The Golden Rules for Creating Awesome Audio Campaigns

Audio advertising remains one of the most effective marketing channels available to brands – delivering on average a return on investment of nearly £8 for every £1 spent. But like anything else in life, it needs to be done correctly to realise its full potential.

So we’ve pulled some key insights to help you get the most out of your next radio/audio campaign.

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Good Work Starts With a Good Brief... 

You’ve probably heard this a thousand times before, but it’s even more true when it comes to audio.

With TV or video, you can distract people from a rubbish proposition by wowing them with beautiful imagery, but with audio you don’t have that luxury - there’s nowhere to hide. What you have to say is basically all you have.

Music and sound effects can of course help paint an engaging picture, but without a well-considered articulation of the proposition, it’s very difficult to connect and resonate with your target audience.

Avoid Message Overload

Be mindful not to overload your radio ad with too many messages.

Unlike with a print ad when the dwell time is as long as the person reading the ad wants to spend looking at it, with an audio ad, the dwell time is only as long as the commercial itself.

If you bombard the listener with loads of messages in one commercial, they will leave the commercial not remembering any. It’s best, where possible, to stick to only one or two messages per commercial. If you’ve got loads of messages, or reasons to believe or product benefits, spread them out across different commercials. 

If you bombard the listener with loads of messages in one commercial, they will leave not remembering any!

An Audio Ad is Not a Print Ad

Because an audio ad starts life as words on a page, there can be a tendency to forget that it ultimately ends up in people’s ears. What looks good on paper might not sound as you intended. As illustrated by this sofa commercial

…Okay, so that’s clearly a spoof commercial but it illustrates the point that you should always appraise your audio ideas by actually hearing them rather than just reading them.

When sharing new work with our clients we always present the scripts, rather than just e-mailing them the words. By doing this we ensure that everyone understands the tone, pace and rhythm of the piece. More importantly, hearing it out loud reminds everyone of the amount of words that can actually fit comfortably in 30”… it’s often a lot less than you think.

What looks good on paper might not sound as you intended.

No one cares about your brand

Sounds harsh, but it’s true. They may care about a problem your product solves for them, but they probably don’t care about your brand - so give them a reason to care!

Respect your audience. Build a rapport with them. Resonate with them. Show them that you hear them. Sound is incredibly emotive - use it to its full potential.

Don’t just list reasons to believe, use emotion

Bleating on about how great your product is, is not how you get people to care about your brand.

You need to connect with your audience on an emotional, not just rational, level. Resonating with people on an emotional level is what builds brands. This doesn’t mean that every ad you produce has to tug at the heart strings to sell - you simply just need to sound human. Find a way to bring those reasons to believe to life.

You can achieve this by being entertaining, by educating, or by showing empathy…and some of the best audio work does all three. Have a listen to this:

Total transparency - this isn’t one of our commercials, so it’s okay for us to say that it’s one of our all time favourite ads! What’s so beautiful about it is that the creative idea is at the very heart of the product’s proposition. Plus, they reward the listener with a nice but very relevant reveal at the end. There’s an authenticity between the product truth and the creative idea.

Resonating with people on an emotional level is what builds brands.

Context Is Key

Think carefully about context - not just in respect of the target audience’s general life, but also the actual context that they might be hearing the commercial in. What might they be doing when they hear your commercial? Also, think about what their frame of mind might be when they hear your commercial. This will help you to connect with them when developing the creative.

If your commercial is being played on podcast platforms, for example, consider adapting your ad so that it doesn’t jar with the listeners’ experience. As we know, most podcasts are talk based, so it probably wouldn’t be appreciated if in the middle of their nice, calm spoken word podcast they heard a raucous, high energetic, shouty audio ad. 

Think carefully about context not just in respect of the target audience’s general life, but also the actual context that they might be hearing the commercial in.

Tactical should not equal boring

When you’ve got a lot of product and retail information to communicate, it doesn’t mean it has to be boring. It's creativity that does most of the selling in an audio campaign. The creative idea shouldn’t be gratuitous, superfluous or irrelevant, but for your brand to be considered, you need to be remembered. And you don’t want to be remembered for being dry and boring.

Don’t Book the Media Until the Creative Has Been Approved

The media and creative need to work hand in hand together - you don’t know what the optimum spot length of your commercial is until you know what it is you want to say and how you want to say it.

The most commonly booked spot length on most radio stations in the UK is 30”, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best length for you. 

The risk attached to committing to the media before knowing what the creative might look like is that you fall in love with a creative idea that is 40” long which you then have to shoehorn into a 30”, which compromises your communication and makes for a far less effective ad. So wait until you know what shape the creative is going to take before discussing the spot length.

You don’t know what the optimum spot length of your commercial is until you know what it is you want to say and how you want to say it.

To Summarise

• Get the brief right: Find your brand’s truth and embrace it.
• An audio ad is not a print ad: Don’t overload it with too many messages, think about how it sounds, not how many words you can fit on a page.
• Connect on an emotional level: Don’t just list product benefits. Connect with people in an authentic way that will resonate with them. Think of your audience as friends you haven’t met yet.
• Context is key: Context is so important. Think about where your target audience is, both literally and emotionally, and tailor your commercial accordingly.
• Show your tactical ads some love: Make your tactical ads as engaging to listen to as your brand work.
• Develop creative and media in unison: Don’t commit to the spot length until you know exactly what it is you want to say.

and finally...

...enjoy yourself! Making audio commercials is a lot less stressful than making TV ads, but when done well, they are just as effective!

If you’ve got an audio campaign in your marketing plan, and you’re looking to get the most out of it, get in touch as we’d love to help.

You can either email me directly at sean@radioville.co.uk to arrange a time to chat on the phone (yep, we still love a good ol’ fashioned chinwag on the blower!) or if you’d prefer a chat over a virtual coffee, then just click on the ‘book a call’ link below.