Anyone Ever Use Radio Ads?

wackman

Any tips on that?

I've recently started another business that is more service related and I want to get it up and running rather quick. This one's a handyman company. I've got several different marketing strategies planned. I have a feeling that seniors and single women will make up the bulk of my clients along with well off people that can afford to have someone else do their fix up work around the home.

I'm wondering what I should say in the commercial. Should I just have us explained or do one of those very repetitive ones? Should I spend a lot of time saying our name and number?

I'm leaning towards a jingle right now, those always seem to work on me and get stuck in my head.

Other questions I'm wondering about include: Is there a standard length, most effective method, any sort of standards I should consider, check list of what to get across, should I offer specials, stations and type of content (music, genre, talk radio, etc...) that would work best?

The other more expensive ideas that I'm tossing around are bus sides and back, bus stop benches, newspapers and billboards along a busy freeway (I think that ones big $$$).

Any thoughts would be great, even if you've never done one.

Wack

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BreyerConstruct

Each station will have their demographics & listener #'s figured out, and will happily tell you about them.

Country, Jazz, Classical, and Easy Listening will most likely be your best bets.

5's, 10's are nice to get your name sprinkled out there... 30's aren't usually worth it, because 60's are what they want to usually sell, and aren't much more than 30's. Expect to pay 1ooo's for this campaign, and to keep it running for more than a few months- it takes a while for radio to sink in, I think.

Get a link on their websites, and look for opportunities to do tie-ins, that's often a better opportunity. Say, maybe with a morning show, you do a repair for free for a shut-in who calls the show... free publicity, and they get lots of calls & good feelings...

HTH,
~Matt

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nlgutters

i tried months of it and jingles and saying my name and number a lot. the best one for me was when we blasted the radio for a week. it was like $1,500 bucks and played a ton of ads on three difrent stations. It worked great. i still here people say every now and again i heard your ad on the radio and it was 3 years ago

wackman

What worked the best, jingles, saying your name and number a lot?

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nlgutters

i would say it was a jingle with the name and number a lot.

Vinny

Wackman, I dont have any info on what works best but I can tell you radio definitly has deep penitration with an extended memeory on the audience.

We did a small AM station home improvement show that airs Saturday mornings in the early spring every year and the bug stays in thier ears a long time

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silvertree

Radio is the next thing I try. Forget bus stop signs, billboards work and are pricey. I wrote a jingle that is very catchy, thats the trick to radio. I have a friend who swears by it, but his latest try got only a few leads. I like rock, but I am doing a 50 plus age group. Frank Sinatra, Perry Como easy listening kind of stuff. Will bite on a month of radio, if it doesn't pay for itself, I'm moving on. I will be selling kitchen and bath remodels and only pitch interior work for my company. Worth a try.

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wackman

Hey Matt, what are you referring to with the 5's, 10's, 30's and 60's? Is that the number of runs they'll do? Any idea how long a typical campaign is that runs in the thousands? My brother-in-law is in a band and just had a week done on one of our biggest rock stations and it cost him $300 bucks. It was non-peak hours though and I'm not sure how many times they played it.

Great idea by the way with the tie in. I'll definitely check into that.

I tried to think of the catchiest jingles I've heard and for me it's more about the sound than the words (I never remember the words to songs but I can hum them fine) and I've got one but it's not really suited to an older crowd, a little to much bass and hip hop sounding drums but maybe I can change the music just a bit to make it appeal to them....

Wack

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mdshunk

If it's jingles you want, you can't get any cheaper than JAM productions. They do most of the nation's station ID jingles, and they've been doing it for 50 years. It was PAM productions before that. You can get a jingle for as little at 275 bucks. They can rework jingles from as far back as the 1950's for your use.

http://www.jingles.com/jam/index.html

mdshunk

Here's a TV ad a local contractor has been running on TV lately. I did ask him how much it cost to have made, and the answer was "it was cheap". Pretty nice commercial for cheap.

+ YouTube Video

BreyerConstruct

Sorry Wack, I was referring to seconds... 5 seconds, 10 seconds, etc.

