We've been fortunate in that we haven't really had to do any aggressive advertising in the time our business has been open. The local newspaper did an article in October when we opened, and this has essentially kept us going pretty smoothly up until now. Lately we've felt like it would be good to do a little more advertising and we've started asking around about various ad avenues. I had a couple of meetings with radio advertisers and there are a lot of options there that we are considering. We thought we'd put some of the options here in a post and see what the gut reaction is out there. We'd love your thoughts and input on this one.
The company essentially includes four different radio stations in the area, 3 FM and 1 AM. The three FM stations all broadcast in our county and hit slightly different age and gender groups. We've identified the most popular of the three already. The AM station is a new one and only really services a nearby bigger city, which would be a secondary market for us.
In January all four stations began streaming online. Programming online and on traditional radio is identical. Only the commercials are different. They also remind listeners of their streaming audio on traditional radio as well. One advertising option is to purchase monthly advertising on the streaming stations. They will develop a one-minute advertisement each week and then play it 50 times on each station online for a total of 200 ads. In a one-month period we'll get roughly 800 ads evenly distributed on all four stations. As a bonus, since there aren't 50 advertisers signed up yet we would get additional airtime for the same price.
One advantage of the online advertising is that listeners can quickly look up our website when they hear our advertisement. We would also have an ad on the websites that will link to our website.
BOTTOM LINE: 800+ ads online in one month, $1000. They would also be willing to give us 30-second spots for $500.
Doing traditional radio ads is probably beyond our budget as the minimum to develop a consistent ad campaign is in the $2000+ range each month. For between $60 and $80, though, we can sponsor the traffic during "drive time." The traffic guy in the helicopter says, "This traffic update is brought to you by so-and-so," gives the traffic report, and then reads a 15-second ad for the business. The downside is that people will have to really want to remember our business, especially since they may be stuck in the traffic Mr. Helicopter is reporting. Also, this would only be on one station, not all four.
BOTTOM LINE: Single 15-second ads during peak driving time, $60-80 per mention.
The last real option for us is to pay for 1- or 2-minute "live spots" on the morning talk show. Every day the morning show does two paid spots on some businesses. You can opt for a 1-minute bulleted list spot or do a 2-minute in-studio interview with the hosts. We would develop the talking points ahead of time in either case so we could control the content to some extent, although you can't control those crazy morning DJs. We know which station we would use since the demographics match best (plus they have about 120,000 unique listeners in any given week), and one of the DJs for that station's morning show lives in our town. I offered that I could give him a treatment prior to appearing on the show so we could talk about his experience. The ad sales rep thought this was a great idea and might be bringing him along to our follow-up meeting next week. Our big questions on this route are:
Does anyone actually listen to these morning DJs?
Do you think people are influenced to buy products or services they hear about on the air?
Will the one-time appearance spark enough interest to be worth the price?
Again, a two-minute spot gives us the chance to talk on the air with the DJs. If we buy a one-minute spot the DJs will talk through some bulleted points we discuss ahead of time, but we don't get to say anything. I heard samples of both and they did a nice, fair job with each.
BOTTOM LINE: A two-minute in-studio appearance costs $550. To do a one-minute bulleted list would be $275.
So, what do you think? We need to be frugal and get a lot of bang for our buck.
Thanks in advance for all of your ideas.
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9 comments:
Back when I was driving to work and listening to morning DJ people I investigated things they promoted all the time. I think a 2minute interview would be cool. Now that I'm not driving to work I listen to radio stations online and think the ads for the streaming stations could be a good option too.
I know nothing about business and advertising, but as a consumer and sometimes radio listener, I have to say that I would not even think twice about a casual mention--like the traffic report sponsor thing.
I agree--the 2 minute interview with a DJ who had the experience sounds pretty good, and then the online ads for the streaming stations. Do you have any idea what the "listenership" numbers for the streaming stations are like?
Oh, and I'm coming to your blog kind of late--what's your business?
I don't have a clue what your advertising budget is, but with the online route you're spending about $1.25 per ad run per minute. The talk show route is about $275 per ad per minute. And Mr. Helicopter is is about $280 per minute. So the issue for me is quality vs. quantity. Personally I would go the DJ route especially if Dr. Mark is able to provide some medical assistance.
This is a tough decision! Here's my question: Do very many people listen online? I guess that I can only speak from personal experience, but I know that I don't. But then again, maybe some people listen at their desks at work? I think that I lean toward the actual talking with the DJ if you have to choose just 1 option. Of all the times in the day when people DO listen to the DJs, it's in the morning. So here's the jist of my opinion: traffic guy = no go, online = good option depending on market, on-air interview = good option (especially with that Foley charisma!)
Thanks for the good feedback (including Greg's accounting figures). They brought me statistics for internet radio, but most are national. Roughly 20% of Americans listen to streaming radio online.Of those, most listen 4 or more days per week.
Locally the average listening time is over 3 hours per day and it's mostly between 8 am and 8 pm, so at-work listeners predominate. The online option is so new in our area that most of the data they brought is referring to hits on their websites. They say their websites have twice the traffic now compared to before they had radio available.
Other interesting demographic info:
-Internet radio users are more than twice as likely to make online purchases or visit businesses they found out about online.
-Most internet radio listeners are more middle class.
Anyway, there's what we know.
Hey, bythelbs, I just sent you an email with more info! ;)
Agreed! The DJ with the treatment prior would probably have the most "real" impact--and people listen to those morning shows, especially driving to work! How fun for you guys to be upping the advertising--I want to see a transcript when it's all said & done! Good luck :)
Hi Mark and Stacy!
I have a little experience with advertising. You can learn a little from my (few) experiences but ultimately you are going to have to learn from trial and error. Expect to pay some money for advertising and NOT have it pay off. If it does pay off that's great, but don't invest unless you are truly are willing to lose that money.
To be honest I would scrap all of these ideas and try to get another article written on you. Start sending the news stations, radios, and newspapers ideas for stories every few weeks or so. Do you have local morning talk shows? Obviously reporters have to come up with a lot of stories so they love when people help them with their job. As you know from the last article written on you, this would totally pay off.
My guess is that the ads you pay for won't pay off. They never do for me but maybe your buisness will prove to be totally different. I think the real trick to making advertising work is to do it often, but I'm still not convinced that it pays off for many many advertisers.
If you do decide to go ahead with this type of advertising choose a station that has a good website and will put your website or information on their website. The only paid advertising I've done that has even paid off a little is because of internet links. All the free advertising from articles or news clips has helped me a lot. I hope you try that but I'm sure you'll make the right decision for yourself.
It's fun to catch up on your lives here on your blog. Hope you don't mind the long post.
Wow! Thanks for the great feedback, everyone! Obviously the DJ option seems to have the most votes.
April!! Thanks for the comment! You're so right--it's hit or miss and we're learning that. We're figuring out our markets. We figure at least it's all good exposure, right?
You're so right about more news articles. That's exactly what we're trying to do. Basically our word-of-mouth advertising (best there is!) is keeping us busy and everyone's happy. We're mostly thinking that there are people out there who don't know we exist! And we're trying to reach them. Thanks SO MUCH for the insight! We appreciate it so much!
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