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August 22, 2006

What My Grandmother Taught Me About Radio Advertising

"Be careful what you ask for...you might get it"

If you ask your radio agency to create ads that sound like other ads, you'll get it.

If you ask your radio agency to create ads that make it easy for the call center to close the calls, that's what you'll get.

If you ask your radio agency to create ads and/or buy media solely to drive the lowest cost per call, you'll get that.

But none of these things is the same as asking your radio agency to create ads that result in the greatest profitability. Radio ads that sound like typical radio ads may bring feelings of pride, but they don't sell very well. Radio ads that make it easy for the call center to close calls will give you a high-closing campaign, but not likely at the optimum cost per lead. And radio ads that drive the lowest cost per call will give you low CPL's, but the close, cancel, decline, and return rates will inevitably offset any advantage of the low CPL's.

The moral of the story is "ask for the right thing", because you're most likely to get what you ask for, not what you don't ask for.

It's not in the nature of the agency-client relationship for a radio agency to argue with clients to try to give them something other than what they ask for. Sure, we'll state our position clearly for the good of the client - that the "right thing" to be asking for is to maximize profitability at the campaign level. But we won't make a practice out of arguing with clients - for self-evident reasons.

Posted by Brett Astor at 12:36 PM | Permalink