I allocate many dollars of broadcast money on behalf of ad-agencies, advertisers and marketing departments for professional service businesses. Therefore, a lot of broadcast reps contact me.
I tell my ad clients that they're always gambling their money, though with better odds than Vegas; yet my sales reps often tell me that advertising on their stations will definitely work. Well, if broadcast advertising works so well, how come there is always open ad inventory? The truth is that there are advertisers who can make broadcasting profitable if their margins can justify the thousands of dollars necessary to lay the foundation in their brand name and if they're willing to commit to the costly trial and error to find a campaign that will work-for a while. If this stuff worked even 20 percent of the time, there would not be a revolving door of radio and TV reps beating on doors to "close the deal."
Nobody has a greater love for broadcast than I do, though you may not suspect that after reading my opening paragraphs. Heck, I can even tell you who the announcer was for Leave to Beaver and who the KMOX FM morning man was for six months in 1982 in St. Louis, but at the same time, as an ad man, I must tell clients and prospects that most of the time it takes a lot of trial and error time and money for those advertiser to find a campaign that will reap consistent profits.
Funny story. The very sales reps who call me consistently to try to persuade me to spend my clients' money on their stations often have their own cottage businesses, yet they never buy air time on their own stations for their own businesses. I am still trying to get a former 15 year broadcast salesman to take some free radio time that I secured for him to advertise his new business, but he said that it's not worth his while to even review the ad copy-even though all the air time is free. How's that for confidence in broadcast advertising?
Oh I do know one business owner who consistently eats his own cooking and advertises his own broadcast ad agency business via talk radio, me. Yes, I know firsthand what that professional service business owner is up against when he shells out thousands of dollars of his own money! Perhaps spending my own money on broadcast ads has made me a more effective broadcast ad strategist, and even SpokesVoice, on behalf of my clientele who also utilize broadcast advertising. Yet, even after 20 years, I don't have one client where results come effortlessly. Persuasive ad copy and strategizing take time and effort over a long period. It wasn't easy 20 years ago to generate consistent profits, and it's often more difficult today, especially with so much fragmentation.
www.brucehorlick.com and www.radiostorybooks.com
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I certainly agree it's always a gamble when you are spending money on advertising. I also think that for many companies, it's as much of a risk to not spend on advertising as it is to spend. Are you currently maximizing your profits? Have you researched your alternatives sufficiently? Is staying status quo preventing your company from growing? Did we do something wrong the last time i advertised? Often people don't truly look into these questions when making the decisions not to advertise.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, the decision to advertise is the easy part. Finding the right places to advertise is the hard part, which is why so many companies hire advertising agencies to place their business.
As for the sales reps who say their stations will "definitely work", it sounds like they need to become more consultants and less like the stereotypicaly used car salesman. There are way to many factors in place, some of which are out of peoples control, to guarantee success. That being said, i disagree with the comment "if this stuff worked even 20% of the time". While it's true there is a revolving door of media sales reps, this is a testimony of the type of job it is. It takes a certain type of person to do many sales jobs and often people find out quickly they aren't made out to be a media sales rep. Rather, the majority of advertisers do find success in their advertising campaigns. More often than not these companies do a 2nd and 3rd campaign showing that while there are no guarantees in advertising, if done correctly it often works. If advertising truly worked only 20% of the time, we would be left with nothing except PBS, public radio and HBO!