TV and Radio Advertising for Your Small Business

Broadcast advertising has traditionally been a highly effective way of reaching large numbers of people at once. Even with the advent of the Internet, television and radio advertising is still a great tool to use in your marketing efforts.

For the small business owner, broadcast advertising can be costly in terms of total dollars spent, but the cost to reach each prospective customer is often lower than other methods of advertising. It can also be somewhat intimidating to decipher jargon such as CPP, CPM, ratings points, and dayparts. For the purpose of simplicity, I always ask all media reps to provide a CPM, or cost per thousand (more on this later), so I can easily compare advertising costs across all advertising media.

I’ll outline the pros and cons of buying broadcast media, as well as explain some of the terminology commonly used by media salespeople.

Pros
The ability to reach large numbers of people at a time, while targeting who you want to reach by advertising in specific programs. For example, advertising beer during the Super Bowl. Also, having your own television or radio ad often creates a perception of credibility.

Cons
Can be expensive, especially when adding in the cost of producing your commercial. In the case of TV, it is difficult to make immediate changes to your ad.

Terminology

CPM — Cost Per Thousand
Refers to how much it costs to reach a thousand people in a given area or “market”. Cost per thousand is not affected by the size of the market.

CPP — Cost Per Point
The cost to reach one rating ”point”, which represents a percentage of TV viewers or radio listeners in a market. The value of a rating point is affected by the size of the market, e.g., 1% of the viewing audience in Los Angeles is greater than that of Providence, Rhode Island.

Reach — The number of unduplicated households or people exposed to an ad.

Frequency — The number of times a household or person is exposed to an ad.

Daypart — A programming time period, such as television primetime (8-10pm).

Obviously, I’ve just touched on the basics of buying television and/or radio advertising. I plan to address specific advertising topics for the small business owner in future posts.

Michelle Mizuno is the Vice President of Marketing for Complete Business Systems. Her experience includes media planning and buying, account management, advertising sales, and copywriting for advertising, marketing, and PR.