***** … of article … for a moment some day and consider the kind of … you see in your post box, on the TV, on your … on the radio, etc. Then ask yourself this quest

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***** Beginning of article *****

Think for a moment some day and consider the kind of advertising you see in your post box, on the TV, on your computer, on the radio, etc. Then ask yourself this question, “Would I buy this or not?” If you say “No,” then ask yourself why. If you say “Yes,” then ask yourself why.

Consider what is it that makes this advert attractive or what is it that this person’s offer is deemed to be unattractive. By carrying out this exercise regularly you will be surprising yourself with what you will notice about advertising.

Most advertising you see today is written poorly. It confuses the potential customer, it does not paint a desired picture in their mind, it does not give him or her a good reason to order the product now and, it focuses on features rather than the benefits of products/services. Many businesses failures can be tracked back to poor advertising although it should be mentioned that there are many other reasons for failure.

If you want to stay in business, you must learn how to advertise effectively and how to produce orders NOW! The aim of this article is to help whoever operates a business to improve his or her advertising technique.

No matter what business you do whether it is as: a shopkeeper, a sandwich bar operator, a business consultant, a window cleaner, or a mail order business, you must learn to create advertising that gets results. If you don’t, your business will be painful and short-lived.
Exposure:
First of all, let us look at one main reason for advertising. This reason is called exposure. Most television commercials and many newspaper and magazine adverts are made for this purpose. The advertiser wants their name exposed to the public and for the potential customer to think of them next time they are ready to make a purchase. Large companies are the ones who will do this kind of advertising. They have an advertising budget for the purpose of constantly exposing their name to the public and wait for their orders to come as people become more used to them and their advertising. Typical examples of this type of adverts are those by Coca Cola and Nescafe.
Direct response advertising:
The type of advertising the man/woman in the street is interested in is completely different. It is called direct response advertising. In other words, we are advertising and are motivating our readers to order now, to call an order telephone number and order, to mail a coupon (though this is not so common in Cyprus) and order, or to fax in an order.

We advertise a product and service and seek for people to make purchases now. As a small business, a quick way not to succeed is to place full page adverts costing hundreds of pounds without asking for an order NOW! You must cause the person to order today if you want to stay in business in any type of display advertising or direct mail.

Classifieds adverts are of a little different nature, but they work on the same premise. You don’t ask for a sale right from the classified (Which would be a large mistake because there just isn’t enough room in a classified to make sales).

Even asking for one pound in a classified advert reduces your response greatly. You will have them call your telephone number or your e-mail address in which they will receive an offer and a chance to order NOW! In all advertising it is important to ask for the order NOW.

Many people have contacted me and said, “I know that I have a wonderful product, but I just can’t figure out why I am not getting any orders.” You may be the same way. The simple reality is that it does not matter how fantastic your product line is. What matters is if your advertising for the product causes people to see themselves using it and that it will benefit them significantly.

Your advertising, not your product in many cases, will determine the success or failure of your business. Whilst it is true that your product needs to be very effective (or else you will experience a large number of returns and a short-lived business) your advertising will make or break your business.

Before we spend too much time detailing why you should create effective adverts, one can simplify the process by assuming that you want your business to make money. Hence one must write money-grabbing adverts!

Now, Let us reveal some of the major advertising secrets you will need to know and begin using in every advert you must create:

1) Test your adverts

In all advertising and mail order, the biggest key of long-term success is testing everything. Test your adverts. Test your sales letters. Test your products. Test the publications. Test everything.

Learn to key all of your order forms and phone numbers to make sure you know which adverts and publication is doing what. Don’t ever leave anything to chance. Test everything. Great advertisers and mail order millionaires are people who have tested everything and have found what works. Your testing period will NEVER end!

2) Strong Headlines

The number two key to success is your headlines. You must understand that the wording of your headline is more than 70% of the effectiveness of your advertising. That means it is EXTREMELY VITAL what your headline says. In mail order, it has been my experience that negative headlines often out pull positive headlines. For example, one of the most popular and effective headlines in network marketing has been ” Have you fallen for an easy money scam. If so read on”.

Negative headlines force your prospect to identify with them saying, “That sounds like me. The main purpose of the headline is to GRAB their attention, so your headline must be attention grabbing and the potential customer focused. What are their needs? What are their desires? What are their fears? Pay attention. HEADLINES WILL MAKE OR BREAK YOUR ADVERTISING CAREER!

3) Short Words, Short Sentences, Short Paragraphs

Forget what your grammar teacher taught you in high school. When writing adverts, you must make your adverts simple: Simple to understand & simple to order. Keep the level of writing at high school English or lower. Use short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs.

I know your literature teacher told you to not write paragraphs with only two
sentences in them, but how much money did he/she ever make in advertising? The moment you confuse your potential customer then their attention and the sale disappears!

4) Be Specific, Not General

Be specific in all of your advertising. For example do not say “Fill Your post box with Cash.” But instead say, “Receive up to £355 a day in your post box daily.” Do not say “Secrets to making money” instead it is better to have a headline saying “63 Year old man tells you his dirty secrets to making £578 a day!”

