Radio advertising

[smecouriers]

Hi there just new to the forum i've been offered 65 adds a week to run day and night on a local radio station for £200 a week

Its an advert that will be sung with a decent jingle for 30 seconds any help on this will be much appreciated as soon as you can please.

What i need to know is does radio adverting work for you how many of you have had success on local radio, will i make my money back.

Thanks in advance for your reply's

 

[extremedistro]

that price seems cheap enough to give it ago....

If its a local service and relavant to the public then yeah, although its like advertsing in papers.... someone usually needs to see an advert 3 times before it will stick in the mind and they will come back to it.... same with radio, you may need to run if for a while before you have a responce

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Its an advert that will be sung with a decent jingle for 30 seconds

The ad's going to be a piece of crap.

will i make my money back.

What would have to happen for you to get your money back (i.e. break even)?

Steve

 

[360interactive]

The ad's going to be a piece of crap.

what makes you say this?

 

[14A]

What are/local radio stationis offering that? Seems cheap, I' give it go providing youve done your research

 

[streetslocal]

what station?

 

[Esk247]

The ad's going to be a piece of crap.



What would have to happen for you to get your money back (i.e. break even)?

Steve

crap? probably! but Yorkshire Coast Radio have jingle based tat and the locals can't get enough of it..Radio One? PFFT no way! Yorkshire Coast up here. 'Keep Ya Oven Nice n Clean, Get A Quote from Mr Mean...Mr Mean Cook n Clean' <<< makes you wanna shoot yourself!

(note..thats not an actual company, but the essence of the jingle is identical to that played on radio)

 

[directmarketingadvice]

what makes you say this?

It's a sucker deal.

The station is offering to create the ad in order to get the sale. It's the sale they care about, not the quality of the ad.

So will the ad be (a) a good, well researched sales piece or (b) a piece of crap they knock out quickly?

Answers on a postcard...

Steve

 

[360interactive]

It's a sucker deal.

The station is offering to create the ad in order to get the sale. It's the sale they care about, not the quality of the ad.

So will the ad be (a) a good, well researched sales piece or (b) a piece of crap they knock out quickly?

Answers on a postcard...

Steve

As i thought, but thankyou for expanding.

 

[14A]

Thats very true.

I'd suggest do your own ad or hear the ad before paying. At that kind of price, I would seek a way to make it work

 

[Duke Fame]

It's a sucker deal.

The station is offering to create the ad in order to get the sale. It's the sale they care about, not the quality of the ad.

So will the ad be (a) a good, well researched sales piece or (b) a piece of crap they knock out quickly?

Answers on a postcard...

Steve

That's a rather offhand way of looking at it.

I'm no marketing guru but as long as you have the chance to quality control it, you only have yourself to blame if it's crap. Give a clear idea of what you are looking for, even thrash out a script with people you know or someone who is good at marketing (there must be some on here). Listen to the ads and hear what works and what doesn't. Those autoglass ads on radio for instance may be anoying but they get the message accross about chips on windscreens.

I say to the marketing people in our business to look at things financially.
To make your money back you have to value how much a new customer is worth and then the contribution (profit) that customer is worth over what period. Will this media get to new customers, if so, how many? So, you are spending £200, say each new customer will bring £20 profit, then the question is will the adverts bring in 10 new customers, if so, go for it, if not, don't.

There is a liitle more to add but I've got to go.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I say to the marketing people in our business to look at things financially.
To make your money back you have to value how much a new customer is worth and then the contribution (profit) that customer is worth over what period. Will this media get to new customers, if so, how many? So, you are spending £200, say each new customer will bring £20 profit, then the question is will the adverts bring in 10 new customers, if so, go for it, if not, don't.

I know all this. That's why I asked that question in my first post.

Steve

 

[Duke Fame]

I know all this. That's why I asked that question in my first post.

Steve

Golly Glibbo, I was helping the original poster not addressing you, my only point to yourself was that you seemed a little offhand when all the OP was asking for a bit of help. If I was to fully address you, I'd have thought as someone who's work revolves around marketing and has all the qualifications (although I'm not sure the CIM exams go beyond "Let's run that idea up a flagpole and see if it flies") would have put a bit more effort into a marketing query.

I hope you aren't going to get another thread closed down due to your egregious personality. I'm sure we can offer advice, debate and even argue without the aggression, the moderators were quite right to pull the last thread because of the name-calling but it was a shame that a good debate had to end through playground antics.

 

[Network Yorkshire]

Hi Guys,

i worked in radio for a few years and now work in marketing so would be happy to give as much free help and support as possible if you'd like to send me a PM...

 

[smecouriers]

hi and thanks for the replys steve. but the advert sounds quite good profesional and original with music and talking. but i'm asking if anyone thinks it will work at 200 quid a week 65 slots day and night.
not if you yhink its crap cos you mite think its cheaper than what you can do etc.
I'm just asking if 65 slots a week will generate 10 new customers or 50 customers.
by the way yorkshire coast radio didnt even bother getting back to me which stations in and around yorkshire would you say where the best apart from york.
As yorkshire upto durham is where im advertising

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Golly Glibbo, I was helping the original poster not addressing you.

