Retailer makes waves on the radio
Cue the music.
The jingle for this hardware store plays on the radio the same day every week – all day.
Chris Lewis is the owner of Jeffries Supply, a Do it Best dealer, in Columbia, Kentucky.
And every Tuesday is Jeffries day. It’s called Tool Time Tuesday.
“When I took over the business five years ago,” he said, “my dad advertised throughout the week on 92.7 The Wave.”
The radio station then had a spot open for a whole-day ad. “I thought it would be more beneficial for the end user to hear our ads over and over again on the same day,” he said.
My business is a little different than most hardware stores, the owner said.
“I have a 5,000 square foot Do it Best store but also have a 5,000 square foot electrical basement. The Jeffries business has been around for 125 years,” he said.
The Tuesday blitz of radio spots draws customers.
“We get 150 spots on this day only. My thinking on this is to get the end user to hear our ads multiple times on the same day versus spread out throughout the week, which might not be as catchy,” said the owner.
It was the same price as we were doing before, he said regarding his radio ads. “We get ad spots at 30 seconds each on Tuesday on this station,” said Lewis.
Everyone’s talkin’ ‘bout
After the first three months, he noticed his customers were talking about Tool Time Tuesday.
“Now we can run anything we have on special and we have listeners that are looking for it on the radio and it doesn’t cost us any more money. We’ve been doing this for the past four years,” said the owner.
Every year, he notices his sales for that day of the week are consistently up 3-5% just from Tool Time Tuesday, he said.
“We have a jingle that is at the end of every ad,” he said. “The jingle goes: ‘Jeffries, the friendly hardware store,’ he said.
“Our customers will come in and say, ‘Is this the friendly hardware store?’ So the advertising on one day only is working,” said the owner.
“I don’t know if I would like the idea of an infomercial but I think Do it Best should make TV commercials,” said Lewis.
“People watch tv. When Lowe’s, Home Depot, Menards, run commercials, people immediately pick their phone up and look at the website for whatever was being advertised,” he said.
“Jeffries wouldn’t fork out the money for this by itself, but we would like to have an option for members to do it,” he said.
About ideas like his Tool Time Tuesday, he said: “Don’t get stuck in today – look into the future.”
Lewis said: “Try to imagine something six months to a year from now and how it will be.”
