What The Heck Is A Wall Drug?

Last issue, I described to you how my wife and I found the courage last July to embark on a 4,975 mile cross-country trip in the family truckster with the six rugrats.  First we wound our way from Texas through New Mexico , Colorado , Utah , and into Idaho . Along the way I learned first-hand that you really can get smarter by staying in a Holiday Inn Express. After a prolonged visit with the in-laws in Idaho , we started back on the "vacation" part of our vacation, which called for stops in, among other places, Yellowstone Park and Mount Rushmore.

Yellowstone Park provided a few interesting marketing lessons; mainly, what great word-of-mouth advertising can do for you. Yellowstone logs about 3 million visitors a year, and I can't recall ever seeing a commercial for the place. I am still trying to figure out why we spent 15 minutes photographing a lone buffalo that was sitting 20 yards off the road--considering the fact that an entire herd of buffalo lives right off the highway less than three miles  from our home that we've never even stopped to look at, let alone take 54 pictures of.

Mt. Rushmore was dramatic, even though the president heads looked a lot smaller in real life than what I expected they would after seeing them on t-shirts, postcards, and television. Mt. Rushmore did have a great marketing joint venture going while we were there--the contemporary Native American music group AIRO was performing their new CD Tatanka live outside the gift shop. The music was excellent and I bought the CD. Highly recommended - if you're into that kind of thing.

After a day of admiring the famous granite presidential mugs, we loaded up and headed out. About 50 miles east of Rapid City on Interstate 90 you will find a pinprick on the map called Wall, South Dakota. It sits on the edge of the Dakota Badlands, and under normal conditions, it would be one of those no-stoplight towns you'd never exit for in a million years unless nature was calling in the fiercest of ways and you didn't have an empty pop bottle handy. But the conditions surrounding Wall are NOT normal... thanks to Ted Husted.

Ted is the third generation owner of Wall Drug, the mother-lode of all weary tourist oases. While most rest stops are nothing more than gas stations with 7-11's attached to them, Wall Drug is a block-sized bonanza of refreshment, shopping, and entertainment opportunities, including carnival games, museums, a shopping mall, restrooms, restaurants, an arcade, a gas station, a playground complete with an 80-foot dinosaur, and more. And there it sits; basically, in the proverbial "middle of nowhere."

Ted's grandfather, also named Ted, moved to Wall in 1931 with his wife Dorothy and bought the local drug store. Relatives called them crazy. At the time, the entire town only had 329 residents, and the depression had sapped them of their money and their will. The Husted's gave themselves a five year deadline to make the store work, and if not, they vowed to move back to Sioux Falls and get "normal" jobs. When five years was up, progress was minimal, and they nearly abandoned the implausible dream.

One hot Sunday in July, though, a great change swept us up. It started quietly, in the deadening heat of an early afternoon, when Dorothy said to me, "You don't need me here, Ted. I'm going to put Billy and the baby down for a nap and maybe take one myself."

I minded the empty store. I swatted flies with a rolled-up newspaper. I stood in the door, and no matter where I looked, there was no shade, because the sun was so high and fierce.

An hour later Dorothy came back.

"Too hot to sleep?" I asked.

"No, it wasn't the heat that kept me awake," Dorothy said. "It was all the cars going by on Route 16A. The jalopies just about shook the house to pieces."

"That's too bad," I said.

"No, because you know what, Ted? I think I finally saw how we can get all those travelers to come to our store."

"And how's that?" I asked.

"Well, now what is it that those travelers really want after driving across that hot prairie? They're thirsty. They want water. Ice cold water! Now we've got plenty of ice and water. Why don't we put up signs on the highway telling people to come here for free ice water? Listen, I even made up a few lines for the sign:

"Get a soda . . . Get a root beer . . . turn next corner . . . Just as near . . . To Highway 16 & 14. . . Free Ice Water. . . Wall Drug."

It wasn't Wordsworth, but I was willing to give it a try. During the next few days a high school boy and I put together some signs. We modeled them after the old Burma Shave highway signs. Each phrase of Dorothy's little poem went on a 12 by 36 inch board. We'd space the boards out so the people could read them as they drove.

The next weekend the boy and I went out to the highway and put up our signs for free ice water. I must admit that I felt somewhat silly doing it, but by the time I got back to the store, people had already begun showing up for their ice water. Dorothy was running all around to keep up. I pitched in alongside her.

"Five glasses of ice water, please," a father called out.

"May I have a glass for Grandma?" a boy asked. "She's in the car."

We ran through our supply of cracked ice. I began chiseling more off the block.

"Say, good sir," one traveler said in a Scottish brogue, "We're going all the way to Yellowstone Park . Would you mind filling this jug with your water?"

"Hey this free ice water is a great idea," said a salesman, sidling up onto a stool. "How about selling me an ice cream cone?"

For hours we poured gallons of ice water, made ice cream cones and gave highway directions. When the travelers started on their way again, refreshed and ready for new adventures, they gave us hearty thanks.

When the day was done, Dorothy and I were pooped. We sat in front of the store, watching the sun set, feeling a cool breeze come in off the prairie. In the summer twilight, Wall looked radiant. It looked like a good place to call home.

"Well, Ted," Dorothy said to me, "I guess the ice water signs worked."

Yes indeed--the ice water signs did work. They worked so well, in fact, that the Husteds added more signs. And more. And more still.

