You may be lucky enough to have a local independent radio station which is listened to by your target customers. Obviously, the benefits of any broadcast radio are that the medium is largely limited to sound and therefore is often best suited to communicating pure fact, for example when you are launching a new product or when you have a sale.
You will purchase a series of spots which is a package of radio adverts. A basic rule of thumb is that 1000 listeners costs about $2.00 or $3.00. So, if you want to advertise at peak time when your local station has 200,000 listeners, then your 15 second spot would cost around $400/$600. You can see that by advertising at quite a time, the cost of each advert can be much lower, for example 50,000 listeners will cost $100 to $150. A tip here is to try to get a discount for the more advertising you do; when closing a deal try asking for some free slots!
The time of day when you advertise will affect how many people can hear your advert. For example, peak times will be when people are driving to and from work. In comparison to other types of advertising, the actual production costs are relatively low. So, the cost of making the advert needs to be taken into account, but should be much cheaper than any video production.
Do not forget there are now many digital radio stations. The increasing number is due to the fact that transmission costs and production cost are now much lower than in the past; also take into account that radio stations serve specific audiences, for example classic stations, golden oldie stations, lesbian, gay and bisexual stations, and religious stations, amongst many others. Also search the Internet for any online local stations, or national niche stations that better suit your needs.
Remember you’re looking for the radio stations that your customers will listen to, and not the ones that you prefer yourself.
