Radio Advertising...

[PcTek]

Well... We spent 660 on one radio ad, and 560 on another. Both these stations are very popular, had the correct demographics, and generated exactly two callers, who never showed. End of story.
Also I was able to convince one station into giving me an extra 50 spots for free. (can you beleive that? it's true!) So apparently radio advertising does not work.
Then, our company joined the chamber of commerce, they had a great package... All sorts of coupons for mass mailing, using their mail permit for bulk mail... and .... radio stations!
One of the same radio stations we had advertised with for 560, dropped their price to $96.70 for chamber members... How odd is that...
O! These stations spread 81 miles and 72 miles respectively in our area. They also targeted about 100,000 people. We got 80 of those 1 minute spots on one station to run over a 2 week period (saturated) at the times people were in their cars. The other station we only got 40 of those 1 minute spots. But, alas! Nothing... Nada... Zip... It would have been more fun to just make a $1,210.00 bon fire... At least we could have roasted marshmallows.

 

[Bryce W]

I once interviewed a techie about his tv/radio advertising (since I haven't done it myself) for one of my articles and it worked well for him, here is a snippet from the article:

A fellow computer technician named Jeff from “Click ‘A’ Tec” informed us of his findings with radio advertising. For him, after trying most other forms of media he found radio advertising worked best for him followed up by TV advertising. He recommends that for one month you hit them with at least ten radio ads per day during 6am to 7pm on Monday to Friday (advertising on weekends doesn’t seem to be effective). Then after that month drop the ads down to air only on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays for two weeks per month.
Jeff also recommends that you take charge with the companies you are advertising with. Don’t let them tell you that they are doing you a favor because they aren’t, you are the one who is paying their wages, tell them what you want and at what price you want it at.

I guess part of the problem with Radio advertising during peak hour "car driving" times is that they dont usually have access to a pen and paper for writing it down. Perhaps thats why this guy recommended a TV followup "oh! I remember them from the radio *writes down number*"

It sucks that it didn't work well for you, I hate spending money that doesnt get a return. Thanks for reporting your findings.

 

[tkrabec]

Advertising is weird

I've done a bunch of advertising with a mailer. It has taken several months to get something going, now I'm nearly breaking even. But I don't have the cash flow to keep going with the advertising. I'm going to step back and look at advertising. I've learned some good lessons about advertising, I am formulating some questions to ask for my next round, Don't have them formulated yet.
but something like
1. What is the typical effectiveness
2. Normally how long does it take to start seeing the above numbers

-- Tim