Radio Advertising - Experience & Advice?

[cliff123]

Does anyone have experience with radio advertising? Was it effective? What were the prices like? Would you do it again? In particular, any business who offer services rather than products, have you advertised on radio? What were the results like?

We're considering it, but have no experience in this media, and of course the sales rep tells us it’s the best, but would like to hear it from someone not quite so biased.

Also, prices. The prices they quote aren’t cheap. How much room is there for discount? Anyone know?

And finally, what radio stations do you listen to?

[RichBurley]

I think that (local) radio advertising seems expensive. A decent set of local/region adverts seems much more cost effective. I wonder whether national newspapers might also be a good idea, subject to the product/service?

Richard

Litigation Solicitor

[JustinP1]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Exactly!

Its not how much you spend on how big the advert is and how many times people get to see/hear it - it needs an experienced marketeer to put forward the benefits of your product in an appealing way from the point of view of your potential customer.

I see so many really poor and boring adverts that local companies put out each week I am astonished on how much money is wasted.

I would be happy to advise on a target and focus for free, and if you are interested my company records all kinds of voiceover, effects and the like to get a 'radio ready' ad, though we culdnt do that for free it would be cheaper than the radio station's contacts would charge!

Feel free to mail me if you want to take it further.

Edited by JustinP1 on Wednesday 11th July 21:28

[Leftie]

Who was it who said that 50% of all marketing spend is wasted, but it is knowing which 50%?

[jconsta6]

I've used radio advertising to offer a service as opposed to product.

My advice would firstly, to agree with whats already been said - get your add right, you only have a limited amount of seconds to get your message across. Secondly, what sounds great once or twice can be "grating" after the 50th time, so longevity is key too.

From my experience, I've found that radio is no different to a lot of other advertising media - it itself its pretty ineffective. It's a bit like making a nice pie - you need to get all the ingridients right so they compliment each other. i.e. Launch your radio/bill board, local paper, leaflet drops, events etc all at the same time, and then, maintain the intrest through each of the various medias.

It's very hard this way to track where you are doing best, but people are more likely to remember your add if they see it once in 2 different places rather than 10 times in the same place.

So I've heard anyway, again, I'm no expert, just learnt from my, costly, mistakes.

Cheers,

JC