With the internet, and more importantly social media as the big draws for marketing nowadays, many people forget about the classic outlets, such as radio. Even though the effort put into radio advertising may seem like more than it’s worth, nothing could be further from the truth.

There are still millions of new home buyers listening to the radio. Right now!

And if you’re not marketing to them, someone else will.

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  Who’s listening?

Before you get started you need to know who your best home inspection leads are and who’s listening to a particular radio station. Most stations are providing music that appeals to a certain demographic like age, ethnicity, or gender. You’re unlikely to get many home inspection leads from a station that caters their music to teenagers.

Like all forms of advertising, you should have a good idea of the potential return on your investment. Ask about the number of listeners and rates vs peak times so you can get a good idea of the cost-per lead you’re getting.

A safe bet is to target your leads towards the adult contemporary stations, you have the highest chance to hit a potential home buyer. By targeting a pop station, you’re going to be paying for their listenership, which could be largely made up of teenagers, and young adults.

Another option would be talk or business radio. What you lose in listenership numbers, you gain in the type of listeners you’re reaching.

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  Professional voiceover

On radio the voice is the medium that gets your message across. You want to convey exactly the emotions behind the words, whether it’s sex appeal, excitement, or laughter. Voices that sound nervous, weak, or monotonous will put off listeners. The last thing you want is a commercial that feels uncomfortable or boring. Every word should be delivered clearly and on-message.

You can obviously record your own voiceover, but there are also some cheap options out there for professional voiceover work. Starting at $5, you can hire someone to professionally record audio your script. 

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  Grab their attention

It’s much too easy for a listener to change the station if they don’t like the ad. Get your message out fast without explanations or boring facts. Find a fun way to make your audience take notice, whether it’s music, sound effects, a good jingle, or a funny dialogue between characters.

Follow it up by establishing the benefits they’ll get from your product. Having the audience both alert and entertained is the best way to ensure they will listen.

It’s as simple as having two characters talking about the amount of money they spent getting rid of mold to grip your audience into listening to your pitch.

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  AB Testing

In marketing, this is simply giving two different versions of the same thing and waiting to see which version works best. Consider doing two variations of your commercial, with different voices, music, jokes, etc., or different discounts or other offers. You can provide two different phone numbers, or a phone and a website, to gauge how listeners respond. Constant testing in this way can help you narrow down what works best.

By creating two different commercials, differing in voice over work, opening, closing, etc. By keeping track of the way people react to your commercials you can eventually make the ideal commercial for your home inspection company.

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  CTA “Call To Action”

Every radio ad should end with a call to action. This tells the visitor exactly what they should do next, such as “Call now!” or “Visit us online!”. Be sure the contact information is provided clearly and in a memorable way. Keep it brief and try to repeat your CTA at least twice. Listeners may not be able to respond immediately, so you want to make it easy to remember.

When giving your call to action you want it to contain all pertinent information, while being easy to remember. An example would be
“Whether it’s termites or mold, call Miami inspections before it’s sold 555-555-5555)

When it comes to radio ads, there are still people who listen to the radio, and that means there are still people to convert into customers. While you shouldn’t drop your entire marketing budget into radio ads, a home inspector could benefit from at least trying radio ads.