Building A Plan

Why do businesses advertise?

Businesses advertise because they need to attract customers, to BUY their service or product.

Why do we buy things?

We buy things because we NEED or WANT them.

What creates these needs and wants?

Life creates these needs and wants. Every day things happen that make us need or want things. A couple getting married is going to have specific needs and wants, a newborn baby is going to create a lot of needs and wants. When these life events happen, we THINK about where we’re going to go for these needs or wants. We call these events TRIGGERING EVENTS.

What are triggering events?

Imagine you wake up, get ready for work and walk out the door. When you get to your vehicle, you realize you have a flat tire. THIS is a triggering event because now you have to THINK about WHO you’re going to call, to fix the problem. Triggering events create needs and wants.

The importance of being known BEFORE you’re needed.

The decision to buy happens in the mind. When a triggering event happens, we THINK about who we are going to call or where we’re going to go. Because of this, it’s important to be known BEFORE you’re needed. When a need arises, you want them to THINK of your business first.

The MAIN reason to advertise:

80% will shop the first place they THINK of

Research shows 80 percent will give their business to the first person they think of. That’s why it’s important to be the FIRST business people think about and it’s equally important that they feel best about your business too. You can probably think of a lot of businesses that you WOULDN’T want to do business with as well. It’s important to be KNOWN before you’re needed but HOW do you become known?

The 4 keys to successful advertising (How to become KNOWN)

• REACH – In order to sell products or service you need to REACH people and you need to REACH a LOT of people!

• FREQUENCY – You need to reach these individuals FREQUENTLY. If you had the option of reaching 100 customers ONE time or 10 customers 10 times, which do you think would be more effective? Reaching 10 people 10 times would be a greater frequency and produce greater results. They say sleep is the great eraser. When we go to sleep, everything new we learned that day is erased from our mind and when we wake up, we start over. That’s why it’s important to stay TOP OF MIND and have them hear your message frequently. You need to remind them frequently to be remembered.

• Consistency – You need to consistently advertise through the year because people are always in different buying cycles. Triggering events happen every day. Someone got a flat tire today. Someone is going to get a flat tire next week. Someone is going to get a flat tire three months from now. Someone is getting married this weekend. Someone will be getting married next weekend and the weekend after that. You never know when people will have triggering events that make them want or need your product or service. You need to consistently be top of mind so when a need arises, you’re the first business they think of.

• Message – The final key is the message. You can have reach, frequency and consistency but without a great message, your advertising will fail. If you offer a “Free whatever” people will line up to get it at your business. If you offer an oil change for $350.00 No one is going to come because the message isn’t good.

If you’ve been in a situation where you’ve tried advertising and felt it didn’t work, it’s probably because it was missing one of the four keys.

You have a LOT of advertising options to consider….

With all of the different local advertising options available, how do you decide WHICH media platform will give you the best results? To answer that question, let’s talk about a research study that was done over a six year period. They examined 3,200 successful advertising campaigns and came up with the top eight characteristics of these campaigns.

The most important characteristic is REACH and while all media options reach customers one way or the other, radio is America’s #1 mass media reaching over 90% of the population every week.

Number 2 is influencing close to the point of purchase. Only radio reaches customers listening on the way to the store where 92% of transactions still take place. ONLINE SALES ONLY ACCOUNT FOR 8% of purchases!

The third most important characteristic should provide local consumer interaction. Radio is live and local on air and in the community with live concerts and local radio broadcasts from local businesses. Radio provides personal and lasting connections.

The fourth characteristic should create emotional connections. On air personalities drive emotional engagement and the more engaged listeners are, the more receptive they are to an advertisers message.

Number five is building trust and credibility. 3 out of 4 adults agree radio is credible and trusted. Wit hall of the internet and media fake news on both sides, it’s hard to know who or what to trust. Consumers say their favorite on air personality / DJ influences their opinion and almost 8 out of 10 radio listeners graduate from a fan to a friend.

The 6th characteristic is to provide un-skippable engagement. Radio is not vulnerable to ad blocking technology and two thirds of radio listening occasions do not involve switching stations.

The best performing advertising should be cost effective. Radio has a lower cost-per-thousand (CPM) impression rate than most local media.

Finally, the best performing advertising should be able to deliver ads affordably and quickly. Radio can create spots for little to no cost and get you on the air within 24 hours. Why waste advertising budget on production when you can put that money towards more commercials?

So as you can see, ALL media options have merit in some of the characteristics of the best performing advertising but only RADIO checks off all the boxes and delivers all eight characteristics that deliver the best performing advertising. And that’s why…..

That’s WHY radio delivers the HIGHEST ROI of any local media option out there. It’s an unbeatable 10 to 1 average which is three to four times HIGHER than any other local media option.

Here is a graph from the study. Notice how 71% of the campaigns were on multiple platforms? For every media platform you ad, you are increasing your ROI. If you’re using radio as youor base advertising plan and add a second platform like digital, you increase your ROI by 19%.

…and by unifying your message between both platforms, you get an even bigger boost.

Did you know Cumulus Media is also a full service digital marketing company? We put our digital products into three buckets.

• C-Mail – Anything email related. Direct mail on steroids, without th ecost of postage or printing! Create targeted lists to market to, through email or addressable geo-fencing.

• C-Services – How you appear online (Website, mobile optimized website, SEO, SEM, Google AdWords, Facebook / Instagram advertising, video display and local OTT – Over the Top videos)

• C-Target – Anything banner related to desktop, mobile and tablets. C-Target is my favorite digital tool. We are able to track based on people INTENDING to purchase a specific product or service, based on their online behavior. WE can use C-Target to drive traffic into your store, get your job offer in front of the competitions top talent or target specific events to capture the attendance for future marketing! Ask me for a demo for this product and I’m sure you will find multiple ways it can help your business!

Targeting prospects with geo-fenced zones gets your message in front of the RIGHT people!

If you have a direct mail list (up to 1 million addresses) we can geo-fence EVERY house on the list. Then, for the next 30 days, we target ALL internet connected devices in the home and display your message up to 4X per day, on websites and mobile apps they’re ALREADY using! No need to download or install anything on their phone. WE use the phone’s GPS location to target and tract your potential customer or employee.

We can create a conversion zone around YOUR business address and show you HOW MANY unique individuals walked in your door as a direct result of this marketing!

Here is a list of the top 10 2019 radio advertisers

1. The Home Depot
2. GEICO
3. Lowe’s
4. Indeed
5. McDonalds
6. Progressive Insurance
7. Seriously
8. Sprint
9. Macy’s
10. JC Penny

Radio can give you the same benefit the big companies get and combining radio with digital, you really get a great one-two punch and maximize your marketing budget!

If you would like help growing your business contact me! Keith.Hanshaw@Cumulus.com or call me at 717-901-3461