Wizard of Ads Clay Campbell: “Which station should I buy ads on?”

In my live seminar I explain reach vs frequency like this: Let’s say you go to the big football game and there are 50,000 people in the stands. You are going to be a sponsor and they offer you two options. Each option costs $1000.
Option one:
They sectioned off the people in blocks of 10,000. During the game you will have 60 seconds to talk to one group of 10,000 people, five times.
Option two:
During the game you have 60 seconds to talk to all 50,000 people one time.

Which would you choose? Would you want the five 60-second commercials during the game and speak to only the 10,000 for your $1000, or have one 60-second shot at all 50,000 folks? The cost is the same.

Business owners face this dilemma when there are several radio stations in their market. I get asked this question a lot: “ Which station should I buy ads on?”

Let me ask two questions first. Would you rather reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way, or reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% the way?
Next question. What is your advertising budget?

If you want to brand you business in your hometown like Gieco Insurance did nationwide, which is the best bang for your buck, the large station or the small one? Is it best to get reach or frequency?

Let’s say you are in a small market, and you want to spend $1000 each month on radio. The weekly average ad cost, on the “bigger” station with 100,000 listeners, is $45 for a 30 second commercial.
A “smaller” station in your town has about 20,000 listeners and costs $10 per 30 second commercial. (If your business is in a medium market, multiply the money and listeners times four, in a large market, multiply times ten)

Common sense says if you buy more of a thing you can probably get it cheaper. That’s certainly true with radio. The “big station” sales staff will tell you it’s a much better buy, and cost per listener, to buy ads on the bigger station. But one of the biggest wastes of advertising dollars is spending too little, not spending too much.

On the “bigger” station you would have “reach” but not frequency. You could only buy 22 ads a month for your $1000. That would average out to 5-6 ads per week, which would never deliver a frequency of three. (The average listener would not hear your ad three times in a period of seven nights sleep.) Since God made it so sleep erases advertising from our minds, "branding", or top of mind awareness, could not be achieved.

However on the “smaller station” a $1000, would buy 100 ads in a month. You would get “more bang for your buck” because of “frequency”.
You could run five ads a day, five days a week, and the average listener would hear your ad four to five times each week. This way you could become the business that people think of first in your category, and also be the one they think best of. Providing of course, you have a well-written salient message.

Though the bigger station would probably offer you a discount of down to $40 per ad, you would still need to have a $40,000 radio ad budget to buy the frequency you need.
Running a schedule of 19-21 ads per week on about any radio station in America would allow you to “reach” your audience with “frequency of three”. That number would give you sufficient repetition to be “branded” in the mind of the consumer.

If you do it day after day week after week for a few years you could “brand” your name in the mind of the consumer. In your hometown you can go from being completely unknown, to being a household word. What Gieco Insurance achieved in branding on a national level, you could do locally.
As your business grows you could increase your ad budget, then purchase ads on the “bigger” station

Your ad copy is like a nail, running a schedule with frequency of three is like a hammer, and a block of wood is like the mind of the listener. If the nail is sharp and you hammer effectively, you will pierce through the wood and clinch the customer. Thus you have achieved top of mind awareness in your town, and got in my opinion, the best bang for your marketing buck.
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