Just Because the Buyer Wants It. Doesn't Make It Right.
Does your copy require listeners to carry pad and pencil?
Have we fallen into a trap of assuming people listen to the radio sitting at a desk with pen and pencil to write down telephone numbers and website addresses that are a part of a commercial? Listen to 15 commercials at random that were produced for a mom and pop business at any radio station. 50% or more will refer to a telephone number.
Ways of doing business die hard in advertising. Most retailers cut their teeth in advertising with print. Putting a telephone number in a print ad is a great idea. Print ads do not ask the reader to hunt up a pencil and paper, let alone have one at the ready.
So why do phone numbers end up in copy? Because the print-for-brains merchant tells the salesperson to put it there. That does not make it right, and calls for the salesperson to speak up. It takes guts to say, “I’ll be happy to put your telephone number in there, but there are few people I know who walk around with a pad and pencil. I can put your business name in there three more times in what it will take to say that phone number so anyone can understand it!”
The gutsy salesperson puts together a better commercial, with more name mentions and displays to the retailer a tiny bit of advertising savy. Something most “gotchur ad ready yet?” people don’t have.
The next time a customer tells you to put the phone number in, stand up for better radio. Suggest an alternative, or change the copy to say “Get a pencil ready because I am going to give you an important telephone number before this message is over.” Of course, if the listeners do what you say, they miss half of the ad looking for the dad-blamed pencil.
© 2000 Mike McDaniel
Reprinted with permission from BIG Mike's “Selling Radio” Magazine