How Events Succeed For Clients

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Family owned Kelly’s Kawasaki in Phoenix has been in business since 1980. Paul Duplantis is in charge of all the marketing and advertising for the business. His approach to marketing is to do everything possible to make the customer happy. One of the ways he accomplishes that is by teaming with Jeff Salvano who’s an account executive for Entercom in Phoenix. Salvano approached the Kawasaki dealership with a pitch to make them part of Country Thunder, a huge three-day country music event in the market. Salvano developed a great idea for the dealership and that helped cement a great partnership between Kelly’s Kawasaki and radio.

Radio Ink: How did you and Jeff from KLME get to know each other?
Paul Duplantis: It started with the standard boilerplate relationship looking to harness the opportunity of radio with the dealership. We had always looked at radio but never had much success. I personally was not so excited about it. Then Jeff Salvano (Entercom Phoenix) and his cohorts found a relationship with Kawasaki on the OEM side of it to look at ways to bring us more people through events. Jeff fought hard to bring Kawasaki on board. When I took that to our owner, he was interested and that ended up with Country Thunder (Country Thunder is a music festival brand that hosts several concerts in North America each year. They’ve operated festivals in Wisconsin and Arizona since 1983 and shows in Calgary and Saskatchewan since 2016.).

This is now our third year. It’s been very successful. From year one we knew this was a good partnership between radio and the dealership. You’re using the power of radio and the power of their other digital assets to bring our product to the people while they are hanging out at an event. We capture leads on site so we can prove performance. We’ve sold units. It makes a dealership happy when you can show results directly from involvement with a marketing company. It was something the station brought to us.

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Radio Ink: Jeff, talk about the relationship from your side.
Jeff: Customers and listeners want personalization and I know that’s where Jeff and Paul come into play here. They sell units at the event. We can blast it on the radio, it is on-site consumer engagement, marketing paired with radio and digital elements. When we tie it into this iconic country music festival, these are all the ingredients for a successful campaign. Consumers want to see and touch the Kawasaki product. Jeff and Paul are getting in front of these consumers, listeners and having one-on-one conversations with them, capturing leads. They are turning a stranger into a long-time loyal customer. I was relentless in getting them on board because I saw this as being very successful for them. Taking the Kawasaki brand and Kelly’s Kawasaki and introducing them to the country audience, to me it was a perfect synergy. The whole goal in my mind was to create and deliver the right messages that were relevant, convenient, and personal to our listeners and actionable to the client. At the end of the day these guys want to sell more motorcycles, dirt bikes, side by sides, and jet skis.

Radio Ink: Paul what do you like about radio and how do you know it’s working?
Paul: Radio is effective for us when it’s branded around an event. I have not personally, seen a lot of success outside of that, however we have not thrown a lot of money at it to be fair. We have a Tucson dealership and worked with a radio station on an event and it was good. I have yet to see the level of excitement and success on an event I have worked with other than Country Thunder. It’s not just getting in front of the customer, it’s the actionable side of it. We have a customer relationship management system. We collect that lead information and forward that to our salespeople. They are right on it to continue the relationship. There has to be a full partnership between the radio side and the dealership side. You can’t hang the success on the media side. We have to do our job to make it successful as well.

Radio Ink: How are you gauging success?
Paul: That’s a hard thing to do, but the luxury of Country Thunder is I can see units moving and I can go to the owner and say we sold X amount of units at that event. We’re capturing leads and we you can prove where they came from. This venue allows us to create those measurables. It’s much more than just a generic spot. Through the Country Thunder venue last year, I can demonstrate four to five units just from that event. That’s significant. People will tell their families after the event which we can’t track, but then we get a pulse of activity from one to two weeks after. Then you get an idea of how it works. That’s what a company needs in a relationship with a marketing company.

Radio Ink: Jeff, tell us about the Country Thunder event from the radio AE perspective.
Jeff: We’ve been doing this for three years. We had to iron out some wrinkles in the beginning but when Kawasaki gets dealerships to buy into a large event like this the dealers are concerned about one thing, swinging dealer doors. It’s great that we have the radio commercials, the digital elements and on-site exposure, but they’re concerned about selling units. We have to get people to the dealership. It’s tying in “money can’t buy people experiences.” It’s giving away 4-day campground passes or meet-and-greets with artists. This year, Kawasaki corporate donated a Z125 motorcycle and that drives people to the dealership. We are really giving listeners a “money can’t buy experience.”

Radio Ink: Paul, what role does social media play in your marketing?
Paul: Jeff incorporates digital on his side and we tag each other when we post. We did a video of the radio talent from KMLE taking a demo ride and posted that on social. That was good. Social for us drives events. Facebook and Instagram are big components for events. We are not transactional. There is nothing better than seeing someone happy on/in a unit. One of the things we pride ourselves on is good reviews. Every time we sell a unit we take a picture of the customer on it smiling and put it on social media. We share it, we put it on our internal TV system. We do not use social to drive sales. We use it to drive experiences. The onus to drive sales is on us. I wish I could find more venues like Country Thunder and focus on them. You get in front of the customer and see them engage with the product. People like motorcycles and adventure vehicles. It makes them feel good about themselves. Ultimately, we are offering experiences. Social and some of the other marketing strategies are elements but it’s how we build that relationship and how actionable we are on it.

Radio Ink: What advice do you have for other businesses that are reluctant to try radio?
Paul: We had a rough go in the beginning. I’m skeptical about everything. There’s a certain component when marketers go out there for the easy sells, for example, they say ‘I’m going to guarantee you everything.’ That is what struck me about Jeff. He wasn’t pitching. He was searching for a relationship. That is my message: find people who want to build a relationship, a partnership to do the hard work finding what works for you. Quit with the promises and gimmicks. I get four to five calls every day from marketing companies promising things. Invariably I’m going to be let down. I told Jeff at the beginning, I’m done with promises. We had to make a few corrections like anybody. He delivered Kawasaki an incredible event. They need to find people who will work with them in a relationship to help build experiences with customers to drive sales.

Radio Ink: Jeff, why do you think this relationship works so well?
Jeff: When I’m at Country Thunder, I am mistaken for a Kawasaki employee because although I work for Entercom, I’m wearing Kawasaki gear and representing the brand. I’m talking to customers. I know enough about the product to be dangerous but when it comes to making a sale I turn it over to a Kawasaki representative. If you want to be successful in radio you’ve got to get behind your client’s brand. I don’t care if it’s a car dealership or power sports store like Kelly’s Kawasaki. You are an extension of their marketing team. You are representing them. I work for Jeff and Paul even though my paychecks come from Entercom. I work for Kelly’s Kawasaki. I bring opportunities that I think are relevant to Paul and Jeff like Country Thunder. Those are the ingredients to success. Do what you say you are going to do and if you don’t think you can deliver don’t make the promise.

Do you have a sales success story you’re proud of? Help us help the industry tell the story about the tremendous power of radio. We’d love to write about your success story in the next issue of Radio Ink magazine. Send all the details to[email protected].

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