An essential function of advertising is to compel consumers to take action regarding a specific product or service. Consumers in the Detroit Metro area are expected to spend at least $78.3 billion at retail this year. The Detroit Metro area consists of the following Southeast Michigan counties: Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair and Wayne.

To claim a greater share of this giant pool of cash requires local business owners of every size to advertise their goods and services. As Professor Jef Richards at Michigan State University points out, “Advertising is totally unnecessary…unless you want to make money.”

The bottom line: It is difficult for anyone in the Detroit area to purchase a product or service from a local business owner if they aren’t aware it exists.

There are many ways for local small business owners to advertise. These options include local newspapers, local magazines, local television, and online. However, to achieve the “3-Rs” of advertising success, Reach, Recall, and Return, no other medium delivers results as effectively and efficiently as advertising on Detroit radio stations.

The first “R” is Reach. According to a study by Nielsen, after the actual content of the commercial message itself, reach is the most potent advertising element that can drive sales. Reach is more important than brand, recency, or even context. Detroit radio provides local business owners with the biggest reach among consumers.

Last week, 2,985,400 adult consumers tuned to their favorite Detroit radio stations. This is significantly more than those who watched local TV, read a newspaper, logged-in to social media, or used a streaming audio site.

Unlike other local media, which tends to skew towards older audiences, Detroit radio reaches consumers of all ages. This includes members of Generation X, Y, and Z; Millennials, and Boomers. Everybody.

% of Detroit Consumers Reached By Local Radio

Media expert Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, advises, “Everything we’ve read about listening and aging audiences would have us believe that only our grandmother is listening to radio. Turns out the industry’s biggest supporters, the radio advertisers who foot the bills, aren’t buying that at all. Radio works, and the listeners are telling us in the latest survey data that radio has one helluva return-on-investment.”

The second “R” affecting advertising success is recall. To be effective, advertising must be remembered by the consumer when it comes time to choose which Detroit businesses to patronize.

Local Ad Recall, a research company that measures the effectiveness of advertising, found that brand recall was five times higher for companies that advertised on radio versus the companies that did not. Consequently, Detroit business owners who advertise on radio have a much better chance of being recalled and, therefore, frequented by prospective customers than companies that do not advertise on radio.

The third “R” of advertising success is return-on-investment (ROI). ROI is a measurement of revenue growth that a Detroit business owner can expect for each $1 invested in advertising. According to Advertising Age Magazine, when executed correctly, radio advertising can deliver a greater ROI for a local business than investing in TV, digital, or social media ads.

Over the past few years, Nielsen has conducted more than 20 studies to determine how much ROI a business owner could expect when advertising on radio. In every case, radio’s ROI was, in the words of Advertising Age, “eye-popping.”

The most recent ROI study released by Nielsen is no exception. According to Westwood One, the company that commissioned this latest study, a radio campaign for a men’s personal-care brand produced $11.96 in sales-lift for every $1.00 invested in radio advertising.

Overall, according to Nielsen, among all of the studies conducted, radio ads produced a very impressive 10x ROI.

An effective advertising campaign on Detroit radio needs a specific marketing objective. The objective should correspond with an advertiser’s key challenges or opportunities. The objective will influence which radio stations to purchase, the length of the campaign, the timing of the advertising, as well as the length and the content of the commercials.

It is possible that over time, a business could have many different marketing objectives, but it is a proven, best practice for each campaign to focus on one. The objective selected should be crucial to the continued success of the business.

The question then becomes, which combination of these 3 stations should ultimately be chosen for the ad campaign? The answer is determined by the marketing objective.

A branding objective involves creating or modifying a consumer’s belief. To do this successfully requires the repetition and reinforcement of the business owner’s marketing message. This repetition is referred to as frequency. Achieving the necessary frequency can be accomplished by scheduling commercials on as few as one or two Detroit area radio stations over a longer timeframe.

A promotional objective, on the other hand, requires the largest number of target consumers to be exposed to a marketing message. This is referred to as reach. If a certain number of consumers in Detroit are ready to buy, then obtaining the greatest reach possible among those listeners will increase the odds of creating a sale.

Achieving the necessary reach can be accomplished by advertising on multiple Detroit radio stations generally over a shorter time frame. Note, each additional radio station that is purchased expands the overall reach of the campaign.

The owner of the pizza restaurant has a promotional objective, to encourage working moms to order take-out on their way home from work tonight. Because this type of objective requires reach, then, budget permitting, the campaign should include the three radio stations that comprise the majority of the target consumers.

When a Southeast Michigan small business owner considers advertising on local radio, the information needed to make an informed station selection can be secured from a reputable radio account executive. This information includes reach and frequency data from Nielsen; local listener profiles from Scarborough; and consumer insights from Gfk MRI.

Listeners tune-in to Detroit radio stations throughout the day, but the greatest concentration of listeners occurs on weekdays between 6:00am and 7:00pm. This is referred to as radio’s “prime time”.

Consumers in the Detroit area spend close to 14 hours per week listening to their favorite radio stations. This equates to more than two hours per day.

