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Small
Business, BIG Marketing™
by Will
Dylan ©2004
CHAPTER 3 - PAID
MARKETING TOOLS
Radio:
Radio ads have a very short shelf life, about 30
seconds. Once they’re over, that’s it. You can’t
read the ad again like you can with a printed ad.
That’s why radio ad sales people are always looking to
sell you campaigns, made up of a certain number of ads
per week for 15 weeks (called a “flight
schedule”. Each ad is relatively
inexpensive, but in total they really add up.) Radio ads
are called “spots”. So when you are discussing the purchase of
radio ads, you ask the rep “How many spots am I
getting?”
Most radio
stations will write the scripts for your ads and provide
the voices at no charge as long as you buy a flight from
them. For the local businessperson who is looking to
spend a few thousand on ads, radio is not a bad choice.
A solid 12 to 15 week campaign on the right stations
will definitely get your message out. If you’re
looking to save some money, go with 8 weeks. It’s
almost as effective and will cost you less.
Don’t
bother buying a 2 or 3 week campaign on radio. Your ads
won’t be running long enough to make an impact on your
business. If you really want to save money and you can
only afford 3 weeks of 30 second ads, buy 6 weeks of 15
second ads instead. Make your message shorter and get it
heard more often.
Radio ad
pricing is determined by two things: the popularity of
the station and the time of day the ads are running. The
most popular station in the city during the morning show
(when everyone is in their car on the way to work) will
be an expensive advertising proposition. A flight will
usually contain a mix of ads at different times of day.
The radio folks have a word for the different segments
of the day : “dayparts”.
Morning drive is a daypart, midday is a daypart, so are
drive home, evening, and overnight. The two most
expensive are the morning drive and the drive home.
So if you
do buy a radio campaign, make sure that your
“flight” contains a healthy mix of morning and
afternoon drive spots, to help get the most bang for
your buck.
TV
– This is usually out
of reach for most small businesses because of the cost.
Not only is TV time expensive, but also you need to
supply the station with creative.
In otherwords, you need to hire an agency or production
company to put together your 30 second ad. That can be
very costly, usually $1500 to $3000 for a very basic 30
second “spot”. Local TV spots will cost about $200
to $500 for 30 seconds, and that means that on a
shoestring budget, you would not be able to run many ads
before your budget was used up. That’s why I leave TV
ads for my larger competitors. I get more bang for my
buck elsewhere.
Continue Chapter 3 >>
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