You quoted me. I guess that's not addressing me... in "bizarro world".

(or wherever you live)

I suggest you stick to your day job... whatever that is.

Steve

 

[directmarketingadvice]

hi and thanks for the replys steve. but the advert sounds quite good profesional and original with music and talking.

"Sounding professional" and "generating response" are two different things.

Judging by your business name, I'd guess you offer courier services to SMEs. If that's the case, do you want a catchy slogan that the general (i.e. non-business) listeners might remember? Or something that's going to frab the attention of the handful of business owners listening?

but i'm asking if anyone thinks it will work at 200 quid a week 65 slots day and night.

It depends on how many customers you need to make it work?

Also, what's the breakdown of the time slots? "65 day and night" might mean 60 at night and 5 mid-morning.

not you yhink its crap cos you mite think its cheaper than what you can do etc.

It's not whether it's cheaper than what I'd do, it's looking at the deal and estimating how much time they're going to put into it. I'm going to suggest the answer to that is "not much".

I'm just asking if 65 slots a week will generate 10 new customers or 50 customers.

See above.

by the way yorkshire coast radio didnt even bother getting back to me

If they can't be bothered getting back to you, do you think they would have put much effort into your ad?

A lot of radio stations put together these packages that are intended to sound great... as long as you don't think about it. The fact that you wanted to think about it may have made you an unattractive prospect.

Steve

 

[BrecklandGroup]

Well, we used to advertise on VibeFM, a local radio station here in Norfolk.

Was £755 a month to sponsor the Weather forecast , advert designed by the radio station with our sign off.

Had great results, roughly £4,000 a month a new sales.

We found the Radio station very good, they had a huge vested interest in the advert being good, as they wanted our repeat business. And they certainly knew a lot more about radio ad's than we did.

The product was Audio Conferencing, and we attracted some pretty big clients from the Adverts, B&Q being one. We also attracted the interest of a rival company, who went on to purchase us outright, so local radio advertisng can work. If your only tied in for one month, i would give it go.

 

[Ashley_Price]

This sounds a very cheap deal (note I said "cheap", not "good value").

I have a friend who used to be an independent TV/video/radio producer, and the absolute minimum for producing a radio ad would be £500 (and this was four or five years ago)!

So, I do have to agree with Steve Gibson!

Sorry, but I think you'd prefer an honest answer.

Remember: others who might say it seems like a good deal aren't spending their money or using the resulting ad to publicise their business.

 

[Duke Fame]

Yes it does sounds a very cheap deal but I'd also say cheap does not mean rubbish or good value. It's likely to be a hook to bring you in but that is not to say you shouldn't try it.

It goes back to my point and something Steve mentioned, how much profit will one cutomer give you? That is not to say how much profit in one order but in your business a customer comes back time and time again so you are looking at the profit that customer gives over a lifetime. Accountants look at it in Net present value terms but we're very dull. The simple question is how many cutomers will you need to recover £200?

The next question is down to the radio station, does it hit enough of your potential market? You already mention Radio York being the bigger station, will small business owners (assuming your target market) be listenting to the radio station going in or out of work? You can ask the radio station for demographics but a chat to friends or mentioning it to customers will give you an idea of who listens.

The radio station will help you with the ad but the same rules apply to all adverts. Why will the listener call you? Are you just going to rely on the awareness an ad will give you which may get you a response. Can you give something away free? I.e. is there something in it for the listener, register with your website for a chance to win something etc. Why will the listener in 30 seconds decide to ditch his / her current courier for you?

 

[Duke Fame]

Another point is at £200 the radio station is making a loss, however, hey want you to come back for more so it is in their interests that you make more than £200 out of it.

 

[davbusnet]

Tryed local Radio ads with transport business back 2002, focused b2c, tripled turned turnover in 6 months cost £99 +vat per week 12 month contract the only trouble is if you stop people think you have gone bust, tryed again in 2006, b2c, with bathroom business, not such good return cost £170+vat per week very little return.

Make sure your jingle is right for you and your product (make the ad people work for, do not take the first offering and test it on everybody you can before saying yes), make sure you get the stats from the station, you will find that they fill any unsold airtime with the the deals that they are trying to set up, divide 168 hours in week by 65, you might end up with 9 or 10 ads a day between 0200-0530 when everyone is tucked in bed.
If it works, can u handle the increased workload, because the work will come in pretty fast.

My experience and thoughts

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Another point is at £200 the radio station is making a loss, however, hey want you to come back for more so it is in their interests that you make more than £200 out of it.

One would hope so.

However, you could say the same about the Yellow Pages, but look at the ads they do for their customers.

