Remnant Advertising:
The Secret to Buying Media for Pennies on the Dollar
What if there was an easy and inexpensive way to test your creative messages while lowering your lead costs? While this may sound like a pipe dream, it’s actually a very real way of maximizing ad spend called remnant advertising. Read on for a closer look at why remnant advertising is a must-have addition to any media buy.
The 411 on Remnant Advertising
Have you ever given any thought to what happens to unsold airline seats? When the plane takes off, they’re gone…and so is any potential profit associated with their sales. Because of this, many airlines end up trimming fares on unsold seats at the last minute under the belief that some profit is better than none. Carry that concept over to the advertising industry and you’ve got remnant advertising.
Most media companies fall short when it comes to selling radio airtime. This is attributable to a number of different causes, ranging from the cost of time to a lack of advertisers. Regardless of the reason, letting finite, unsold inventory go to waste is a financial no-no. So rather than accepting it as a total loss, media companies cut their losses by selling unsold “remnant” air time off at at heavily reduced prices — by as much as 90 percent in some cases!
While unused radio airtime is bad news for media companies, it’s great news for advertisers looking for deals — particularly those interested in testing out radio for the first time, or split testing new ads without investing in a full campaign.
Coming Out Ahead with Remnant Advertising
Remnant advertising does comes with some challenges, including limited inventory and reduced scalability. If you lack the flexibility to move at a moment’s notice in the form of several versions of ads of varying lengths for multiple media formats, you’re likely to miss out on these opportunities when they arise. However, these are minor sacrifices to make when the trade-of of supplementing your media schedule with remnant ads means increased exposure at a significantly lower price.
Which brings us to our next point: Just like you, media outlets are trying to make a profit, and they’re not in the business of giving away their secrets. Are they going to suggest remnant advertising when they could be selling you airtime at full price instead? Of course not. So they’re not exactly going to make it easy for you to waltz in a nab up all of that discounted airtime. In fact, they’re probably not even going to mention it to you as an option.
Feeling discouraged? Chin up! There is a trick to leveraging remnant advertising into real results: knowing where it is and who can get it. That’s where we come in. Not only do we have the inside scoop on where to find remnant airtime, but we’ve also got the metrics and analytics to determine whether your ads are pulling. And we’re ready to hit the ground running on your behalf. Sure, you could spend your time cold calling all of the local stations in search of remnant airtime, but is that the best use of your resources — especially when there’s a one-stop-shop out there just waiting to do the work for you? Wingman Media can help you do much more with much less by harnessing the full power of remnant advertising. Contact us today to get the conversation started.