Direct Response Radio advertisers who offer new & unique solutions to age-old consumer problems often run into considerable Initial Resistance. 

Prospects may have buried that unsolvable problem so deep in their psyches that it will take a little extra persuasion to jolt them out of Hopelessness and into Action.

   Brand Advertisers or retailers may notice that a large percentage of their phone calls or UPC-tracked sales occur during certain days of the week, and certain hours of the day.

    In either case, a good short term introductory test strategy is to run Totsie 1.0 Cluster Bombs.  I buy enough spots to reach about half the cume once, but I ask the station to run them in short bursts.

A Cluster Bomb is 3 :60s in Three Hours.

    If you'll permit a battlefield metaphor:  Three shots can surely take out an outhouse. One shot may only dent the broadside of a barn door.

    Run Cluster Bombs every other day or so in different times until you've bombed about half the cume.  If I bought 24 commercials M-F 10a-8p per week for two weeks, I might ask the station to run the first 12 spots in four Cluster Bombs.  For example:

Tue      (3 x :60, 10a-1p)
Thu      (3 x :60, 12N-3p)
Mon     (3 x :60, 3p-8p)
Wed    (3 x :60, 11a-2p)

    The next week we'd choose different target times.

    Timing tactics vary.  For a DR advertiser, I'll look at the daily/hourly Arbitron ratings and run Cluster Bombs in and around peak AQH hours.  For retailers or brand advertisers, I'll use the UPC Tracking Tool to run Cluster Bombs when the fish are biting.

    In either case, a fair number of individual listeners will hear your message two or three times in a row.  That may be enough to inspire them to Act Now! 

    Essentially we trade reach against the broad cume for a virtual frequency of 1,2 or 3 against several mini-cumes. 

    In a two-week test, we'd normally buy enough Cluster Bombs to hit about half the cume.  How many is that?

    Divide Mon-Fri Target Audience cume by AQH. That's how many mini-cumes there are during the broad day part.  Divide by two.  Run that many Cluster Bombs.

    You'll reach about half the cume bam-bam-bam times.  Your Cost per Call may be a little higher, but conversion should be, too.  Cluster Bombs can overcome enough initial resistance to pay out your investment handily, especially on music-format stations.

    Once you've run enough Cluster Bombs to reach half or more of the broad cume, you can ease back into Totsie 2.7s, of whatever your maximum EF turns out to be.