Middle of the night radio

In its 26-year history, Store To Door has worked pretty close to the bone, staffing lean and relying on word of mouth to attract clients.  While this approach has worked to keep us as busy as our capacity can handle, it's not allowed us to understand what the need is in the community for our service that we're not even aware of.  Two events over this past six months have provided a window on the un-met need--a summary of a study of adults over 65 who report needing help with grocery shopping and having no one to help them and a grant from the F.R. Bigelow Foundation allowing a modest test of a sixty-second radio spot on WCCO-AM radio..

There are over 7,000 adults over 65 reporting needing help to get groceries and they have no one.  WCCO-AM's listener demographic encompasses this group.  Our hypothesis was that isolated and homebound adults listen to the radio for company, often around the clock.  WCCO allowed us to purchase daytime slots for our ad and donated middle-of-the-night slots, to see if our potential clients might catch us then.

Our hunch was right.  The combination of advertising with the worst winter weather in several years had our phones ringing non-stop. And, the majority of the potential client callers heard the ad in the middle of the night. The ads began running on Oct 18--we truncated the campaign prior to its planned end in late February on January 16.  In 2011, we planned to add 500 new clients; 112 were added in December and so far, the total added for the year is 211. We've been overwhelmed, in the best way possible. 

Now, if we want to continue to achieve our mission, we can work on the weak links in our system so we can serve more people AND we can begin the effort to include radio in our ongoing budget plans. It's exciting and hopeful to be introduced to so many people who are so glad to learn of Store To Door!