A number of factors have combined to cause radio advertising sales to decline for the last several years in the United States. But a number of radio stations are fighting back by including newer advertising methods that cleverly incorporate the web, or even "mini-sites" to collect targeted customer information and provide incentives for customers to visit your business. They can provide streaming ads for visitors of the website, e-mail ads to regular listeners and other ways to reach a much more targeted customer than what they could do in the past. And the regular decline in their ad revenue means that they're more willing to work with smaller companies than ever.
Technology is also allowing radio to alter their advertising to reach smaller geographic areas than they could do before - when a typical radio broadcast would cover a very large area, often wasting an expensive advertising message on customers who were too far away from the business location to seriously consider their services.
If you're a small business struggling with how best to reach your customers, you might call a local radio stations and ask about some of their newer advertising options. They're hungrier for business than they've been in a long time. As one radio executive put it, " The web will play a big role in how radio will be rejuvenated, because radio isn't in the broadcast business; it's in the entertainment business. "
When it comes to advertising you have to know your options.
Chris Hawkes
