4-Steps to Successful [Radio] Advertising Campaigns

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Successful radio ad campaigns have influenced billions of people around the world for more than 100-years. Through countless technological advancements there remains no more immediate and agile way to deliver information and entertainment to the masses.

AM/FM Radio: Traditional AM/FM radio’s one-to-many transmission delivers marketers the greatest reach of any medium in the United States – it surpassed the reach of television in 2015. There is no greater ROI delivery than a properly planned and executed radio campaign.

Digital: The binary one-to-one nature of digital advertising is phenomenal at growing business ideas from incubation stages to minimal viable products (MVPs). But when the time comes for exponential growth, massive reach is required and, digital advertising must take a role supporting the messaging and methods of the massive reach medium.

Start-Ups: For many start-ups, or any marketer who’s been entrenched in nothing but digital advertising for the past decade, reaching massive numbers of people through radio can be concerning uncharted territory. After all, reaching more people means spending more money so there’s far more at stake as the financial-fire-hydrant is opened.

Our 4-step process outlining the path to success in launching and executing successful radio advertising campaigns is for you to profit from and detailed below.

It’s important to note that every campaign is unique to the business it serves. And it’s more important to note that the most successful campaigns are approached with as much preparation, careful thought, planning and execution as a start-up business itself:

  1. Goal Identification: What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Some common goals include; generating leads and sales, acquiring new customers or app users and increasing awareness or branding. You are highly unlikely to hit the bullseye of an undefined target. Be sure to identify specific details about the goals you set – including the amounts and timelines.
  1. Budget: What amount of resources (financial, personnel, time, etc.) are you allotting for the attainment of your goals? Plan your investment thresholds. And within your investment thresholds plan for adjusting your plan. Just like your business itself – the first iteration is unlikely to deliver the goals you set. For radio, consider spending thresholds weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually – daily budgets are for digital advertising. Reaching massive numbers of your prospects is a commitment different from digital advertising – but highly beneficial to it. Be sure your budget is in alignment with your goals.
  1. Multi-Media Plan: What other media are you coordinating and leveraging with the massive reach of your radio campaign? Is your website ready to capture and utilize your radio messaging with clever SEO? Are your Adword campaigns synced-up to grab keyword phrasing your competition doesn’t even know is coming? Is your content marketing ready to capitalize on your newly acquired massive reach? What goal accomplishing action are you telling your prospects to take? Who are the prospects you want to take the action? How are you persuading them to take it? When and where are you making your proposal? What radio stations and personalities are you creating alliances with to influence your prospects to take the action? How will you optimize the radio personalities pitching your prospects through your other media channels? What metrics are you initially identifying to track your progress? Under what circumstances might you have to pivot to other metrics for tracking? What other areas of the media plan might need iterating based on the incoming data? And what are those iterations? Flawless execution of your media plan is only part of the success equation. When prospects take the action you are asking them to take your internal handling of that prospect needs to be dialed-in and ready to scale. Remember, the financial-fire-hydrant is now open – be prepared to move expeditiously.
  1. Execute & Optimize: With answers to above media plan questions you’re ready to launch, execute and optimize. Now be sure you have your team in place to handle each element. Be nimble, be ready to pivot. Common iterations include; when and where of message delivery, the message being delivered, the process of action handling and the metrics being monitored. Optimize your ROI, achieve your goals and exponentially grow.

With a few tweaks, this process can be applied to any marketing campaign – and utilize any medium. And, this is worth stating twice, just like a start-up business itself execution is key to success.

We’re happy to provide a free 30-minute consultation to offer suggestions for your business’s campaign and discuss how we might be able to help. Call Tom Smith @ 310.876.7908 during regular business hours, PST. Or, for a pdf outline of the above 4-step process email your request to [email protected].

Tom Smith
Tom Smith
Tom Smith
20+ year marketing and media innovator. Husband, dog lover and passionate griller.

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