Being specific makes your advertising more believable. Being general makes
your potential customers say “He is just making this up.” Being specific makes them say, “He must have counted it. I also want to make that much.”

Never say in adverts “Distributors required.” Instead it is much better to say, “15 New Distributors needed in Larnaca.” Do not ignore the fact that being specific will beat being general every time. Go over your advertising copy and edit it to become specific.

5) Use Your Background & Be Unique

So many adverts out there today are for just me-too products and me-too advertising. When I say “me-too Advertising,” I mean that these adverts or products have been so over used that they just don’t sell anymore.

People are tired of hearing about how your products are the best in the industry. They have heard that story before.

You need to become unique in your approach. Are you elderly? Are you
young? Are you deaf? Are you bald? Do you only have a high school education? Put something of yourself into the advert. You need to influence the potential customer that there is something different in your product when compared to your competitors.

For example a teenager could write an advert saying, “17 year old boy makes £1,500 per month via the Internet!” Be unique. Find something about yourself
that is unique and put it into your advertising. Let people know who you are, then they will begin to trust you and trust spells orders.

Conclusion:
With Cyprus closing in on EU membership and with the business environment likely to become more competitive as a result of this event, Cypriot businesses must know how to use advertising to their benefit. The aim of this article is to give ideas to Cypriot businessmen (large or small) as to how they can improve their advertising effort.

Realistic information about radio advertising costs to help you budget your radio advertising campaign.

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Radio Advertising Costs : How Much Should I Spend?

“How much should I spend on radio advertising?” “How do I know I am getting the best radio advertising rates?” “What radio stations should I advertise on?” “What are good and bad radio advertising prices?” “How many spots should I air on a radio station?”

Every day at Radio Lounge, we hear radio advertising questions such as these.

Honestly, there is so much confusion about radio advertising floating around – we can’t blame you for asking these questions. Why is advertising on the radio so mysterious? The answer is – radio advertising is not mysterious. It just helps to know how it works.

Effective radio advertising relies on two major components – the message (the radio commercial itself), and the media (that the radio spot airs on).

The Message

Let’s look first at the radio commercial itself. Before even thinking about which radio stations to air on, or how much to spend on radio advertising rates, you must think about what you are going to say in your radio ad. For this article, we are assuming that all call centers, fulfillments, websites, etc. lead generation, and sales closing processes have been put in place by you, the advertiser. Creating a radio commercial that helps drive traffic is extremely important to the advertising process.

The advertising industry is full of voice talents, radio personalities, DJ’s and others, all claiming to create radio commercials. Be careful here. When entering the arena of radio commercial production, look for a radio advertising agency that has experience and a track record of successful ad campaigns. Anyone can create a radio ad, but not everyone can create a radio ad that pulls traffic. Some radio stations provide free radio commercials if you advertise on their station. Most of these free commercials are never based on strategy and are just one of several dozen commercials that have to be created by an overworked radio production person in a five to fifteen minute window of time. Remember, you usually get what you pay for.

The most effective radio commercials are built on a solid, proven strategy. The copy is written using time tested formulas that maximize potential response. The talent is handpicked to best connect with the end user and the production is based upon clear, quality, and easy to absorb audio.

So…what does the radio commercial production process cost? The majority of radio commercials that work best usually fall into the $500 to $1000 price range. There are always exceptions to the rule (lots of revisions to copy or audio, additional voice talents, celebrity endorsements, etc.) but this figure generally covers development of a solid strategy, copy from experienced copywriters, performance by high caliber voice talents, and the highest quality production services.

The Media

For many with questions about radio advertising rates, and radio station prices, here is where the mystery begins. We will try to simplify the mystery of radio media buying as much as we can in this small amount of space.

A good radio advertising buy focuses on a few different things:

* Finding the best radio stations in a market that match your customer’s demographics (age, gender, income level, etc.) and psychographics (interests, beliefs, hobbies, personality traits, etc.).
* Finding the dayparts that best reach your target customer. Mornings? Middays? Afternoons?
* Selecting the top radio stations that most efficiently reach the highest potential customers, the right number of times (defined as frequency), for the least amount of money

Usually, when researching radio advertising costs, many potential radio advertisers have a pretty good idea of the first two points. However, when it comes down to finding the best station (or stations) at the best price, the radio advertising process becomes a little more challenging.

Here is how we tackle the process at Radio Lounge and determine how much to spend on radio advertising costs. Within the market you want to advertise in, we find the radio stations that have the best potential to reach your target customer. This is based on the formats of the radio stations. Urban Hip-hop stations will target different demographics than a News/Talk, or Soft Rock station. After we select a group of radio stations, we contact those stations to let them know we are thinking about advertising on their radio station. We ask for specific data from the radio stations called “rankers”. This is ratings data that most radio stations can provide based on specific requirements we have requested. From this point, we have a good idea which stations perform the best in our target demographics.

