Looking for inspiration and innovative ways your radio stations can best connect with your community, thus driving revenue and an increase in listeners?
A supermarket chain found across Western New York that’s growing across the mid-Atlantic region and in Massachusetts just might be a surprising fountain of ideas.
Um …. a grocery store? Yes. That’s because Wegmans is unlike any supermarket you’ve ever shopped in. One part Walmart, another part Whole Foods Market, Wegmans has excelled at something many radio stations have lost: Community integration, and becoming a beloved brand.
With more than 90 stores across New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia, Wegmans has a bit of a cult following. Foodies and soccer moms travel out of their way to shop here. The stores are open 24 hours, and provide services you’ve likely not seen elsewhere.
When is the last time you and your family, or significant other, ventured off to the supermarket for a Free Movie Night in the cozy living room adjacent to the dining tables where you can enjoy a wide variety of hot and cold foods?
How about getting help with your summer cooking from a huge selection of recipes, each with consumer reviews that validate whether or not they’re actually worth the effort?
In the mood for a tasty burger? No need to go online to find a good restaurant nearby: Burger Bar by Wegmans can be found in such stores as its Canandaigua, N.Y. location, and in busy Owings Mills, Md., just outside of Baltimore.
Don’t eat meat and seek healthy options? There’s a whole “Eat well, Live well” mantra that flows through a Health & Nutrition section of the Wegmans website.
What else can we say about Wegmans? In a first-ever trip to its Corning, N.Y., store, the experience was mesmerizing from the moment one walks in to the store. There’s abundantly fresh produce. The prepared food and deli areas were immense. The pharmacy and surrounding aisles were very well-designed, and customer-friendly.
Eschewing the do-it-yourself check-out lanes, Wegmans — like Publix — believes consumers should have a human being check you out. Unlike Publix, there were tons of lanes open, including an express lane located adjacent to the deli and hot foods section of the store.
Taking a nod from Total Wine, a representative of California’s Firestone Walker Brewing Company was offering samples of their new-to-the-area beer selections.
Finally, in the men’s room was this mind-boggling sight:
Yes … Wegmans Brand Supreme Diapers were available, along with a baby-changing stations, in the Men’s Room located behind its café and living room space, where the next Free Movie Night was to be held.
Meanwhile, Wegmans goes beyond community giving by assuring the community has a bright future.
The supermarket chain accomplishes this through its “Sustainability at Wegmans” initiative, and its commitment to reducing emissions, and reducing landfill waste.
What does all of this have to do with radio?
Everything.
This visit to Wegmans was eye-opening for two reasons. First, Wegmans’ marketing team likely used a lot of research to best determine how to capture consumers in a marketplace where Tops Friendly Markets and Walmart are chief competitors in its key Western New York locales.
Second, it borrowed from Walmart, and from Whole Foods Market, to foment brand love. Not so long ago, Walmart was painted as a villainous intruder that decimated small town mom-and-pop businesses by flooding the market with ultra-affordable goods in a big-box setting. Yet, Walmart persists. Why? Because it has lots of goods, the prices are right, and Walmart has responded to each and every community where it has stores by tweaking the merchandise to reflect its shoppers’ tastes.
Then, there is Whole Foods Market — the place where one can get everything organic, even if it’s three-times the cost of conventional goods. Yet, it has its regular shoppers. Why? Because it delivers on a promise: No GMOs, and goods for leading a healthy lifestyle.
These are two very different retailers. But, what if a business were to take Walmart’s concept of becoming a community consumer hub but doing it in a way where you were beloved, and not reviled?
That’s where borrowing from Whole Foods comes in. Yeah, people mock it as being “Whole Paycheck,” but it has its solid consumers. Some people won’t shop elsewhere for “essentials.” And, it offers pretty good customer service.
Wegmans took all of the great things from each big retailer, perfected it, and emerged as perhaps the single most-impressive supermarket chain in the U.S.
Guess where some of their more notable stores are? Aside from Corning, home to the eponymous glass and ceramics maker, Wegmans has first-class supermarkets at the edge of the Finger Lakes in a small but bustling town south of its Rochester headquarters, and a Johnson City, N.Y., location in the Binghamton, N.Y., market.
Wegmans’ biggest markets are Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester, N.Y.; many of its locations are in suburban areas of the Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; and Philadelphia markets.
So … what does this have to do with running a radio station?
