By the time the season comes around for retailers, it is almost essential to prepare a campaign that will help to achieve better profits. At first glance, this is relatively simple. Set a budget, choose a few online media outlets, add some offline stuff and hooray, the campaign is up and running. Unfortunately, the opposite is true and businesses are increasingly forced to look for more effective and imaginative solutions these days. This includes the use of special formats such as weather-based radio, which we’ll talk more about in this case study. 

 

Those who are afraid to take risks will never move 

Every business is different and unique in some way. However, each one has a clearly defined season, knows what actions work and approaches it accordingly. In this case, it is often very difficult to make your way, unless you are one of the domestic e-commerce giants, it is necessary to take risks from time to time.

Some companies realise that other parameters, such as time of day or the weather, affect their sales. Think of food delivery, for example. Many of us took advantage just because it was raining outside and we didn’t feel like going anywhere. Or taxi services, which we use more often in the evening/night hours “just” for safety or convenience. Similarly, there are products that we use mostly in nice/ugly weather or in the summer or winter months. 

And one such client of ours is a pool chemicals dealer. His peak season is logically summer, but we have found from the numbers that sales are significantly affected by the actual outside temperature! What to do about it? We started thinking about how to use this information and translate it into a specific campaign or specific media. The idea – weather-based radio campaigns – was born.

 

What is the “magic”? 

The fact that some media can be adjusted according to the weather (display, PPC) is not a new feature. However, incorporating radio spots into the mix that also work based on the weather? That’s already interesting, given the mass offline reach. National radio is one of the mediums you have to invest more money in (to have an effect), but if you skip certain (ineffective) days, you can make a decent profit on it. So why not give it a try?

The important thing is to define what outcome will be a victory

We encounter this today and every day. Companies track dozens of parameters that tell them everything in theory, but in practice they don’t really know what to do with that information. That’s why it’s important to choose 3-5 parameters where you know exactly what they’re telling you. Based on that, you can easily define your goal, or you will know what is a good or bad outcome.

In our case, we focused on traffic (1), sales (2), average temperature on each day (3) and campaign cost (4). These parameters are sufficient to be able to tell, at a basic level, what effect the weather has on sales in connection with a marketing campaign.

Finding an opportunity can be simple

In order to be able to tell what effect a weather-based campaign has on sales, we had to find 2 temperature-similar weeks, and run the campaign in one of them and not the other. Even though we can’t rely on the weather at all, the May forecast reported that the weather should be stable with high temperatures from about the second week. Hooray, let’s go testing!

Somewhat surprisingly, the forecast(3) came true (see graph below) and we were able to launch all the campaigns, but primarily radio, which was the most in focus for testing. So, in the period from 9.5 to 14.5, apart from PPC and display, we also ran radio, which had a simple definition – if the temperature is above 21 degrees Celsius, the radio spots run. In the following week from 16 to 20.5., where the average temperature was even 2 degrees higher, the radio campaign did not run and we left only the PPC and display banners running.

*Average temperature in the Czech Republic May 2022

The results speak for themselves

Let’s get straight to how it went. In the first week (when the campaign ran), we saw 23% more traffic(1) and even 36.4% more sales(2) than in the second week, when the weather radio campaign didn’t run. At first glance this looks very positive, but let’s dig deeper.

If we take into account that we put 50,000 CZK into the weekly radio campaign(4), which brought us 560,000 CZK more in sales than the following week, we can demonstrably say that the campaign had an effect, taking into account the margin. Specifically, after deducting all costs and converting to profit, we were able to increase our profit by 27.8%.

*Sales on individual days

Of course, other factors that we didn’t put into the formula may have had an impact, but we don’t need to worry about that at this point. If the result is even half as bad, I’m still talking about a profitable investment.

What’s next? Just don’t jump to conclusions, this is the first step…

Even though the campaign went well and the radio worked for us, we need to confirm our thesis from other angles. Therefore, it is good to evaluate the campaign in more detail, to test what effect radio has in periods of bad weather and also to look at what limits it can have? What would happen if I put more money into the campaign? What other factors might have influenced the results? What if I change the message in the radio spot? The more you can answer these questions, the easier and more accurate it will be to know how to build next season/month’s campaign.

Brand Boost Conclusion

The fact that this is not the only client where we have applied this type of campaign, and we have been able to try it with other types of businesses, makes it easier to evaluate. We can more accurately predict what media mix can move your business forward and what is ideal for your business. If you’re interested in the details of this case study, feel free to drop us a line, we’d be happy to share.