“We reached out to Blue Wave Radio after it was apparent that Facebook wasn’t deliver qualified customers fast enough… And when we started with 101.1 we were able to tweak our ads until they worked… ”

— Claire Staffa - Advertising Consultant

Why on earth would you need to rent a boat storage bodega when there is so much water around an island? Sadly it’s because boats are an investment and they are easy to steal by drug dealers. Engines are also targeted. Claire Staffa… was working with Yellowfin Boat Storage and Bodega in Sandy Bay. They had a big investment and needed to get customers fast. They’d tried Facebook postings and they just weren’t reaching people with boats. I think it’s because people with boats are “outdoors” types and don’t spend a great deal of time browsing FACEBOOK “looking for likes”… This was one of those cases where it took a while to get things to work like we wanted… When radio doesn’t work it can be three things…
1) Poor advertising schedule… not enough ads or poorly chosen times. (We avoid this as we have a long drive time on Roatan.)
2) Poor offer… the proposal to the audience is missing that they are looking for. (In this case there was a substantial savings for subscribing to a lease.
3) Poor ADVERTISING COPY or POOR Production… we created copy that emphasized the location, the safety advantages of storage, the ease of access to the water and the on-site mechanic… and after one month, we weren’t happy… The TONE was SERIOUS … like a BAD NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT… The great thing about radio is that it only takes a few hours to make a change in the copy… and unlike print or graphics, in most cases, doesn’t cost for extra production…

So what did we do? We added ONE LINE and made it humorous… “STORE YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER … “
(There is a running gag between husband and wives who own boats is that the “boat” is the significant other… )
That little change helped with the serious tone of the ad…

For Local Sales, we created a three month long advertising schedule… It began in rainy season of 2019 and that might have been part of the problem with fewer people driving on the roads… And we changed to the updated and more humorous copy in January… From there the spots began performing, leases picked up.
When COVID hit and petty theft was turning into crimes of opportunity among boats left in the water, Blue Wave Radio kept the ads on as a customer service. The business has kept greater than 90% of its spaces leased…

RESOURCES…

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