It’s all about community. Here we have a hugely successful and extremely beloved supermarket chain, operating in an industry that’s largely in turmoil—even before Amazon on June 16 announced it was buying Whole Foods Market and sending notice that Amazon Prime grocery delivery is poised to send a further punch to the gut beyond what Walmart has done. From Delhaize America’s Food Lion and Hannaford to Southeastern Grocers’ Bi-LO and Winn-Dixie and the now-combined Albertsons/Safeway companies, the supermarket business is tough and full of challenges.
Yet, Wegmans is a winner.
Now, picture the radio business. There are several companies that are challenged by debt, and some with local properties that have revenue competitors that span from Pandora to digital/social entities and even direct mail. But, in most cases, there is always a standout winner.
Why? Because, like Wegmans, they double-downed on community.
Wegmans is a community center, actively inviting their consumers to join in conversation, participate with them in various events — even invite them into “their home” for a movie.
Wegmans is a friend. It’s a trusted source for everything in their lives.
That is what every local radio station should be.
With that, here’s RBR+TVBR‘s first-ever Six-Point Checklist for Ways Radio Can Be More Like Wegmans:
- Treat the consumer as your friend. Your listeners aren’t just your “audience.” They are your lifeline, and deserve the same treatment as your best buddy or a member of the family. Engage with them, interact with them, and establish a first-name relationship with them.
- Become an active member of the community. Yesterday, a TV station in an unnamed market had a reporter show up at a big fundraising event with a photographer and stay for about 30 minutes. She interviewed some of the key organizers of the benefit, put together by kids. Then, they left. The piece never made it on the 11pm news. End of story. For Radio, there was an unmatched power to be there throughout the entire event, weaving itself into the lives of attendees and listeners in myriad ways. It takes a village, they say. That’s more than sending two interns to a remote with a bunch of station-branded crap, as seen repeatedly over the last year. For radio to win, it needs to act like the kind neighbor down the street, or the nice guy who runs the dry cleaners, or the branch manager at your local bank. If not, it can’t grow brand affinity.
- Respond and react to your audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mom-and-pop operation with one 1kw AM station or you’re running a seven-station cluster tied to one of the nation’s biggest radio broadcasting companies: The end game is the same. If you’re not responsive to your audience and reacting to their wants and needs in every single way, you’re not going to be beloved. You’re just another entity providing something that you think, and assume, the consumer wants.
- Put the consumer first. Wegmans has designed all of its stores so that every single employee is accessible. Having said that, how many calls does your air talent take between 9am and 5pm. If not an air personality, how about somebody manning the phones? Customer service is the hallmark of Wegmans. Too often, radio’s “customer service” is akin to calling Comcast or AT&T with a service issue. Even then, at least the call is answered (although the think Indian accent on “Ricky” can make it hard for some). We don’t even have radio stations with call centers.
- Make your stations’ home a community center. One of radio’s biggest weaknesses is its ability to touch listeners aurally, and then the relationship ends. Sure, social media puts a face behind the voice, and allows for direct communication. But, nothing beats face-to-face interaction. This doesn’t have to focus on your talent. Face-to-face brand interaction is what makes experiential marketing such a hot method for brand growth from companies as diverse as Makita, Coca-Cola, Toyota and Telemundo. Remember, “KISS FM” is a brand just like those, so let the audience experience it. Entercom’s Miami operation is set to move into a fancy new space in a trendy neighborhood that will allow, for the first time, listeners to enjoy station events in the same building the broadcasts originate from. It pulls Entercom out of the shadows and smack dab into a hot neighborhood in an ever-evolving community.
- Caring. High Standards. Respecting and listening to one another. Empowerment. “It is the core of who we are and what we do,” says Jo Natale, Wegmans’ spokesperson. In short: Wegman’s can’t be what it has become without one important ingredient, and that’s great employees. “That is the hallmark of what we are,” Natale says. “We seek those with a passion to serve others, who smile, who are enthusiastic about learning. We have training programs. We look for people who are passionate about serving others.”
In short, community is the key to long-term success. Your community can be the dozens and dozens of unique centers of activity and residence across the Los Angeles DMA, or it can be the town of 3,500 nestled on a picturesque lake with vineyards and craft breweries within a few minutes’ drive of town.
But, it also comes down to great hiring and giving each and every employee the tools to succeed.
For radio, the goal is the same: Capturing, connecting and cultivating a long-lasting relationship. That’s the power of radio. Wegmans gets it, and has for 101 years over four generations of family ownership.
Do you?
Adam R Jacobson’s first visit to Wegmans was made on July 7, 2017 in Corning, N.Y. Haven’t been to a Wegmans? Try visiting a Gelsons in Los Angeles or a Harris Teeter store in the mid-Atlantic region. It is his belief that a successful grocery store can yield many learning lessons for radio station management and sales professionals.
