Filtering Posts by Category: Radio Month

The Question of Whether or Not To Use DJ’s As The Voice Of Your Radio Commercials Is A Bit Thorny…

Written by Rich Harshaw

Rich:

We have been on the radio for a long time, and we’ve used a variety of voices for our ads over the years. Our most common tactic is to have the DJ’s from the stations we are on (or program hosts, for talk radio) provide the voices. The prices they charge are pretty reasonable, and it seems to be working. But I heard you on a webinar say you recommend one single voice, not multiple voices. Can you give me some of the pros and cons of using the DJs? We are about to double down on radio, and I want to make sure we get it right.

Don Crowley, Eagle Mountain Windows

Great question, Don—and one that comes up all the time, so I’m going to address it in detail here on this blog posting. As with most contractor marketing topics, there is not necessarily an easy “black and white” answer; there are definitely shades of gray. Since you asked me about the pros and cons, that’s exactly how I’ll give my answer.

Read More

Small-Town Stations Allow You To Get More Bang For Your Buck… It’s All About Identity & Execution.

“I’d Move To A Small Town And Absolutely OWN IT.”

That’s the answer I give contractors who ask me the hypothetical “what would you do if you were just starting out in your own remodeling company?”

Written by Rich Harshaw

The downside to owning a small-town remodeling company is the limited number of prospects compared to a big city. But with those smaller numbers also comes fewer competitors… and more importantly: CHEAP MEDIA BUYS.

Think about it—you can make just as much money PER JOB in a little town as you can in a big city. If you sell windows, for example, and your average job is $6,000 with $3,000 of gross profit, you’ll clear $60,000 a month in gross profit if you sell 20 jobs. And let’s assume you allocate 10% of sales (20% of gross profit) to marketing and advertising—that gives you a monthly budget of $12,000.

If you are sitting in the middle of Dallas (where I live), that $12,000 will buy you a very small schedule on a very small station—and those listeners will be scattered for literally hundreds of miles around the area. And oh by the way, that would burn your ENTIRE budget. In a small town, on the other hand, you can OWN a top-ranked radio station for a couple thousand bucks a month. You could allocate a reasonable ONE-THIRD of your budget to radio… and make really nice buys on two good stations.

That’s a major advantage.
Read More

You Can’t Blame Them For Trying To Get As Much Money From You As Possible. But You Can Protect Yourself From Getting Burned.

Written by Rich Harshaw

Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in the woods (okay, Los Angeles!) who had a business he wanted to promote. He was very good at getting home improvement leads from the World Wide Web, and was ready to expand his business to make it bigger and better. Then came the wolf and banged on his door: “Little man, little man, give me $50,000 a month for my radio station and I’ll make you rich,” cried the wolf. The little man didn’t know what to do, so he forked over $200,000 to the big bad wolf over a 4 month period to see what would happen. The little man ended up with a hard bed, a broken chair, and a bowl of cold porridge. Meanwhile, the big bad wolf bought a new Audi and set of Callaways.

Later, the little man found a knight in shining armor who agreed to fight the big bad wolf. The knight researched alternate stations and found some that were much cheaper as a test and would deliver a better demographic. The big bad wolf didn’t like this, and upon discovery of said plan, raced his Audi to the home of the little man and told him that his network also owned those other stations, and he would help the little man get on those stations instead. The knight wouldn’t hear of it, and confronted the big bad wolf about why he didn’t recommend these stations in the first place. The big bad wolf had no good explanation. So the knight stabbed the big bad wolf with a huge javelin thingy. Then the little man lived happily ever after.

Read More

Radio Can Be An Important Part Of Your Long-Term Advertising Plan…
But Watch Out For These Common Pitfalls That Can KILL YOU.

If you’ve been reading this series, you know that I think radio is a great advertising medium for contractor marketing. I’ve painstakingly built a case for why radio is a good fit for remodelers, why and how it’s better than other media, and how to go about implementing it.

Written by Rich Harshaw

Now I want to pull back the curtain and show you some of the potholes you’ll encounter on the way to success—trust me, they’re there! But just knowing what to look for—and what to watch out for—can make a huge difference in your results. Here are some of the doozies:

Don’t Assume Your Negotiation Skills Will Work On Radio: Here’s the problem: Radio has its own set of jargon, and if you’re not fluent in it, you can’t possibly negotiate effectively. Most business owners are good negotiators—it comes with the entrepreneurial territory. You negotiate things like salaries, leases, equipment prices, and selling prices with customers all the time. So the natural inclination is to assume that you can walk into a meeting with a radio rep and negotiate effectively.

But you can’t.
Read More