There are a couple of truths regarding your advertising options you should know:
- The options for advertising are changing every few months.
- Despite the advent of these new options, we are still figuring out how to make them work and how to measure the results.
- The old options are still good options, if you know their strengths and limitations.
Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads, wrote this which was in my email last week:
Two Ways to Make Radio Work
Avoid disappointment make sure you do it right.
Radio can be successfully used for short-term or long-term campaigns.
But the only thing more frustrating than trying to use short-term techniques in a long-term campaign is trying to use long-term techniques in the short term. Do you understand the rules for when and how to use each?
A short-term Radio campaign must have a highly relevant offer. When planning a short-term Radio blitz, the first question you must ask yourself is, “Will people listening want what this ad is selling?” If the answer is “no,” then you must make a stronger offer.
Second, this highly relevant offer must have a definite time limit. Don’t expect the listener to “act now” when you have given them no reason to do so.
Third, your highly-relevant offer-with-a-time-limit must be given plenty of frequency. The mind of today’s listener is overcrowded. Few messages are acted upon when encountered only once. So how much frequency is enough frequency when you’re trying to make miracles happen quickly? “Just a little bit more.”
Most Radio sales reps can tell success stories about short-term miracles that happened as a result of using their station. But these stories often backfire as they imply that “these same things will happen for you, too, if you buy my station,” and no consideration is given to the power of the ad.
But the only thing more frustrating than using short-term techniques on a long- term basis is using long-term techniques in the short-term.
Long-term Radio is a magnificent investment because of the intrusive nature of sound. Were you aware that sight and sound are stored, processed, and retrieved from memory in entirely separate parts of your brain? Did you know that the average person can sing more than 2,000 songs they never intended to learn? Yes, echoic retention (auditory memory) is a powerful tool if only you understand it. Do you?
Long-term Radio is perhaps the ultimate branding tool since the objective of branding is to be the name that people think of immediately, and feel best about, when they finally need what you sell. Consequently, it is essential in a branding campaign that your message not be easily erased from the mind. But the brain automatically erases every message containing a deadline once that deadline has passed. Consequently, long-term “branding” campaigns cannot use messages containing deadlines or time limits. Short- term campaigns cannot be successful without them.
Additionally, long-term campaigns require week-to-week consistency more than weekly frequency; but in a short-term campaign, weekly frequency is everything. Finally, long-term campaigns don’t require ads with high impact, but short-term campaigns can hardly succeed without them.
Because short-term Radio and long-term Radio have very little in common, most reps have unconsciously chosen to specialize in one or the other.
Make sure the rep who takes your money, understands both.
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