How to Design a Radio Marketing Campaign

New Media Marketing Techniques Might Flop on Old Media

In a June 2005 study conducted by Millward Brown and Information Resources, Inc. for Radio Ad Lab, the results showed radio advertisers reaped a 49 percent better return on investment than they did with comparable television ads. And this is before you take into account less expensive radio ad rates. But, you may as well throw your advertising dollars directly into the trash if you don't carefully create your radio marketing campaign.

Things You'll Need

• Your product's radio advertising tag line
• No more than two scripts for 15-second radio advertising spots
• At least four to six scripts for 30-second radio advertising spots

Instructions

1. Determine your radio marketing campaign budget. You have a limited budget to spend on radio commercials. You must determine your radio marketing campaign budget before you do anything else.

2. Identify the target radio station--the station your best customers most often listen to (Hint: Ask them).

3. Identify which programs on the target radio station your best customers most often listen to.

4. Meet with the radio station you identified and select the most effective ad package your advertising budget can afford. This ad package should focus on the most popular programs of your best customers.

5. Find out the length of your spots. You'll find you'll most likely get an advertising package of either 15-second ads or 30-second ads or some combination of both. With multiple spots, you can rotate multiple ads, each spotlighting a different benefit.

6. Place the 15-second spots in rotation (if more than one) at the end or the beginning of each transition during the show (usually at the top or bottom of the hour).

7. Place the 30-second spots in rotation no more frequently than every 20 minutes during the peak listening hours and no less than once every two hours during the remaining portion of the programming day.

8. To measure the success of your program, measure how often radio listeners act on your call to action.

Tips & Warnings

• Academic studies--and real world experience--suggest that a prospect must hear your product's name, on average, eight times before making a decision to purchase. You must plan on an ad program to meet this need. Before you start this process, your firm must already have either a tag line (your "elevator sound bite") or a jingle. A call to action can include a suggestion to call a telephone number, visit a specific web page or attend a specific event.

• Effective radio advertising takes time (and money). Don't buy just one spot and expect clients to rain on you. You can find very inexpensive radio ad rates at smaller stations. However, you must avoid the temptation to save money only to find your target demographic listens on the other end of the dial. Try to keep the rotation limited to three benefits or you risk muddling your message. Many radio advertising campaigns either fail to include a call to action or offer only a weak one. Your call to action must be specific, timely and measurable.

Resources

• Radio Ad Lab