Grand Rapids/REGENT................ 'Greatest stories never told'............till now!

Grand Rapids/Regent is exploding out of the blocks on their radio loyalty program. 3000+ emails in 4 weeks on GRD/Alt and LHT/AC. Like most stations, monetizing comes when the staff starts to leverage the benefits. Regent AE Chris Nicholas saw such an opening. He had been bird dogging a new home manufacturer called New Dimensions. NHM's and auto companies are keeping the economy alive, but it's not coming easy for either. This client told Chris he had $2500.00 for Regent to 'make something happen'. With an average walk thru of 5-10 people per day, this client needed lots of toes. Now Chris could have done what every radio station does,"Mr. Client, we're going to do a remote, Register to Win, put you on our website, blah, blah blah". Smartly, Chris simply sold him a 1500 pt keyword for both stations.

All HELL broke loose. 210 people retrieved bonus words and participated in the process by even filling out customer surveys. Think this guy's eyes popped out of his head? Mr. Client is travelling to Regent's offices today at 4:00pm to sign a long term contract. This is the second NHM story we have heard in a week. St. Cloud did similar promotion and the other NHM's called the builders association complaining that everyone was passing them by to retrieve a keyword.

MORAL: It's a good idea to create a separate slush fund of points and for the right oppty............pop a 1500/2000 bonus remote. You've got to be judicious about it, but because points are free to the radio station, it can start an avalanche for the right client. Also, go to NHM's and any like business, wherever you can. They are leveraged to the hilt and NEED traffic.

Here is a quick rundown from Kevin/GRD about early remote's in Grand Rapids.

1. Sales person wants to impress new client that isn't ready to buy. Client is out of the way 20-25 minute ride from down town and sells manufactured homes (not your typical walk up client). Anyway, to cut to the short, we sent a 1,500 point word to the location for a 10a-6pm day. This was by far the biggest point value on any grd dirty word. I sent an email to our player database (over 1700 at the time) telling them about the word and we promoted it on the air on the day the word was available. Results:
people started trickling in on day before word became active, over 200 submitted the dirty word and the client had traffic like they had never seen. In fact so much traffic that a competitor in the area noticed and is considering buying a dirty word. Basically, GRD Pay Dirt delivered big time.

During the same week the Milk Rules tour rolled thru GR and purchased a $4,250 schedule to promote three appearances. GRD teamed up for one of the appears and brought along a dirty word. The Milk Rules folks said it was one of their busiest stops (which was at a Meijer in a south subarb of the city) and 109 people submitted our dirty word. Successful sales/pay dirt combination.

Finally GRD was out at a Street Fair here in town. Your basic street closed, two stages, bands, booths of hippie clothes, incense and roasted cashews. We simply promoted the dirty word through the "remote appearance" pop up window on our Pay Dirt web page as "Look for the GRD truck at the Eastown Street Fair to score a bonus dirty word." We hung the word from the rear view mirror and about 50 players sought it out. I was standing on the street at the fair, with a station shirt on (being the proud billboard and all) and had people coming up to me asking "if I worked at the station" and "if I knew the dirty word." Grass roots excitement.

And that's just three of many fun surprises we've had with the Pay Dirt program.

Kevin Curnow
GRD Pay Dirt