If you’re like most other Americans, you’ve heard a ton of radio jingles over the years for everything from cleaning products to legal services. And even though you might not be interested in the product or service right away, that jingle sticks in your head for days, months or even years.
Small businesses today would be wise not to underestimate the power of the jingle. The jingle today is still as powerful as it ever was, and has advantages many other forms of marketing can’t proclaim.
Here’s why a jingle could be your secret weapon when it comes to marketing your business, and why it could be just what the doctor ordered for your marketing efforts.
Catchy jingles get stuck in our heads
The power of radio jingles has been ingrained in American society, ever since the early days of radio in the fifties. Even if a jingle is annoying and abrasive to some people, it’s usually still memorable to listeners. Jingles are also written so they’ll be catchy and easy to remember, similar to a nursery rhyme. Chances are, most consumers can remember a few popular jingles off the top of their heads immediately. Think of the Folger’s “Best Part of Waking Up” or State Farm’s “Like a Good Neighbor.” Jingles are viral and odds are most people can recognize these and other famous jingles almost instantaneously.
For marketers and business owners, this means that your company or brand will be at the top of consumers’ minds both now and in the future. Whether you’re a law firm, restaurant or HVAC company, consumers will remember your jingle, even though they might not be immediately in the market for your services. It could be six months ago when they first hear your jingle, but when they need a tax lawyer or their air conditioning breaks they’ll remember you because that jingle has been playing in their head throughout that period of time.
Jingles are a function of repetition
One of the main benefits of jingles is that they are memorable and stick in our heads, as mentioned above. This is primarily a function of repetition. After hearing a jingle repeated on the radio throughout the day, they tend to stick in people’s heads and often pop up at random times. And as we know, two of the major keys to successful marketing efforts are consistency and frequency. In general, the shorter your jingle is, the better because you’ll be able to repeat it multiple times during a single spot to increase frequency. Finally, rhymes tend to stick in our memories because it helps encode information in our brains more easily.
Jingles help brand your business
A unique, catchy jingle often helps set brands apart in the minds of consumers. You can also use different elements of your jingle to brand your business on different platforms, like as an audio element to your website or marketing videos on your YouTube channel. It’s because jingles are typically fun and lighthearted in nature, lending the material easily to taglines and slogans that can similarly catch on as your jingle would.
In general, jingles can help reinforce a positive brand image around your business or company, and help associate you with a particular feeling or emotion. Even relatively “serious” businesses such as law firms and hospitals experience success in branding their services through the use of jingles.
Jingles are cost-effective and encourage word-of-mouth
You might be surprised by how cost-efficient jingles are in relation to many other forms of marketing. That’s because a radio jingle often repeats itself inside people’s heads without you paying for multiple advertisements. Both children and adults might hum the tune to themselves, sing it aloud or repeat the phrase in a social setting. When people do sing aloud or use your jingle as a clever reference with their friends, that’s additional word-of-mouth marketing that you simply don’t have to purchase.
Jingles also don’t have to be very expensive to get created and produced. While many of the large, Fortune 500 sized companies will splurge on fancy production or big name celebrities for their jingles, you simply don’t have to spend a fortune to create a good jingle that works for your customer and market. That’s when having a relationship with your media partner pays off. They’ll already know a great deal about your business, and be able to help formulate a game plan for creating a jingle that fits within your budget.
