles in this series

Give It Enough Time: Make a Commitment to Your DR Radio Campaign Common Mistake #1

Creating Enough Frequency – Common Mistake #3

Create engaging copy – Common Mistake #4

Tracking Results of your Radio Direct Response Campaign and Making Changes – Common Mistake #5

@radioactivemed

By the RadioActive Media Team

We live in an age of instant gratification. People want what they want and they want it NOW! We are impatient for results. If you want to make sure that your target audience hears your ad enough times to take action, don’t skimp on the length of your campaign. You should plan on a minimum of a 13 week commitment for your schedule. Anything less won’t bring you the results you are expecting and you just might miss some potential customers.

With radio direct response campaigns you will already be getting a sense of performance with great frequency at its inception that sets the benchmark for improvement as the campaign progresses.

For clarification let’s make sure we are defining radio direct response in the same way. Long Form direct response is 30 or 60 minute shows that you’ll most likely hear on the weekend or in the evenings, but can be scheduled whenever the station has airtime available. Most common show themes include mortgage, financial, home repair, real estate type shows, but Sunday morning religious shows can also be considered long form direct response. Short form is, well, shorter! They run a minute or less (:5, :10, :15 or :30) and ask you to do something – call, e-mail, text – take some kind of action.

Let’s look at long form. You can promote the heck out the show on the station you are running, but it doesn’t mean everyone will tune in the first show out of the gate. It might be 2 to 3 weeks before the public becomes aware of the show’s existence or remembers to listen to the show. Sometimes a listener will stumble upon a show and will think wow – great show, but it can take a while before it becomes a habit. Statistics show it takes any where from 4 to 6 weeks to create a habit and to tell others. Remember you are building your audience over time and allowing your expert to build a rapport with listeners.  Don’t shortchange your program by pulling it after a month because results aren’t what you wanted or expected.

What about short form?  Do you know how many times someone needs to hear your ad before they act? Some people will respond right away, but most people will take several hearings before they take action. Depending upon your product or service, it might take 6 to 8 times before someone is moved to act. With an ever evolving radio audience you want to make sure your message gets the proper exposure and you don’t want to pull your ad before that happens. When your Account Executive shows you a schedule, the frequency absolutely has to be a minimum of 2 using PPM ratings and a minimum of 3 using diary ratings. (Check your market to see what rating system is currently being used.) Any less frequency won’t work and you can bet your AE doesn’t have your best interest at heart.

The bottom line is don’t be impatient with your radio advertising campaign. Give it time to capture its audience: 13 weeks for long form and make sure your short form campaign has a good reach with a 6-8 frequency for your listening audience.

More articles in this series  

Finding the Right Radio Station for Your Product – Common Mistake #2

Creating Enough Frequency – Common Mistake #3

Create engaging copy – Common Mistake #4

Tracking Results of your Radio Direct Response Campaign and Making Changes – Common Mistake #5

@radioactivemed

By the RadioActive Media Team

From an ad agency president: “With consolidation, the music has become much more ‘generic.’ Less local bands, less local flavor, much more corporate.”  This agency had a promotional idea for one of their clients & the attorney for one of the larger station group owners said NO. In this top 20 market, out of the 30 or so commercial stations approximately 22 stations are owned across 5 station groups.  If you have an idea and it is rejected, consolidation doesn’t leave you a lot of places to go, or does it?

Interestingly enough, customer service and pricing has not been an issue; most likely due to the economy.  Even with aggressive sales technique to try and get on every buy, limitations are an everyday challenge when your client wants something different or unique.  Another issue is with the ‘generic’ music and the new ratings system (Arbitron PPM) the ratings are so similar (compressed) that it makes it difficult to stand out from the crowd.

The beauty of radio has always been its innovation and ability to do something unique. It is still possible, you just have to know what to ask for and where to look.

Have you heard about Original Sponsored Programming? What about using some of the top radio personalities to promote your client or product?  Listen to Howard Stern promote us!

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He can do the same for your client.  Howard not your cup of tea?  We can match you with any of the hundreds radio personalities to stand out from the crowd and be unique.

Original Sponsored Programming allows you to showcase your product to a well-defined target audience.  Original Sponsored Programming can be crafted in such a way as to lend total creditability to the sponsor’s message.

Want something even more innovative?  Radio Text Messaging is about as new as it gets. We have had excellent success in combining radio advertising with radio text messaging in a campaign that thoroughly engages the audience to action.  Best yet, measurable and tangible results to maximize ROI.

Let us put the fun and innovation back into your media campaigns. Radio is everywhere and so can your message.

@radioactivemed