When it comes to advertising, reach and frequency are critical aspects of ensuring you reach the right audience with your message in a way that they'll remember. Pulling them off effectively with a small or limited budget, especially when you need to manage them across multiple channels, can quickly become an arduous process. After all, the Rule of Seven — i.e., the idea that a customer must be exposed to a certain advertising message seven times to become memorable and inspire action — has been supported by a study from Microsoft. Customers often need to be exposed to a message between six and 20 times in order to achieve a 30% conversion rate.
It can be easy to fall for one of the twelve causes of advertising failure, overspending on marketing reach and attempting to manage too many channels. We recommend you take things one step at a time. Namely, conquer one medium (e.g., radio advertising) or even just one portion of a medium (e.g., a particular radio station) before moving on to the next. This will generate dependable revenue to expand with.
Below you'll find five more tips for radio advertising with small budgets to help you maximize your efforts.
Use shorter commercials to increase frequency.
By running shorter, less expensive radio ads — :30 instead of :60, for example — you can parse your radio marketing budget into more opportunities to air your message. A :30 spot is still powerful when crafted properly, so exchanging the amount of time for higher frequency doesn't sacrifice efficacy.
Concentrate on narrow times of the day.
For this tip to work, you need to think about your audience and learn when they're listening to the radio. It's always tempting to focus on premium time slots, such as when people are driving to work or headed home, but you might be able to reach people in less expensive dayparts. By targeting when they're listening, you can spend your limited budget on just the most qualified times of day.
Buy in advance.
We've talked about how important working with professionals can be, and they can certainly make buying advertising much more effective. Work with your advertising partner to develop a solid strategy, then buy your time in advance. By having a strategy and putting it into motion ahead of time, you give yourself both the opportunity to get the best rates and the time to negotiate rates if necessary.
Be consistent.
Quite simply, the right time slots at the right price, the best frequency, and the widest or most qualified reach won't do much to improve your ROI if your advertising is inconsistent. Ensure your creative, message, tone, and calls-to-action are clear and consistent in order for the ad to be memorable and for listeners to understand what actions they need to take next.
Never give up.
Always remember that advertising is an investment, and it takes time to see real results. Especially if you're running an awareness campaign, you shouldn’t be discouraged if you don’t immediately reach your goals. If your marketing strategy is driven by the need for instant gratification, you'll only undermine your results further.
Marketing with a small budget can be challenging. By taking advantage of the best practices we've laid out here, you can still develop effective reach and frequency in radio advertising despite that limited budget.
