We have bought you a few blog articles on the best practice when advertising your business and your offering, and we always encourage you to consider a variety of media when doing so. This time we want to introduce you to radio advertising. So where do you begin?
*The radio station*
It may sound obvious but the first thing to consider when choosing a suitable radio station to air your campaign is your target audience, and making sure your message reaches them through relevant means; do they even listen to radio? If so, what station do they listen to? For example (and although a sweeping generalisation) you wouldn’t advertise on BBC Radio 2 if your target customers are 14-16 year old teenagers. There is no point in paying for a radio advert that is going to be played to the wrong people! Similarly you need to consider the geographical broadcast area; the people listening to your advert are potential customers, who ideally need to be in close reach to your business – so therefore choose a radio station that broadcasts in your local area.
*The message*
As with any type of advertising, the message needs to be clear, strong and eye-catching – in this case, ear-catching! Radio advertising can be really fun, and the stations will have their own consultants to help you develop the creative if you give them a good enough brief. It needn’t be just one voice reading out your ad, think about using a dialogue between two people and creating a little story, and think about background music and sound effects if it will help to grab your target audiences’ attention. Always use a powerful ‘announcer’ to introduce or sign off your advert, reinforcing the final message you want to leave with the listener.
*Broadcasting time*
Now you have chosen a suitable station to broadcast your message to the relevant people, think about when these people will be listening to that station, and plan the airtime around this. It sounds complicated but it is something that the radio station will guide you on; they segment their shows by time, so you can request to have your advert played during a specific frame: For example if your campaign is aimed at commuters or businessmen, you would concentrate the adverts between 6 and 10am when you can guess they’d be doing their daily drive to work.
This is just a short introduction into the huge world of radio advertising, but hopefully you have gathered that the beauty of this medium is the ability to deliver strong messages, directly to your target audience, at the right time, over and over again – everything we ever tell you advertising should be!