Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present THE most innovative and effective revolution that electronic retailing has seen in recent years. I give you — RADIO!
It mystifies me that DR companies conduct thorough demographic analysis for their products, yet don’t put their dollars into a medium which matches their research. Radio offers it all. Cost-effectiveness, imagination, demographic and geographic targeting, audience loyalty and mobility. Why don’t more Direct-Response Marketers use radio?
There are currently 29 known radio formats amongst 12,000 commercial radio stations. Each station has been carefully programmed to suit your needs — 24 hours per day of programming targeted to specific demographics and loyal listeners. How many television stations can say that? If you know your target is Adults 35+, why aren’t you testing an Oldies or Classic Rock radio station? Males 25-54? Sports-Talk radio will do you wonders. Gunning for younger females?
Top 40 and Contemporary Dance Music will deliver your audience on a platter.
Let me share direct-response radio’s biggest secret — it can develop the STRONGEST new customer database of any medium. Think about this — a listener who actively writes down a number they have heard only two or three times at the end of a spot — without ever having a visual impression of the number — is as qualified a lead as you’ll ever get! Most of my campaigns close over 80% of inbound callers, and upsell a minimum of 20%. Even “faliures” can succeed. One of my clients recently turned a money-losing front-end campaign into a profitable backend campaign by successfully selling $600.00 per unit items to names who only paid $29.95 on the front-end!
Radio’s greatest asset — Emotion. With intangible feelings such as fear, joy, nostalgia and success, radio lets the mind create its own visuals — yielding a situation where the listeners actually envision themselves utilizing, and benefiting from, our products. Likewise, radio’s second-greatest asset is mobility. If your company has the world’s greatest car-care product, aren’t people more likely to buy it while in their cars? A weight-reducer or skin-enhancer is just as likely to sell when someone’s in a swimsuit at the beach, as it will when they are in bed at 3AM.
So radio may have all the tools, but you still need more than 60 seconds to sell your product. Try half-hour radio infomercials. Quality stations in virtually every size market offer half-hour blocks for an average of only $50.00-$500.00. Add in production costs well below television standards — $2,500.00 low-end to $15,000.00 for Super high-end — and your risk is substantially lower with tremendous upward potential.
Next time you listen to Howard Stern, Dr. Laura or your favorite radio personality, count the number of spots in any given hour which feature Web addresses and (800) phone numbers. Then, ask yourself why these marketers have been on the air forever, and you are just thinking about it now.
Thousands of radio stations are at your fingertips, offering better targeting for low dollar figures. Radio is the best kept secret in Electronic Retailing. Lower CPO’s, higher retail price-points — infomercial people and direct-marketers, jump on the bandwagon!
Joe Rashbaum is the President of THE RADIO SOLUTION COMPANY, a full-service, radio direct-response agencies. Joe has consulted many first-time radio users, including traditional television and print direct marketers, collectible and sports licensees, and SALEM RADIO, the fourth largest radio ownership. Joe may be reached at (805) 279-3391 or inquire below.