Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Talking to People Who Are ON

You don't have to reach everybody for your advertising campaign to be effective. The term broadcasting really is a misnomer. What you are truly doing is "narrowcasting," looking for the percentage of listeners who are ON for what you are selling this week.

Take my friend, James, for instance. He's a professional who listens to the radio at his office. The other day he heard a commercial for Kroger, a grocery store in Atlanta, for a 10 for $10 special. Specifically, he heard his favorite ice cream brand, Mayfield, being promoted during this sale. The offer was 10 pint size ice creams for $10.

James was ON for buying ice cream so the radio commercial reached him and re-directed his buying pattern. He went to Kroger and took advantage of the offer. This campaign succeeded in doing two things: (1) it reached someone who was ON for what they were selling, and (2) it created a value proposition for Kroger in the mind of the consumer (what some like to refer to as branding).

Many advertisers make the mistake that they have to reach everyone to be effective with their campaign. The fact is you could not handle the volume if each of my 420,000 listeners were in the market for what you sell. The reality is even if 1% of my audience responded to your campaign, you'd be out of product or unable to provide the service. When you get down to it, even if 1/2 of 1% responded, you'd be overwhelmed.

Do you see why it's not that important to reach EVERYBODY?

We just need to reach a percentage of those listeners ON for what you sell and you're in the $$.

Just like James and the ice cream, your product or service will be bought by somebody this week. The question is will you get your unfair share of the business?

Business is still being done and there's not as much advertising clutter right now making now a great time to be advertising your product or service.

You could dramatically grow market share and position your company for big gains if you act now. If you'd like to find out how we are helping others, drop me a note and we can talk.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry, Copee. You missed the point. Radio is a marathon. Yes, we can deliver those who are "ON". However, our highest and best use is as a long term branding medium. Why not use your radio ad to reach the 98% who won't buy today and incorporate a salient tactical offer (as you describe in the ice cream story)? This creats the "Jelly Donut" effect: :40 seconds of branding, :20 second of why buy now. Focusing soley on buy it now results in screamer ads and does nothing to drive long term business that delivers sales even if the customer did not happen to turn the dial to your station while jonesing for some Cherry Garcia.

Yer Lovin'

Kyle Caldwell
Sales Weasel
WSB

Mike Copeland said...

Kyle. I appreciate your comments and perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should've been. The point I was making was that you don't have to reach "everybody" for your advertising to be effective. Make no mistake, I tell clients everyday that radio is two-fold. Tactical -- as you mention regarding "why buy now" and strategic "why buy." In this economy, though, advertisers are interested in what will move the needle now. Those media that don't do a good job of focusing on the element that's ON now will soon find themselves on the other end of a cancellation notice. Thanks again for commenting and I appreciate your thoughts.