While that post-pimply young person who doesn’t wear socks is telling you about the great benefits of digital marketing and Google ad words, I thought I would tell you about how radio works.
In a previous post I talked about “analogue marketing” and the evaluation I made of many months for Junk mail – I still keep my watch – I wanted to tell you about radio and how it really works. We built our brand in Melbourne on radio, and as we approach a 20 year anniversary I thought I would talk about it.
Firstly, be prepared to spend a lot of money to get on a platform where it works. If you can’t get through the idea that you have to do this to be a radio brand then don’t start the journey. We were lucky in the sense that we got traction with our ad, but generally you need to stay the course.
Secondly, 30 seconds is both a long time and short time. The creative people need to have as much about you and the brand as possible. I have learnt that writing a radio ad is as much about making sure that the creative people understand your soul and deep passion, because the right people can reflect that passion in an ad. Be prepared to be open in what is presented to you, and also know that you need to risk the creative from time to time.
Thirdly – don’t expect that YOU should make the ad. People like Frank Walker and Franco Cozzo don’t come along too often. We have used a couple of great people and getting that right is fundamental. “Hi I’m Simone from Your Business Angels” came at a time when we couldn’t get a breakthrough – I pushed an ad script to her and said “you read it”. The logical choice would be to use a professional voice, but Simone also works here and is as passionate as hell about helping people.
Fourth – You need to be really mainstream, where there is a strong audience. Get to reading surveys and demographics as they are truly accurate (as opposed to the bullshit Facebook feeds you), you may have 2 stations that cut across the same demographic – so keep a pulse on it. Basically what I’m saying is that a low-audience/low-cost radio station isn’t going to give you a real taste of what can happen.
Fifth – And this is the real cool part about radio advertising. Most media; TV, Digital, etc. require someone to react to the ad, they see it and call or fill in an inquiry form and you hope that in these Media realms it will happen.
Not in Radio.
Radio will have you spending a ton of money advertising, but while it can be a “call to action thing” you are also building and placing the ad in someone’s head, in a way you are parking the ad in someone’s “mind shelf” as it was once explained to me. You take over a part of their brain.
So when they need your product, the ad triggers something else, it triggers a different reaction and they know who to call.
When we talk to prospects they always say, I should have called you years ago, I have been listening to your ad and cringing for a year. Many pull out a piece of paper with our number and they say, I wrote this down 6 months ago, and perhaps it was a phone call from the ATO that meant that we were parked in their mind shelf and they called us.
Radio is a great media. Used effectively it will always cost you a lot, and the people that work in it are passionate as hell, or they can’t survive there. If you want to consider it, give us a call at Your Business Angels, there may be more I can share with you.
