I had an insightful conversation with a client who had been a long time advertiser with us (for the past 2 years), this week…
He had been doing a deep dive into the data about his advertising in local newspaper, on local radio and online.
Briefly he said… his Kitchen renovation business had been growing in a very stop and start way for years (even before Covid-19) and he had tried to see why – was it the advertising, the staff or some other factor?
It turned out to be his advertising. So of course – I was all ears.
His online ad campaigns had failed him – all he had was the amount of ‘views’ and click throughs, which didn’t relate to anyone spending anymore than 5-25 seconds on his site. That’s right only 5 to 25 seconds on his website after Pay Per Click (PPC) and Google advertising and Facebook ads. Total amount of PPC/Click throughs = 2,000. Not one of those people spent more than 25 seconds on his sight coming directly from his ad campaigns. OUCH!
Newspaper – he had been running a half page, then quarter page print ad for 5 years, mixing it up occasionally in 2 local newspapers. When he boiled down that data from those campaigns… Running 2x weekly press ads for 5 years – he had a grand total of 20 bookings for quotes – which translated into only 5 jobs for him in over 5 years of advertising in the local papers. DOUBLE OUCH!
Then we got to the part I was interested in – his radio commercial – as I had written all of them for him – I wanted to know how I had gone.
In the past 2 years he had run several different types – starting with a call to action campaign… his response – 20 bookings for quotes from a 2 week run – and of those 20 calls, 10 resulted in jobs.
Then he ran a branding campaign with us, we worked hard on it making sure it had all the right ingredients to keep people calling – and that worked.
In the first 6 months he had 40 calls for quotes, 26 resulted in jobs.
Then, during the Covid-19 lockdowns in our state, we changed his ads to suggest that people take a long hard look at their kitchens they were standing in right now – and – note what was wrong with them, what worked and what didn’t – because when lockdowns ended – he would be back with his team ready to change their kitchens… then lockdowns in our state finally finished – he braced himself – not knowing what was about to happen… he needn’t have worried.
Suddenly his quotes jumped from 40 to over 100+ in the space of a month – suddenly he had over 80 jobs booked in – so many he had to stop his ads as he had too much work, and not enough workers to complete the jobs – blowing out wait times to over 6 months.
A month before he had cleared his back log of jobs – he called us again to restart his branding ads – and he also ran a call to action campaign and gave away a kitchen make-over too on-air with us – AWESOME!
He has since stopped all newspaper advertising, and only runs Google Ads to be in front of people when they are searching for Kitchen make-overs. But everything else – he throws at radio.
For him – radio works – and he said to me he puts it down to having the right elements in his ads – which he has agreed to share with you here (these are from his Copy Brief document notes):
- An attention getting beginning/start. Open with a sound effect, or a question, or a shocking fact will make people pay attention 30% of the time. Use humour sparingly at the start of your ad 10% of the time – but the best results, 60% of the time are from sharing an experience or seeking a comparison for the listener.
- Always use Sonic Branding – Use the same music bed every time for every spot. From call to action to branding – AND – use the same voice – no matter what the ad is for.
- Target Your Message. Know exactly who makes the decision about a kitchen refit or update – it is in 90% of case – the female of the house. Always keep that person in mind when creating your ad, and use language that appeals to them, and speak to them as a friend – woman to woman.
- Have a specific goal – be it website hits, repeating phone numbers for quotes, increase Facebook likes, whatever it is – one commercial for each goal.
- You need to be where people are listening. There is no point running an ad late at night, if people are making breakfast in a terrible kitchen in the morning. Our ads play when people are preparing meals, breakfast, lunch and tea – and listening to the radio. We target those times only – and it works!
I couldn’t have put it better myself – cheers.
