High Tech Firms Use Radio Advertising

"Radio is a congenial home for many advertisers in the hardware business, whether the hardware is lawn mowers or e-mail archivers. All that remains to be added are regular holiday sales for the I.T. products. Maybe the Labor Day weekend will bring a Sale-A-Bration — for load balancers."

- Randall Stross, Silicon Valley-based author and professor of business at San Jose State University in the New York Times

Thanks to Randall Bloomquist for reinforcing the key reasons why:

Affordability – “’We discovered radio was unnaturally inexpensive,’ says Michael Perone, Barracuda’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

Targeting – Radio is an efficient way to reach the handful of decision-makers and “influencers” who are responsible for buying IT gear for their organizations.

“[Barracuda] also sells to medium-sized businesses, defined as those with 300 to 2,000 employees. It can be too expensive to send sales representatives to make the multiple visits necessary to close a relatively modest sale to these customers. But it turns out that radio offers an economical alternative way of reaching the three or four people who might work in the I.T. department of a 300-employee company.”

Endorsements – Citrix has found that endorsement spots provide effective “third-party validation” and “can create a brief sense of personal connection with each listener, in a way newer media can’t really match.”