How to Buy Radio Advertising in Calgary (or anywhere else)

The media landscape is clearly changing.  Results from the CMUST study show that the average Canadian spends the majority of their time with 3 kinds of media....TV, Radio and Internet.

I believe that most companies should align their marketing budget to reflect the consumption of media.  If you want to catch fish, you're best chance of success is to fish where the fish are.

MY OBJECTIVE

My main objective when working with clients is to provide sound advice on integrated marketing campaigns that grow their business so as to develop long term business relationships.   If a campaign isn't working there are things we can adjust to try and correct the problem.  If your campaign isn't working for you, it's not working for me either.

I happen to sell radio, but understand that radio is just one tool in their kit.  In my mind, radio is a very important communication tool for any company.  

UTILIZATION

In my opinion, radio is often underutilized or overlooked.  In many situations, clients choose to deliver their message from more "familiar"  platforms such as newspaper or yellow pages.  Unfortunately, these two specific print forms of media are decreasing in usage yet still maintain a high cost of message delivery.  Given radio's affordable delivery of a frequent message to virtually any demographic,  I felt it appropriate to help shed some light on how to buy radio advertising for the Calgary Market.

ROI

Any media can work to grow a business.  There are several considerations to get the most ROI from any marketing campaign.  Here is a list of things to think about that will have an impact on the success of any campaign.

• are you paying a reasonable price for the size, quality & frequency of audience that your message is being delivered to?
• what are your goals? how are you measuring them?   
• how do clients and prospects interact with your company?  Can you measure those touch points?
• The success of any campaign is based on the size of impact with an audience.  If you're not advertising during the Superbowl, then most campaigns will require frequent message delivery.  Is your campaign spread too thin over too many media to make an impact?
• Do you have the right message?
• Are your chosen media platforms delivering your message to the right people?

MEDIA OVERVIEW

In traditional media platforms (ie TV, print, yellow pages, outdoor, radio, magazines, direct mail), your company pays for access to the audience/community that already exists.   The type of media that you buy will dictate how your message will be packaged and delivered.   TV is Sight + Sound.  Print is sight.  Radio is Sound.   Martin Lindstrom has made a pretty convincing argument that the more senses you engage with your campaign, the bigger the impact that your campaign will have. The majority of traditional media formats only allow for one-directional communication.  You can broadcast a message, but not really engage in a conversation.

With Social Media platforms (ie. twitter, facebook, youtube, digg) your company has the ability to create and build your own audience/community.  With this type of media platform, your business can distribute and broadcast your own content.  This ability to create and publish your own content is liberating but you are also required to build your own audience/community.  It seems to me that the key to building an audience on a social network hinges on 5 main steps

1. explore types of social media platforms
2. create,  publish or redistribute great content
3. connect with like minded groups and care about people.  
4. share your ideas
5. repeat over and over again

Social Media platforms are unique in that they allow for multi-sensory two way communication.  

Both traditional and social media platforms are important tools to use to connect with consumers throughout their decision making journey.

WHO LISTENS TO RADIO?


Everybody.  Stations are differentiated by their programming.  In larger markets like Calgary, there is a station designed to appeal to specific target demographics like Men, Women, Baby Boomers, Gen Y, News Junkies, Sports Fanatics, Young Executives, Moms, Rockers just to name a few.   Many of these stations also have build databases of their target listeners which means any advertiser can reach their desired target group with on air, online and social media methods.


WHICH STATION(S) SHOULD YOU BUY?


The station that best matches your target audience.  Once you've saturated that audience, expand to the second best station match.   As one of my colleagues so eloquently says, 'if your selling bananas, you better be speaking to monkeys'.


WHEN SHOULD YOU ADVERTISE ON RADIO?

If your business is in big market, the answer is all the time.

The main goal of advertising is to influence consumers into "action" when they are in the market for your product or service.  There are numerous "actions" to try to achieve.  You could ask consumers to call  a number, check out your website, share with their friends, contribute to your brand or buy a product.  Each of these actions requires a unique metric for measurement.

The truth is that (in most cases) we don't know when consumers are triggered to investigate a product or  make a purchasing decisions.    If consumers are investigating, you should be advertising.

There are many myths about when people listen to radio.   More people listen during the work week to the morning show than any other time of the week is one that I hear often.   Interestingly,  our radio stations www.JACKFM.ca  and www.LITE96.ca here in Calgary, have at least as many listeners during the day as there are during the commute times.  If you skip the midday, you'll skip a huge part of our audience.  

WHAT RADIO ADS SHOULD YOU BUY?

This depends on your message.  The more complicated your message, the more likely you'll need to use a 30 or 60 second commercial.  If you have a short message, you can buy 5, 10 or 15 second commercials.   

Whatever the length of commercial, the main objective of of your campaign is to connect to the radio audience.  More specifically your real objective is to connect to your chosen consumer within the whole radio station audience.   You can connect with these potential consumers with traditional commercial messages but also through a radio stations online community.

WHAT DOES IT COST?

That depends on the station you want to buy and your goals.   In general, you should get the the best rates if you buy a ROS (run of schedule aka TAP or REACH)  program.  You'll also get lower rates the more you buy.  It's worthwhile asking radio reps about any special programs that give you commercials during each of the 4 dayparts (breakfast, day, drive, evening) over a long period of time.

The cost of radio advertising will also fluctuate based on the number of commercials you buy per station.   Each station has a recommended weekly minimum to be effective.   Some stations are programmed to have listeners stay to listen for long periods at one time ie. country.  Other stations are designed to have listeners tune in and out mulitple times during the day ie. news.  Ask your rep what the appropriate number of commercials is for your chosen station.