Research indicates that the typical person tunes-in at about the same time throughout the week. An example is the listener who turns on the radio at 5:20 every weekday afternoon for a 38-minute commute home from work. Or, maybe, the new mom who listens for 20 minutes every morning when she wakes up for a 2:00 feeding.

Achieving a branding objective requires frequency of message among the target consumers. To build effective frequency, a business owner should concentrate commercials during specific dayparts over an extended timeframe.

Most Southeast Michigan radio stations limit the supply of commercials that are available during an hour of programming. This benefits radio listeners who prefer more entertainment. This also benefits advertisers who prefer fewer marketing messages that compete with theirs.

During certain times of day, the demand to purchase commercials is greater than the supply. This, then, drives up the cost of advertising during those times. The commercial time in most demand is prime time, which, for most stations, is Monday through Friday between 6:00am and 7:00pm. 

The US Small Business Administration recommends that every Southeast Michigan small business advertise consistently. “Think you have a great product?” asks the SBA. 

“Unfortunately, no one’s going to know about it unless you advertise.” The SBA goes on to say, “Advertising, if done correctly, can do wonders for your product sales, and you know what that means: more revenue and more success for your business”. 

Henry Ford believed continual advertising was a wise investment. “Saving money by not advertising,” he claimed, “is like stopping a clock to save time.” 

The most successful Metro Detroit area marketers avoid “going dark” or stopping their advertising. In other words, they advertise consistently. These local business owners know that there are always consumers in the buying cycle for their products and services. Converting these prospects to customers is critical to their success. 

Ongoing advertising strategies comprise individual campaigns that run throughout the year. The duration of each of these campaigns is determined by the underlying marketing objective. There are times when these campaigns run concurrently, but most often, they are rolled-out sequentially. 

Again, if a particular campaign has a branding objective, then a longer campaign is required. Remember, a branding campaign is focused on convincing consumers to believe something about a product or business. Creating or altering a belief usually takes time and repetition of message (frequency). Therefore, branding campaigns often run for extended periods and can be scheduled continuously or in well-timed “pulses”. 

For instance, a Plymouth area hardware store owner might need to convince loyal Home Depot shoppers that his store provides better do-it-yourself advice. Brand advertising is crucial to change the habits and loyalties of a competitor’s customers. To be successful with this objective will require frequency of message over time.

When a campaign on Detroit radio is promotional in nature, it typically lasts for a shorter time frame. Keep in mind, the purpose of a promotional campaign is to compel a consumer to take immediate action. 

As an example, a local community college might need to encourage recent high school graduates to register for upcoming classes by the end of the month. This objective would likely be achieved by advertising heavily the remaining weeks leading up to the registration deadline.

The number one job of any radio commercial on Detroit radio is to break through and be heard. If it is not heard, then it can’t be remembered. If it is not remembered, then it can’t be acted upon. Breaking through and commanding a listener’s attention is a function of a commercial’s creative content.

According to a Nielsen study, the creative content of an ad contributes more to a commercial’s ability to drive sales than any other element of an advertising campaign. Content is more important than brand, reach, and frequency combined.

Nielsen’s findings are confirmed by a study from OMD, an advertising agency whose clients include McDonald’s, Apple, Pepsi, and Google. This study found that ad engagement has an 8-time bigger effect on sales than size of audience. 

Detroit radio stations offer different commercial length options to fulfill the marketing objectives and budgets of local small business owners. The most common lengths are :60 seconds; :30 seconds; :15 seconds; and :10 seconds.

Typically, fulfilling a branding objective requires longer-form commercials. Media expert Seth Godin describes brand as “a set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” Obviously, a message of this complexity would require a greater number of words.

Shorter length commercials are, generally,
less expensive than :60-second commercials. Fulfilling promotional objectives typically requires more commercials spread over multiple dayparts on several radio stations to reach as many consumers possible. By taking advantage of the lower cost of shorter duration commercials, advertisers can purchase the volume of commercials necessary to generate that additional reach and frequency.

Reducing the length of a radio commercial by half does not equate to a commensurate reduction of effectiveness. Erwin Ephron, the architect of modern media planning pointed out, “On a pro-rata basis, a :30 is worth half of a :60. On a communication basis, though, the difference is far smaller.”

A recent study by Forethought Research supports Mr. Ephron’s assertion. According to the study’s authors, when the effectiveness of shorter and longer length was compared, they found “non-significant differences in rational and emotional performance.” The conclusion drawn was that “consumers evaluate advertising communications by moments and that duration is not a factor in this process.” A guideline to consider: Strive to make the commercials as long as necessary but as short as possible. 

There is no reason, however, that only one length of commercial should be deployed as part of an advertising campaign on Detroit radio. One effective way to employ multiple length ads is referred to as “sequencing”. 

To sequence a campaign, the business owner begins with the longer form commercials. In time, shorter length commercials are rotated in. This enables the advertiser to generate greater reach or frequency without increasing the overall investment. 

Sequencing is effective because the human brain has the tendency to “thin slice”, a term coined by author Malcolm Gladwell. This means, that after multiple exposures to an advertisers commercial, the consumer can recognize and recall the substance of the message after only a few seconds.