How To Create Radio Advertising That Sells

From the desk of Roy Furr, Wednesday, 9:19 pm

I’ve been listening to a lot of radio recently. Especially talk radio. It’s a good way to keep your finger on the pulse of our culture. Flip between conservative, liberal, “middle way,” Christian and any other stations you can find on the dial, and in just a few hours you know how most of the country thinks.

Listening to the radio also has me listening to something else.

Radio advertising.

On the radio you find a lot of direct response marketing — a little hook to get you interested, along with an offer and a call to action. In fact, I think radio has a higher ratio of direct response to brand marketing than any medium other than the internet. Which alone is another good reason to listen to radio, if you’re in marketing and advertising. There’s a lot of great inspiration.

But that’s not the only reason I’m writing to you today.

I want to tell you about which type of radio advertising gets results!

It’s been known for a long time that editorial-looking advertising in newspapers and magazines get 5X higher readership. And when responses are tracked, the difference in response is similar and sometimes much greater.

So… Shouldn’t the same work for radio advertising?!

… (Dramatic music) …

It does!

Here’s two ways to take advantage of this.

1. Come up with a script for the host of the talk show to read during a commercial break (or better yet, record, send to you for approval, then play during multiple commercial breaks!). This script should go something like this:

“Hi, this is [host name] back with an interesting discovery I made recently. I don’t know if you’ve dealt with [insert problem here] recently, but it’s something I’ve had personal experience with. And I’ve found that [insert product name or solution description here] from [insert your company name here] was able to help me pull through. In fact, [give a very compelling statistic or other proof element here].”

“They’ve put together a 30-minute CD explaining how you too can overcome [problem], including a really important tip regarding [small but important part of solution] that you can apply to ["feel better"/"make more money"/"live a better life"] right away with very little effort.”

“You can get the CD by calling [insert your phone number here]. That’s [repeat phone number]. Again, this is [host name] telling you to call [your company name] to get a free 30-minute, content-rich CD on how to deal with [problem] — their number is [phone number] and you can call 24/7 to leave your name and address to get your free 30-minute CD.”

One huge benefit of this approach is you inherit the credibility of the show’s host, and all you have to do is ask (and usually commit to a certain amount of advertising budget — but be sure there’s a clause that says you can get out of this commitment the moment the advertisements stop working).

Another benefit is because the advertising is done in the voice of the host, most listeners will think the show is coming back on, and listen long enough to absorb the brunt of your advertisement. And those that are interested in the topic or need the problem solved will listen long enough to hear your offer. A high percentage will respond, too.

2. If the host is not available or will not agree to read your advertisement, all is not lost. You can get another recognized name (celebrity) to read the same basic script, with almost equal results. This borrows the celebrity’s credibility, and it’s often hard for the listener to identify up front if this celebrity is a guest on the show or if this is an advertisement. So you’ll get listeners and response.

3. If you’re not able to get or afford the host or another celebrity, one more choice is to make your advertisement sound like an urgent news broadcast. A low-price voice-over actor will work to read the script — as long as they’re convincing as a news announcer in the context of the surrounding program. Leave out the hype — you don’t want your advertisement to actually sound like an advertisement, it’s supposed to sound like news content.

4. Finally, treat yourself like a celebrity. By this I mean get on the radio yourself (meaning, record your own advertisement) and tell about your personal story of dealing with the problem and what you’ve done to create a solution… Because no solution out there was quite good enough for you. Again, invite listeners to call for more information in the form of a 30-minute content-rich CD.

The key to making any of these strategies work is to make them sound as much like helpful editorial as possible.

Advertisements have music in the background — important editorial is voice only. So pick voice only.

Advertisements sound excited — important editorial sounds serious with a need to communicate. So sound serious with a need to communicate.

Make all your decisions on the basis of…

“How can I make this sound more like an important editorial announcement up until the point we’re asking for action?”

Then make it easy and painless for listeners to raise their hand and express interest, by doing something such as requesting a free CD and information packet.

That’s how you’ll create effective radio advertising that sells!

This entry is filed under Business, Copywriting, Marketing, Persuasion, Sales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.