HOW TO SELL WITH MAGAZINE, RADIO AND TV ADS (PART 1)
Radio and TV ads can be effective in selling consumer-oriented products. Weight-loss products, auto safety devices, tapes, videos, cooking sets, fishing gear, and a host of other products are sold either through thirty-second to two-minute ads or half-hour-long infomercials.
Magazine advertising can be used to sell industrial supplies and equipment, services, and consumer products. There is no doubt that all these tactics work.
RADIO ADS
If you listen to the radio, especially late-night radio, you’ll hear ads promotion and selling products. With the right product and the right strategy, you can make the radio work for you.
What kinds of Products?
The four requirements for a successful radio product are : (1) It is unique, (2) It is goal-oriented, (3) It is inexpensive, (4) It can be understood without a visual image.
Unique
People have to do a lot of work to buy from a radio ad. They have to listen to your ad, get a pencil and paper, write your number, call the number, pay and wait for delivery. They won’t do that unless you have a product that is difficult to find anywhere else.
Goals or Emotions
Products commonly sold on the radio are ones that will make or save you money, like a course in buying real estate with no money down. You need a product tied to a bigger benefit than its cost would indicate.
You can also appeal to people’s emotions.
Product Costs
A product for radio ads should be inexpensive. Only a small percentage of people will buy from a radio ad, so you need to be sure that you can make enough from each sale for a relatively small number of sales to cover the cost of the ad.
Visual Image
Customers need to see some products before they will buy them. People can’t understand the product without seeing it. To work on radio, products have to be either known or easily understood.
Targeting Customers
You want to advertise on radio stations that your target customers listen to. This can be difficult if you serve a niche market. One of the problems with radio is that stations concentrate on a format, such as news and talk, music, or easy listening. Those categories may not correspond to your target customer. Targeting customers is actually easier on a radio network that offers specific programming that appeals to a certain target market, such as business, cooking, or health and fitness shows.
When to run Adverts
Most of the ads selling products that you hear are on nighttime talk shows. There are three reasons why nighttime ads are the most popular:
Talk shows require active listening. Many people use music stations for background noise, and so music stations don’t work as well.
People are often home listening at night. If they like your ad, they can write the number down and call you. In the morning and afternoon, listeners are often in cars, where they can always write your name down.
Nighttime ads are cheap. That means you can run your ads over and over again, giving you a better chance to motivate someone to call you.
I recommend that you start by advertising in the evenings on stations your target customers are likely to listen to. Commit to at least a two-to three-week ad program and see how well your products sell. You can always move to other times if the ads are successful.
Key Components of a Radio Ad
Your ad needs an opening that grabs people’s attention immediately. This statement should tie into the customer goal you are targeting, not your product.
Use music and sound effects in your commercial. The music relaxes the listener, and sound effects can grab people’s attention.
Repeat your telephone number at least three times.
Sell your product based on the customer’s goals and the product’s benefits.
Use thirty-second commercials if possible. They are almost as effective as sixty-second spots, and you will be able to run more ads.
Have your ad sound a little different from the radio station’s format. Some commercials blend right in with the station so that people don’t even know a commercial is on.
Offer a money-back m guarantee.
Using Radio Representatives.
Radio rates are highly negotiable. Once an ad time slot is gone, it is gone forever, and stations would rather receive some money than none at all. So you can negotiate with a station to get a first-time advertisement discount or some other price break.
If you want to advertise nationally or if you haven’t advertised before, you should consider contacting a radio representative firm. These companies sell radio time for a wide variety of stations that could be right for your product. This will save you having to search for the best station in every market.
Radio reps can also help you find stations that will run an ad on per inquiry basis, where you pay only for leads you actually get.
