The radio is a powerful tool––and we don’t just mean for burgeoning pop stars. Radio provides an excellent advertising medium for small businesses or even larger entities looking to expand their customer base. Just imagine how many people you can reach with one on-air ad. If your company is in a city where a large number of people travel by car––big cities such as Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, or Los Angeles––radio is a prime platform for getting your message and company name out there. This is why targeted radio ads are som important.
In one week, over 239 million people listen to the radio and have the potential to hear your advertisement, reports Arbitron. This number alone makes radio a promising platform for your business’s advertising, and that’s without considering new modes of streaming.
In addition to traditional radio advertisements, accessed mostly in the car by morning and evening commuters, advancing technology and the ubiquitous nature of the internet has prompted most radio stations to now offer a live stream of their programming online, reaching even more local and national audiences and casting an even wider net of potential consumers for your company. Plus, if your on-air advertising piques online listeners’ interests, they’ve got instant easy access to your website via click-through ads and other strategic ad elements such as vanity URLs. The reach of radio advertising is bigger than it ever has been before, and is prime for your taking!
While radio provides a promising advertising medium for small and large businesses, making sure your radio campaign is effective––and doesn’t just go in one ear and out the other––and within your budget is key to driving consumers to check out your business and services. Here are 5 basic guidelines to buying radio ads.
Purchasing air-time with a small budget
The first step to purchasing air-time at the most cost efficient rate is to do your research, have plenty of turnaround time when booking your ads, and look into negotiating a longer-term (3 to 6 months) or yearly contract to save money. Radio stations often have discounts for companies committed to longer contracts up front. Not to mention with a long-term contract in place, you’re guaranteed the agreed upon rate beforehand and are not subject to price increases as time goes by.
You can also get creative with purchasing air space for your advertisements by offering to swap merchandise or services that the station can use as promotional give aways in exchange for air-time or on-air mentions. Radio stations may be open to out-of-the-box arrangements like bartering for airtime; don’t be afraid to get creative when approaching stations.
Determining length of radio ad
The standard air-time commercial is usually 60 seconds in length, but stations often offer shorter commercial options for advertisers with smaller budgets. The cost for a 30 second, 15 second, or 10 second ad is much lower than the standard 1 minute of air-time, and there may also be a company name-only option such as sponsoring the news segment of a radio show, and in exchange, the station will mention your business on air. Different stations may offer different options, so check around and consider negotiating the length of your ad to fit within your budget. If you can get your message across in less time, shorter advertisements at a lower cost may be your best bet.
Deciding on what time slot to purchase
Prime time slots to air your traditional radio advertising would be in the morning or early evening when a big majority of folks are in their cars, listening to the radio as they commute to work. For online radio, most listeners tune into their music stream mid-morning as they get settled at their desks and late afternoon as a post-lunch pick-me-up. You can choose to purchase air time for your ads during these slots, but they’ll come at a premium price. If your budget allows for it, then these peak hours are ideal for having your company message heard by as many ears as possible.
However, many small businesses may not have the budget for a premium slot, and there are excellent alternatives that will cost less but can be just as effective, such as rotator ads. The cost is less because your advertisement is given a window of time in which it can run (you’re not guaranteed a specific time slot), and though perhaps smaller in chance, your ad may just be aired during commute hours without the premium price tag.
The other option for purchasing time slots with a small budget is to choose off-peak days and hours. These would be time slots with less demand––but consequently, also less people tuning in. Mid-day and late evenings on weekdays or air time on the weekends will be priced lower than other time slots. This is always an option if you don’t have a lot to spend, but to get the most bang for your buck, lean more toward online radio advertising for these fringe times as there’s a higher chance that more people are streaming music through their computers and devices at this hour than are in the car with the radio on.
Considering what radio stations to purchase ads with
Before any type of negotiation takes place, research and pinpoint your target market. You must have a clear understanding of the audience that you are trying to reach. Start by drafting up a listener profile for your business: the age, gender, whether or not you need local listeners, and maybe even the income bracket of your prospective customers. This will give you a better picture of your target audience. Provide this listener profile to the sales representatives from the radio stations you’re looking into and they can tell you if their listener demographics match your desired consumer base and, ideally, pinpoint which programs at what time of day have a larger percentage of listeners that match your criteria.
For instance, if your business specializes in paraphernalia aimed at teens, you would not want to purchase ad space with a radio show that airs mid-morning on weekdays, because that’s when teens are in school and won’t be listening.
Strategic research is vital to narrowing down the best radio station to purchase advertising space from. Keep your consumer base and the demographics of the radio show and station in mind, and find the perfect match to run your advertisement.
Tracking results of your radio ads
Now that you’ve done all the groundwork for your radio ads, it’s time to see your hard work at play and measure the results and reach of your advertisement. The two most effective and simple ways to track your radio ads results in terms of visibility and increased traffic to your company website are:
1. Include redirects or vanity URLS in your ad
These are easy to remember or catchy URL addresses that play during your radio advertisement and serve as a call to action prompting listeners to check out your website. Pick a URL that listeners will easily recall and be able to type in quickly to be redirected to your site.
You can add specific coding with tracking parameters to your vanity URL, such as the name of the radio ads that ran or the station that aired it, so that you can monitor incoming traffic entering via the link, or if you’d like an alternative to attaching tracking code to the URL, you can also monitor traffic levels after your ad has aired. There should be a noticeable spike of people checking out your page if the vanity URL is successful––how big of a spike will correlate to how effective your advertising was in reaching listeners and driving people to your website.
2. Include unique coupon codes
Offering listeners a redeemable discount code that is unique to your radio ads is a simple, clear way to track purchases from customers who found their way to your website or business via your on-air advertisement.
Just remember to make the code easy to recall and listener-friendly! Don’t air a coupon code during your radio ad that is a jumble of numbers. No one will be able to remember it. Use something short and simple.
Keep these 5 basic guidelines for buying radio ads in mind when setting out to purchase air space and reap the benefits of the wide reach of both traditional and online radio for your business.
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