Strategic Radio Advertising

A Continuing Series With Dr. Greg Cynaumon, ROI Media Direct (http://www.ROImediaDirect.com )

Interview #09: How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Radio Advertising Mistakes

For any of us who are responsible for creating winning radio campaigns, either for ourselves or for our clients, it’s essential to understand how TSL (time spent listening) has evolved over the years. You don’t have to be a doctor of psychology to understand that people today have a greatly reduced attention span. With the massive amount of brief, impactful messaging streaming at us moment by moment, you have to know that has impacted the way people listen to radio. If you don’t factor in these sociological changes, you’re destined to discover mediocre radio campaign ROIs.

Back in the 90’s it used to be that you could place one, direct response :60 second commercial on a program and you’d effectively reach your audience with enough frequency to see quick and sustained traction. Not anymore. The radio market today offers about a dozen more format options than listeners had back then. Now add mobile devices and satellite to the mix and you can see how advertisers are fighting for consumer’s attention like never before. In today’s in-car and out-of-home listening landscape, the one spot a show, per day rationale is risky if not suicidal at best. Here are some points you may want to consider:

1. Understand that radio listeners have a SHORT attention span and an itchy trigger finger. (Averaging 2 min. in some markets and on some formats). As soon as a DJ starts talking too much or a less popular song comes on – or that dreaded COMMERCIAL – listeners bail in droves. Talk radio fares somewhat better than music formats, but has it’s own unique problems.

2. Know that, as soon as the commercial break hits, many listeners (believed to between 15 and 25%) are gone. Experience tells me it’s more like 35-40% – especially in markets where consumers have more choices. Now factor in listening habits by the time the second or third commercial comes around. Good luck to the direct response advertisers who land in the 3+ commercial break position.

2. Getting buried in pods (or stop-sets) of commercials is death to direct response clients. Yes you can push for first in stop set. No, stations don’t like it, but smart advertisers need to push anyway. This can be the difference between a successful campaign and cancellation. You’d be shocked how many stations will mindlessly place some grocery store or gas station branding commercial first or second while the 800 number driven direct response client gets killed later in the break.

3. For a DR Campaign to have a chance to succeed strategic advertising minds need to pick stations wisely by analyzing ALL the data. TSL, demo, buying habits, format trends, commercial clusters, in-show content ops, psycho demographics of the listeners and our INSTINCTS. Then…

a) Dominate a day part with several commercials per show including more than one spot per hour at the start of your campaign.  Remember, TSL dictates it’s tough to reach the audience that jumps in and out of a station depending on the programming.

b) As advertisers, our greatest chance of succeeding is to dominate ONE day part first, get traction and then move virally through the other day parts. A schedule should look more like two plus commercials PER HOUR in the CHOSEN day part. At the start of the campaign. Think of it as you would a jet taking off. It takes tremendous energy to get a jet off the ground, but once it reaches altitude, you can throttle back and cruise. This frequency play can often include; :30’s and even :15’s so that listeners are receiving the necessary “cumulative frequency” of our advertising.

c) Again, when you see traction, you can spread that buying pattern to other dayparts on the same station, followed by replication on other stations in that market and then outside of the market.

Greg Cynaumon, Ph.D. is a partner and the Creative and Media Strategy Director at ROI Media Direct – a full service, radio and television advertising agency. ROI specializes in direct response clients serving such notable clients as: LegalZoom.com, LifeLock, eHarmony, Blinds.com, and Ring Central.com.

To Contact Dr. Greg Cynaumon: (http://www.ROImediaDirect.com )