Branding?  That’s the easy part.

Figuring out which commercial copy or radio property produced the best results?  That’s another story.  Luckily, our agency has successful managed accountable campaigns for over 18 years.

Whether we’re working with a Fortune 500 company or a start-up, we don’t want to waste one dollar of our client’s media budget.  It’s actually pretty selfish of us.  The better the results, the more campaigns we get to work on. And the sooner we find out which creative works best on which radio platform or property, the sooner we can establish a core mix that is profitable and scalable.

One way to learn what works is to have listeners use a promotional code, especially when driving traffic to a website.  If a client has a branded URL, they likely won’t want to muddy up the messaging by adding a “slash” anything or a campaign-specific URL (the easiest way to measure).

Asking listeners to remember a simple code, thematic to the offer or media property on which it is airing, may be the best alternative.  Someone listening to Howard Stern on “Howard 100” SiriusXM will easily remember to enter “100” when they go to the client’s website.  All that is needed on the client end is a tweak to the homepage, adding a text box for code entry or a drop-down menu with the code words used in the campaign that consumers can select.

As with all of our accountable campaigns, we track these codes weekly and optimize our creative copy and media properties once those results are clear.  In doing so, we create the best spots to run on the best properties.  This way, our clients can be rewarded for using their media dollars wisely and we can work together throughout the year to explore all the ways traditional and digital radio can boost their profits.

Barbra Tabnick is a Senior Marketing Strategist at The Radio Agency. Please follow The Radio Agency’s Blog “Sounding Board” by subscribing to the RSS link above. Visit our website TheRadioAgency.com