What Is the Right Spot Load?

Grow your revenue by getting your existing clients to buy more spots! This sounds simple, but you need data to demonstrate the value of this investment in order to justify your request to the advertiser.

An important study that can help sales people make this justification was just released by CUMULUS MEDIA/Westwood One and the RAB. It provides logical reasoning as to why an advertiser should buy more than they have previously bought, and thus spend more.

We have all been taught the importance of frequency.

Historically, one of the first parts of the sales conversation is the sales person asking, “What is your budget?” Once the budget is determined, the advertiser asks, “What can I get for my budget?”

The more important question should be, “What are you trying to achieve?” This simple question can determine the number of spots – and therefore frequency – that the advertiser needs in order to be successful. In its simplest fashion, it breaks advertisers’ goals into three levels. According to the study, they are:

• Very light and light schedules: Ideal for advertisers who want a maintenance campaign with modest levels of reach and frequency.
• Medium schedule: A general sales event or promotional campaign where a good number of listeners are reached often.
• Heavy schedule: A major sales event or product launch where many people are reached very frequently.

It uses turnover, which a typical sales person might not have even thought about since they started selling. Turnover is your Cume Persons divided by your AQH Persons. In many ways, it’s the inverse of Time Spent Listening. The higher the TSL, the lower the turnover, and therefore the fewer spots that are needed to achieve the proper frequency.

Going back to the beginning of our original sales conversation, the first question should not be, “What is your budget?” but rather, “What are you trying to achieve with your advertising schedule?” While this differs greatly across stations and formats, an advertiser who wants a “medium schedule” should generally be running between 42 and 60 spots per week.

While asking for that number of spots per week may not presently be the norm, this study shows that this type of spot load is justified.

The proof is in a massive study of radio campaigns for 310 auto dealers tracking the website traffic lift of 1.8 million radio ads. It clearly shows that campaigns that ran enough ads directed significantly more traffic to the dealer’s website.

I want to commend Pierre Bouvard at Westwood One, the RAB, and all those who contributed to this study. Used properly, it can help a sales person make more money, and achieve better results for their clients.

Ready more about the study here.