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What Are the Advantages of Radio Advertising?
Television and Internet ads are able to supply visuals to their customers, so many marketing experts discount the advantages of radio advertising, which only supplies consumers with a voice and sound effects. Despite this, the advantages of radio advertising, such as the affordability of the advertisement, make it effective for many businesses. Unlike other methods of advertising, such as TV or Web advertising that can only be viewed from certain areas of the house, radio advertising can be heard anywhere. When advertisers use their own voice, they can build trust in their company, because the audience will feel more comfortable with the business. Radio advertising also can be used to target a certain audience very easily.
One of the major advantages of radio advertising for new businesses is its affordability. Buying a spot on a radio show, when compared to buying web and TV spots, is very affordable, so businesses with small marketing budgets can use this medium. Creating the commercial also is rather inexpensive. At its cheapest, the business owner can record his or her voice without any sounds effects and will only need to spend money on a recording device.
If the business owner is the one speaking in the commercial, and if the commercial is made to be very friendly and conversational, this can increase trust in the company. This is because consumers prefer to buy from companies that are willing to make a personal connection, and this makes consumers feel like they know the business owner. Many business websites make use of this technique, which tends to increase selling volume.
TV and web ads are very impacting and can immerse the audience is a powerful multimedia commercial, but they can only be seen from certain areas. One of the advantages of radio advertising is that it can be heard, regardless of the consumer’s position. He or she can hear the ad while driving a car, sitting inside, walking around outside, at work if the job allows a radio, and nearly anywhere else. This portability makes it easy for consumers to hear the business’s message, regardless of where they are.
Radio shows constantly collect demographic information about their listeners. This includes their age, gender, hobbies, location and other aspects that businesses need to know for advertising. With this demographic information, businesses can easily target certain customers. This is one of the advantages of radio advertising that will ensure that only consumers who would be interested in the business’s product hear the commercial.
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![Radio offers a medium for advertising.]()
By: dmitrimarutaRadio offers a medium for advertising. -
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By: WavebreakmediaMicroRadio stations constantly collect demographic information about their listeners.
Discussion Comments
@allenJo - To me, the biggest advantage is not just the financial return on investment, but the creative possibilities as well. If you want to create a “radio drama” script, you can do it, using just about any story line you want.
To reproduce this on television, you would need fancy visuals and special effects. On radio, all you need is a good script, some voices and sound effects, which are all affordable.
I’ve heard some pretty funny spots on the radio, which lingered long in my mind after the ad was done. That’s what you want as an advertiser – to stay in the listener’s mind for as long as you can.
@SkyWhisperer - Trust is the most important factor. When I hear a local law firm or landscaping company use the owner’s own voice to deliver the ad, it creates a bonding with that person.
I hear their voice every day, several times a day, and after awhile I trust them. Whether that trust is misplaced or not is another story, but it works better than hearing a professional announcer read a script.
At any rate, it works, and it’s neat when you finally pay the business a visit and hear in real life that voice you’ve heard on the radio for so long.
@miriam98 - We had a computer business some years ago and started our advertising using radio spots. They were quite effective. As a startup, we had limited funds for marketing and the radio advertising proved to deliver the best return on investment.
Within days of having our spots go live, we were getting fresh leads and were able to start selling. From that point on, we continued running the spots on the radio so long as they delivered results, and afterwards tried other venues like trade shows and just word of mouth.
However, for us radio was the best way to kick off the marketing campaign.
As someone who listens to talk radio, I can tell you one of the most outstanding advantages of radio advertising. It has a strong fan base.
People who listen to talk radio, for example, appreciate the programs that are put on the air. When these radio announcers make pitches for their sponsors, the listeners respond in droves.
They want to support sponsors who make such talk radio programming possible for their listeners to hear. It’s been proven that there is a high response rate to these ads. Of course not all radio advertising is talk radio, but a lot of it is. You should definitely target this market in my opinion.
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