Instructor Peng Xiaodong, during a pre-statement marketing training session, discussed the advantages of radio advertising in trade promotional campaigns as follows: With the intensification of commercial competition, especially every year during peak sales seasons, various malls and supermarkets strive to maintain and expand their market share by launching significant promotions. The intensity of advertising also increases accordingly.
However, there is a serious imbalance in how merchants allocate their promotional advertisements across different media. For example, a mall in Nanchong City spent 500,000 yuan on newspaper advertising from mid-August to mid-October in 2007, but only allocated 15,000 yuan for radio advertising, which is less than one-thirtieth of the amount spent on newspapers.
When merchants choose promotional advertising media, they believe that newspapers, due to their large circulation and numerous features, leave written words that can be preserved, allowing consumers to search for information. On the other hand, radio only has sound, without images or text, so its advertising effect is considered inferior to newspapers. As a result, merchants prioritize newspaper advertising for promotions and consider radio advertising dispensable or unimportant. This misunderstanding stems from a lack of deep and comprehensive understanding of the dissemination characteristics of various advertising media, especially the advantages of radio media. Consequently, this leads to an incomplete or flawed media mix in promotional advertising, potentially causing merchants to not achieve ideal promotional effects, wasting advertising costs, and misleading radio advertising operators into thinking that radio as an advertising medium is losing its traditional advantages and becoming a weak medium. Therefore, Instructor Peng Xiaodong feels it necessary to re-evaluate the advantages of radio in commercial promotional advertising to adapt to the intense competition in the advertising market.
Compared with other media like newspapers, radio has the following transmission advantages:
Firstly, radio has a wide coverage area and a large audience. Radio information transmission uses electronic signals, and with the advancement of science and technology and the expansion of broadcasting power, infinite radio coverage becomes possible. In general, a prefecture-level city radio station can not only cover the local city but also effectively cover surrounding areas. Even in places where newspapers cannot be delivered, as long as they are within the effective coverage range of radio, regardless of how difficult the transportation conditions are or how bad the weather is, any listener can receive radio information in a timely and accurate manner.
Generally speaking, a prefecture-level city newspaper has a circulation of about tens of thousands of copies. Even if the readership is calculated as twice the circulation, the audience would still only be hundreds of thousands. However, due to the vast population residing in areas covered by radio, it not only has a huge potential audience base but also many loyal listeners. In a prefecture-level city with eight or nine million people, even conservatively estimating a 5% listening rate, there would be over 400,000 listeners. Among them, at least half, about 200,000 people, are urban audiences that malls and supermarkets particularly focus on due to their strong purchasing power.
One important reason why merchants emphasize newspaper advertising over radio is that urban residents have strong purchasing power, concentrated markets, and large sales volumes, while rural markets are considered dispensable. However, the rural consumption market, although relatively dispersed, has a large total volume. For instance, in Nanchong City in 2003, the total retail sales of consumer goods were 23.4 billion yuan, of which 12.4 billion yuan came from counties and below, accounting for 53% of the total retail sales. With the opening up and intensification of competition in China's retail industry, domestic merchants are improving their regional layouts and advancing into counties and rural areas to counter foreign competitors and enhance their ability to withstand market risks. They are opening branches in counties and even towns. However, the focus of newspaper distribution is in cities, followed by counties, and in rural areas below towns, often only one "subscription for duty" newspaper exists per village, almost leaving a void. The main channel through which a vast number of rural residents obtain information remains radio. Therefore, merchants' choice of advertising media for promotions should align with their competitive strategy, changing perspectives, giving full importance to radio, leveraging its strong coverage advantage over vast rural markets, attracting rural consumers, and occupying rural markets.
Radio is not only a widely covering media in space but also extensively covers in the time dimension. Due to the possibility of accompanying listening, people can listen to the radio while leisurely walking, traveling, or doing housework, etc., without any hindrance. This significantly enhances the influence of radio on consumers and strengthens the dissemination effect of radio advertising.
Secondly, radio is a low-cost information dissemination medium. On the one hand, for the audience, radio provides free information to listeners, making it a medium where audiences consume information without cost. As newspaper subscription and distribution prices rise, this undoubtedly becomes an economic burden for a broad audience, especially those with low income. Thus, in reality, few people subscribe to newspapers out of their own pocket, and most subscriptions are public-funded, creating a barrier for people to receive advertising information through newspapers. Consumer behavior studies have shown that among customers who frequently visit malls and supermarkets, a large portion consists of homemakers who do not have access to publicly subscribed newspapers. This means that advertising information published in newspapers finds it hard to directly impact this group.
