Does radio advertising work?

Question

I run a small business and am thinking about radio ads (RedFM Cork, Ireland). Anyone any good/bad experience of radio ads.

Answer 1

Never had any experience of radio advertising myself as I doubt it would benefit my business but I think it would really depend on the business you have.

Local radio may be good for a business that sells retail locally while national radio may be good for a business selling through a chain, mail order etc.

Answer 2

Depends what your business is.  For some, it seems to work.  We tried it a few years ago in East Anglia, UK, and found it was an expensive waste of our marketing budget.  After 3 months, which is the minimum you need to allow, we had no business from it.

Think carefully about who your target markets are and whether they're the sort of people who will be listening to the radio station.

Good luck!

Answer 3

yes it is very powerful actually.

We are also able to identify lead sources through our network of proprietary sites and relationships with leading media owners. We use a variety of online marketing strategies including search engine optimization, CPC and display advertising to allow us to search the market for qualified leads for your business.

http://www.sipmarketinggroup.com

Answer 4

Advertise on radio, and you have the opportunity to deliver a powerful message to a specific group of listeners.  

Radio stations know exactly who their audiences are, so if know who your customers are, then radio gives you the perfect opportunity to reach them.  Find the station with your demographic, get a sales rep who will partner with you, and get ready to mine for gold.

• Radio’s return on investment (ROI) is much higher (some studies say as high as 49%!) than television’s ROI.  Much of this can be attributed to the fact that television is much more expensive to produce and run than radio, so the money you spend to produce and run radio is much lower.

Here are a few quick facts for you to ponder.  Sorry these are skewed to US...I don't have any for Ireland!

• 96% of people who drive or ride in a car use the radio.  

• In-car radio listening averages two hours and 12 minutes weekdays, and two hours and five minutes on weekends.

• 43% of drivers leave their car radios set to one station.

• There are over 600 million radios in use in the U.S.

• There are 5.6 radios per U.S. household.

• There are over 13,500 registered radio stations in the U.S.

Hope this helps!  

If you want more info on radio, go to my website (www.businessburrito.com) and click on the "Advertising" button on the nav bar.