Fast forward to July, 2005: Harshaw family vacation, pulling out of the Best Western in Rapid City (crummy showerheads) and heading east on I-90. You would not believe the Wall Drug billboards. Free Coffee and Donuts for Newlyweds--Wall Drug. 6 Foot Rabbit--Wall Drug. Wood Carvings--Wall Drug. 5 Cent Coffee--Wall Drug. Traveler's Chapel--Wall Drug. Shootin' Gallery--Wall Drug. Silver Dollar Display--Wall Drug. Real Americana --Wall Drug. New T-Rex--Wall Drug. I think you get the idea.

Over the 50 mile stretch between Rapid City and Wall, I conservatively estimate that we passed a staggering 80 (yes, eighty--think about that before proceeding--FREAKING EIGHTY) billboards promoting Wall Drug. Easily one every 20 to 40 seconds. Some were big. Some were small. Some were old and worn. Some were freshly painted and new. Most sat right on the freeway. Some were off in the distance. Sometimes you could see two or three at a time. And all of them were provocative--even for non-marketing junkies.

As I read through the Wall Drug website, I found a statistic that is now officially the most shocking marketing statistic I have ever encountered. Turns out, all those crazy billboards really work--to the tune of 70%. That is, 70 percent of all cars that pass Wall, SD on Interstate 90 STOP. Seven out of every ten people who drive by can't resist the siren's song and convince themselves that, Starbucks be damned, they've got to have a cup of five cent coffee... or at least check out the extensive collection of wood carvings. That seventy percent translates into as many as 20,000 visitors a day in the summer--nearly as many as the neighboring Rocky Noggins themselves.

Think about a typical new home builder. They spend a couple million bucks to buy and develop a piece of land and another half a million dollars to build and furnish a beautiful model home on it. Then they pay a sales person to sit there all weekend and wait for you to walk in after seeing the advertising they spent a small fortune to produce and place. By the time you finally wander in, poke around, and get harassed by the salesman, they're up to roughly $31 billion dollars in cost incurred to get you to the point where you'll fill out one of those little cards with your contact information.

So then what do they do? In most cases, if they do anything at all (and most don't), they slam the vault doors shut and mail you a cheap little hand-written thank you card that asks you to please buy a home from them... that arrives about two weeks after you visited the model. I guess they figure if you didn't buy on the spot when you set foot in their model, that you either a) must not want to buy a home from them, or b) will be instantly swayed to make a quarter-million plus decision based solely on their riveting hand-written message. Talk about rocky noggins.

Let's spend a little time in the Holiday Inn Express shower and realize a few important points. First of all, most people who visit a model home are there because they're looking to buy a new home; they're not just looking for their health. Second of all, because of the magnitude of the purchase and the sheer number of available choices, most people are probably going to look at more than one model home--this ain't like buying a tube of anti-fungal ointment at Walgreen's--people are going to look around and compare their options. Third, by the time the builder's measly little platitude filled, hyperbole-laden Hallmark-wannabe thank you card arrives two weeks after the fact, the memory of their model home has probably been buried deeper than King Tut's tomb the prospect's mental archives.

All that considered, how 'bout we put Wall Drug to work for this home builder. What if the sales person took that ($31 billion plus expenses incurred to generate) contact information card that you filled out and input the data into a computer, and they did it (gasp!) on the very same day you filled it out. Now imagine this scenario unfolding: Once the data is input, a thank you email is instantaneously launched and waiting for you by the time you arrived home from a day of house hunting. The email goes on to acknowledge the effort put into finding a home, and points out some of the advantages of buying a home from this particular builder. The same day, a 6 x 11 inch full color postcard is mailed that contains a powerfully stated, well articulated message that points at some of the advantages of buying their home. Since it's going through the mail, it arrives one to three days after your visit.

Okay, so now what? We'll, let's Wall drug'em. How about 1 postcard every 2 days for the next 3 weeks? There are six mail days per week, so that's a total of 9 additional postcards in 21 days. After that, maybe we can tail it back to 1 postcard every 3 days for an additional 2 weeks. That's 4 more--and a total of 14 postcards in 5 weeks. Meanwhile, we could send an email every 5 days during that same span--that's 8 total emails (including the initial 'thank you' one.). So here's what we have: during the 5 week span of time starting the day the prospect walks in the model home, we get 22 "touches."

Question: Approximately how many touches do you think they're getting from other home builders whose models they've visited? My guess: about 0.1. Think this increases the likelihood of converting a prospect into a sale? Remember the most shocking marketing statistic I've ever heard? SEVENTY PERCENT!!!!

If it sounds too difficult to manage that kind of mailing program, here's the good news. There's software that can manage everything for you--including sending the right postcards to the right prospects on the right days. It can digitally print the postcards you need when you need them. And as for expense--emails are free, of course, and postcards cost about 75 cents each to print and mail. 75 cents times 14 postcards is a whopping $10.50. How much do you think it cost to get that prospect in the door in the first place? Would you be willing to spend an extra $10.50 over 5 weeks if it could raise your conversion ratio by 10%... 20%... 50%.... up to 100%?

Quick Hits: Here are few more ideas how to use the Wall Drug approach. Note: test EVERYTHING before rolling it out on a large-term scale.

• Instead of placing one big ad in a newspaper or magazine, how about placing several smaller ads that are scattered throughout the publication?
• Try running 4 or 5 radio or television spots per hour on the same show.
• For direct mail, cut the number of prospects you send to but increase the number of pieces you send. Most people just send the mailer once. Try 2 times, 5 times, 10 times.
• And of course, you could buy up all the billboards and signs on a given stretch of road to increase impact.

So... are YOU ready to "Wall Drug'em!?"

Next article...