It’s a curious purchasing decision.  Advertising and marketing services.

Recently I was talking with a business owner about the success rate of ad campaigns that we do on WOWO Radio.

You see, I have been very presently surprised at the results some of our advertising partners report they receive.  Compared to other radio stations in Fort Wayne, Indiana, WOWO often works better at producing results simply because of the size and quality of the audience.

I worked for stations in the past that had less than 30,000 listeners and we did everything we could to get a return on investment for those businesses.    It was successful, sometimes.

The honest truth, and what I will tell you face to face is it is impossible to accurately measure the entire results from any advertising or marketing you spend money on.  There are simply too many variables in tracking, which I’ll write about another day.  metrics

What kind of Advertising Guarantee do we offer?

We will air the advertising schedule we agree to, or you won’t pay for the parts that didn’t air.

For example, if we are not able to get all 30 of your ads on this week and only 28 air, you will only pay for 28.  That’s pretty straight forward.  And it is rare that we can’t air all your ads, but stuff happens that is out of our control. Rarely, but that is the way it goes.

Hang on a second, you say.  I don’t want to just pay for you to play some ads, I want to pay you to invite customers to spend their money with me.  I understand.  I want that too.  We just can’t guarantee it.   Too many variables.

A friend of mine once said buying ads is like buying a couple pounds of ground beef from the grocery store.  You spend your money on the meat and the guarantee is that it is good when you buy it.  There is no guarantee from the store that how you use that beef will result in the best burger or meatloaf or whatever you decide to do with it.  Too many variables.

However, you do have my solemn pledge to do everything we can to reach our mutually agreed upon goals of success for your business.    And right now I’m going to grab a bite to eat.  That previous paragraph made me hungry.

Want to read more?  Look at what Seth Godin wrote the other day here.