Traditional Advertising Channels

When it comes to choosing which medium or channel to advertise on it really starts by understanding your audience and the audience of the vendor. It’s also equally important to understand and embrace your message. Your message, what you are saying and how you are saying it, is what you want viewers to remember as much as who the message is about. It’s like selling tires. You go to the tire store expecting to get, well, tires. Same applies here. Viewers tune-in to television news expecting to get local news and weather. We don’t have to sell that (for the most part). Viewer loyalty stems from the emotional connection, trust, friendship, and sometime longevity they have with the message deliverers. This may not apply to everyone, but it certainly does to most and my perspective. It’s that connection that you want your viewers to feel.

For example, if Joe Doe is listening to his favorite rock station and hears a brand ad for television news is that ad going to be memorable? Or be strong enough to generate memory recall and make an appointment to watch later. Sometimes, maybe. Typically, but not always if the same message on TV matches’ radio. Topical messages, generally, tend to translate better from one channel to another. A constant debate we have is taking that message we skillfully craft for our loyal TV audience and adapting that message for the audience of the vendor. A lift of a TV spot does not always translate when it’s played on the radio or streaming, for example. It can. And from an ROI perspective often it does, due to the demands and priorities facing local television.

Long and short of it is, know your audience, know your market, and know the audience the vendor provides so you have a perspective over the entire landscape of your market. Do your own research. I can’t emphasis this enough. Then have the channel you are buying from do their own research. The vendor is going to provide you research that supports the buy, to make the sale, so you need to do your own research.

Traditional Channels:

Television remains the strongest channel for reach and engagement over any other channel. I work in television (always have) and can recommend a great station if you are looking for one.

Radio

Radio as a traditional advertising channel that remains a good option for local broadcasters. Radio delivers a wide variety of genres and demographics. Morning and afternoon drive times tend to carry the highest ratings, no surprise there. So many local stations typically offer network and syndicated content with local weather and traffic cut-ins outside the drive times. My focus tends to be more on the demographics and impressions delivered. This is where it’s good to know the market and know if you are in a commuter market. With any station you should send some time listening to the channel, the internet makes this much easier. Take note on how tight or loose is their clock? Are they truly doing Traffic on the One’s or is it closer to the threes? Also take note on how long the breaks are. The station may choose to run longer breaks less frequent knowing the audience surfs during the commercial breaks. Nobody wants to be buried in the middle of a long pod where listeners may skip due to channel surfing.

I typically use radio more for topical promotions, focusing on day of and day before placements. Radio can be good for brand messaging but be careful and make sure your message cuts through the clutter and doesn’t get lost. ?I have experimented with smaller, lower rated channels (that tend not to offer ratings data) as a frequency play. These stations are cost effective with low rates because the audience is smaller. However, this can be a good tactic as these stations tend to have a core loyal audience albeit smaller.

Print/Newspaper

For me, having worked with the newspapers and other publications a lot in my past, the newspaper is a tough sell to any boss for a local television station that has news. Unless there is an opportunity for content sharing or positioning with entertainment content to push network and syndicated programming. No matter what, I would generally not recommend print without a digital component. The eyeballs will come from digital. However, don’t be afraid to dig into some publications and opportunities. You may find some print to have very loyal audiences as their core subscribers.

Outdoor

I am a fan of outdoor for several reasons. It’s still a good opportunity to get your message in front of a lot of eyeballs especially for commuter markets. However, messaging remains critical. With any outdoor buy I typically take a ride and know where the boards are at. How is the readability? How far away are the boards? If they are digital, how long is the dwell time? If you have a strong visual is there enough time to read your headline? A trick I use is to print the ad out and hang it on a wall and go to the opposite side of the room. Can you read and understand the ad in a second and a half? Simple messages remain the best option for memory recall.

Local News is tough for billboards. Typically for local news your imagery is going to be your talent, probably headshots. Then you have your headline, which should be short and attention grabbing. Then your call to action “TONIGHT AT NINE” and likely your station or newscasts logo. The more you include into the board the longer recall the viewer is going to need. I’m not trying to sound hypocritical here, because, well, I’m guilty of this. Therefore, outdoor is tough for local news. The most effective billboards are those with short messages and simple visuals.

Just to share a story. Several years ago, we picked up a new syndicated show and wanted to get it out about the show. We wanted a big premiere number with a very specific audience. We ended up doing door hangers. It wasn’t overly expensive, but it fulfilled the strategy to get a tactile tune-in message into the hands of our target audience. It worked. For the premiere episode the audience was 5 times higher than the average ratings were for the series, and this market had higher ratings than others. I really feel this tactic was as much a factor to our success. Too bad the show didn’t last for more than 2 seasons.

I’ll touch on the Digital channels next.