On the other hand, the cost per thousand for radio advertising is much cheaper than for other media such as newspapers and television. In other words, advertisers can achieve the same advertising effect at a much lower cost when advertising on radio compared to newspapers.
The retention of advertising information holds different meanings for different types and natures of advertisements. Brand and product advertisements require long-term concept accumulation, and information retention can reinforce memory and enrich brand concept content. For promotional advertisements, since merchants' promotional activities are regular and cyclical, memory does not need reinforcement or accumulation; it merely serves as an "agenda reminder," functioning as a guiding signpost. Therefore, the inability to retain promotional advertisements on radio can be fully compensated by the continuous and high-frequency repetition of broadcasts.
Thirdly, radio advertising has flexible and rapid characteristics. The speed of radio information transmission matches the fastest light speed in the world—300,000 kilometers per second. Regardless of the distance, information emission and reception are almost synchronous, making it the fastest among all media. The flexibility of radio advertising comes from live broadcasts and rolling releases, allowing merchants to announce promotional information on-site or broadcast ads at any time. For instance, if a store plans a promotion a few days later, it can announce the information either on the radio or in newspapers. However, if the store wants to conduct the promotion the next day or even on the same day, or if changes occur during the implementation of the promotional activity (e.g., discovering competitors are also promoting, needing to increase efforts, further reducing promotional prices, temporarily extending the promotion period, or changing gifts), these promotional messages need to be immediately conveyed to consumers. At this time, merchants can take advantage of the feature of radio being able to insert ads, broadcasting their ads between programs and airing them repeatedly, while other media, limited by various conditions, especially daily newspapers publishing "yesterday’s news" in the morning, almost cannot meet the merchants’ "instant advertising" requirements. This high standard of "immediate action, immediate handling, well done" in terms of transmission speed and quality can only be achieved by radio.
The "rapid" and "flexible" advantages of radio not only satisfy merchants' immediate needs to release advertising information but also make this "quick and flexible" media advantage a powerful tool for merchants to succeed in commercial competition.
Merchants conducting promotional activities can leverage the fast and flexible advantages of radio to target different consumers at different times using different methods to promote different products. For instance, stores and supermarkets can broadcast information in the early morning (8-9 AM) or even start earlier at 7 AM on certain days to promote elderly care and health products targeting older adults who listen to the radio between 6-7 AM. Around lunchtime (11:30 AM - 1 PM), they can promote quick and convenient food for working employees by releasing information around 10 AM, allowing double-income families with tight lunch schedules to purchase conveniently on their way home. Evening sessions can prepare suitable products for people strolling after dinner, promoting in convenient forms. Each promotional plan doesn't need to last too long, sometimes just one or two hours, with various creative and practical methods announced daily at fixed times, providing a fresh feel and enhancing promotional effectiveness.
Currently, commercial promotions mainly revolve around buy-one-get-one-free, discounts, special offers, and coupons, essentially engaging in price wars. Merchants compete with greater promotional intensity, leading to severe homogenization of promotional tactics and turning competitive strategies into capital consumption battles.
Commercial competition is a game of speed versus slowness. Therefore, how to improve the speed of promotional advertising information dissemination has become an essential path for marketing innovation and enhancing advertising effectiveness. Malls and supermarkets should value radio media and fully leverage the quick and flexible advantages of radio advertising in fierce competition, shortening the time from information release to implementation of promotional plans, making it impossible for competitors to imitate or catch up, thereby establishing a competitive edge.
Fourthly, the specialization of radio frequencies allows merchants to own a fixed "core consumer group," enabling "precise guidance" in advertisement dissemination and implementing "point shooting" style communication to accurately convey advertising information to target consumers, improving promotional effectiveness.
Uncontrolled and indiscriminate advertising wastes merchants' advertising budgets. An advertising industry saying goes: "I only know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I don’t know which half." This highlights how broad and vague media dissemination can lead to the majority of listeners being irrelevant or low-value consumers for advertisers, causing inefficiency and waste in advertising budget usage. However, it also suggests that the specialization and personalization of media, akin to missiles equipped with satellite positioning systems, greatly improves the accuracy of advertising information dissemination and significantly enhances the effectiveness of merchants' advertising campaigns and budget utilization.
As the economy and society develop, people's pursuit of individuality and taste causes modern lifestyles to diversify, and populations are divided into different groups based on residential areas, psychological age, lifestyle, educational level, and behavioral habits. Populations shift from "masses" to "segments." Correspondingly, radio frequencies move towards specialization, transforming from "broadcasting" to "narrowcasting," with more precise frequency and program positioning, further segmenting and clarifying target audiences. Advertisers or merchants can place ads on radio channels or programs whose target audience demographics most closely align with the intended consumers of their promotional products.
