There's strength in numbers. Twenty-two rental stores in metropolitan Denver - all members of the A.R.A. of Colorado - have turned a $500-per-store investment into a little gold mine that has raised public awareness of rental and brought a stream of new customers through their doors.
Here's how it works: each store kicks in $500, for a total of $11,000. That pays for 204 radio ads, which run for nine weeks in the spring. At the end of each ad, listeners are told to look in the Yellow Pages for the nearest ren-tal store and two of the 22 sponsoring stores are mentioned by name, so each store gets about 20 mentions during the nine-week run. The ads, which are spread out throughout the day, are aimed at the contractor, general rental or party markets and each store selects the ads or combination of ads it wants to be associated with.
In addition, the host of Denver's "Mr. Fix-it" call-in show on KEZW-AM, Paul MacGregor, has managers from three of the stores in to talk on the air live about rental. This gives the A.R.A. of Colorado dozens of opportunities to push the rental option during the three-hour show, which runs during the ideal time for DIYers: 9 to noon on Saturdays.
"We're trying to get better awareness of rental from the consuming public," says Gary Birkholz of Chatfield Time Rentals in Littleton, Colo.
The results? "When I was on the show live, probably 30 of my own customers told me they'd heard me and several others called, from all over the Denver metro area, to find out where there was a rental store," Birkholz says.
Birkholz had a booth at a lawn and garden show in 1996 and someone from the radio station stopped by and asked if he'd be willing to go on the talk show. Birkholz agreed and that led to the advertising idea. But it was clear that if he generated business from it, he couldn't possibly serve all of metro Denver himself; plus, it would run him $11,000 to do the whole ad program alone.
So he called around and got 20 other stores to go in with him. All renewed this year, and one more joined the group. Birkholz also volunteered to be an expert source when people call in during the show for information. He gets a lot of calls from MacGregor throughout the year.
"MacGregor mentions rentals all the time, all year long," Birkholz says. "He'll tell people, 'Well, you can rent that tool and do it yourself!'
"He did a walk-around in my store and I showed him tools he didn't know existed. He's been pumping that equipment on the show ever since."
Most of the stores involved in the ad program are kicking in an extra $10 to fund a $50 gift certificate giveaway on the air. Consumers are asked to send in a postcard with their name and number, for a drawing on the air. The winner then goes to the sponsoring rental store of his choice and exchanges the certificate for $50 off his rental bill. The store then bills the A.R.A. of Colo-rado, so the store gets paid in full and all participants share the limelight, for a negligible investment.
"As the big tool boxes have come into the market, my electrical tool business has gone downhill," Birkholz says. "They'll just go and buy a tool instead of renting it. I thought this would be one way I could combat that. This year I've been tracking my electrical tool rentals [that is, after the round of commercials last year], and they're starting to go back up.
"The idea is to get the rental concept across to people."
Birkholz says he'll be glad to share what he's learned about radio advertising and public relations with others who may want to get into this kind of promotion. He can be reached at (303) 979-4810.