If response to any Direct Response Radio commercial has flattened out, this no-cost research tool can tell us exactly what to do in our next round of commercials.  

Just give each of your TMs a pad of paper and a pencil.  

Ask them to write down the first things people say when they hear the PRICE.  

Pay close attention to the Verbatim Comments from people who called but Did Not Buy.

People who are interested enough to call but who balk on price won't often admit they can't afford your $149.95.  Instead, they'll reach into their memory bank for a lame excuse why Your Thing won't work for them.  

When we read through the Verbatims we may see the same lame excuse over and over again.

If 25 out of every 100 callers DO NOT BUY for the same lame excuse, you can be sure that 250 out of 1,000 people who hear your spot DO NOT CALL for the same lame excuse.  It's a little stronger in their brains and it occurs to them just before they reach for the phone.

Our next round of creative should try to defuse that lame excuse - whatever it might be. Example:

National Dynamic Speed Tapes had run the same network :30 for nine years, fielding 2,000 calls a week and converting 22% of calls to sales.

Throaty VO: "Stop wasting time watching TV! You can learn a foreign language in just 20 minutes a day!"

Everyone in America had heard the spot 30 to 100 times.  Could I beat it?  How?  I called the 800 number, introduced myself, and asked the TM Supervisor why 78% of people who called Did Not Buy.  He knew the answer without looking at a note pad.  The main lame excuse was something like:

"Well, I took Spanish in High School and I had a hard time memorizing.  So, um.. I guess this wouldn't work for me."

Defusing that excuse was simple.  Instead of throaty announcer copy I ran 30-second Spanish lessons demonstrating the ease of learning a foreign language without memorizing.

The first spot in the new campaign, S-O-C-K-S, pulled 5,000 calls the first week.  Conversion rose from 22% to 28%.  The roll-out campaign grossed $35 million in two years, as much money as the Throaty Announcer copy had earned in nine years on the air.  

Click to The Top 200 for five of the 40 spots in the campaign.

For what it's worth, Rosetta Stone now makes a big deal about "No Useless Memorization or Boring Drills," but I have yet to hear anyone in any of their commercials say anything in Spanish, French, German, Italian or Japanese.