Radio Advertising

[spiderspider]

Does anyone have any experience of buying radio airtime? Next week I'm meeting with the sales people from a local radio station, and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice or warnings.

Radio station covers half the county, and I'll be advertising a service business.

Company name is radio friendly.

Never advertised on radio before.

Thanks

 

[Retired_member41]

Whatever deal they come up with hold your ground and you will get double the ad slots for a quarter of the price.

What is it your advertising and what station is it?

 

[spiderspider]

Whatever deal they come up with hold your ground and you will get double the ad slots for a quarter of the price.

What is it your advertising and what station is it?

Thanks.

I've heard a few people say never take what they first offer. Never knew it could be quite that much though. I love a good haggle (hate it when people make an offer on ebay then vanish, or sellers on Sedo who only know how to type one price) so that should play to one of my strengths.

Won't say in the open what it is that I'll be advertising, or where. It's my main income business.

 

[khalid]

Just about to sign up at £5k a month myself.

Got some good advice from other advertisers;

- consistency is key - get it aired long term and regularly
- keep it simple - make it easy to remember and not too annoying
- slots - ask the station for cheap filler slots where they have a space as part of your package
- price - never accept the first or second price

 

[SkinnerSkinner is verified member.]

I haven't used radio for domains or my own business, but have run campaigns for nightclubs, where we have had drive time DJ's plugging the event, and running adverts. Always local radio too, so some of this may not apply to national.

Its worth checking their show time demographics, to see which shows your intended customers are likely to be listening. Its no use running your ads for child minders at 3pm since your likely customers are on the school run. Its also no use running adverts for your whacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man during the pop charts or question time.

Have a listen to the shows around the time you're thinking of running it, and check if you think your targets will be listening, Compare what you hear to their demographics.

As for the money. Work on 1 month, drive the price down, imply ongoing usage and push down more, then once you've hammered the price, pull out the offer to sign up for 3 months for a bigger reduction. Negotiate, Negotiate and build some rapport, they WANT and NEED your business, so push hard.

Oh ask about last minute slots, quite often the DJ will need a filler because somethings come up or somethings delayed. These slots are usually cut down adverts, you've prob heard them yourself, the main advert is like 20-25 seconds, then you hear a cut down version which is like 10 seconds, these are often fillers (I suspect some are legit adverts), and you can get them way way cheaper, even free to keep your business.

 

[martin-s]

Interesting topic.

Any recommended contacts for following up? Do you approach stations directly?

 

[martin-s]

http://www.rab.co.uk/radio-basics/sells-radio-airtime/

 

[spiderspider]

Thanks for all the replies so far, its been a great help.

They've got back to me with their first proposal. I should say, the radio station in question is one of 4 in an independent group. So its not like a Heart FM or anything, but is the main local one.

Here's what their first offering is:

Option 1
13 week campaign
85 x 20” commercials per month
50% Prime Time
Investment = £635 + VAT per month
Total campaign cost £1,905.00

Option 2
13 week campaign
85 x 30” commercials per month
50% Prime Time
Investment = £765 + VAT per month
Total campaign cost £2,295.00

Commercial production is £250 for one commercial (either 20 or 30 seconds) or 2 commercial for £400.

I nearly fell of my chair! I know its not much, and we can afford it, but its alot more than I thought it would be. So far I've said we need to discuss this, and will get back to them in due course.

 

[martin-s]

Just for everyone's amusement, the guy from Heart Radio just called me. When I mentioned that our ideal campaign would have national coverage, he told me I'd need a budget "in the millions."

Gotta love an ambitious salesman!

 

[MurrayMurray is verified member.]

I would guess radio advertising is a waste of money compared to equivalent online advertising opportunities

But will be interesting to hear how you get on and if you feel it was worthwhile after.

 

[mojoco]

A recent article re radio advertising by Seth Godin...

"Eight years ago, I described how city-wide wifi would destroy the business of local radio. Once you have access to a million radio stations online, why would you listen to endless commercials and the top 40?

I realized last week that this has just happened. Not via wifi, but via Bluetooth and the smart phone.

The car-sharing driver (Bluetooth equipped car, with a smart phone, of course) who picked me up the other day was listening to a local radio station. It was almost as if he was smoking a pipe or driving a buggy. With so many podcasts, free downloads and Spotify stations to listen to, why? With traffic, weather and talking maps in your pocket, why wait for the announcer to get around to telling you what you need to know?

The first people to leave the radio audience will be the ones that the advertisers want most. And it will spiral down from there.

Just as newspapers fell off a cliff, radio is about to follow. It's going to happen faster than anyone expects. And of course, it will be replaced by a new thing, a long tail of audio that's similar (but completely different) from what we were looking for from radio all along. And that audience is just waiting for you to create something worth listening to."

 

[martin-s]

The only times I ever listen to the radio are:

* In the car, to and from work or wherever
* When there's a game on and I'm too busy to watch it

You can't fast forward radio. And cars aren't equipped for internet radio (and won't be for quite a while I guess).

But the sooner personalised radio happens, the better.

Give me songs from these bands and genres, plus a traffic bulletin for wherever I am whenever I turn the radio on please

 

[Retired_Member38]

I switch between one or two local radio stations and a USB stick with this on it.

 

[khalid]

I thought radio was dead, then I remembered:

1. The taxi company that became the city's biggest provider after their amusing ad impregnated their telephone number into your brain

2. The legal firm that was recession proof and has grown massively. We now use them as our solicitors

3. The numerous web companies whose adverts I hate

All of the above happened recently, not before spotify etc.

I hardly listen to the radio but I managed to remember the above from 1 local station.

Radio should be "part" of your campaign.

 

[martin-s]

Did you get anywhere with this spider?

 

[spiderspider]

Did you get anywhere with this spider?

Yes! and no.......

We've been on a bit of a quiet spell the last 6 weeks, so I'm looking for more 'Individual' clients, rather than corporate (service industry), hence why I wanted to do the advertising.

Then last week we had something like 10 quote requests come in, with 5 being accepted, so quiet has now gone out the window. Plus a Google birdy update has pushed some of our 'local' sites higher, and we are now generating at least a call a day off these.

In amongst all of this, the radio people called back last week, just at that point where I'm in the middle of 18 jobs, and have 2 staff training. I wanted them off the phone ASAP so I could crack on. They said they would look at the figures and get back to me, I said I'm not wanting to do anything until after Christmas now.

They said that was cool, and it would work well for them, sounded a bit like some of their current advertisers hadn't renewed for the new year.

At least they are still talking, and willing to look at the numbers. Hopefully, they will come back with an offer I can't refuse, and It will be all systems go for the New Year.

 

[martin-s]

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