The characteristic of a successful radio ad has to do with different factors; such as your intended audience, the products or services that your business offers, and the air time that is allotted to your radio ad.

When I was first approached by an ad executive for a local radio station he happened to call me while I was doing my marketing assessments. We had just opened our business a little over two years and we were still hungry for a steady stream of customers and our bottom line was nothing to write home about. Although I did have several advertising mediums in place, I felt I could do more to get our business name more recognizable for the services we offer.

So when the radio ad exec pitched his station to me it included information about the demographics of who listened to that particular station, their frequency range, what areas that their range covered and other information that he felt would entice me to advertise on his represented radio station. Since I had no experience with advertising through this medium, I tentatively agreed to sign on with his station. He returned a few days later with the ad copy for the spot that he himself had recorded in his soothing and melodic voice. I was sold. I knew this was the ad I needed to get out on the air waves. He failed to take in account whether his listening audience was a good fit for our services. He was a salesman. Sales associates can be grouped into two selling personality types; those who only want to sell you their product, and the others who will assist you in the successful selling of your product or services.

I'll never, ever forget. I received four telephone calls in response to the radio ad; three of the calls were from rival radio station's ad execs hoping to do business with my company.

A successful radio ad will be directed specifically at the customers you need to make your business successful. A well trained and knowledgeable ad exec will know right away if their radio station is a good fit for you. This means they will know their audience very well. They will know if the music that is played on their station is the music listened to by your intended customers, and also know their lifestyles very well. They will know the places your audience frequent for shopping, their leisure activities, and even the type of businesses where their listeners are employed.

The initial radio ad that I had run was okay in the message that it conveyed, the problem was not the ad itself, the

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