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Four Steps to a Killer Radio Ad Campaign

You’ve tried radio advertising. Bought some package the sale rep offered. Ran a few ads that sounded “professional” and got little return out of it.

That’s because you didn’t do it my way.*

Here are the four steps to running a Killer radio ad campaign.

  1. Figure out your core values.

  2. Pick one core value that will have the deepest connection with your customers (and one that your competitors most likely don’t have).

  3. Write a killer emotional ad that touches on that core value.

  4. Keep the ad running changing only the copy, not the core value, now through Christmas.

Core Values

These are the values both you and your business hold dear. Values that you will never change. Values so strong that you would rather close up shop than change them.

My store’s core values are Fun, Helpful, Educational, and Nostalgic. Ask me to drop any of those and it is a deal killer. If you are struggling to figure out your core values, download my free eBook Understanding Your Brand and the accompanying worksheets.

Deep Connection

Believe it or not but it isn’t income, education or marital status that drives loyal customers into your store. Your best customers are there because they share the same values or belief system that you do. Those shared values are the bond between you.

The deeper that connection, the stronger the bond.

When you pick a value to use for your marketing, either pick the one that is the most emotional or the one that is least likely to be found in your competitors.

For example, as a toy store, one of my values is Fun. But all of my competitors also have some claim on the concept of Fun because we all sell toys. Nostalgia, however, runs much deeper and more emotional. Education is a missing component in the big box competitors, and Helpful has never been their strong suit either. So I tend to focus on those values in my ads.

Killer Emotional Ads

Remember that the goal of your ad is to move someone to action. That someone is the person who shares your values. Write an ad directly at her heart. Speak to her and only to her. Speak about her values and how you understand them. Speak to her concerns, needs, and beliefs.

Forget about everyone else who might be hearing your ad and just write it to that one person. You will be amazed at how many of those “one persons” there are out there.

Killer emotional ads do not sound like any other ad on the radio. That is good! No one likes ads so we tune out anything that remotely sounds like an ad. Here is an example of a killer emotional ad…

He left Detroit 9am Christmas Eve… Someone somewhere had to have the one toy his sweet little six-year old wanted. Six cities…seven stores later, he stood, travel-weary, across the counter from me. “I suppose you don’t have any Simon games either.” As I handed over the last of our Simon games he smiled and said, “God Bless You!” Believe me, He already has. Merry Christmas from the Toy House in downtown Jackson. We’re here to make you smile.

Keep it Going

Radio advertising is not a sprint. It is a long distance run. If you want this campaign to give you great fourth quarter results, you have to start running now.

At the same time, radio ads can get boring really quickly. One superbly written, emotionally-driven, killer ad can turn boring in only a matter of weeks. So you have to write a whole bunch of ads all around the same value. Figure out how to say the same thing five different ways and you have the makings of a killer campaign.

There are eighteen weeks until Christmas. Five ads all about your strongest core value running three to four weeks each will connect you powerfully to your best customers and get them to choose you over your competitors this fall.

Killer.

-Phil Wrzesinski

www.PhilsForum.com

*PS My way is really Roy’s way, as in Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads. He taught me. I did it. I saw the results.

PPS For more on how to use radio the right way, check out this post I wrote in 2009.

Sleep is the Great Eraser of the Mind

Note: Most of the stuff in this post I learned from Roy H. Williams. Please forgive me for stealing.

Okay, you’ve made one point, spoke to the heart, made it relevant, and didn’t look or sound like an ad. Yet, the needle isn’t moving. No one is remembering your message, let alone acting upon it. Why not?

Sleep.

Three Levels of Memory
Everything that happens throughout your day is put into electrical or Working Memory (think RAM like a computer). At the end of the day all of your Working Memory that wasn’t relevant or impactful is erased by sleep, including stuff only slightly relevant or impactful.

Declarative and Procedural Memory are chemical memories. These are stored in your brain (think hard drive). They come from repetition. Declarative is the memory of things you can recall if asked (your cousin’s phone number). Procedural is memory that comes without thinking (slamming your brake when a deer crosses the road)

Frequency is Key
With repetition, electrical Working Memory is converted to chemical Declarative memory, and as repetition continues, from Declarative to Procedural.

The amateur practices enough to get it right (declarative). The professional practices until he cannot do it wrong (procedural).

Hitting the Nail on the Head
Another way to think about it is the hammer and nail. If you hit a nail one time, it will make an impression in the wood. But then the big claw called sleep rips that nail out, leaving just a hole. If you put that nail in the same hole, however, and hit it again, the hole gets deeper. Keep putting the nail into the same hole and hit it over and over and eventually sleep will not be able to rip that nail out.

Some of you might argue that you can pound a nail in one stroke. Sure you can. How many of you know exactly where you were when you heard about 9/11? That happened only once, but the impact was big enough to push it directly into declarative memory (plus there was the added frequency of it being talked about for months on end).

Your ads will not be as impactful as a terrorist attack or space shuttle explosion.

The Magic Number
In advertising, the magic number is three. It takes the average person hearing/seeing an ad three times in seven days before it gets stored as Declarative Memory. And they must hear it three times every week until they need the product or service. And when I say “hear” I’m talking about actively engaged in the ad, not the subliminal effect of background noise.

