Thinking of buying radio space? What station(s) will you buy ad airtime on? How will you decide where to spend your money? How many spots will you purchase? Should you do a live radio broadcast from your location or just buy airtime for commercials?

Here are some things to think about before you buy radio ad space:

Know your customer. Who buys your product? What do they look like? What are their ages? What kind of spending power do they possess? How do they buy your product?

Know your competition. Why do customers buy your product and not your competitor’s product? What makes your product superior or unique from your competition?

Know the radio stations you’re planning to purchase from and their markets. Do they reach the customers you want to reach? Can they show you, and prove to you, they can reach potential buyers for your product? Are you familiar with their peak and slow times of the year so you can get the best rates?

Know your own limitations. Do you have sufficient funds to buy as many radio spots as you’ll need to be successful? Are there problems or circumstances with your product that cannot be overcome by using radio advertising? Does your product require a visual presence, or can the details be effectively communicated using sound alone? Can someone be descriptive enough in a short time period for the advertising to work? Are you the person who should be doing the voice-overs for your business? Should you consider an on-site broadcast?

On-site live broadcasts can be very expensive, and destroy a small ad budget in one day. Live broadcasts are often sold as component parts. Sometimes the total amount spent for a live broadcast, when each of these components are added up, exceed the entire year’s ad budget. If you spend your entire ad budget in February on one live broadcast, how will you get customers the rest of the year?

Know when to get help. Do you have the expertise to negotiate terms with the radio station on your own, or do you need to hire an advertising agency or media buyer to represent you? Every business owner doesn’t need to know all the particulars of every media, and become an expert in advertising, to have an effective campaign; that’s the service advertising professionals provide to you, for a fee. Most of the time, because they are experts well-versed in all areas of media, advertising professionals save the advertiser money by implementing the right advertising campaign for the right product at the right time. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you may get lucky and it may work, or you may waste your money on something that wasn’t designed to get the results you had intended.