This is an article on Radio Marketing Strategies during an economic recession that I wrote recently for my company, Xeal. If any of you are pursuing a media marketing campaign, you'll find it useful. Enjoy.

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Last time, we talked about the emotional appeal of advertising on TV. This time, we'll talk about a great way to educate your customers on your products or services: Radio Marketing.

In the recent SIMM 11 study conducted by BIGresearch, it was shown that 44.2 percent of consumers who hear information that interests them on the radio go online to look into the product or service further. Further studies showed that 22 percent to 28 percent (depending on the industry) of consumers go on to buy the product that caught their attention.

A recent recession marketing survey by BtoB Magazine shows that companies who normally invest in radio advertising are estimated to cut back in 2008 by 10 percent. So what does that mean for the clever business owner?

It means you can acquire one of the most powerful marketing tools for influencing buying decisions at a significant discount this year.

When radio stations experience a 10 percent loss in revenue, slots that are normally extremely competitive or pricey become available at discounted rates. So how do you take advantage of this?

Negotiate with your radio stations. Radio stations may claim that their prices are fixed, but any good salesperson will adjust their pricing in order to close the deal, especially when their revenues are down.

One of the best ways to increase your buying power is to offer to increase the duration of your marketing campaign in exchange for a lower rate. For example, rather than buying a 13 week campaign at $1,500 a week, offer to commit to a 26 week campaign at $1,200 a week. You'll save $7,800, which is like getting five weeks of valuable advertising for free, and the station gets the extra revenue they need.

Another powerful buying method is to negotiate to buy filler inventory. Radio stations often have 10 to 15 seconds where they have to push filler in order to start a show on time. Those 10 to 15 seconds could easily be your ad at a significant discount.

Try AM radio. News, sports, and talk radio have amazing followings, and unlike FM or music radio stations, their listeners are much less likely to surf stations and are much more likely to be attentive to ads they hear.

So now that you've landed a sweet deal for your marketing campaign, how do you maximize returns on your investment?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Keep your ads simple. Don't try to cram too much information into your ad space. I say that for two reasons. First, you don't want to confuse your listeners. Second, curiosity is one of the most powerful tools in marketing. You want to grab their attention. Pique their curiosity to the point that they'll call the number or visit the website you mention in your ad.

For example, if you sell pizza, you might structure the last few seconds of your ad like this: "Free BOBBY'S Pizza today! Find out more at 918-555-1212. Call now! Tulsa's best pizza…guaranteed. That's 918-555-1212." Now, don't you want to find out how to get a free pizza?

And remember to mention your contact information twice. They won't be ready to take it down the first time, and odds are, they'll be scrambling for a pen. The second time you mention your contact information, they'll be ready.

Most importantly, avoid confusing domain names or names that are difficult to spell. It's better to buy an expensive domain name than to spend $15,000 on radio advertising for a website no one can spell. Be creative with your domain names and avoid domains with the word "and," confusing symbols like dashes or underscores, and the number 4.

At Xeal every commercial ends with "Visit Xeal online at X E A L dot com…that's Zeal with an X, and X E A L dot com." In this case we actually spell it out for the listeners.

Also, a great way to track your ad response is ask your radio station for permission to use their name in your tracking URLs. Using our pizza example earlier, you could use "KFAQ LOVES PIZZA dot com." Saying that in a commercial would be much easier than saying "BOBBY'S Italian Eatery dot com."

If they say no, then try something like "TULSA LOVES PIZZA dot com," or make it campaign specific: "TULSA FREE PIZZA dot com" or "5 BUCK PIZZA NOW dot com." Notice I say "buck" instead of "dollar" so that people won't confuse the word for the dollar symbol when entering the address.

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That's it for today. Hope you all find this useful.

Cheers,
Jonathan Cox

hello. i read you this and you're other strategies post. very impressive, thanks for the good information.

i'm a retailer whose thinking of marketing on the radio. do you have any suggestions?

Dear Sephiroth,

Actually yes, I do. If you're a retailer, one of the biggest draws you can offer as a hook for people to view your website is online coupons, or better still, sales calendars coupled with coupons.

People love to save money, especially now, in the information age. Everything is so competitive. Customer service and value set retailers apart from their peers. That's what the calendar and coupon convey to them. Also, it gives you a way of tracking your marketing campaign: You'll be able to see who's visiting your website by who brings your online coupons into the store.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Jonathan Cox

thank you.

can you help me make a calender for my website?

Dear Sephiroth,

Private message me if you'd like to set up a consultation.

Cheers,
Jonathan Cox

good info for sure

__________________
I'm a marketing consultant with AT&T.

I specialize in Search Engine Marketing, and YellowPages.com

If your business needs customers, I can help!

Thanks!

~Jonathan

No problem

__________________
I'm a marketing consultant with AT&T.

I specialize in Search Engine Marketing, and YellowPages.com

If your business needs customers, I can help!

Thank you very much for this info. I might as well try radio marketing. =)

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Great info on radio ads. Radio ads, something very much on my mind much of the time. I joined this forum today and I am just jumping around on the different threads seeing where I can put in my thoughts. As I mentioned on my intro, we are a weather forecasting company that provides indepth weather forecasts/consultations to clients across the U.S. and the Caribbean. One our our client groups are radio stations. Some of our radio stations compensate us with radio air time. I then sell that radio air time to businesses looking for great rates on radio ads. So far our clients have been shocked by our pricing. (some thinking too good to be true but we are only trying to recoup our expenses of preparing the forecast). We are also unique because we have 20 radio stations in the New England Market, so when clients sign on they can have their ads read across the dial on 5 to 20 stations depending upon their target area and such.

I joined the forum for a couple reasons: One of the main reasons I joined the forum was to assist on threads about insurance since I have 16 years experience in the group insurance/financial services world.

The second reason was to monitor what businesses are discussing to see what will be the next "idea or thing" and hopefully be able to offer great radio advertising campaigns to those businesses.

We have more radio stations calling each week and asking us to sign them up for barter (which means they will compensate with radio ads). Once we get our current barter stations rolling at a steady pace, I expect to ad more stations across the US.

Jackie

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Radio Ads and Weather Forecasts