Radio advertising remains an effective and powerful tool for reaching your customers, but ensuring that your radio ad creative is conveying the right message — a message that will get listeners to buy — is essential. We’ve put together a list of five questions to ask your radio partner to ensure that they are creating quality ads for your company.
- Can you provide samples of ads to review production value and talent? The important elements of production value is that it grabs the listener’s attention, boosts believability, and conveys a message that’s easy to understand. In addition to evaluating voice talent in terms of clarity and enunciation, pay attention to nonverbal skills such as tone of voice, volume, inflection, pitch, and pacing. Ensure that the talent is appropriate for your message.
- How will your ad be distinctive from the ads of your competitors? Will they be using the same professional announcer they use for your competitors’ ads? What’s the strategy for making your ad stand out?
- What sound elements will be used to enhance the message? How will sound be used to boost the believability of the ad?
- What’s the plan for grabbing the attention of the listener? The old saying “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is particularly relevant to radio ads. If you don’t grab the listener’s attention right away, they will tune you out.
- What elements will be consistent among your various ads? It’s important to help listeners immediately identify a particular advertiser by using a jingle, a recognizable voice (such as the owner’s voice), a tagline, or music.
The creative process for effective radio advertising must start with a solid strategy, giving careful consideration to your customers, your products, and your competitors. Your radio partner should help to ensure that your ad is well-produced, stands out among the competition, makes appropriate use of sound elements, grabs the listener’s attention, and includes consistent elements that make it recognizable. Asking these five questions can help ensure that you will have quality ads and an effective campaign.
