by Scott Howard | Nov 20, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo Sales Tips, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
The Holi-daze are upon on and this is a weird and wonderful time of year. I’ve created a few items that you as a business person or marketing person, or what ever kind of person you are, you can take a look at and use to help you navigate the last few weeks of this year.
If this is make it or break it time for your retail business, it’s time to suck it up. Just because you are having to work long hours and cover for the employees that are sick or you just are short handed because all the good people have jobs elsewhere due, remember your customers.
The customers who actually drove to your store really want to buy something that you sell. Otherwise, we would have ordered it online. Just the other day, my wife was working on a project and after making a couple trips to the store, she asked me to order a tool online. It took me less than 10 minutes on a Saturday afternoon and it arrived at our house Monday. While that was convenient for my family, we are also a shop local family. Of the $200 we spent on this project, $185 went to a local store and $15 went to Amazon.
That’s because we are consciously looking to support our friends and neighbors. Locally owned coffee shops and restaurants get most of my food and beverage money every month.
The point is, the people who come to your store, have a choice to buy from you or someone else. Super-serve them and keep them coming back. Create a positive shopping experience for them and they will come back. Make it a bad experience, and you may have lost them forever.
Advertising is the part of marketing that functions as the invitation to your company. But advertising can’t fix problems that go on inside your company.
Last week I was meeting with someone who wanted to hire me to train his staff on how to upsell his customers in a manner that is not annoying, but instead is genuine.
Speaking of advertising, you really need to invite people to your store right now. People are spending for themselves and for others. They are overspending, maxing out credit cards this time of year. While I don’t believe that is a good thing to do, I’m not their mom and they are grown ups right?
Advertising this time of year might be challenging if you haven’t planned ahead.
Using television ads means you need to get a fresh ad produced and that takes time and money. Also the television viewing is different this time of year due to the holiday specials on TV and combined with the changes in TV viewing habits, I recommend you stay away from TV unless you already have it planned out.
Print ads might be available in the daily newspaper, but with the dwindling number of readers, just say no.
Social Media including Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest might work, but you better have a professional managing it, or else you can waste time and money.
I offer some online advertising options through the Federated Digital Solutions division of my company, but again, it’s kind of late to plan for this Holi-daze season. If you want to talk about it, let’s plan a campaign for the new year.
My suggestion is using radio advertising to capture customers right now for the Holi-daze season.
Within a couple of days, I can get your message in front of thousands of people right here in our city who are shopping. WOWO radio continues to be one of the most listened to radio stations in Fort Wayne and it’s a hot time right now. Our annual Penny Pitch drive is underway with money being raised for two local non-profits. Weekly events that you and your business can be associated with provide a feel-good connection.
I also can create room for advertising for a special event. Earlier this month, I put together a radio advertising campaign for an event that was less than a week away. I wrote the ads, we produced the campaign and in the 5 days leading up and including the sale days, over 50 ad invitations were heard by over 75,000 WOWO listeners.
If this is crunch time for you, let’s talk now.
Or if this is a slow time of the year for you because you are not part of the retail Holi-daze season, this is an excellent time to plan for the new year. I can make time to help you with your planning, reach out and we’ll get started.
By the way, I have a couple of ideas for retailers that you can do right now for this Holi-daze season:
- This first one was inspired by Amazon. I use Amazon to buy gifts for my relatives that are hundreds of miles away. I often spend a little extra to have Amazon gift wrap those presents. What if you offered to gift wrap purchases as an upsell to people who are in your store? Make it easy and just have a stock of gift bags and tissue paper, and charge them your cost plus an extra buck or two. You can even partner up with a local charity and give the proceeds to them.
- This other idea also was inspired by something Amazon does not do. Sometimes I buy a gift ahead of time and I don’t want it to arrive before hand. What if you offered a Santa’s Closet for people who want to buy presents now, but wait a few days or weeks to take them home?
- My last idea is something you need to start and continue forever. Collect email addresses and text numbers and offer a program to customers who sign up to be notified of special events. Most major retailers do this and you should too.
by Scott Howard | Oct 1, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo Sales Tips, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
It’s still September as my fingers tap out these words. They are words of Irony and a couple of Marketing lessons for you and me. First, I’ll share with you the full meaning of the title of this article and podcast, followed by a couple of examples and together we can be better with our advertising and marketing.
