Don’t advertise your furniture or mattress store on the radio without reading this.
And then there’s this to consider: When your local radio stations quote enormous numbers of listeners, pay attention to how they calculate those numbers. The number of listeners their station reaches is often quoted as listener-ship across the entire week and the entire day (6AM-midnight). For your ad to be heard by that number of listeners, it will have to run all day long, all week. But, more importantly, note how far their signal extends. Stations in flat areas can broadcast as far as 100 miles and the station could be including listeners from that far away in their figures. Are people from 25, 60 or 100 miles away going to drive to your furniture store? Perhaps. If you’re tracking your customers’ locations, you’ll know. But in most metro areas, we find the bulk of a store’s customers come from only a few-mile radius around the store. Thus, you could be paying for LOTS of listeners that aren’t likely to make the trip to your store.
Lastly, of those listeners who are willing to drive to your store, and who haven’t changed the station, how many are in the market for furniture or a mattress?
By contrast, when you advertise on the Google AdWords search network, you’re only paying for customers in the area you choose who are showing a definite interest in finding a furniture store. That’s strong!
Of course, radio can be a great medium for some furniture stores. Those looking to establish their name or build their brand, for example. And it can be valuable to a chain of stores with locations throughout a metro area where the cost can be spread amongst the stores. Radio has a place in a broad marketing strategy with a healthy budget. But if you’re looking for immediate traffic to your furniture or mattress store at a low cost, Google is hard to beat.
“Don’t become some background noise” Freddie Mercury, Queen, Radio Ga Ga
