REASONS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR HOSTS LIVE READS!! IT'S DEFINITELY WORTH IT....

From Inside Radio Wednesday September 21, 2011.

In media landscape cluttered with ads, endorsements proving to be an effective alternative for some brands. Product placement and integrated marketing campaigns have been growing in importance among advertisers for years, and radio can play a role. From Rush Limbaugh to the local morning host, endorsement radio is having a moment. “It’s not that spot radio doesn’t work — it’s just that I have never seen a spot radio campaign outperform an endorsement campaign,” says Ad Results Advertising president Russell Lindley, whose agency has placed nearly $1 billion worth of such ads on radio in the past 13 years. In one case study, the agency calculated that call volume jumped 3.8-times higher than when a traditional :60- or :30-second commercial was used. But even more impressive was that every dollar spent on live read ads brought in more than $3.50 in sales, while the pre-recorded spots essentially broke even with sales. Lindley, a former radio sales manager and station owner, says the agency does get resistance from stations that want to keep live reads within traditional spot length parameters, even though a more natural conversation may run short or long. “If anything, a live endorsement ad is like a free ad — the listener is not interrupted by it and they will stay with the station,” he said. Lindley told the RAB-NAB Radio Show last week that Arbitron rank is also “very low on the scale” when the shop decides which stations to buy. A packaged goods company used sports radio to reach a female 25-54 demo and saw sales jump 20%. While the strategy took some selling, Lindley says “they didn’t question it again.” Demonstrating just how effective the live read ads can be, the average conversion rate on a campaign is 19%, Lindley says. But when the air personality is out on vacation and two recorded spots are substituted for one live endorsement, the conversion rate drops to 8.8%. Lindley says his agency places live read campaigns on about 1,200 stations a year — and it makes sure the air talent is actually a customer. For instance, for Select Comfort Mattress, the host is required to sleep on one of their products for at least two weeks. Once the live reads are on the air, the copy is changed at least twice a month to keep the presentation fresh.