Hey guys, as some of you know, we recently started advertising our business, Media Melt on the radio. We were finding that all the tips and tricks we had learned about Facebook marketing simply weren’t working with our demographic. As tempting (and affordable) as it was to continue doing what we knew, we decided to channel that energy into another advertising stream. We decided on radio. Full disclosure, this is almost entirely based on the fact that we could trial it through Steve’s MediaWorks account. He gifted us 60% of his advertising spots for one month to see how it goes. With all of that in mind, let’s get into how we actually wrote the ad.
AN OVERVIEW
The point of a radio ad is to advertise your business, to build brand awareness and to hopefully bring in more customers or clients. When creating your radio ad there are several simple things to keep in mind, mainly: who, what, where, how and why. By answering these questions on their own, you can come up with a list of points that need to be incorporated into your ad.
WHY
Why would someone need your business? Well, we’re a video production company so people would need us to make videos or take photos. Even though everyone has a camera on their smartphone, we can make quality content that looks great. We’re professional and we have the expertise. Easy as that. Now your business will likely have different points to get across but the question is still the same. Why would someone need your business?
WHO
Who needs your business? This can be a tricky one as it requires knowing your key demographic. Start with who have your clients been thus far? For us it has been mostly businesses rather than domestic households. Businesses who want to upgrade their website or create training videos. Which means we should be targeting business owners, they're the ones making the big decisions. Who else might want to use your business?
WHERE
Where would you travel for business? Would you travel for business or do you need your clients to come to you? Is most of your business online so you don't have to go anywhere?For us, we want to keep it local because travel costs are expensive but we can travel to businesses within the region. We’re advertising in the Dunedin, Otago region to people living in Dunedin and Otago. The radio makes this easy as they advertise regionally anyway.
WHAT
What do you do? What does your business offer? We can make ads, promos, photography, interviews etc. We also do websites and social media. This is all information we want to get into the ad so that people know what we actually do.
HOW
How can they contact you? This one’s pretty easy, do you want them to visit your website or showroom or give you a call. Give any relevant information. A good way to track how your radio ad is doing is it get them to visit a specific page on your website. Set it up specifically for radio quotes so you can track how much business came through from the radio it could be www.yourwebsite/radio. Or get them to say a password like "radio" when they call for a 10% discount.
MIX IT ALL TOGETHER
You have all the information in the answers above to put it all together!
"Do you need to produce some fun, professional online content that looks exceptional?
Hi, I’m Eve from Media Melt. We’re a local video production company, with experience in creating engaging content for the web. Whether you want to create training videos for your workplace, update your website or increase your social media reach, we’ll work with you to produce content that fits your style and budget. Product demos, ads, interviews, testimonials, or photography: visit Media Melt. Go to mediamelt.co.nz, to contact us
for a quote."
Get your business name in the script at least twice and decide if you want to voice the ad yourself (more personal) or get an in-house voice actor to do it (more professional). This will normally come down to how comfortable you feel being recorded.
PRODUCTION
The radio station will tweak your script and make sure that it runs for the correct amount of time (typically 30 seconds). They will record it and put it all together. Then they will ask you about music, so think of some words to describe the vibe you are going for. We went for corporate, inspirational and happy. But it could easily be action, fast, rock or easy, slow, dreamy. It really depends on your business, the vibe of your ad and your key demographic. Speaking of demographic, each radio station has a different demographic so choosing which stations to advertise on is also important. For us there was no point advertising on The Edge as they are mostly ages 18-39. As we are trying to target business owners we felt we needed an older demographic so went for Magic and The Sound where the listeners are mostly 45+. This is also the demographic who is likely less capable of being able to produce their own video or make their own websites.
And here's our finished ad!
There you go, how to write your own radio ad! It’s pretty easy, especially when you're basically just answering the questions above. Whoever you're working with at the radio will be able to help you with timing, or with any questions you might have. It's super cool hearing the ad you've written and voiced on the radio so I can highly recommend it! Give it a go!
Talk to you next week!
Eve
Media Melt is a Video Production Company based in Dunedin, New Zealand. If you have any enquires, feel free to contact us here
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