To get that kind of frequency you need to put your message out there as often as possible. Whether you use TV, newspaper, radio, Facebook or Twitter, your success will be tied to the consistent and constant use of the medium every single day. Otherwise, you are just spending your advertising time and money foolishly.

-Phil

The Toy House IQ

If you’ve been following the recent conversation, you’re probably already guessing IQ doesn’t refer to Intelligence Quotient. And thank God for that. When people use the word smart around me it usually includes alec after it.

But in being transparent about how we do our advertising, today is a great day to discuss one more term in Roy William’s Advertising Performance Equation – SoV x IQ x PEF x MPo = Sales.

From before we learned SoV=Share of Voice=Your ad budget and PEF=Personal Experience Factor=How well you exceed customer expectations.

IQ stands for Impact Quotient or how memorable or attention-getting your ad might be. The more memorable, the higher the IQ.

To better understand, answer this question… Where were you when you first heard about the Twin Towers?

You remember the exact moment, who told you, how you reacted. That is off-the-chart high IQ. Sorry, but your ads will never have that high of an IQ.

Now answer this question… What companies’ ads have you heard or seen today that really stood out, that made you pay attention?

Don’t worry if you’re struggling to think of one advertiser today that stood out. Most ads have a very low IQ.

Why?

Because we are conditioned to tune out all advertisements. We are bombarded with thousands and thousands of advertising pitches daily. It’s like aiming a fire hose at a teacup. We can’t possibly absorb them all so our brain learns to filter. If it isn’t relevant, we don’t see it or hear it.

You can read an entire newspaper cover to cover and not remember a single ad because nothing was relevant to you. You can listen to an hour of radio and not remember a single company because they didn’t say anything important or relevant or interesting. In fact, as soon as they came on, you automatically tuned out.

But isn’t that the goal of advertising – to get people to notice you?

Unfortunately, too many companies don’t understand this. They produce lousy ads with low IQ that no one sees or hears. They are told by their ad sales reps that all they have to do is get their name out there and people will notice. Hey ad guys, haven’t you figured it out? We need something other than your name. We’re too busy to notice.

In the equation above, SoV x IQ is a sub-equation. SoV x IQ = Share of Mind, in other words, how much the consumer thinks of you compared to your competitor.

If you have a 10% SoV and run average ads, you have 10% of Share of Mind. If you have 10% SoV and run lousy, invisible ads, you might only get a 5% Share of Mind. Remember, SoV is linked to your ad budget. If your ads are lousy, you need to spend twice as much to get the same Share of your customer’s mind.

However, if you have high impact ads, you can gain a greater Share of your customer’s mind than your budget allows. That’s the power of IQ.

In the next post, I’ll explain how we try to gain your attention in our ads. In the meantime, you can listen for yourself. All of our radio ads are now posted on our website. Go to http://www.toyhouseonline.com/ and click on the Radio icon to hear all of our 2008 ads.

Have an impactful day!

-Phil

What in the World is SoV?

In the last post I mentioned Roy Williams’ Advertising Performance Equation – SoV x IQ x PEF x MPo = Sales.

We talked about how PEF stands for Personal Experience Factor. In this equation, to grow your business, a customer’s personal experience must exceed her expectations. That’s what creates loyalty and fandom, and is our staff-training goal every month.

Today “SoV” is the relevant part of the equation for me. Why? I just agreed to terms with Jackson Radio Works for running a year-long radio campaign next year.

Wait. Still confused?

Let me explain…

SoV stands for Share of Voice – in other words, how much of the advertising being done in your category is yours. Think of it as a percentage. If in your market and category there is $1 million being spent on advertising and you are spending $100,000 of it, then you have a 10% SoV.

So, by that definition, SoV is equal to your marketing budget as a percentage of the total ad money being spent. Therefore, the more you spend, the higher your SoV.

Most of you upon reading this are saying, “Great, Phil, but I don’t have any more money. What if I want a higher SoV and don’t have more money to spend? Can I increase my SoV other ways?”

Yes you can. I just did.

There are many ways to advertise – TV, Radio, Newsprint, Internet, Email, Yellow Pages, to name a few. How many of those media do you own? By that, I mean, are there any media that when people think of the media they think of you?

If you listen to radio in Jackson, you know the Toy House owns some of the stations. No other toy or baby product seller comes close to running the frequency that we do on those stations. Ask someone who is the toy store on the radio and they’ll tell you Toy House. We own it. That was our goal last year and will be our goal again this year.

I don’t have the budget that my competitors have. I don’t have the power of national advertising, printing on a mass scale, or the clout to demand huge rate savings from the media. But I do have an understanding about perception. While all the big chains compete with each other with their multiple inserts, none of them gaining a perceptual advantage, I’ve got the airwaves to myself, allowing Toy House to get a perceptively larger Share of Voice than what we are spending.

Think of it this way. Most people, when thinking of advertising think (in order), Newspaper, TV, Radio, Yellow Pages, and maybe Internet. If I perceptually own Radio, I perceptually have a 20% SoV. No, it’s not perfect math. Neither is the equation (I’ll get to that in another post). But it is an improvement over my actual percentage of the SoV (about 5-7%).

Are you daring enough to get more out of your advertising budget? Are you willing to go for it by owning a media no one in your market is using?

Wouldn’t it be better to have a nice quiet conversation alone with a client than to be part of the shouting and screaming that all your competitors are doing?

Of course it would.

-Phil