I am looking a new ways to reach a larger audience and was approached by a Cumulus radio representative. Has anyone else tried radio advertising with their web design/hosting business and if so, what were your results? The rep was looking through their "massive script library" and hasn't been able to find anyone that has done hosting advertisements with them before.

I am at a point right now where I have a script in hand but thinking of the target audience and the amount of money it costs for radio advertising (about $600 per week).

Any thoughts, opinions or suggestions greatly appreciated.

I've never done radio advertising, but what type of station is it? If it's your typical pop/rap music station, you probably won't get that many customers out of it. However there is a business radio, I forget the link to it, but I think you would get more of a ROI from this.

The radio station is soft rock and is popular with local businesses - which makes up about 80% of my customer base. I wouldn't think of advertising on our local AM Stations, hip/hop or hard rock stations.

If your just looking to sell locally it might not be a bad idea, but for the price($600 a week?) you could do something for cheaper. Pass out mass flyers and business cards to all the local businesses, talk to a printing press and see if they have a mailing list that you can send flyers to there homes directly. If your already doing this and are looking to further your advertisement, it might be a sound investment. Just becareful with it, see how it goes the first week or 2, then decide if you want to continue doing it.

You should request an advertiser/sponsor packet from the radio station you plan on advertising on. I work at an FM station here in Atlanta and the prices range from the time of day and the number of times it is aired. So find out that info and decide if you have the money to launch a radio campaign.

If you do decide to launch a radio campaign, you want it to be effective, not three announcements per week.

I will have to say that, if it is $600 per week, I would suggest you look into lower cost advertising methods, such as advertising on high traffic sites, etc. I have thought about doing local advertising, but, I started to figure that radio advertising would be more meant for local businesses, and, if you aren't advertising in a large area, I figured it would be nearly worthless. Just my opinion..

~ nick

My opinion is that if you want to target your local market, the best solution is print advertising on local newspapers. You can buy adv spaces with less than 600$ and it's easier for your potential customers to remember your name if they see it printed. However it's only my opinion, as i have never tried radio advertising.

I think GoDaddy are making some good money off of advertiseing on the podshow network, basically an online radio collection of shows, they are also on sirus too. So I think if your ad is played enough, it can be a sucess.

Radio has always been bad for me. I've tried almost every station except the country ones.

If you're going to use radio to promote your brand, make sure your brand is radio ready. So make sure that people can remember your brand easily, and that the audio version of your brand is easily translatable into text, and not easily mixed up.

It's a good idea to register heaps of spelling typos for your brand, as folks aren't going to always type in the correct url. I've heard some really bad domains being promoted on the radio. It's hard enough to get a decent return on your ad spend, when you have all your ducks sitting perfectly, nevermind advertising with a hard to remember brand/domain, that is next to impossible to spell.

Bob's tips for making sure your domain is "radio ready" -

(1). Your domain needs to be short and easy to remember.
(2). Your domain needs to be easy to spell.
(3). Your domain must not include a hyfen.
(4). Your domain must not include numbers.
(5). Register spelling variants and point them up to your main domain.

Then you'll stand a fighting chance of maybe getting some kind of respectable return on your investment into branding, using radio.

. . . I am at a point right now where I have a script in hand but thinking of the target audience and the amount of money it costs for radio advertising (about $600 per week).
Haven't done any radio (yet) for Dotable, but did a lot of radio (and newspaper and TV) for my building company, back in 1995-96. We had the weather spots, as well as regular ad spots.

"Today's weather bought to you by <insert name here>"

If you're looking at a $600/wk ad commit, make sure you don't sign on for a 12mth commit. They'll probably want to get you to signup for some minimum term, but ask for a trial period, of maybe 2 to 3mths.

It does take time for the radio ads to have effect, so think at least 2 to 3mths, and you should start to see some result from that ad spend. Don't be too dissapointed though, as advertising is mainly to build your brand's awareness, and that doesn't neccessarily always translate into sales, quickly.

Coming from a radio background by having been an on-air personality and sales rep. for a few years. Those 30 second spots will have to run at least 8-12 times a day to achieve any type of success and what usually works well with the radio ad, is to also run a print ad at the same time, telling them to checkout our ad in the local paper.

This way if they are looking for hosting, they will remember oh yeah, I heard that radio ad and it said to check the paper.

I have taken a few marketing classes in high school, and I do not believe that radio advertising is a good choice for the type of products you are marketing. Essentially the customer needs to feel like they need that service, and radio advertising just really can't hit the mark with this. How often do you hear radio ads for computer repair shops? I've never heard one, though I do believe a few exist. My point is I agree with some other people here, get a mailing list of companies, and do some direct mail with a brochure on why having a website could be more beneficial for them, and if they are interested they will contact you back.

Just my $.02