Once we have narrowed down the radio stations to just a few that will effectively reach our target customer, we then request a proposal based on certain criteria – dayparts, frequency goals, etc. From these proposals, we can see who reaches the target audience most efficiently – using tools like Cost Per Point (ratio of spot rate to ratings percentage), Cost Per Thousand (ratio of spot rate to audience category totals), etc. If a radio station is not competitive, we will often ask the station to resubmit a more competitive proposal. But, how will we know if all of the station’s radio advertising rates are too high. Radio Lounge has access to data that allows us to compare proposals against historical figures to determine if radio station prices are in line with market averages. We negotiate, and help execute the purchase.

Great…but what does this cost? It depends on the size of the market you wish to advertise in as determined by Arbitron (the radio ratings services). Radio advertising rates can be as high as $800 per 60 spots in a top market like New York City, or as low as $3 per 60 spots in Kerrville, TX. How will you know what to spend?

Here’s a valuable system we have used from our history of working with radio advertising rates. The system is based on a solid branding schedule that may run one spot per day in the morning drive, one per day at midday, and one per day in the afternoon drive – Monday through to Friday, and two spots on Saturday and Sunday. That’s nineteen spots a week at sticker price. This type of schedule is good for achieving a desired frequency level of three (meaning the average listener to a station will hear the radio commercial at least three times). Under these broad assumptions, you can use the following chart as a rough guide to budgeting your radio advertising campaign.*

*Note, these are gross rates and do not include production costs or agency discounts. These are market averages for the standard radio schedule mentioned above, actual costs may vary. Different combinations of dayparts on different stations may cost much less.

* Markets 1 -5 (ex: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.)
Expect to pay from $4000 to $8000 per week/per station for a top performing station.

* Markets 6 – 20 (ex: Dallas/Ft.Worth, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego, etc.)
Expect to pay from $2000 to $5000 per week/per station for a top performing station.

* Markets 21 – 50 (ex: Denver, Cleveland, Kansas City, etc.)
Expect to pay from $1000 to $3000 per week/per station for a top performing station.

* Markets 51- 150 (ex: Akron, Syracuse, Baton Rouge, etc.)
Expect to pay from $800 to $2000 per week/per station for a top performing station.

* Markets 150+ (ex: Myrtle Beach SC, Green Bay, Topeka, etc.)
Expect to pay from $500 to $1500 per week/per station for a top performing station.

You may be saying, “Wow! That can be expensive”. Relax, these are standards and radio advertising schedules come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, schedules are smaller depending on advertising goals and objectives. However, we do recommend that you are able to commit to the range of minimums.

Leftovers?

Notice we have not mentioned remnant radio advertising here at all. Remnant advertising is the practice of buying unused inventory at deep discounts. Remnant advertising success exists more in theory than in practice. However, this is not to say that there are not advertisers who are having success with remnant advertising. If, and when, remnant advertising falls into your lap, we suggest you look into it. However, basing your entire radio ad campaign on remnant advertising may be shooting yourself in the foot. With the exception of a few times a year, most top performing radio stations do not have that much unsold inventory. Often, the largest advertisers have contracts that guarantee so many low cost/no cost spots that have to run. The reality is that if large advertisers (with the big dollar schedule) need their spots to run, or if another advertiser pays just one penny more than you did for your remnant spots – bump! You just got bumped off the air that day. You may pay for twenty spots and only get two that air. The stations will make it up to you, but what if you were counting on that advertising to drive sales. Or better yet, in the age of consolidated radio groups your remnant advertising might run on the third to the last rated station in the market. The result is NO RESULT and you have just wasted money for nothing. We really do believe that when it comes to radio advertising YOU TRULY DO GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

Now that radio advertising rates have been explained, you may ask the question, how long should I advertise? The type of radio advertising helps define the length of a campaign. Advertising for an event? We recommend shorter, more compact schedules to create buzz leading up to the event or launch. Branding a product? Often, long term schedules with a bit of breathing room work best. Maybe even flighting could work (on two weeks, off two weeks). Most of the time, the two things that will determine how long to run a radio advertising campaign will be advertiser goals (traffic numbers), and external factors such as sales cycles. Oh yeah, and usually budget affects the length of the campaign. It is not desired, but that’s reality.

The Total Cost

You may be thinking, “So if I want to run a spot on three top Houston radio stations, I should expect to pay $1000 for a commercial, plus $3000 per week per station…that’s $10,000 for one week’s worth of advertising!” That’s true, and may be just what it takes to reach over half a million potential well targeted customers. The real question is, “How much money can you make off half a million potential targeted customers?” Is it more than $10,000 a week? $40,000 a month? These are questions to ask yourself, because in the world of advertising, that is pretty good traffic.

It works even better when you let Radio Lounge reduce that cost even further. What if Radio Lounge was able to get you a great radio advertising schedule by providing an instant discount ABOVE the negotiated lowest radio station price?

Launch Your Radio Advertising Campaign

You may still have many questions about radio advertising. That’s why we are here. We want to help you get the biggest bang for the radio advertising buck. Radio Lounge has worked with thousands of radio advertising campaigns. We know what works and what does not. Let Radio Lounge help you with all facets of strategic development, creative development, copywriting, production, media planning, media negotiation, and monitoring of your radio advertising campaign.

Call for a free consultation. Toll free 1-866-4-AUDIO-9…that’s 1-866-428-3469.
Let Radio Lounge help you drive traffic with powerful radio advertising solutions