Frequently Asked Questions

I get a lot of calls and emails from people around the country who want fast answers to specific questions.  

Here are a few recent s.

 

How  fast can I sell my Health Food Supplement on Radio? (Portland, ME, June 05; Springfield, MO, August 05, Auckland, NZ, Dec. 05)

What does it cost to advertise? (Boston, Jan. 05)

How much should I spend to make a radio commercial? (San Francisco, Nov. 04)

What should my media budget be? (Norwalk, CT, Oct. 04)

I want to be on the air next month.  What can you do for me? (Santa Barbara, Dec. 03)

How can radio help me reach a very small B2B audience? (L.A., June 03)

I produced a jingle for a product and I want to sell it to the client. What should I charge? (Atlanta, Dec. 03)

My company sells technology that eases the Paper Glut that is drowning many businesses. Will radio work for me?  (Playa Del Ray, CA, Jan. 04)

Can you analyze my business plan and tell me what to do next? (Phoenix, Nov. 03)

I teach a class in advertising.  How can I keep my students interested? (Kansas City, Oct. 03)

How can I get more people to click to my website? (Albany, NY, Feb. 03)

I get good results from newspaper ads, but my radio doesn't work. Why? (Troy, MI Sept 02)

Do you do print ads and TV, too? (Multiple Markets, Monthly)

Can you give me some free advice? (Multiple Markets, Weekly)

How  fast can I sell my Health Food Supplement on Radio?

Have patience.  The health food-vitamin- natural enzyme category is extremely cluttered.  Half the spots on Sirius and XM Radio are straight read VOs testing the waters with similar promises for similar brands that carry no FDA or AMA (i.e. "Ask Your Doctor") endorsement. Your natural Direct Response Radio Acceleration Speed will be quite slow.  Normal early responders (Drivers & Expressives) will likely tune you out.  You'll need to hang around for several weeks to pick up Analyticals and Amiables, against whom you need to build frequency anyway.  Your likely response curve is graphed here.  A click-to CTA will work much better against female prospects than a 1-800.  Humans instinctively want to see things they put in their mouths.  Your website should show off the product (not just the bottle) and offer plenty of third-party endorsements in addition to the bullet point claims and lists of ingredients.   

BACK TO TOP 

What does it cost to advertise?

If you've never done this before and the money is coming from your personal wallet, you should spend only enough to convince yourself that advertising works. (How you spend that sum will dramatically influence the outcome.) 

If the money is coming from a real start-up budget, you might invest 3% to 8% of your projected YI gross (or 20% to 25% of projected profits), into a 90-day intro campaign.   My article on Zero Based Budgeting well help you clarify your thinking.

If you're venturing into Direct Response for the first time, your per sale media "allowable" should be between 38% and 50% of the unit sales price (excluding S&H).  You'll need to spend something up front for creative, production, test market media, and post-test re-edits.  

If you'd like me to guess the number you have in mind, call me at 407 895 3092.  Maybe my clairvoyance will kick in.

BACK TO TOP 

How much should I spend to make a radio commercial?

You can often get free creative and production from local radio station reps, whose business it is to sell air time.  

Caveat emptor.

After you try that and nothing much happened, you'll start looking for someone to recoup your losses.  

See FREE IDEAS.

In general, you should spend 9% to 11% of your monthly media budget on production.  (It's better to run a strong commercial nine times than a weak commercial ten times.) If your Target Audience is smart and rich, and you want to sound like you're worth more than your asking price, spend a little more on gloss and patina. For details on production costs, click here.  

For professionally written & produced spots that will make your phone ring or your widgets sail off the shelves, call me at (407) 895-3092.

BACK TO TOP

What should my media budget be?

If you distribute your product through stores or salesmen, and you want the media to support a brand image, spend 3-8% of target incremental gross revenues or 25% of profits.  Heavy up to launch a brand.  Spend a little less to support an established brand. Retailers will spend 5% to 20% of monthly sales to drive people to their stores.  If you're a direct response advertiser, you'll spend 38% to 50% of gross sales on media.  

Click here for a general approach to setting Budget & Deadlines, or call me at (407) 895-3092.

BACK TO TOP

I want to be on the air next month.  What can you do for me?

It takes about three weeks to develop a sound strategy and brand promise, devise and refine a copy platform and executional style, select and buy stations in your market(s) that reach your Target Audience, produce the spots, run them, and give you the tools to track and analyze results.  TV takes a little longer.  I can do that.  

Call me at (407) 895-3092.

[What I cannot do is clairvoyantly divine the nuances of your business plan or instantaneously write copy that expresses the thoughts that are in your head at this very moment. I'm good, but I'm not that good!]

BACK TO TOP

How can radio help me reach a very small B2B audience?

Even though your actual prospects are a tiny sliver of any station's total audience, if your message elicits inquiries that lead to sales, the key metric will be media cost per sale.  You might buy five spots on an AM News station for $1,000, get 37 phone calls, and close three deals worth, say, $12,000.  Your MCPS is $1,000/$12,000 or 8.5%.  If that's an acceptable percentage, keep buying that station. 

I recently ran a national radio campaign aimed at IT Professionals (about 3% of population) that helped build dice.com's sales from $14 to $40 million in 18 months. For a detailed discussion of radio metrics, click here or call me at (407) 895-3092.

