In major metropolitan markets, advertising during prime time (7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m.) can run anywhere from $250 a minute to $1,000 a minute. :dunno:

What I would suggest you is that you try overnight advertising. Overnight spots are usually undersold at many stations and you can usually get them at a discount. You can easily buy $500 of overnight ads on the big stations in town at $10 a pop, you can run 50 ads over the course of a week. That will likely work very well for you!

:blah blah

If I can add to your tip, here are some extra radio advertising tips that being in radio for 25 years taught me (in addition to several boxes of awards for radio copywriting that sit in my basement)...

1) Don't allow your client to do his own radio commercials. Unless he's such an amazing character that he has universal appeal.
2) Don't write "conversational" spots unless the conversation sounds completely natural. Friends don't give friends business addresses, phone numbers, directions, or positioning statements in a natural conversation, no matter how strenuously they're recommending a business or a product.
3) Don't use background music unless it's relevant and adds something to the commercial.
4) If you ever use the words "for all your [x] needs" in a radio commercial, please hit yourself in the head with something sharp. I've never met a good writer who uses that phrase, much like there's never been a good commercial that contains the phrase "but wait, there's more!"
5) Comedy is hard to write. Don't do it unless you really know how.
6) Don't put directions in a radio commercial, or an address, or a phone number or web address, unless they're REALLY easy to remember after hearing them ONCE while dealing with all the distractions that come from driving a car that's moving 70 miles per hour. Why assume that your prospective customer was listening, with pen in hand, eagerly waiting for your commercial to come on so they could write down your information?
7) Develop a hook, positioning statement or theme that you use in EVERY radio commercial you EVER do.
8) Remember that every spot you ever run simply adds to your prospect's ongoing mental file on your business. They'll remember the great spots just as much as they remember the ones that sucked.
9) There are plenty of guys like me out there who would be happy to write and produce your radio stuff on a freelance basis for FAR less that you'd expect.

That's a good start. I'll bug you with more later.

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Thanks for the wonderful additions I really appreciate it!

It may be cheaper to purchase late night advertising but what is the listener level? The "prime times" that you listed are rush hour traffic. Everyone is in their cars and listening to the radio 5 days out of the week. In large markets like Southern California, that is millions of people sitting on freeways and taking 3 hours for their 25 mile commute.

I guess a similar analogy would be to suggest that sure, other papers are cheaper, but really you only need to advertise in the New York Times, since more people read it.

Late-night radio and television (which is similarly inexpensive) are staples of direct-response advertisers, who track every microscopic detail of their ad campaigns as aggressively as Star Jones at a buy-one-get-one-free sale.

There are countless products and services for whom all-night radio is the absolute best place to advertise.

And in markets like Southern California, which are hardly known for their habit of rolling up the sidewalks at dusk, a radio spot at 2 o'clock in the morning is often times the very best spot to find your target.

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I should add that like so many other forms of advertising, one of the keys to success in radio advertising is frequency. I know of stations where you can buy 30 commercials on the all-night show for the same amount that one spot in the morning show would cost you. And someone who's expecting success from a single airing of a spot had better have either the best-written radio commercial in history, the best offer in history, or a resilient ego.

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Interesting list, I appreciate the tips. One question though, if you don't give out an address, phone number, or website address, what are you hoping for? They look you up in the phone book or that your SERPS is really good?

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Notice that I didn't say "don't", I said "don't unless they're REALLY easy to remember." You don't want them to look you up in the phone book - especially not the Yellow Pages. In fact, that should have been Tip #10:

10. Don't EVER, EVER put the words, "See our ad in the Yellow Pages" into a radio commercial, unless yours is without a doubt the biggest, best and most prominent ad in the YP. "See our ad" also means "see the ads of every one of our competitors". You don't want them to think about your competitors when they're ready to buy. Using your radio commercial to send them to the YP is to take 30 or 60 seconds that belong exclusively to you, and you alone, and suddenly fling the gates open and share that time with your competition. It's a waste of money, and it's says in neon lights, "An inexperienced writer did this commercial."

What radio commercials do BEST is IMAGING and POSITIONING, and supporting other ad buys.

What radio DOESN'T do well - and unfortunately, most radio salespeople are too ignorant to understand this - is drive a customer to a particular location for a particular sale on a particular day based on an airing of three or four spots.

And there's a reason for that: Although it was different in the days of "The Shadow", radio is now a transitory medium. It's something that, more often than not, you're using while you're doing something else. It's safe to assume from that, that potential customers won't drop whatever they're doing and rush straight to your store, or pull over and write down an address like "17425 Sycamore Lane NorthWest, Suite 14B". So what your radio commercial SHOULD do, is do such a great job of planting your name in the prospect's head that when they have the time, they remember you well enough that they can find you in the White Pages, in the mall, or in the place you told them to find all the details they need (like address, directions etc) when they have time to look for them.

Example: Have you EVER heard a McDonalds commercial that gave you an address, or directions? How about Home Depot?

It sounds like this may dictate another thread where I can provide some examples of copy from "classic" radio commercials, legendary for both the genius of the writing, and the massive impact they had on sales.

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