Buy Now: Creative Marketing that Gets Customers to Respond to You and Your Product

Chapter 15. Beyond Television: Integrating Radio, Web Advertising, and More

We started in television and for a long time had a predisposition to discuss our marketing strategies in the context of television alone. But in recent years we've branched out into radio, print, and web marketing, finding great value in each. Not just the value one might expect for acquiring more consumers in different channels, but for some distinct advantages each brings to the process of marketing.

Let's start with radio. Some of the first broadcast advertising in America was through radio. It seems every detergent and cigarette manufacturer in the United States had at least one of its own shows on radio. Whether it was the "Palmolive Hour" or the Pall Mall Hour, consumables were branded through dramatic radio shows sponsored by the brand's parent company. Talk show formats sprang up, as well, and this model leaked into the very first years of broadcast television.

Actually, this radio model is still very powerful; we use it frequently to test our own entrepreneurial projects before we go to the effort and expense of shooting a television long form. Here's why:

The radio half hour, or even hour in some markets, is dirt-cheap airtime. You can buy a market for $50 to $100. If you are an entrepreneur and you have an intellectual property, a book, a CD, or even a digestible nutritional supplement, then radio could be your gold rush. The low cost of radio means you need only a few consumer responses to break ...