Dealing w/ client that has cut radio budget in favor of Facebook

    • 1373 posts
    May 31, 2019 11:23 AM PDT

    From Rebecca White: How do you handle new "ad staff" at businesses you've dealt with for decades - who come in with absolutely no experience in marketing and decide to cut your radio budget in favor of posting on Facebook. Our stations reach almost 2 million Pops and this person is happy with getting 2 shares and 25 likes per post. This person also says they are a numbers person. How do you quantify to them that radio reaches more people than what they're able to do on Facebook?

    • 1373 posts
    May 31, 2019 1:36 PM PDT

    From Diane Scarpelli: Wow - the resources and points of argument are so many. Bob Hoffman on his blog "ad contrarian' succinctly addresses most of them. - citing specific studies and outcomes of people like Kraft which pulled their radio-tv for social media relationship-building with pretty devastating market-share results. This person you're talking to may be using Facebook as an excuse for not using radio or other media because he doesn't have the budget - see if he buys anything else, like outdoor, direct mail, et al. This person also may just be a heavy Facebook user him-herself - a shrinking percentage of the buying public. - but he/she is relying on personal experience.

    Do not tell this person he/she is wrong. Tell him/her they are indeed talking to people who already know about them but you can provide traffic of new customers thru reach and repetition. - this is a market segment that can grow their business that he/she is not talking to.

    #1 argument is "Facebook is free" - Facebook is only free if you put absolutely no value on your time whatsoever or on the time spent by an employee(s) on the Facebook endeavor. Effective social media takes time, requires creativity, (good) photos and more time. #2 argument concerns who you are talking to on Facebook. You're actually talking to people who already know enough about you to have 'liked' your page - not potential new customers. And not a lot of people like or pay attention to commercial posts on Facebook because (a) they are invariably selling something in a (b) social setting. There has been a buzz in the ad world about creating relationships between customers and products/businesses... only to now find out from polls and studies that buyers have no interest in having a relationship with Tide detergent, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese or the business that just sold them a couch - they just. don't. care. #3 friends and likes do not = sales. They might, sometimes, for one thing here or there. But if your Facebook-loving client is honest with you, he/she would admit that there are people who post or reply on their page all the time that never actually buy anything. In a flurry to pick up likes on his/her page, actual friends, neighbors and others who know the owner but never shop there will like the page. Some of these people are outside the market. And there are shops that actually sell likes on social media. #4 on radio, thousands (tens of tens of thousands) of listeners hear a commercial. repeatedly - it's a mass medium. And messages work when they are heard repeatedly. On Facebook, the message is seen (maybe - how do you know) once and this business owner you're talking to probably has at most several hundred friends on Facebook. Radio is omnipresent (on at offices, businesses, in homes, in cars) and invasive - studies show (see RAB) that people can recall radio messages even when they don't think they were listening.

    • 121 posts
    June 7, 2019 6:06 AM PDT

    Rarely have I seen a business do Facebook advertising on their own with much success.

    Part of it's appeal is the low cost of entry and the idea that you can target your ads to your best potential customers.  But in reality the results are often tiny unless they know what they are doing and keep up with the continuous learning curve since FB is always updating their algorithms.

    I launched a new client in April spending $2000 per month on radio and we got 20 leads that month.  Meanwhile he was doing Facebook ads and on the surface it looked like he figured out the secret formula to get a lot of views, likes, shares and comments.

    This week we reviewed his May results.  Still spending $2000 a month he is up to 40 leads from my station per month.  I also found out that he is spending double that amount ($4000 or more) on boosting his Facebook ads and the results are not double what he gets from the radio ads as far as qualified leads.

    At first, I was concerned that he was getting a better ROI with FB, but now after the 2nd full month and learning more about his spending, I know that we are solid and FB isn't all it is cracked up to be.