Step-by-Step Guide to advertising on Sirius XM
5 to 15 Minutes
1. Answer basic questions. Is your audience national? If not, probably not Sirius XM. Is it regional? Maybe Sirius XM. Many advertisers trying to reach, Texas say, still use Sirius XM because advertising on Sirius is still cheaper than buying ads in major local markets like Dallas, Austin and Houston. Buying ad campaigns in those markets will far exceed the cost of a Sirius campaign. So even though you have lots of “marketing waste,” it can still make sense for regional campaigns.
2. What are you selling and to whom. Is it B2B? B2C? High price point? Subscription? Average Order Volume (AOV)? Lifetime values (LTV)? Basically, does advertising on Sirius XM really make sense? You may not know, but we know and can share stories and results with you.
3. Are you ready? Oftentimes, the brand (advertiser) just isn’t ready. We look at your web site, its optimization, likely User Experience, whatever. We’ll then give you an honest assessment of ready, not now, not never. The last thing we want is for your marketing dollars and – frankly – perhaps your one chance to do it big through Sirius XM to be wasted because the other supporting marketing assets weren’t ready for game time.
Another 15 minutes (but we’ll take as long as you need to feel comfortable)
4. Define your target audience for channel selection. The only way you can target on Sirius XM is through the ad channels which are on a variety of formats, such as news, talk, sports, comedy, business, lifestyle and more. We’ll send you Sirius XM’s Nielsen Report which gives you the demographics of the ad channels. You want this! We can discuss audience sizes and choose our preferred channels.
5. Decide on spot length. Many if not most spots on Sirius XM are 60s. Why? Many of the brands advertising on Sirius are introducing novelty. Listeners on Sirius XM are more educated, and they lean into spots introducing something new. So together we’ll decide whether you have something that requires a longer spot. Good news: longer spots have a cost advantage. You’ll save about 25% on a 60 second spot compared to two 30s. If you have a more simple product or service, hey, let’s do 30s. You’ll get more frequency this way which is great. But beware of trying to stuff too much info into a 30!
6. Decide on probable start-stop dates, initial budget. Do you want to start fairly immediately? You can, like within 5-7 days. Are you just looking for numbers to run past management for a future date? That’s okay too. Is your campaign seasonal and you’re doing advance planning? Works. Is it for 2 weeks, a month? We’ll hash that out. When we have dates and how much you want to spend (with our candid recommendations), we go talk to Sirius.
This timeframe is up to you!
9. You make your go / no go decision. Up to this point you haven’t spent a penny with RaptorUSA. Now you know exactly what your campaign will cost. For many advertisers, the go decision is easy. Same for no-gos. For some, you’ll have to look yourself in the mirror and ask: if I don’t do this, will I regret it forever. Seriously, this is the reaction from many business owners, principals. Usually a test campaign can be done for 10-20K.
1 to 5+ days (depends on urgency and pace of your team)
10. Discuss the creative strategy. There are so many considerations regarding this. We’ll quickly discover your brand strategy, call to action, key messages and tone for the spot. Comedic? Delivered by founder? Music? Special effects (SFX)?
11. Produce the spot. We can write the spot for you or you can. This comes at a small fee. Usually we do it together. We can then usually get the spot recorded at no cost. And no! We don’t use AI for this.
12. Pay for the campaign. Sirius XM requires payment in advance. This is done through wire or ACH and the payment is sent by us to Sirius along with the signed Insertion Order. Schedules usually start on Mondays and it takes 2-3 days for Sirius to program your campaign and upload to the satellites. So, payment is due the Wednesday prior to your start on Monday.
2-3 days
13. You receive a pre-log. Usually the Monday or Tuesday after your flight starts we’ll provide you with a “pre-log” which shows exactly what day and time your spots should air on your ad channels. Now, often spots “move around” because news channels, especially, have breaking news that boot ad insertions forward. You’ll always receive the spots promised. Sometimes during busy news seasons, even for sports, your spots’ actual flight times will differ from the pre-logs.
Rinse and repeat
15. End of campaign. We huddle to see what happened, determine if you want to do another flight, review creative, make modifications to the spots / schedule / spend… whatever we find. It’s very exciting when campaigns work for clients and they see scaling occurring in their businesses.
16. Constant evaluation and tweaking. When campaigns work and flights repeat month after month, or on whatever schedule – many options – we’ll ensure we’re playing the channels like a musical instrument, gaining value add, changing the creative when appropriate… we treat your campaigns like a living thing, not a set and forget. We also inquire about supporting tactics, like Google remarketing, site load times (this can surprise some companies due to response), marketing technologies you’re using or not using on your site, and supporting tactics like news releases and such. Your Sirius XM campaign is important as part of your broader mix, and RaptorUSA very efficiently and at no additional cost can be that third party consultant to help enhance your ROI. However, we only go where we’re invited, so don’t worry about our making things difficult.
Keep it simple! Always.
That’s what we’re here to do. You get immediate response to your emails and calls (including nights and weekends) and quick turnarounds because we know you are operating at the pace required, sometimes when you have just a moment, and we have never been faulted for being slow! Or complex. We dumb down industry jargon and honestly, when you’re running into the house for dinner with the fam and just have 10 seconds, we give you that candid “yes, no, got it, will work it and talk to you later” response. We’re in Kansas, but our principals worked in both New York City, Los Angeles and beyond, so we get it. We can be both nice, just-the-facts and wily when it comes to your winning.
