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