BACK TO TOP

I produced a jingle for a product and I want to sell it to the client.  What should I charge?

Most clients won't touch outside spec creative, but if you can get in the door here's a plausible deal.  License the jingle to the client for three to six months for 3% to 5% of the gross media spent to run it.  (He'll have to agree to disclose his media buys, of course.)  Offer to waive the first $2,500 in media.  That lets the client test the jingle on one or two stations.  If it gets a favorable response, he'll probably keep running it, or buy you out, and you'll make a nice profit.  If the jingle bombs, you'll get nothing.

BACK TO TOP 

My company sells technology that eases the Paper Glut that is drowning many businesses. Will radio work for me?

This is a classic example of how to use QA Radio with other support media in a Total Campaign.  

There are hundreds of employees responsible for Paper Glut (and a host of similar problems).  But nobody will do anything about it until The Boss INITIATES the action.  You have to get to your Qualified Audience or NOTHING happens.  

Step One is to find local stations whose weekly cume includes a high percentage of your QA: corporate decision-makers, owners, CEOs, etc.

Step Two is to engage Mr. Big in a conversation about The Problem Nobody Can Solve Except Him.  Early morning drive might be a good time to run your spots.

In your case, you might run a showdown between Mr. Big (the driver), an Office Manager (the eventual hero), and a problem employee - Paper Man - whose untidy behavior and excessive compensation are getting out of control.  You come to the rescue.  Offer a phone or demo web page.

You might also run an Outdoor Board on the interstate that dramatizes Paper Man Run Amok!!  (Radio + Outdoor = Poor Man's TV.)

Use the same imagery in newspaper, direct mail, permission email, etc. directed at the same QA.  Those flat art pictures come alive in Mr. Big's mind whenever he sees it.

Let the idea sink in, then call Mr. Big direct.  
(407) 895-3092.

BACK TO TOP

Can you analyze my business plan and tell me what to do next?

If you have specific questions on strategy or tactics, write them down and call me at (407) 895-3092.  If you're trying to set up the time and money parameters of an overall marketing effort, read my article on Zero Based Budgeting. If you want a comprehensive branding program, I will charge you a fee commensurate with the degree of detail you require.  (Sample)

BACK TO TOP

I teach a class in advertising.  How can I keep my students interested?

The lesson plans for advertising elsewhere on this site lay out the basics. But there's nothing like hands-on experience.  Here are two project ideas.

1) Each student should develop a strategy and brand promise for something he or she already buys - a rock group, soda pop, sports equipment, CD player, etc.  Next, come up with a new brand name for that thing.  Next, sketch three outdoor billboards (picture, headline, no body copy) for the new brand.  Put all the billboards up on the classroom wall and give each student $100 in fantasy money to spend.  See which boards attract how much money.  Grade accordingly, or not.

2) Ask the students to get down on their hands and knees in front of the kitchen sink, close their eyes, open the door, reach in and pull out the first thing they touch.  It'll be a cleanser, bug spray, or some other icky product.  Same exercise as above. 

Here's a good Final Exam essay question for a college-level course.

BACK TO TOP

How can I get more people to click to my website?

There are four main ways to do it: Push media (ads, commercials, direct mail...), banners & custom channels embedded in OPWs (Other People's Websites), permission email, and Search Engine Marketing, which includes SEOPs and PPC.

In each case you want the content of the target page (or your homepage) to satisfy the curiosity or immediate & fleeting desires of your visitors, encourage them to learn more on other pages, or proceed to your shopping cart, or call you.

For example, a few minutes ago you typed in a phrase on your Google or MSN search bar, read a lot of blurbs, clicked to a page on this site that was "optimized" for that phrase, then clicked to this page, clicked to this question, and are now about to pick up the phone and call me at (407) 895-3092.  See how it works?

BACK TO TOP

I get good results from newspaper ads, but my radio doesn't work.  Why?

The two media are fundamentally different.  Active shoppers skip through newspapers looking or ads about things they want right now. They don't switch from station to station listening for commercials about those things.  They usually stick with their favorite one or two stations.   You have to build a rapport with today's listeners in order to get tomorrow's Active Shoppers.

Common Mistakes:
  
§ You run on stations that charge you a low price but reach the wrong people.
 
§ You don't run enough spots to compete with other advertisers on the same station. 

§ You have too many newspaper bullet points in your copy for the human ear to comprehend.
  
§ Your spots are too boring. Too silly. Too precious. Too soft.  Too hard. Too, "Almost, but just not enough."
 
§ Your announcer(s) scream at people who are sitting two feet from the speakers in their cars. 
 
§ All of the above.  

For solutions, click here or call me at (407) 895-3092.

BACK TO TOP

Do you do print ads and TV, too?

Yes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you give me some Free Ideas?

Sure.  Click here.

Better, yet - call me at (407) 895-3092.  Your first twenty minutes are free.  Or send me one or two questions by email.  Same deal.  If you want to learn to do something yourself, click to the site index and find an appropriate How To Article.








Free Advice, of course, is a little like Free Lunch. Nobody will give you enough of either to live on. 


BACK TO TOP