Secrets of Integrated Marketing

The amazing part of this video is that it has been viewed over 700,000 times.

Imagine your business. You've got computers. You've got a cell phone with a web cam. Maybe even a staff member who's got a modern computer and has put a video on facebook or youtube. You may have even published a video of a wedding, a party, a hockey game yourself. You've got a marketing budget.  you know some of your traditional media works, but are questioning if your marketing mix is the best it can be. 

In my opinion, you've already got a couple of holes punched on your social media VIP coffee card. what you really have are... resources.

1. You understand that business is about relationships. 
2. you have the digital and human resources to build, connect to and create a social network of business connections
3. you have the ability to use radio and/or television as accelerators for your business & social networks

as of 2010, we know the average consumer spends their daily media time pretty evenly in an average day.  1/3 TV, 1/3 Radio, 1/3 internet.  In less than 10 years, (yes the same 10 years you plan on being in business)  the average 35-54 year old will probably be spend between 50-80% of their daily media time connected online.

TV and Radio are the best traditional media platforms to launch the next 10 year phase of your social  marketing & consumer communication plan.    use traditional media to as an accelerator to grow your social media network.

Here is why I think social media will be so great.  Social media allows you to broadcast yourself on 2 way communication platforms...in writing, on video, voice, or images.  Eventually, you could bypass paid traditional media platforms.  it allows anyone to selfpublish on a scale as big or bigger than a Superbowl, NBC, National Rogers Radio, The New York Times or the Calgary Herald.   A growing majority of consumers use social media platforms like Urbanspoon, rate mds or youtube to access content and reviews about virtually every single consumer choice on the planet.

Very soon, I will have access to the worlds collective knowledge in one hand.  Google has just launched a mindreading software application called instinct to make it easier & faster for me to find the exact information that i want.  any idea, thought, opinion, personality can be found on my iphone.  I can connect with any community for business.  Consumers like justin Beiber, the Julie & Julia girl, the shit My Dad says guy have created brands. In the reverse communication direction, the Old Spice guy connected the brand to consumers.

People like raywilliamjohnson,  mysteryguitarman and charlie will be next.  Wait, What, WHO?  tone is really hard to pick up in righting, so read this next sentence with as much attitude as you can muster.  seriously, who are they?

well, they all look like their around 25.  They all look like they make videos of themselves in their bedroom.   Combined they have over 630,000,000 views and 3 million subscribers.  And it looks like they all did that from their house.   Here's what I asked myself...Seriously?   all of us have those same tools.  the only real difference is that they are (what Seth Godin would call) doing marketing

Now back to me....I've got 2 tickets to that thing you wanted and NOW,  they're diamonds.

I want to talk to you....if you're interested.

Measuring ROI in Marketing

This is, and always will be one of the hottest topics in marketing.   For all of my clients, measuring ROI is equally important whether they're using the Yellow Pages or Yelp mobile.  So how do you measure your marketing ROI and what do you measure?

That's a tough question.  The short answer is that it depends.  It depends on your goals, your product life cycle, your message & offer, the depth and breadth of your advertising campaign, your measurment tools,  your commitment to the process and identifying the consumer touch points.

I do believe that the worst way to measure a campaign is a "how you heard about us" survey?  This is a test and most people will fail because they don't know how they heard about you.  By design, most advertising is an interruption, and most consumers won't remember when or on what medium your ad interrupted them. 

So choosing what to measure relates to a number of different factors.  This is by no means a complete list, but it's a good start. 

1. Product Life Cycle - Do some research to identify the number of consumers who are buying your product today.  Compare that to the number of people who will buy this month and this year.
2. Message & Offer - if you give away a Ferrari, you should have a lot of immediate response.  If you're offer to purchase the Ferrari is just the same as every other competitor ie. come see us, payments as low as $6000 per month at 0% down OAC, then you're message will be lost in the advertising noise.  What is it that makes you unique compared to the other Ferrari dealers?  you really need to let people know about that because that's why they'll buy from you. 
3. Breadth & depth of campaign - the more senses you appeal to in your campaign the more succesful it will be.  Its also true that if your campaign is only 1 week, then your message will only appeal to those who are shopping for your product or service right now.   Since these types of event campaigns only reach a small fraction of the total market, you're expecations should be in line with the number of consumers shopping right now.
4. Measurement tools - here's the meat and potatoes.  Traditionally, the first tool people use for measurement is sales.  Mainly, I think, because it's the easiest.  Here's some others to consider...
1. website hits,
2. specific product requests,
3. conversion ratio of leads:sales,
4. identify the webpages most visited,
5. consumer feedback, complaints or reviews in store/person/online,
6. staff feedback in store/person/online,
7. social media friends,
8. social media platforms your on,
9. the average a. age of consumer b. average sale price c. quote change over time ie. now vs. 1 year from now,
10. your google ranking,
11. your market share,
12. number of new customers or repeat customers
5. Commitment - to measure ROI effectively, you need to use the tools that are inline with your overall marketing strategy, commit to monitor those tools over time and perform a proper analysis at the end of your campaign. 
6. Touch Points - form a small brainstorm group of your staff from each department.  In this meeting, brainstorm all the different ways that your business can connect with a new or existing customer.  the obvious ones are your front line sales staff, but what about your accounting, service, client care...in person...online...traditional media...social media etc

In summary, my formula for measuring ROI is this....

1. set a goal. 
2. create a multiplatform marketing plan to achieve that goal. 
3. identify all the touch points at your disposal to connect with consumers. 
4. choose 5 or 6 measurement tools that allow you to confirm whether or not you reached your goal. 
5. Track these tools over time. 
6. analyse the data.
7. make adjustments to your new plan based on previous results. 
8. repeat.