Radio advertising

[Crabcake Johnny]

Those would be my opposite picks. I sat down with Comcast Spotlight and the sales rep recommended channels like Lifetime, A&E and cooking network. I don't see too many housewives watching MSNBC at 2pm and let's face it - far more women are home during the day then men. I can even afford $25 a spot for after 6pm and then I'd hit the cable news stations.

 

[K-Dub]

Don't do prime time, don't bother!!

 

[Sam]

Mega's radio ads are designed to filter out those who are not self-employed. I always thought that was silly, because why should they limit themselves, but in light of txinsurance's statement, it makes perfect sense.
Make it all about the self employed, and you weed out many of the tire kickers.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

If Mega targets the self-employed then I'm targeting billionaires. The average Mega lead doesn't have a check book. Mega knows better than to actually target small biz owners - they're sales would drop 95%.

 

[BKrocko]

In CO, Mega bombards the audience with adds on the Military Channel. Sometimes I think they are the only advertiser - the commercials play all hours of the day/night.

"I work hard, so I want a company that works hard for me, Mega - it's my kind of company". If I were bulimic, that commercial would make it easy to puke!

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Interesting note on prime time ads - back in '05 Assurant did some market testing with TV ads and I was chosen as one of the GAs to receive MD leads - for free. I just had to fill out a detailed Excel spreadsheet on the outcome of each lead. Obviously when I was chosen I went nuts - FREE tv ad prime-time leads!!!

Ummm.....yeah. I closed about 1 out of 40 - couldn't even get about 70% to pick up the phone. I was very nervous when turning in my 1st report thinking Assurant would say I'm the weakest agent in the country. Turns in all markets GAs averaged 1 out 50! You had to produce $500,000+ just to get picked so it wasn't like we couldn't close deal. The program got yanked after 6 weeks.

One of the flaws? I think 99% of the views said "Who the hell is Assurant Health?"

 

[TXINSURANCE]

Targeting the self employed is smart for retention purposes and they tend to have checking accounts.

Targeting the general population is basically working for free w/ radio and t.v.

Even if you quote and give out information - good luck closing them.

They are generally UNINSURED - UNINSURED is a lot of dead beats - lets not sugar coat it... Not all of them are deadbeats I am making fun of the situation - but if someone hasn't had insurance for 3 years - there is an underlying problem of some sort.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

This would be why 100% of my current marketing is biz owners. I will indeed be getting into a variety of advertising but I will always have a marketing strategy to hit biz owners.

 

[Alston]

Don't do prime time, don't bother!!

I've read that prime time is bad for advertisers who need their listeners to take immediate action. With TV people are too involved in the show to want to make a phone call and miss the show's ending. Prime time radio is lousy because most listeners are driving.

This is why all the 1-800 number ads for the exercise machines and kitchen gadgets play on other times of the day. If you are watching an old movie or an "I Love Lucy" episode for the 100th time, you are more likely to pick up the phone and order something.

 

[SC Local LAH Agent]

Media Retention - (Adults 18+)
Media Type number of days
Newspaper 1
Radio .25
Television .50
Stationary Billboards 3


People remember billboards longer, Think of it like this ...
Did you watch TV last night?
For how long?
How many commercials do you suppose were ran during that time?
HOW MANY OF THEM DO YOU REMEMBER?
Retention counts for a ton!
You also have to add in production costs, in the end your ad has to be as good a quality as,as big as, and run as much as the other guys. That is hard to do in TV and radio. Also the cost per result ratio of print ads is hard to justify unless your attempting to brand your name. I get my best returns from static billboards.All markets are different and that should give you a home court advantage.

But then I was in advertising before becoming an insurance agent.