The 5 Biggest Mistakes in Direct Response Radio Advertising

How do we know what the 5 Biggest Mistakes are?
After over a decade in direct response, we have peered "under the hood" of hundreds of direct marketing campaigns across every type of category imaginable. Sometimes a new client will come to us after a failed attempt with another agency, or simply to get a second opinion on whether their campaign was or is being run optimally. As a result of this extensive experience, not only have we seen which decisions make campaigns successful, but also which decisions condemn campaigns to certain underachievement of their potential.

The most difficult part of writing about the "5 Biggest Mistakes" is narrowing down the list. It would be easier to write about the "Top 20 Mistakes". Nonetheless, this paper presents the blockbuster mistakes that are a) way too commonly made, b) sure to doom a direct response radio advertising campaign, and c) relatively easily avoidable. In other words, get these things right, and you'll live to face the lesser challenges with greater strength and greater knowledge.
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Biggest Direct Response Radio Mistake #1: Faulty or non-existent testing methodology
There are many ways for a testing methodology to fall short, which is why this is #1 on the list. Testing the wrong variables, testing in the wrong order, testing too many variables, testing too few variables. The list is long. The point to remember is that success requires a scientific approach. That means disciplined and well thought out - a "ready-aim-fire" approach verses "fire-fire-fire". Any good direct response agency has staff that understands the process for conducting scientific research, particularly research methods, statistics, and database management. The best DR agencies have applied this knowledge over time and have developed a proven testing methodology, along with the supporting technological infrastructure, that will get you from testing to profitability with the least amount of up-front time and money.

If you don't follow a well-defined, proven testing methodology, you are throwing your ad dollars away. Period. You simply will not know why one ad works better than another or whether there are other approaches that could work better. You will just be out of money before you can determine whether your campaign has legs.
Tip! If a newspaper is delivered twice daily (morning/evening), it often offers 'combination' rates or discounts for advertising in both papers. You usually can reach more readers, so this kind of advertising may be something to consider.

Biggest Direct Response Mistake #2: Inadequate data capture and analysis
The power of direct response radio stems in part from the ability to collect and analyze results from the bounty of data that can be collected - and to distill insights that drive further refinement of the campaign. As all experienced marketers know, it is the insights that lead you to grand successes. With the right tools, technology, and processes, it is possible to conduct station-by station analysis, look at performance by market, format, day of the week, daypart, and a whole host of other variables to understand what's working and what's not for a particular campaign. This is vital to the process of optimizing campaign profitability.

Yet many avoid this process, shield it from their clients, or conduct "analysis lite" on the data. The problem is that you can't distill the insights if you don't dive into the analysis. As a result, perfectly viable campaigns are being deemed failures. In these situations people declare "radio just doesn't work", and proceed to run away as fast as possible. Avoid this mistake by making sure your media buys are backed by thorough, detailed analysis, not a cookie-cutter approach cloaked in unproven, formulaic assumptions.
Tip! Include your selling promise in your headline The best headlines promise readers a benefit, such as fewer cavities, cheaper gas, whiter clothes. Your selling promise is simply the greatest benefit that you are advertising about your product, so include it in your headline.

Biggest Direct Response Mistake #3: Flying blind
It still astounds us how many people, smart businesspeople, ask us to move forward with advertising before they know the basic key metrics associated with their campaign. We refer to this as "flying blind." It is not unlike deciding to fly a plane surrounded by instruments that are providing you data you can't use to make important decisions about flying the plane. Turn left, turn right, speed up, ascend, descend? Scary thought? It should be, because absent a tremendous amount of luck it spells sure death.
Tip! Take advantage of advertising specials. Many publishers offer ads on a 3-for-the- price- of -2- basis, or 4-for-the-price-of-3, etc.

Every direct response campaign has a similar set of key profitability metrics and each one has a hurdle or break-even level that must be met in order to achieve some level of profitability. The big mistake is spending a dime before this exercise has been completed. Why? Because when you get the test results back, you won't know what to make of the data. You won't have a context within which to assess whether what you are looking at is good, amazing or awful. Bottom line: model the campaign, identify the key metrics, and know what those numbers have to be. And by all means, make sure your agency knows so they can maximize the profitability of your media campaign.

Biggest Direct Response Mistake #4: Having the wrong people on the bus
Each DR campaign is comprised of similar vendors. This includes a manufacturer, a creative and media buying agency, a sales center, a customer service group, and a fulfillment center. You can poll any one of these groups of vendors and there is one thing they would all agree on: not one of them alone can make the campaign a success. This is a classic team situation. If one member drops the ball, the whole team fails. As the client, perhaps the single biggest impact you'll have on the success of the campaign is how you decide to choose the members of your team - who you put "on the bus". Sales centers will always tell you they will meet the needs you've expressed (guess what, they're good at sales!). Big agencies will always try to convince you that only they can get the lowest rates and only they can grow your campaign really big (as if suddenly the laws of market economics don't apply). Will you choose the ones who say they've been around since the beginning of time and believe they know all there is to know, or the ones who are experienced but also unassuming enough to be constantly learning, improving, and giving birth to new ideas? Will you choose vendors who play nice with the other team members, or those who throw the others under the bus at the first sign of trouble? If you don't choose wisely, your campaign could fail for reasons you won't even understand.
Tip! Google Adsense: This PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is probably the most popular and widely used of all internet advertising web publishers, probably because it is the most nondescript and doesn't involve any animated banners that draw attention away from your website. You serve the Google text ads on your site and you get paid any time someone clicks on one of the ads.

Biggest Direct Response Mistake #5: A corrupted creative process
Once you communicate the definition of success, allow the creative process to unfold. A professional direct response ad creator is someone who has learned a tremendous amount about what works and what doesn't, on millions of other people's dimes. We've built a large database of direct response wisdom that can save you a lot of time and money. If you define success as an ad that reaches a certain CPO, and trust the creative process, you're much more likely to get an ad that produces successful results. Now that will make you proud.
Tip! The Right Message. Unless you have millions of dollars in your advertising budget, don't try to mimic those who do.

Final Words
Now that you are armed with knowledge of the top 5 Biggest Mistakes in Direct Response Radio, you are well on your way to boosting your chances of Direct Response success. To be sure, there are other mistakes to avoid. Knowing about these mistakes is half the battle. Knowing how to avoid them is the other half. How do you produce insights? How do you approach testing methodically? How do you know which vendors to choose? How do you develop breakthrough creative? How do you get the remnant rates on the best time slots?

Radio can be an enormously profitable customer acquisition channel for many businesses.

Brett Astor, Vice President at Strategic Media, Inc., http://www.strategicmediainc.com, has over 10 years experience in direct response marketing and radio advertising.