Want to know how 2UE doubled audience response using Mobile Marketing?

Background 2UE is a leading Sydney talkback radio station, and is a key part of the Fairfax Media group, which includes extensive nationwide and community newspapers. 2UE and the other divisions of the Fairfax Media group run cross-promotional competitions to increase audience engagement and assist audience acquisition and retention.

Campaign Objectives

By running a competition across radio and print, 2UE sought to achieve the goals of audience engagement, acquisition and retention. The more participation, measured by entries, the more successful the cross promotional campaign. 2UE sought to engage current listeners that are already followers, and to introduce (or re-introduce) 2UE to new markets via newspapers (non-traditional listeners).

Additional objectives of the campaign were to streamline the entry process for entrants and reduce the administration burden associated with posted competition forms. 2UE wanted to find a smarter and more efficient way for radio and print media to engage listeners.

Campaign Strategy

2UE conceived the ‘Tim Webster Hunter Valley Escape Competition’, whereby people could text to enter to win one of two escapes to the Hunter Valley (worth $1,600 each) during the Hunter Valley wine and food month in June. They used mobile marketing advertising response experts TXT2GET and the www.txt2get.com.au online service to set up and run the text-response campaigns.

The competition was promoted in 13 Fairfax community newspapers across Sydney, as well as live reads on 2UE in the Tim Webster program from 12 – 3pm daily. Campaign duration was 7 business days.

The radio call-to-action was: “Entry is easy and you can do it right now. Just SMS the code word ‘2UE954’ (that’s all one word) and your full name to nineteen - thirty three – thirty three. SMS cost 25c.

In print, the different TXT2GET mobile marketing keyword, ‘2UE’ was used, so that the station could tell which entries came from print versus radio. 2UE could have used any common word as its keywords but decided to use ‘2UE’ and ‘2UE954’ to help reinforce its brand.

Results

The Hunter Valley Escape Competition received over 1,000 entries, with half from Fairfax Community Newspaper entries and half from 2U E radio program promotions. . Using SMS marketing doubled what is the norm for short promotions.

“Without doubt TXT2GET more than doubled the response we achieved,” said Rebecca Coleman, 2UE Promotions Manager.

Quotes

“The campaign itself was very successful; we’re very happy”, adds Ms Coleman. “It was interesting to see success of live radio reads and the ability to track immediate response. Judging by past experience, without TXT2GET we would have received only half the number of entries.

“We also gained great insight into both listeners and readers and their habits by being able to see exactly when they responded. People that texted after seeing the newspaper ads did so on the day the newspaper went to print, but also during the following few days.

“TXT2GET has proven to be the most effective and efficient way for radio listeners and newspaper readers to respond to promotions and advertising. The number (19 33 33) is easy to remember, the set-up was easy and the spontaneous immediate interaction helped us more than double the overall response.

“The principles learned from our own successful usage will be applicable to future in-house promotions, as well as client advertising campaigns.”