Radio Advertising

There are a few different methods to radio advertising. The main method is to purchase a set of ads that are `10, 30 or 60 seconds long and run them a set number of times per week.

Recently I opened a new store and was talking to a local station that I had not done any work with before about a live remote for the Grand Opening. The salesman mentioned they had a promotion coming up the following week and had some spots available.

They were giving away tickets to a concert in Atlanta and would spend an hour 2x per day, 3x per week at different locations.

The WVOK Box for the Wild Goose Chase Draw

They had 3 spots left so I signed up one for each of the three stores.

The first was at the new store so the main promotion was about this new location and some talk about the other 2 locations in the listening area.

During the hour the Dj and myself would talk about the store and features and they would explain the ticket giveaway. There were four spots per hour that were about 3 minutes long. In many of the other stops it was only the DJ that did the talking but I jumped “On The Air” myself.

Ken Barrett and Jock Burgess 979WVOK Oxford AL

Talking on the radio is not for everybody but you really just need to have a short story to tell to explain why someone would use your store, and then the DJ will usually back you up. Just talk to the DJ and don’t worry about anything else.

The cost was $200 per location for the hour.

Did anyone stop by to fill out the draw ticket and see the store….No. but this particular station is played in many offices and waiting rooms in the area and that’s the people I envisioned talking too when I was on the radio.

The second stop was at my store that has a Drop Off. I requested the female half of the morning team as I felt her reinforcement of how convenient the Drop Off service was would seem more credible.

I was not able to make the stop at the third store but by then they had a good handle on the message I was promoting.

It’s tough to determine the ROI for this type of promotion but trying different methods and determining who your target market is getting your information to them a different way.

Ken