There is a scene near the start of the movie “Oh Brother, where art thou?” in which, upon leaving the radio/recording studio in the middle of a dusty nowhere, George Clooney and his prison pals encounter the governor. With an election coming, the governor’s staff tries to get the governor to meet his constituents, but the governor is intent on rushing into the studio, saying that he is “mass communicatin’.”
Your marketing efforts are generally best spent on targeting your best prospects, but there are times when you, too, should do some “mass communicatin’.” I explored one aspect of that in my recent Pursuit Magazine column on using the news media for free publicity.
Another popular vehicle for reaching the public requires you to spend some money, but it’s worth pursuing now because pricing is in your favor. This vehicle is advertising, specifically radio advertising. If all you ever, ever, ever want to do is perform surveillance work for the XYZ insurance company, then spend all your marketing dollars taking as many people as possible from the XYZ Company out to lunch.
But these are not typical times, and you might welcome a wider variety of work that may be available. Besides, if your investigative workload is like most PIs it includes cases for attorneys, background checks for businesses, serving the general public’s needs and, yes, also doing some surveillance for XYZ.
Why consider radio advertising now? Three main reasons:
1) Your target audiences listen to the radio: attorneys, and their families, and their staffs, and their staffs’ families; people who own businesses; people who work at insurance companies, etc. Your target audience is everywhere….just like radio.
2) You’ll cut through the clutter. All sorts of businesses advertise on the radio, including professional services, such as dentists and lawyers. I’ll wager you almost never hear an ad for a PI, which is why you will stand out from your competition.
3) Radio advertising is down, so ad costs are down as well. It’s not like newspaper advertising which is down because fewer and fewer people read newspapers, it’s down because of the economy. That means very attractive pricing, especially when you buy a radio package.
What do you say in your ad? That is even easier, because radio stations will help you write the ad (again, if you buy a package of commercials, and not just one or two spots). Furthermore, the radio station will typically professionally record it for you at no extra charge. Sound good?
Keep in mind that you are not likely to get potential clients to go from zero (never having heard of you) to sixty (hiring you) by hearing your ad once or twice. Frequency is key in advertising, so the package price is important. Also, encourage people to call for their no-cost, no-obligation booklet: “Ten Things you must know before hiring a private investigator” or something that gets them to contact you with no strings attached. It’s easy for them, and good for you.
As the economy begins to stabilize and the holiday season approaches, more companies will return to advertising. Now is the time to advertise on the radio.
Bob Mackowiak has been helping private investigators market their services since 1988. He has spoken about marketing at private investigation conferences from Florida to Alaska, is the author of the classic manual, “How to Market Your Private Investigation Agency,” and helped hundreds of PIs with his COPI Brochure Development System. You can learn more about Bob and his services at www.LetBobHelp.Homestead.com.