Every so often a local radio rep phones a school office and offers the head "great rates" on a month of airtime. Here's how to think about that call — because the honest answer to "should schools advertise on radio?" is it depends which radio, and the differences have quietly become enormous.
The problem with radio, for a school
Radio's superpower is reach: one ad, a whole county of ears. That's exactly what a school doesn't need.
Your catchment is a mile or two. A regional station's transmitter covers hundreds of square miles. Buy a breakfast-show spot and you're paying to reach hundreds of thousands of people — of whom perhaps a few hundred have a four-year-old and live close enough to apply. For a one-form primary, broadcast radio is the audio version of the giant roadside billboard we told you to skip in our advice for digital billboard advertising: famous, impressive, and aimed at almost nobody who matters to you.
(The exception: schools with a genuinely wide draw — secondaries, sixth forms, independents with minibuses. If families travel twenty minutes to reach you, a county-sized medium starts to make sense, and platforms like Global's AdPower now let you book real FM/DAB campaigns self-serve, with free AI tools that write and voice the ad. But if you're a primary, keep reading — the good stuff is below.)
The bit nobody explains: the same station, two different kinds of listener
Here's the thing that changes the answer, and it's worth getting your head around because almost nobody explains it plainly.
When someone listens to a station like Heart or Capital on an FM or DAB radio, everyone hears the same ad break. That's broadcast: one ad, everyone, no targeting.
But when someone listens to the same station over the internet — through the app, the website, or by saying "Alexa, play Heart" — they're receiving an individual stream. And in an individual stream, the ad break isn't fixed: it's filled per listener, in the moment, based on things like their postcode. The mum in your catchment making packed lunches hears one ad; a listener thirty miles away hears a different one — during the same show.
The same is true of most podcasts, where ads are inserted per-download. This per-listener ad market is called digital audio, and in the UK a huge chunk of it — Global's stations plus a large stable of podcasts — is bought through their exchange, DAX, which you can now access self-serve via AdPower. Targeting goes down to postcode level, and pricing is by the thousand listens (typically £3–8), which means a genuinely small budget buys real ads in real ears inside your catchment — the school-run mum streaming the radio through the kitchen smart speaker, half a mile from your gates.
One clarification, since people ask: Spotify is separate. Spotify sells its own ads through its own self-serve platform (Spotify Ads Manager), also geo-targetable, with campaign minimums in the low hundreds of pounds. Same logic, different shop — and given how many parents have Spotify on all day, it's a legitimate second test.
So: "radio" through a digital door stops being a county-wide megaphone and becomes what schools actually need — a way to be heard by your parents and nobody else. That's the first secret weapon.
Community radio: the one nobody uses
The second might be even better, and it costs less than your colour photocopying.
Most areas have an Ofcom-licensed community radio station — small, local by charter, run by people who care about the patch. Two things make them gold for a school:
The ads are almost free. Airtime on community stations is sold directly, informally, and cheaply — £50–£100 can buy a proper little campaign around your open day. The audience is small, but it is entirely local, which is the only kind of audience you want.
The interview is the real prize. Community stations need local content the way schools need pupils — and a headteacher talking about the school, its story, and its open day is exactly their editorial beat. Ask, and you'll very likely get a warm fifteen-minute interview. Free.
Now the multiplier, and this is the bit we love: that interview is raw material. With the station's blessing (ask — they almost always say yes, it's publicity for them too), take the recording and cut the best moments into 30–60 second clips. Film it on a phone in the studio if they'll let you, and you've got video. Suddenly your head talking warmly about the school — the single most persuasive asset in school marketing, the thing we build whole promotional films around — exists in clip form. And, even more persuasive, the simple fact of being interviewed on a local station brings social proof that your head is special and, by extension, the school is great. Post the clips on the school's Facebook and Instagram. Then put a few pounds behind the best one, boosted to parents within a couple of miles. More awareness, more social proof, more evidence that people should check out your school.
Follow the chain: a free interview on a tiny station becomes the creative for your targeted social advertising. The airtime was never the point. The content was. One morning at a community station can feed your feeds for a term.
What a school audio ad should actually say
Thirty seconds of audio needs discipline. Say the school name twice. One warm, specific image of the school (the thing parents mention on tours — not "outstanding education," but "the school where the head knows every child's name"). The open day date. And then the part most ads fumble: the instruction, engineered for memory.
