Small Business Bonfire

Need Your Input - Radio as a Marketing Tactic

I am working on an initial marketing plan for a small business owner - a new painting company. I would LOVE your input.

Their name is unknown in the Dallas metroplex - so, we are working on a Branding and Lead Generation strategy. Currently, they have 3 online tools for lead generation tools - Angie's List, Billy's com and QualitySmith. The owner is also faithful in attending the local Chamber and one other networking event.

The son (co-owner) is also out canvasing specific neighborhoods that they have worked in (posting signs at jobs they have recently completed.) We have a direct mail campaign that will mail out for the next 4 months to a consistent list. They are going to be hosting a 'ribbon cutting' with the Chamber members...

The owner really wants to do a radio campaign, but it's very pricey ($900 a month). How many of you have used radio for your clients? I know it's a good way to spread the name around and do a few 'call in give aways' but do you have experience on the real ROI?

I would love your input.

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Permalink Reply by Natalia Matulessy on June 4, 2012 at 6:41am

Wow, from my point of view that's quite expensive, but it may bring some promising leads.

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Permalink Reply by John Bondon on July 31, 2012 at 1:36pm

I think radio has value for building a brand and for event promotions, but I question why your client is choosing radio over PPC (Google Adwords, for example)? To me I would invest in PPC first and add radio to the mix later. The problem, of course, with broadcast mediums like radio, is 99% of your listeners AREN'T in the market for painting services. But if you redirect say $500 of that $900 into a pay per click online ad campaign (focus on Google ads via searches ONLY, and add Facebook paid ads to mix later too), you will be targeting prospects already IN THE MARKET for painting services. They are much closer to a purchase decision than most of the people listening to those radio ads! Plus Google has a feature now where you can do a little remarketing by targeting prospects with banner ads via the content networks for anyone that has already visited their website. I'd spend the remaining $400 on improving their website to give them better ROI from a search engine marketing (SEO) perspective, and create some custom code to remarket via the content network to those who have visited their website, but HAVEN'T bought yet. I'd also use some of that $400 to create video content for their website and for YouTube. Create some great video FAQ content related to the purchasing decisions and questions your client's prospects have, and that is what I would use video for.

I think their $900/mo would go a lot further that way than via radio right now. Save radio for their next BIG promotional event or joint venture/co-op type campaign. (for example, can they get marketing dollars from one of their paint suppliers (Sherwin-Williams?) to help offset that radio ad cost?)

I'm not saying radio couldn't work for them, but I think you'll see results much faster and much more cost effectively by using the right PPC campaign.

:) John

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Treat Abeyta on July 31, 2012 at 2:21pm

AWESOME content. Thanks so much for your sage advice! We ramped up a PPC campaign and created one YouTube video - but we haven't mastered the remarketing by targeting prospects with banner ads via the content networks. HOW do you go about accomplishing this? I know banner ads, but I don't know which content networks (*They are on Angie's List - which has a targeted marketing).

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Permalink Reply by John Bondon on August 1, 2012 at 3:20pm

Hi Pamela,

honestly I haven't pulled the trigger on my own remarketing campaign yet. planning to do so in September. But to clarify I don't mean creating a campaign on the content network itself. When you setup a new Adwords campaign there is either a checkbox that says something like "people who have visited my website" ... if that's an option for you check that and that ONLY... do not enable any of the content networks themselves. Or if you have the option to setup a ReMarketing Campaign, select it. Google provides you some special code to plug into your website so it can track people who visited your website. Then as they visit other websites that are part of hte content network (display ads) your ad campaign can show to them but not to visitors who haven't yet visited your website yet. How cool is that?!! Try to do that with a broadcast ad campaign!! ;)

I would suggest NOT enabling any of the content network stuff itself unless you actually have a gameplan for such a campaign. That way you are not actually spending ad money on the content network unless it's someone who has been to your website already. The idea being you can reinforce your brand multiple times to the same prospect. I believe it's possible could come up with some scripting to further segment those who have been to your website and bought versus those who have not yet bought. But I haven't actually sat down to try to figure out how to do this, or how easy or hard it would be to do. But that's part of what my strategy will be in Sept, IF I can pull that part of it off! ;)

Personally I don't have a strategy for advertising via the content network, which is why I suggest turning that off. If you did, I would suggest running that as a completely separate campaign(s) from your search campaigns. I personally am only interested in taking advantage of the remarketing aspects of using the content network, which is either a separate checkbox within your adwords account or is specially labeled as a Remarketing Campaign.

Does that help?

:) John