Nowadays, most radio stations offer channels such as news, economics, education, lifestyle, traffic, arts, and urban life, targeting different listeners and consumers. For example, the audience of news channels mostly includes government officials, civil servants, and others interested in political trends, possessing consumer power that merchants cannot ignore. Economic channels target listeners aged 25-45 who are concerned about financial information and possess strong financial resources and higher consumption capabilities, making them the most valuable customers for advertisers or merchants. Therefore, advertising on economic channels, especially financial programs, is an indispensable media promotion strategy for high-end positioned merchants. The audience of education channels includes school teachers, students, and parents, forming a very large audience. Lifestyle channels attract listeners who spend more time at home, have a sense of living, and are meticulous about living expenses. If supermarkets promote discount sales in these programs, it could yield good results. Traffic channels attract drivers and passengers, a group highly overlapping with the audience of economic channels because financially savvy businesspeople are often car owners. Therefore, merchants advertising on traffic channels can effectively reach this high-value customer group.
By choosing different channels on radio media, merchants can deliver different promotional messages to different groups and simultaneously broadcast promotions across multiple channels to cross-cover their target consumer groups, further enhancing the promotional effects.
Fifthly, radio enables interaction between merchants and consumers. When conducting promotional advertising on radio media, merchants can use live hotline and program SMS platforms to interact with consumers, promote communication, and accurately understand consumer needs and consumption patterns to formulate more targeted and flexible promotional plans. Additionally, they can clarify doubts and ensure consumers understand the rules, establishing a trustworthy image.
In the past, some merchants set up "consumer traps" during promotional activities by restricting coupon usage or first raising prices before offering discounts, blaming it on "the final interpretation right belonging to the merchant," severely affecting their credibility. If merchants open promotional hotlines on radio, explaining promotional plans and emphasizing key points, customers can shop easily and confidently, increasing sales and building a trustworthy and promise-keeping image.
Consumer behavior research shows that among factors influencing consumer choices of shopping venues, price ranks first, followed by the sense of consumer security. The goal of commercial promotions is to attract customers with low prices. On the other hand, customers seek safety in consumption and prefer reputable large malls and supermarkets while desiring direct and comprehensive understanding of commercial information. If merchants can interact directly with consumers via live hotlines and program SMS platforms, providing more comprehensive and detailed consumption information and resolving issues related to product quality or services promptly, it will certainly enhance customer security, attract more foot traffic, and increase sales. For instance, the "Consumer Hotline" launched jointly by Handan Radio News Channel with the Administration for Industry and Commerce, Price Bureau, and Consumer Association aims to "listen to consumer voices, advocate rights protection awareness, publish merchant information, and promote honest operations," creating an aerial dialogue platform trusted by consumers. Consumers say, "When we encounter problems, 'Consumer Hotline' allows us to communicate directly with merchants, solving many issues on the spot." Management personnel from several malls who have entered the live studio to answer questions via hotlines also say, "Our retail industry involves very detailed work, and there are inevitably oversights. A hotline program like this expands the communication channel between our mall and customers, compensating for our work deficiencies, helping us retain a customer on the verge of loss. And through the perfect resolution of issues, this nearly lost customer becomes a loyal consumer of our mall. Moreover, through word-of-mouth, it influences people around them, thus solving one customer's problem and bringing us a large number of customers, objectively playing a promotional role."
Sixthly, live broadcasting and entertainment-based promotions. Radio, as the "light cavalry" among media, can install broadcasting equipment in malls for live broadcasts of promotional events, transmitting the atmosphere of the event to listeners. This not only enhances the infectiousness of promotional advertising but also increases customer participation enthusiasm, strengthening the promotional effect. Recently, Handan Radio collaborated with a mall for a live broadcast, combining a large-scale cultural performance involving several enterprises in front of the mall to support the promotional activities. The scale was grand, the momentum impressive, and the scene lively, with active customer participation. Compared to previous events, the promotional sales increased significantly. Several suppliers, seeing this situation, recognized the strength of the mall, gained more confidence in it, and requested on-the-spot operation, serving a recruitment purpose.
Indeed, radio has unique advantages in advertising information dissemination, especially in trade promotional advertising, where its advantages are even more prominent. According to a senior manager of a large chain supermarket in Nanchong, 30% of customers learned about promotional information through radio among the four channels: radio, television, newspapers, and interpersonal oral communication. This shows that radio is not an insignificant medium in trade promotional advertising but rather an advantageous medium with strong dissemination effects, achieving low investment and high returns. These advantages need to be comprehensively recognized and fully utilized in practical work.