There's a lot of short-sightedness. There are also people who know how to sell advertising slots, are well meaning, but have no clue how to put together a good ad.

There are a lot of pitfalls.

IMO, it'll all come down to

(a) the numbers (how many enquiries you need)

(b) the actual time slots you're being offered (if they have a business programme and you're being offered those slots, they'll be worth a lot more than slots during "Goth Hour")

(c) the quality of the ad/sales message.

If all these pieces make it seem a decent punt, then think about it. Otherwise, I'd probably walk away.

Steve

 

[SmilePrint]

Sorry to bust in but.....

Is this even the right question to be asking?

Whether it is good value or not depends entirely on the response.... which partly depends on the quality(questioned already)... but ALSO partly depends on the audience.

I might get an ad in a media for £10 for massive coverage, but if I'm advertising "waterpumps" and the media has a "bicycle" audience The price value question is irrelevant.

Are you therefore persuaded (not by the smooth salesman) the media audience has sufficient need/demand for your services? how many potential buyers are you reaching? How many using an existing competitor could you target?

I could continue to talk about scheduling your ads also for a greater impact (24 ads between 12 midnight and 6 am wont be heard by too many folk!!) etc etc, but Steve and others here provide a full blown service for this type of thing.

My 2 bits. STOP. THINK. don't be carried away by the romance of getting your ad out until you are convinced it WILL get you a response. Don't even be carried away by thinking you're CocaCola and you ads "build your brand". Response ads are the only ones most of us should look for today. Make sure you sign any contract based on response, so you can pull out if it doesn't deliver.

regards

brendan

 

[smecouriers]

hi there and thanks for the replys
The shedules they sent me are between 06.25 and 21.58 theyve gave me a few extra ones a day
Any extra work will be sub-contracted to other members of some courier and trade exchanges im a me member of.
I think il give it a go.

Thanks

 

[virtuallysorted]

Hey no harm in trying - how are you going to track the response? How many calls do you usually get a week and are you going to ask everyone who calls where they heard about you?

However, being a former ad-girl, I'd be pretty sceptical about this generating a response. Radio is fantastic for B2C sales and say if you have a travel agency which is advertising your phones will light up every single time the ad runs... B2B courier services? Not so much.

What you want is to analyse who listens to this station and if they match your profile (local radio station playing in the office where the office manager is sitting - might work!). Then you need to check when the ad is playing and how often it's being played (OTH). If you are scheduled in drive time, you'll be being heard by XXX number of people, if you are scheduled mainly for evenings you'll be heard by X number of people who are of zero consequence to you coz you want the office crowd!

Production on local radio is usually mega cheap - they usually do it inhouse and it's not so bad. It's no worse than anything else that's running on the station anyway!

 

[BrecklandGroup]

We always use a new number for all advertising sources which is trackable in realtime. Customer calls a number, goes into a SQL server before being forwarded to the real number. Customer is totally unaware, but you can get some great reporting from the system.

 

[Rienne]

I've done a fair bit of this, here's a bit of input based on the things I learned:

- You don't say how many weeks you are running for? But 65 ads a week is an average of almost 10 a day, self evidently, which is quite a lot, especially if the ad is the same, and more so if it runs for a few weeks. It could become boring for the listener. However a campaign of one week is really a waste of time. You need at least a four week campaign to get enough repeat listens for the message to go in. I would prefer 200 over two weeks, not one. Better still, 400 over four weeks.

- If you adopt that, then you will need up to four ads recorded, over a common theme, which you either rotate through the whole campaign; or run sequentially one week after another.

- Most local radio stations will admit, if pushed, that their core listeners are daytime. Hardly anyone listens after drivetime, so you really need to get from them how many ads you are going to get in peak (breakfast, drivetime); daytime; and low (evening/night). Then work up the costs against their ratecard.

- Make sure you have a memorable telephone number. Really memorable (2 x 3 digits eg 678 678) . Make sure your website is tip top and, again, a memorable url - and include it in the ad.

- Radio is much better if backed up with hard copy ads of another form; either local paper, local free magazines (but I would say that..), or, as it is B2B, a targeted mailshot/leaflet campaign. All of this should be on the same theme as your radio campaign so the message is reinforced.

- 30 seconds is not a lot. You will almost certainly try to put too much in the ad. I have used, to good effect, a graduated campaign, which has say week 1&2 @ 40 seconds, week 3 @ 30 seconds and week 4 @ 20 seconds, the latter being a cut-down version of the previous ads.

- As with anything, a bit of prior research is useful. Have you listened to the station? Are there other B2B businesses already advertising? If so try to speak to them to ask how it is working. Do you know their target audience? Are the decision-makers you are trying to reach listening to it? Or are their admin/despatch managers?

- do they have a business programme which you can be interviewed on? Do you have any content at all which would be useful for them to feature as editorial? Can you sponsor an editorial slot eg the business news afterwards to keep the momentum?

Good luck with it whatever you decide to do.