By Ivan Braiker
One of radio?s intrinsic benefits has been its ability to garner a sense of community through its local ties. This makes radio an ideal advertising medium for small local businesses. Mom and Pop shops drive local economies, but often lack the necessary funds to embark on big advertising campaigns. By including a mobile call to action in local radio ads, small shops can build re-marketable databases that add up to huge success.
Here are a couple great examples:
A local grocery store in a small market was looking to build its own opted-in text club from which it hoped to push out weekly coupons and offers to its customers. The store promoted the text club in three ways:
? Two of Hipricket?s local radio station clients promoted the store?s text club through its local database.
? The store aired spots on each of the radio stations promoting the club.
? The store advertised the text club in its weekly circular.
For a fairly low upfront investment (the store was already advertising on the stations, and it paid nothing to advertise in its own circular) the grocery store was able to garner more than 8,600 members to its text club, and that number continues to grow. Perhaps an even better indicator of the program?s success is that members of the text club have shown a redemption rate of between 25-30 percent for coupons they have received.
In a second example, an Italian chain restaurant was interested in building in an opted-in database of local customers in a small (100+) market. The restaurant chose to advertise a Text 2 Win contest on its local radio station. The offer was for one lucky listener to win free pasta for a year. Advertisements asked listeners to text the word ?FREE? to a short code to be entered to win. The contest ran between August and September and generated 905 entries from 722 unique listeners. Once entered, listeners were asked to join the restaurant?s mobile club to continue receiving offers. The restaurant had astonishing success with 274 people (38 percent of those who entered the contest) opting into the club. Not bad for a small market!
These are just two examples of how combining local radio stations with mobile marketing can create a winning combination for small businesses. I urge small market stations everywhere to share these success stories to boost their own ad dollars and bolster local business and community.
Ivan Braiker is a former radio CEO who still loves the radio business. He's now the CEO of HipCricket and can be reached at ivan@hipcricket.com
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