Optimizing Your Radio Ads

Radio ads are a popular form of offline marketing that give you the potential of reaching a large captive audience. Advertising on the radio has always been focused on getting phone calls, which of course are great, but these days, people resort to the web to do their research first much more often than just picking up the phone to call up a salesperson.

Oftentimes, marketers overlook emphasizing (or even integrating) their online presence alongside a telephone number in radio ads. When you limit yourself to just accepting phone calls, you are greatly limiting the ROI available from your radio (and any) advertising efforts.

A very important part of radio advertising is to do your research. Just because a station has a large audience, doesn’t mean it will necessarily equate to more leads, or the right kinds of leads.

When advertising mortgages, playing an ad on a popular FM pop station may get a very large listenership, but the demographics of that type of station might not be the best match for the type of people that are eligible for a home purchase or refinance.

Optimizing Radio Ads

Follow this checklist when creating your radio advertisements:

Include An Online Option

What sticks in your mind easier, a random telephone number, or a short and sweet web address? For that exact reason, ALWAYS include an online option for listeners to visit. Also, be sure to include a strong call-to-action that entices listeners to visit your web page and fill out a form. For example, “visit us online at WWW.YOUR-WEBSITE.COM to quickly see EXACTLY how much you could afford!”

Use a Dedicated URL and Funnel

Radio ads are an ideal area to tie in a dedicated landing page or Funnel. You can customize the language on the page to specifically talk about the radio campaign to better connect the ad to the destination page. Don’t forget the call-to- action! Keep in mind, as with most other marketing efforts, a dedicated landing page tied to your radio ad will convert much better than just driving consumers to the homepage of a website, where there is typically no sense of direction, and dozens of options fighting for attention, many of which aren’t relevant to the focus of the radio ad.

Know Your Market

When you go about selecting a radio station to advertise on, make sure to get information on their ratings and demographics. Any radio station should have this information available for you. Then you can compare the different stations and find the best match for your goals and marketing budget.

Consider Talk Radio Channels

Talk radio stations have traditionally been better for mortgages than FM music stations. That doesn’t mean that always holds true, so always do your research. Also in many markets there are specialty real estate and financial shows. This would be a great captive audience that you could advertise toward.

Deliver a Concise Message

With the typical radio ad being 30 seconds, you don’t have much time to get your point across. So it is important when you create your ad, not to talk too much or give out too much information. You want someone to contact you to get the information, not try to squeeze it into a 30 second commercial.

Search for Web Optimized Channels

Many radio stations these days have websites which they very frequently mention throughout the day. When looking for a radio station also look for one which also encourages their audience to visit their website, this way even when your commercial isn’t playing, there is still an opportunity to generate leads. Always include your Funnel on the link to your page that way you can improve your conversion rate.

Conclusion

When done right, radio advertising can be a huge success for your business. Just remember: the key to any successful campaign is doing your research! Don’t be afraid to negotiate for a package that works for you. Then, once you find your ideal radio station, make sure always promote a web presence that is designed to convert leads above and beyond just including your phone number in your ad. Doing so is guaranteed to help you get a higher ROI out of advertising on the radio.