iHeart Radio Ads Buying Tacoma, WA. Cost, Scheduling, Creative.

One way is to phone or email the radio stations such as iHeart Radio, KQMV, or KIRO here in Seattle. From there, ‘your account’ will be assigned to an ad salesperson from that station. Your “rep” could be highly experienced but is more likely to be a mid-level or even a brand-new hire and you have little to no say in who is ‘assigned’ to you. Next, this salesperson will typically ask to meet with you to do a needs analysis and recommend a radio ad program based on the products his/her particular station sells. Sometimes your rep is allowed to sell other radio stations owned by their same media group, but may also be limited to selling only one particular station they’re assigned to represent. Each salesperson will show you audience ratings combined with metrics like CPP (cost per point), TRP’s (total rating points), Indexing (percent of audience most likely to purchase your product or service) as well as data on overall reach and frequency of the proposed ad schedule. Typically, this information will be presented in the way that best favors that radio stations’ own offerings which mean each proposal will include different metrics; ratings periods, unit lengths, audience demographics and other information – making it difficult to easily compare proposals. You repeat this process with each radio station in your market, and then it is up to you to sift through all the data provided to try to decide what station or stations to use, how many ads to put where, what are best days or weeks to air them, and what the cumulative effect is to your overall budget and goals.

An independent media buyer is able to work across ALL available Tacoma radio stations and quickly provide an optimal package based on your needs and budget. Unlike a salesperson that works for one radio station, an independent buyer is not going to favor one media company over another and will instead choose the best alternatives from all the offerings out there.

In Tacoma, this may include options like cable television advertising on channels like CNN, Fox News or ESPN, streaming or OTT advertising on networks like HULU or YouTube for video- or streaming audio channels like Spotify or Pandora. There are even more specialized solutions like facebook and instagram video, video pre-roll, and in-banner video  to consider as well – each of which has their own advantages and disadvantages. A well-versed media buyer can provide easily understood universally comparative metrics across a wide variety of different platforms.

Beyond recommending a media buying plan, an independent buyer also provides the implementation and follow up needed to insure your program runs as planned. This includes making sure the right advertisements air on the right stations as scheduled, negotiating any last minute airtime upgrades that become available, as well as providing proof of performance and any cost adjustments due to missing commercials or airing them outside of agreed to parameters.

The answer is that usually, the independent radio media buyer is the less expensive option. Radio station sales reps work almost exclusively on commission. When an independent buyer is used, since they are providing the bulk of the client service, the station instead pays the sales commission to the media buyer. In addition, because an independent buyer competitively “shops” all the available radio stations and media types, they save money on the actual advertising spot costs incurred as well.

iHeart Radio of course!