Radio Advertising- Get sales through Immediate Response

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Radio Advertising- Get sales through Immediate ResponseCopyright ? 2005

In America, 290 million people own more than 300 millionradios! Only radio can take your advertising message topeople while they ride bicycles, walk in the park, ride incars or climb mountains. Radio brings a sense of urgency toits listeners that is second to none.

Contrary to the predictions of doom during the advent of television, radio is alive and well today, and radio advertising is a major part of the plan for advertisers of every size and description.

In its pre-television days, radio was the nationaladvertisers' most economical way to communicate withmillions at a time. Syndicated programs of music, drama andnews were a common part of the American life-style. Withthe advent of television, radio moved to the automobile andthe beach.

Along came the transistor and radio moved to the shirt pocket. Today radio is every where. Millions awake tothe sound of clock radios, and for many the radio is thelast sound they hear before going to sleep. How can a smallbusiness use this sound-only medium for effectiveadvertising? Only by understanding it and capitalizing onits strengths.

Today's radio station is judged on its effectiveness notonly by the number of its listeners, but also who thoselisteners are. Many of today's stations have positionedthemselves to reach a selective audience instead of a totalmarket.

In one marketplace, one station may play only country-western music, another rock music, a third only religious music, while others feature 24-hour news broadcasts or talk shows.

As an advertiser, format programming allows you to buy advertising on stations whose listener characteristics most closely coincide with the profile of your firm's customers. Buying time on a given station also can help you reach audience segments that you may want to target to help expand your firm's total market segment thus enhancing your direct response method of marketing.

Radio advertising is sold on the basis of time. That timecan vary from an entire program, which includes yourcommercial announcements, top spot announcements rangingfrom 10 to 60 seconds.

Price ranges are higher during drive time (the hours in the morning and evening when the maximum number of people are in their cars going to or from work, school or other daytime activities) and lower during the time when more people are watching television.

Most stations offer package rate plans with a specified numberof commercials guaranteed within a particular time slot.Also, consider buying flights of commercials, i.e., anintense saturation of 30-second or 1-minute spots in arelatively short period of two or three weeks. Repeat thisflight technique during key promotional times of the year.

The sounds you can employ on radio include not only themonologue of a man's or woman's voice, but dialogue anddramatic conversations, vocal and instrumental music, andsound effects of every imaginable nature, used individuallyor in combinations.

The size of radio's audience, like the circulation of newspapers, is audited by independent organizations and available to advertisers through station sales representatives. Arbitron, one of the auditing firms, conducts its survey by having a sample number of households keeping a written diary of the radio listening habits of each occupant during a pre-determined period (usually one week).

Arbitron then summarizes the various stations' listeners bytime of day in 15-minute segments by sex and age of listener. An advertiser can use the Arbitron data to select the station or stations that best cover the desired target audience.

Radio advertising frequency is as high as you can afford.Many stations now broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days aweek. The number of commercial minutes any station can airin each segment of programming is limited by the FederalCommunications Commission (FCC), but there is still theopportunity to have a message repeated frequently in anygiven period. It is also possible to have the radio stationcome to your business for a remote broadcast with customerinterviews, prize giveaways and other crowd-drawingtechniques.