The Side Note

We’ve seen increased interest in clients considering radio advertising as part of their integrated marketing mix. Radio is an affordable advertising outlet. Since radio is genre segmented, you are able to target your audience effectively based on interests. It is hard to beat the value of a well-produced radio campaign in terms of delivering a targeted, impactful message to a wide audience.

With that in mind, we have created our top ten keys to successful radio advertising. We are separating them into two categories. The first five tips in this blog are related to radio planning, the next five coming out on Thursday will be related to radio advertising execution.

1. Theater of the mind

Radio is an entirely audio medium. it is important to use concepts and words that create imagery to tell a story. A great example is the recent competition held by Frontier Airlines for their new ‘spokesanimal.’ Not only did these ads effectively introduce you to the contestants, listeners were encouraged to vote on line for their favorite and we even able to take part in the unveiling of the winner. (It was Polly the Parrot.)

2. Clever, but not too high brow

You must engage your audience quickly and entertain them. One of the more successful radio ad campaigns we’ve heard is Bud Light’s Real Men of Genius campaign. These ads pseudo-glorify the jobs nobody pays attention to (parking lot flashlight waver) or the bizarre character traits of an eccentric (office party over hugger.) These ads grab attention, entertain, deliver the product information and have an effective jingle. That combination is hard to beat.

3. Action/interaction

Effective radio encourages the audience to take action, we’ve seen some great success with radio remotes. The driving force of the success is the radio personality inviting the listener to a location to interact with the station. These are great additions to community events, health fairs and grand openings.

4. Delicate balance of logical and emotional appeals

When you are trying to persuade an audience to act, you must remember that people react based on emotions, then justify their actions with logic and fact.  If your ad is based on emotion, it will set-off alarms when listeners try to justify logically. Conversely, a logical advertising message with no emotional appeal won’t create enough desire to act by the audience. An effective radio ad will create the right balance between logic and emotion in order to persuade.

5. Radio is a frequency medium

If you buy TV advertising, you are reaching the broadest audience, if you send mail, you can target your message to a specific audience. Radio is the blend, you reach more people that mail, but the listeners have common interests for targeting purposes. In order for radio to be effective, you need to purchase a schedule that will reach a significant portion of your target market enough times to be memorable.

If you have tight budgets, don’t be worried about trying to have some activity in the market over a long period of time. It makes much more sense to focus on a shorter period of time you can own and create memorable messages that encourage action, you’ll get results. Those results can enable the purse strings to loosen up for more budget as you’ll see better ROI.

Come back on Thursday when we reveal the remaining tips focused on executing effective radio ads.