Most radio ads are not bad. They are forgettable, which is worse. The voice is fine, the music is fine, the business name gets said three times, and thirty seconds later the listener could not tell you who it was for. That is not a media problem. That is a writing problem, and it is the cheapest one to fix.
A radio ad is the only advertising you make that a person cannot look at, skim, or scroll back through. They get one pass, usually while merging onto 65 or wiping down a counter. Everything about how you write it has to respect that. Here is how we approach a script for an Ozarks business, and what we cut before it ever reaches a microphone.
Key takeaways
- A thirty second radio spot holds roughly 75 spoken words, and a sixty second spot holds about 150. Write to that number before you fall in love with a sentence.
- One idea per ad. A spot that mentions your hours, your location, your sale, your new service and your website teaches a listener nothing they can repeat.
- The first five seconds decide whether the rest gets heard, so open with the listener’s problem, not with your business name.
- Read every script out loud with a stopwatch before it goes to production. Scripts that look right on paper run long almost every time.
- Phone numbers rarely survive a radio ad. A short business name or an easy website earns its seconds far more often.
What makes a radio ad stick in someone’s head?
Repetition of one clear idea, in language the listener already uses. Memorable spots are built around a single specific thought, said in plain words, in a voice that sounds like a person rather than an announcement. Sound and music help, but they carry the idea. They cannot replace it.
Think about the radio advertising you can actually quote back. It is almost never the ad that listed the most information. It is the one with a line you could repeat to your spouse, or a sound you would recognize with your eyes closed.
That is the whole job. You are trying to leave one thing behind, not nine. When an owner tells us the spot has to mention the new location and the extended hours and the fall promotion, we do not argue about whether those are important. They are. We ask which one the listener will still have in their head at the stoplight, because that is the only one they are keeping.
Sound is the lever radio gives you that nothing else does. A recognizable voice, a consistent music bed, or a well built jingle turns a spot into something a listener can identify before a single word lands. If you want to go deeper on that side of it, we wrote about what makes a jingle worth having, and our jingles and audio branding work exists for exactly this reason.
How long is a radio ad, and how many words fit?
Most local radio ads are thirty or sixty seconds. A thirty second spot comfortably holds about 75 spoken words, and a sixty holds about 150. Those numbers assume a natural pace with room to breathe. If your script is over, you do not read faster. You cut.
This is the single most useful constraint in radio writing, and most owners have never been told it. Seventy five words is short. It is shorter than the paragraph you just read. Once you know the number, you stop writing a spot and then wondering why it feels rushed.
Write your first draft without counting. Then count. Then cut it to the number, and notice what survived. What survives is almost always the part you cared about, and what goes is almost always the part you felt obligated to include.
The other thing the word count does is force an honest conversation about pace. A voice talent reading 95 words into a thirty second slot has to push, and a listener hears push as pressure. Pressure is the opposite of what a local business is trying to sound like.
What should the first five seconds do?
Give the listener a reason to keep listening. Open with the problem, the situation, or the feeling they already recognize. Your business name is not a hook, because the listener has no reason to care about it yet. Earn a few seconds of attention first, then spend them.
Almost every rough draft we get from an owner opens with the business name. It is a natural instinct and it is the wrong one. Radio listeners are doing something else. They are driving, cooking, working. The opening line has to catch someone who was not paying attention a half second ago.
So start where they are. A heating and cooling company does better opening with the sound of a unit that will not kick on than with its own name. A dentist does better opening with the appointment you keep putting off. The name matters, and it should be in the ad more than once, but it belongs after you have given the listener a reason to hold on to it.
How many ideas should one radio ad carry?
One. A single radio ad should leave a listener with one idea they could repeat. If you have three things to say, you have three ads, or you have a campaign that says one thing well and lets the others wait their turn.
This is where most local scripts go wrong, and it is usually not the writer’s fault. It happens because radio feels expensive in the moment, so the instinct is to load every spot with everything. The result is a full spot that leaves nothing behind.
The fix is to think in campaigns instead of ads. If you have four things worth saying, say one of them for a few weeks and let it land, then say the next. That also solves the repetition question, because a listener needs to hear a message several times before it registers at all. We wrote about that side of it in how often your ad needs to run before it works, and it is the piece owners underestimate most.
Should you write for the ear or for the page?
For the ear, always. Write the way you talk, in short sentences, with contractions and plain words. Then read it out loud. If you stumble, rewrite the line. A script that reads beautifully and speaks awkwardly is a script that has not been finished.
Reading out loud is not a polish step. It is the actual test, and it catches things nothing else does. Tongue twisters. Sentences with three clauses. Numbers that are hard to say. Words that sound like other words when spoken quickly, which is a real problem on radio and a non issue in print.
