Publisher Announces New Feature: "Ask the Media Genius How to Improve Your ROI"

A new book, "David vs. Goliath: Guerrilla Media Buying for Small Business, a New Way to Win," may be able to help you improve your sales, profit, and ROI simply by more efficiently planning and buying your advertising media. In addition, now, if you have a media question which affects your ROI, you can“Ask the Media Genius" for free advice by email!

Here is an example in the form of a question and answer from the Media Genius.

Question for the Media Genius:

"I own an auto dealership in a northern suburb of a top 10 market. A salesman for the #1 news-talk radio station sold me a $50,000+ 26 week sponsorship which was supposed to bring a lot of new traffic to my store. Traffic and sales did not pick up much beyond what we would have had anyway. Was this buy a mistake?"

Here is the Media Genius’ answer:

First, in terms of ROI— if your Retail Trading Area is typical of most dealers, you probably do 70-80% of your business with customers who live within five miles of your dealership. This compares to about 5% of the station’s audience falling into your marketing area; the rest of the audience is reaching consumers who— because they live so far away— have a lower probability of visiting your dealership.

This means that he value of the exposure you received in your Retail Trading Area was about $2,500, not $50,000. Unfortunately this also means that up to 95% ( $47,500 ) of your budget may have been wasted. It also means that if your average advertising cost per sale is $250, the cost of this sponsorship drove your cost per sale up to $5,000, probably a money losing proposition.

Aside from ROI, there are other cautionary flags with this buy. You should also keep in mind that :

1 ) Even the largest radio stations generate small audiences/ratings ( radio audience is divided among over 10,000 radio stations in the USA! );

2 ) Because people listen to only a few favorite stations, this sponsorship reaches the same people over and over again. Reaching less than 10% of prospective purchasers by a station is clearly a problem if your objective is to raise awareness to 30, 40, 50% or more;

3 ) What is the cost efficiency of this buy compared to buys on other radio stations in the market (or other media);

4 ) Given that radio is a “background medium,” and you are looking for specific message communication— is radio the most cost effective medium for communicating the intended message?

5 ) In a similar manner, you need to analyze to he cost effectiveness of your other media investments, e.g., where you pay for the audience generated outside your trading area?

To improve the ROI from your advertising investment, we recommend that you read “David vs. Goliath: Guerrilla Media Buying for Small Business, A New Way to Win.”