ON I105 (local country) I was paying just over 100 bucks per 60, if memory serves...Figure 1k a week for a basic presence.

~Matt

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Carport King

Yes radio works and we do something a little different. We buy all the unsold space for 30 and 60 second ads. About 800-1000 per month across 6 radio stations.

It works for us and we have been doing it about 6 months now. But we also have a deal where at least 300 of them are in drive time.

We pay anywhere from $10.00 to $18.00 per spot. We also do the same for local cable in which we pay $10.00 per ad. We are on 6 different shows and we use 3 different ads for each.

It all works but we have built up a following and we do custom stuff with the station like contest and giveaways. Go for it.

wackman

Wow, that seems unbelievably cheap. Where about do you live? How much are the ads during the drive time costing?

Wack

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HellisLikeNewrk

wow! Drive-time ads here cost $400 to $1,000 per 60 sec spot. I only get the $30 rates during the overnight hours (midnight to 4:00 am).

Roof Cleaning

OUCH, been there, done that, almost went broke!
We are roof cleaners in tampa florida.
We are not an impulse item.
Yellow Pages are best for us.

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wackman

Hey Shunk, Thanks for the link, good stuff.

Since you know the guy and your part of the country, what would your guess be as to what "cheap" is? Are you thinking like $2k or $5k or $30k???

Was that just to create the commercial? Or was that for air time?

Everyones idea of cheap is different so I'm curious if you have an idea.

Thanks,

Wack

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"I only bother remembering things that I can't easily look up." Albert Einstein

Carport King

Advertising is cheap right now and getting cheaper everyday. When you buy in bulk in radio it come down in price.

Buy all the unsold space they have and embaress them with an offer. They all say that they have no unsold space and yes they give you a out of mind price. Hey they are proud of there station but money talks big time.

And me I do not care a hoot about there station it is all about price and money. And when a station can be sure of 5-10,000 a month extra with no work other then a phone call you can get a price thats affordable.

Just last week a guy from this site wanted to do a full page ad in color and they wanted $1800 and by the time he was done with them with my guidence he got it for $650.00. It looks a whole lot better in his pocket believe me. Just do not take know for an answer.

wackman

That's very interesting Carport. Good to hear. About what can you expect to get for 5k a month? Is most of it late at night? The fellow you gave guidance to, was that a newspaper ad? Since it was "full color"?

Do you mind telling us how much you're spending on radio and how much work it's bringing in? Maybe a ratio if you don't want to divulge actual dollars, like for every 100 bucks spent on radio it's bringing in 500 bucks in work or something.

Don't mean to be nosy, just curious. Thanks.

Wack

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"I only bother remembering things that I can't easily look up." Albert Einstein

Carport King

We spend between 7500-10,000 a month in radio and we only buy unsold space. We get anywhere from 500-800 30and 60 second spots with 1/3 being in drive time across 6 different stations. We use 3 different spots of each for different products. I would say we sell about 250,000 a month off the radio but we have doing it for 6 months. Radio is the hardest thing to track and we do code it in the add but most people just say they heard us on the radio.

I like the TV the best and we have a yearly contract for 500 spots amonth plus we do 500 spots of a 4 miniunte show we do and that cost us 5000 a month total with cable. We do our outdoor kitchens on the food channel we do our impact windows on discovery channel and our pool cages and pavers on a&e. Plus of course full page color ads and we have our own 24 page magazine that we send it 100,000 a month. And in our economy right now we will do 1 million a month in sales.

wackman

HOLY ****!! That's a lot of advertising and a lot of sales! Thanks for sharing that with us.

What would you recommend starting with for a company that has a limited budget and no serious advertising now?

I started the company during the boom and everything I built sold before completion, now I've stopped doing specs and am only doing remodeling but I don't have much clientele built up for a referrals only program.

I have a few things like site signs, Angieslist and Craigslist but nothing heavy hitting.

Wack

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"I only bother remembering things that I can't easily look up." Albert Einstein