George Berkeley was an Irish philosopher who lived 300 years ago who is credited with asking the question,
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
The answer we know is yes, but when you apply this to the business world, and we might say no.
If you open your business but don’t tell anyone, do you really have a business?
If your business depends on having paying customers, but you do nothing to invite people to become your paying customers, how long will you have a business?
That’s the reason for my Tree Falling In The Woods title to this piece.
I have been consulting with several businesses that need to hire employees. Business is good, but the unemployment numbers are making it tough to expand. Seems like all the good employees are already working.
However, I know that good employees will change jobs and companies if there is enough of a reason to switch. It happens a lot. But here’s the problem that I keep seeing over and over again. The companies that have openings are not letting people know about the openings. Or they are doing a half-assed effort to let people know. The advice I give them is to create a page on their website that lists openings first, then we can send out invitations to people inviting them to check it out.
Unless you do both of those things, you will fail.
Using the tree analogy…
First you have to have a tree, which in this case is a place online that lists job openings you want to fill.
Then you need to invite people to see the tree and make some noise about it, sort of like the sound of the tree falling.
Now here’s a couple of examples I have observed and I’m going to call out some of my friends.
First, my friend Kevin Mullett. Kevin has been organizing and running a monthly event in Fort Wayne for several years now, called the Social and Marketing Breakfast – Fort Wayne. This event has been going on 11 months out of 12 for quite awhile. It’s almost always the last Tuesday morning of the month from 7:30 until 9am and is held at the same place 10 months each year.
The September event is planned for two days from right now. Remember I am writing this a couple of weeks before you are seeing it or hearing it on the podcast.
As of noon on Sunday not one invitation has been sent. Kevin uses Eventbrite and shares it online with Twitter and Facebook.
The topic for the September breakfast is Marketing Mistakes. Kevin invited me to sit on the panel to field questions and I said yes. Unfortunately, this event has multiple marketing mistakes itself.
The September event is number 81, so Kevin has been hosting these for over 7 years. I used to be a regular, but not so much in the past couple of years. Why? Because I didn’t get the invitation in time.
I’ll do a follow up story on this event and believe me, I love Kevin like a brother, or else I would not call him out on this.
Here’s the lesson to learn for all of us if you have an event or series of events that you want people to attend: Invite. Invite again. Invite as many was as possible. Send reminders. Don’t stop.
Next on my list of real life examples is a restaurant in downtown Fort Wayne. It was the darling of their many patrons for years. The place was called Calhoun Street Soup, Salads and Spirits. The owner Donna and her team created something special out of nothing. It even was nicknamed CS3 and had a back room for special events called the Tiger Room. I’ve been there countless times, it was the place my wife and I would visit about 3 times a month on Saturday nights for dinner, it was that good.
However this summer, Donna lost her lease. The place shut down. End of Story? Not really.
Donna had been working on another place, a tea room with a different kind of vibe to it, right across the street from CS3. Some of the staff joined her at the new place, some stayed behind because the old CS3 was going to be transformed into a new joint.
I visited the new place a few times. They are open for business with a limited menu as they make some upgrades but they will have their grand opening as Welch’s Brew House in October, I’ve been told.
Right now, the place is dead. No outside signage except one small sign on the sidewalk.
There was public outcry when the old CS3 was closing in August. That would have been the prime time to let people know that a new name and menu was coming to let all of those regulars and semi-regulars know that all was not lost.
One of our favorite waitstaff is still there, that’s how I know some of this insider information, but the general public is generally clueless.
I feel sorry for the crew that is working at Welch’s right now. With maybe 10% of the customers they had under the old name and ownership, it’s got to be hard to make a living.
So again, another lesson about invitations. If you don’t invite people to your business, they won’t come. Welch’s missed some excellent opportunities to set the stage for their grand opening and in the meantime, all those old CS3 regulars, about 90% of them have changed their dining and drinking habits by finding a different place to eat and drink. Invite. Invite again. Invite as many was as possible. Send reminders. Don’t stop.
And the last lesson for today applies to me and the people who work directly in either sales, advertising or marketing.
It’s the same lesson: Invite. Invite again. Invite as many was as possible. Send reminders. Don’t stop. If you are like me and looking to connect with potential customers, you have to Invite. Invite again. Invite as many was as possible. Send reminders. Don’t stop.
As a member of the advertising sales team at WOWO radio, I have a whole toolbag of goodies we can use to help you on the radio and online. Let this be your invitation to contact me.
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