Comparative Sales Advertising
It is inevitable that a downturn in the economy would prompt advertisers to
more closely scrutinize where they spend their money.
Those of you selling newspaper advertising will find that one of your major
competitors is radio advertising. Radio advertisers have convincing sales tools,
such as audio spec ads and maps on listener demographics and signal reach. These
tools help to raise the advertiser’s expectations and close the sale.
How, then, can a newspaper sales person compete? How do advertising sales
people convince their customers to allocate their advertising budget on
newspapers rather than radio?
The following questions may help you understand the effectiveness of
newspaper advertising over radio:
How many radio stations are in your market?
It is fairly easy to estimate how many radio stations are in your market.
Simply sit in your car and hit the scan button on your radio. Count how many FM
and AM stations have a strong enough signal to stop the scan. Try this exercise
again while parked in another part of town. Small markets will likely yield 20
or more radio stations. This splits the market share to small numbers.
Why is the radio on?
If you ask most consumers to recall the commercial that last played on the
radio station they were listening to, they most likely could not give you an
answer. Most consumers use the radio for background noise to break the silence
of the work environment or the monotony of their morning commute.
With the downturn in the economy, it is more crucial than ever that
advertisers produce results. The bottom line is that radio advertising cannot
attract the large number of consumers that a newspaper can attract.
How many people are listening?
The Radio Advertising Bureau speculates that 75% of all people listen to the
radio daily and that 40% of the households in your market are listening during
peak hours. Let’s assume that your market has 100,000 households. Based on
this number, we can conclude that approximately 40,000 households in your market
are tuned in during peak hours. As we discovered earlier, you may have up to 20
stations in your market and the average radio station has 2,000 listeners at any
given time. Top stations may reap up to 5,000 listeners while other stations may
have as few as 500 listeners at one time.
While radio sales people boast that 75% of all households are tuned into the
radio daily, how much market share are they actually capturing? Using the above
numbers, a top radio station capturing 5,000 listeners during peak hours is only
reaching 5% of the market. In addition, it is difficult to know what audience
you are reaching. Radio sales people may omit the fact that the “audience”
they are polling is any member of the household above the age of 12. Knowing
this makes it difficult to understand whether or not the advertiser is reaching
the intended audience.
In comparing these standards to the scope of newspaper advertising, you must
ask yourself, how many households are in your primary trading zone? If the top
radio station is reaching a mere 5% of the market share in that zone, how many
is your paper reaching? If you do this comparison, you will see that the market
penetration of your paper will far surpass the reach of the average radio
station.
Who listens to radio commercials?
Not only is it important to understand the scope of our advertising services
but the content of our advertising, as well. People listen to the radio for
news, talk shows or music, not for advertising.
In comparison, newspaper readers want to understand what is going on in town.
Current events can be found not only in news articles but in advertisements, as
well. Newspaper advertising is not considered an interruption, as it is in
radio, but rather as a valuable part of understanding what is going on in your
community.
The importance of newspaper advertising and its content far outweighs the
value of radio advertising. By comparing the two forms of advertising, you will
be more informed and better able to convince your customers that their
advertising budget should be spent on newspaper rather than radio.
Author:
James A. (Jim) Baker
CEO: Sales Training
Institute
713-627-7700