We read every script aloud on a stopwatch before it goes into production. Not the producer, not the voice talent. Whoever wrote it, out loud, timed. It is the fastest quality check in the business and it costs nothing. Most scripts that look like thirty seconds on paper come in at thirty five, and those five seconds have to come from somewhere.
Writing for the ear also means dropping the phrases people write but never say. Nobody says “state of the art facility” out loud. Nobody says “we pride ourselves on.” If you would feel silly saying it across a counter, it does not belong in a spot.
What do you do about the call to action?
Pick one action and make it easy to remember. Usually that is a short business name or a simple website, said twice, spaced apart. Phone numbers are expensive in seconds and hard to retain, so include one only when the listener can realistically act on it right then.
A ten digit phone number takes real time to say clearly, and the listener almost certainly cannot write it down. They are driving. If your business name is easy to search, the name is a better call to action than the number, because the search engine finishes the job for you.
That is worth saying plainly: your radio ad and your website are doing one job together. A listener hears the spot, searches your name, and lands on your site. If the site is slow or the phone number is buried, the radio money gets spent and nothing happens. That handoff is the whole reason we usually run radio and digital advertising as one coordinated plan instead of two separate line items, and it is the point of the bundled campaign approach we use with most local clients.
How is writing for an Ozarks audience different?
The audience changes with the season and the ad should know it. Branson and the surrounding Ozarks carry a large visitor population much of the year and a much more local one in the off season, so a script written for one can land wrong on the other. Write to whoever is actually in the car.
This is the part national radio advice cannot give you. A spot aimed at a family in town for four days needs a different opening than a spot aimed at someone who has lived off 76 for twenty years. The visitor needs to know you exist and where you are. The neighbor already knows both and needs a reason to choose you this time.
Drive time in this area is also not the same shape as drive time in a metro. A lot of the listening happens on trips between Branson, Hollister, Forsyth and Harrison, and around the workday rather than in a tight rush hour. Seasonal businesses feel this hardest. If your year has a real high season, your radio calendar should not be flat, and your scripts should not be either.
Local specifics earn attention fast. A road, a landmark, a season, a shared complaint about traffic on a holiday weekend. Those cost you nothing and they tell a listener you are actually from here. For more on whether the medium fits your business at all, we covered that in is radio advertising still worth it for local businesses.
When is a radio ad the wrong tool?
When your customer is too narrow to reach efficiently, or when your business cannot handle the response. Radio is a broad reach medium. If you sell to a very specific professional audience, or nobody is answering the phone during the hours your spot runs, the writing is not the problem and a better script will not fix it.
We would rather say this before a campaign than after. A few situations where we tell owners to wait or to spend somewhere else first: a business that serves one narrow professional niche, a company whose phone goes to voicemail most of the day, a shop in the middle of a move, or a website that is not ready for the traffic.
Radio creates demand. It does not catch it. If the catching part is broken, the spot just makes the gap more expensive. Fix the follow up first. If you are weighing the medium against your other options, radio versus digital advertising walks through how we think about that choice.
And when radio is right, the writing is the cheapest lever you have. The station time costs what it costs. A better script costs an afternoon and changes what you get back from every single airing.
Want a second set of ears on your script?
Send us what you have, or tell us what you are trying to say. We will read it out loud, time it, and tell you honestly what is working. No pressure, no obligation.
If you would rather start with the bigger picture, our free business growth guide covers how the pieces fit together, and our creative production team handles the writing, voicing and producing when you would rather hand the whole thing off.
Frequently asked questions
How many words is a 30 second radio ad?
About 75 spoken words at a natural pace. Some scripts stretch to 80 if the copy is simple and the read is clean, but 75 is the number to write to. If you are over, cut rather than speeding up the read, because a rushed delivery sounds like pressure and listeners hear it that way.
Can I write the radio ad myself?
Yes, and plenty of owners write a strong first draft because they know how their customers talk. The two steps most people skip are counting the words against the length of the spot and reading it out loud on a timer. Do both and your draft will be better than most produced spots on the air.
Should my phone number be in the radio ad?
Usually no. A phone number eats several seconds and the listener rarely has a way to write it down. An easy business name or a short website is more likely to survive the drive. The exception is a business people call from the car, like a tow service or a restaurant taking orders.
Do I need a jingle for my radio ad to work?
No, but a jingle or a consistent audio identity makes every later spot work harder, because listeners start recognizing you before the words register. It is a long term asset rather than a one campaign purchase. A plain, well written spot with a consistent voice does a lot of the same work.
How many different radio ads should I run at once?
Usually one message at a time, produced as one or two versions. Rotating several unrelated ads splits the repetition that makes radio work in the first place. If you want variety, keep the message the same and change the example or the opening line rather than the idea.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.