Nobody scribbles a URL at the kitchen sink. Two techniques fix it:
The Google instruction. If your school ranks first for a natural phrase, don't give a web address at all — give the search: "Just Google St Andrew's Lambeth school tours." It's effortless to remember, it feels like advice rather than advertising, and it works on every device. One non-negotiable: test the search yourself first, on a phone, signed out — if you're not clearly top, don't say it. (If you're not, that's fixable — it's part of what we do.)
The memorable domain. For everyone else, spend £10 on a redirect domain a listener can't forget: Cornwallprimaryschool.co.uk or [YourTown]SchoolTours.co.uk or something in that vein. Point it at your visit-booking page and say it slowly, twice. It costs less than the ad and outlives the campaign.
The redirect domain quietly solves audio's other problem too — measurement. Nobody arrives at CornwallPrimarySchool.co.uk by accident: set the redirect to land on your booking page with a tracking tag, and every visit through that domain is a person the radio sent you. The vague awareness channel suddenly has a countable front door.
No lists of values, no mission statements — nobody ever remembered a mission statement from a radio ad. AdPower's free AI tools will draft and voice something serviceable; read it aloud once and replace anything a real parent wouldn't say — and make sure the voice reads your domain at dictation speed, twice. Better, record something clear and heartfelt in your own voice. Everyone has a phone that can do that!
Measuring it, honestly
Audio is like screens: an awareness channel, honestly hard to attribute [→ Post 11 covers the same truth]. Use the same three-part net: "how did you hear about us?" on your booking form and tour check-in; your redirect domain's visit count (see above — audio's one truly countable signal); and booking-page traffic watched against the days your ads ran. The community-radio clips are the exception — once they're running as social ads, you get proper click and booking numbers like any other digital campaign.
The verdict
Broadcast FM for a primary school: almost always no. Digital audio in your postcodes: a genuinely clever small test — £50–£100 alongside your screens experiment. Community radio: yes, nearly always — for the airtime if you like, but really for the interview and the clips it becomes. The pattern is the same one that runs through everything we do: don't buy the famous audience, buy the exact audience — and when someone offers you free, warm, local content, take it and multiply it.
Audio is one layer of the REACH stage of the system we use to fill school classes. For the whole machine, read our Case Study and the Fill Your Class Funnel. And before you try radio or billboard ads, Facebook advertising is the default choice for your first advertising spend. Not sure any of this is what your school needs first? That's what the Health Check is for.
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Frequently asked questions
Is radio advertising worth it for a school?
Traditional FM/DAB usually isn't for primary schools — the station's coverage area is vastly bigger than a school catchment, so most of the spend reaches families who can never apply. It can work for secondaries, sixth forms and independents with a wide draw. Streamed digital audio and community radio are far better fits for most schools.
What's the difference between broadcast radio ads and digital audio ads?
On FM/DAB, everyone hears the same ad. When people listen online — via an app, website or smart speaker ("Alexa, play Heart") — each listener gets an individual stream, and ads are inserted per listener based on targeting such as postcode. That means a school can advertise only to listeners within its catchment, even during a big-name station's shows.
Can a school advertise on Spotify?
Yes — Spotify runs its own self-serve platform (Spotify Ads Manager) with location targeting and campaign minimums in the low hundreds of pounds. It's separate from radio-station streaming (which is bought through exchanges like Global's DAX), but the logic is identical: geo-targeted audio to local parents.
How much does audio advertising cost for a school?
Digital audio is priced per thousand listens (roughly £3–8 CPM), so a £50–£100 postcode-targeted test is realistic. Community radio airtime can cost £50–£100 for a local open-day campaign. Broadcast campaigns on major stations cost considerably more and suit wide-draw schools only.
What should a radio ad tell listeners to do?
Not a long URL. Either "Google [school name] + [area] + school tours" — only if the school verifiably ranks first for that phrase, tested on a phone while signed out — or a memorable £10 redirect domain (like [YourTown]SchoolTours.co.uk) said slowly, twice, pointing at the visit-booking page with a tracking tag so every radio-driven visit is counted.
How can a school use community radio without buying ads?
Ask for an interview — community stations actively want local stories, and a headteacher discussing the school and its open day is ideal content. With the station's permission, cut the interview into short clips for the school's Facebook and Instagram, then boost the best clips as targeted ads to local parents. The free interview becomes paid-quality creative.
Ian Clifford is the co-founder of School Marketing Works, and has been running admissions marketing campaigns for UK schools since 2018 — including the one in our published falling school roll case study.