Knock knock.
Welcome to May and another article on branding. As mentioned in last month, I spoke of those “too-good-to-be-true” opportunities offered by local media outlets such as radio/television stations, newspaper/magazine publications or digital/social media platforms wanting you to advertise using their media to reach your customers. With so many media outlets knocking at the door for your precious dollars, how are you supposed to make a decision?
My mini-rant last month targeted salespeople who try to make sales directly with the non-marketing folks in your organization, bypassing your “brand police” (aka advertising-design agency, graphic designer, freelancer, etc). In most instances, the media rep has done little to investigate what your brand story is or who your ideal customers are. At the end of the day, the rep is looking to make their commission via a cold call so they can plan for that cruise to Hawaii or better yet, make sailboat payments.
For example, a tv or radio station will call and offer a great rate on prime airtime with the creative/radio script “thrown in” by the station writer for the purposes of adding “icing” to the cake. On top of that, they’ll suggest to use one of their on-air personalities to read the radio script. Do they truly have the best interests of your brand and customers in mind? Is the station’s weatherperson really the “celebrity” to represent your brand?
As a case study for you: One of our clients was approached by a radio station and was offered a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to reach new customers by signing up for a long term-radio buy. Thankfully, our client had the wherewithal to tell the rep he would get our opinion on the offer first. Smart move. With direction from our media strategist who felt this was a reasonable “deal”, the client signed a contract after some caveats were added such as the time-of-day when the ads would run, at what frequency the ads ran (since you pay each time it airs) and most important, that we would provide creative/scripts.
Our client’s products are targeted towards a mature audience. Male Boomers to be precise. The station just happened to be a 24/7 all-news station. With an audience that spends hours a day in traffic listening to news, sports and road conditions, it was a good fit. On top of that, we suggested to our client that he combine print and digital ads to accompany the radio buy. The more hits, the merrier.
From digital/online ads, website visits can be tracked via basic web/google analytics. However, traditional mediums such as radio, print and tv don’t give you this info. Therefore, we asked our client to track where referrals were coming from each time someone enquired about the product. Our objective for this campaign was brand recognition and sales. It will take time to see how effective it was, and what mediums garnered the most visits to their showroom.
Don’t be swayed by a flashy pitch in a cold call, remember advertising is a combination of science and art. I’ll report back next month with details on how the campaign is performing.
Cheers, mark.
