Radio gets results...

[CanCanCase]

Here in rural America, we have one radio "conglomerate" that operates 7 out of 8 stations (at least the 8 worth listening to - the rest are junk with low ratings.) I dropped a small bit of my "promote the new store" budget on something just under 1000 30-second spots per month.

I've posted them all here (http://greenlightninglaundry.com/2010/10/green-lightning-laundry-on-air/) for anyone who might want to listen and who doesn't have access to our local area stations via the airwaves.

Feedback?

-Case

[rjwarner]

they sound great. how much was the investment and do you think you got new customers from it?

[Super Clean]

Very impressive, did they sit down with you to go over the content or did you have most of it written up already?

Curious to know what you pay for ads out there on the west coast.

[CanCanCase]

they sound great. how much was the investment and do you think you got new customers from it?

I'm in for $600 each month (production included) which buys me 200 spots and an equal share of unused airtime - last month, that "unused airtime" amounted to nearly 800 bonus spots for a total of just shy of 1000 runs for "Radio Ad 1" and "Radio Ad 2"...

From the guy driving in his RV who heard the ad mentioning "RV parking" to the neighborhood folks who "didn't know anyone was doing anything with this building" - yeah, I'm getting new customers because of the ads... It's also about building "reputation" in the community. The ads generate buzz that translates into word of mouth advertising. I'm constantly hearing "I haven't heard your ads yet, but my friend did and mentioned you have bigger washers" (or some variation.)

The ads about the website and drop-off/frequent wash will hit the airwaves tomorrow, so I don't have any hard data on them just yet. I'm watching the website stats with about 50 visitors daily (mostly you guys checking me out from other parts of the world!) I'd like to see a big spike in local web traffic... that, and the drop-off business is just now starting to build, so return on that one ought to be easy and obvious.

Oh, Jeff: the first two were sit-downs with a sales rep and production guy to kick around what I wanted to put out for a message. The new pair are both products of me being bored for 20 minutes and writing them myself... I've got another version of "Radio Ad 1" re-produced in a male voice, and a few more ads written up "in the can" ready for production when the time is right.

-Case

[CanCanCase]

...Curious to know what you pay for ads out there on the west coast.

Oh, there's one local station (50's oldies for the antique auto club folks) that I do special events with... I spent $250 to saturate the live coverage of the Tuna Classic fishing tournament that weekend when it came to town... we were fishing to hold second place, and it was GREAT to listen at the marina when all the boats fishing against us had their radios on blasting MY advertisements followed with, "Go Team Green Lightning Laundry!"

Basic rack-rate here is around $5 per 30-second spot on the single stations and close to $6.50 on the 7-station network if you go ROS. I look for the package deals they all run to get the rate WAY down from there... usually under $1 per impression.

-Case