by Scott Howard | May 9, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
This week, we are going to talk about a subject that goes beyond media and marketing, it’s about being Authentic and Appropriate.
The backstory on this subject is that being Authentic and Appropriate is how I strive to live my life. However I was recently talking to a new friend who works in the radio and podcasting industry and he mentioned those words and I felt a new podcast and blog post article was in order.
I’m in my 50’s and I recall half a lifetime ago (in my mid 20’s) working in Detroit. I went from being a t-shirt and jeans wearing radio disc jockey to wearing a sports coat and tie everyday because I was switching over to the advertising side of radio and would be meeting with business owners every week.
Two versions of the early Scott Howard aka ScLoHo
With help from my family, I spiffed up my wardrobe and became an equal to the business people I would meet with. At least that was the impression I was trying to convey. I probably carried it off pretty well, or is it pretty good? See, I really don’t care which is grammatically appropriate, that’s my authentic self talking.
But back to the subject of being Authentic and Appropriate. We want to trust people and trust the businesses run by people. Being Authentic is key. However, you need to temper your authenticity with being appropriate. In my personal example, if I decided I never wanted to wear a tie and sports coat when I took the job in Detroit, because I wanted to be the authentic Scott Howard radio guy who only wore jeans, I wouldn’t have lasted. Instead, I decided to grow my wardrobe and who I was. I didn’t toss all my jeans and t-shirts, I just wore them in my casual settings.
Now let’s see how this can apply to your business. What are some characteristics of you and your business that are important and needed to inspire trust and confidence?
Two examples come to mind of people I’ve met with recently. There’s the pharmacist that wears a white lab coat with his name on it. In his off hours, he can be seen in shorts, and barefoot wearing a t-shirt. If he dressed like that during business hours, he would lose the trust and confidence of his customers in many cases.
The other example is my favorite heating and cooling company. All of their techs wear clothing with brand logos and their trucks are also branded so when they pull up in your driveway, you know who it is. Imagine someone pulling up in a rusted out van wearing tattered jeans and an old sweatshirt coming over to check out the furnace. My wife wouldn’t open the door to someone like that. Not that she is a snob, she wants to feel secure that the person is trustworthy and appearances count.
You can apply this authentic and appropriate principle to all you do and to all your employees too. Be yourself, let others get to know you, but don’t share questionable stuff unless you are prepared to face the consequences.
And that brings me back to the media and marketing of your business. In all of your ads, skip the hype and keep the fine print to a minimum. Yes, you may need to have some disclaimers for legal purposes, but please don’t be a shyster. We as consumers want to spend money with businesses that we believe are honest and trustworthy.
I started out telling you that what prompted me to write this piece was a conversation with a new friend. His name is Matt Cundill and for a couple of years he has been hosting a radio insider podcast from his home in Canada. Matt is an extremely talented voice talent and his podcast is targeted to people in the programming side of radio which is his background. Here’s a link to the podcast that I was on, or just search for the Sound Off Podcast, Matt posted his interview with me on May 1st, 2018.
Matt summed up our conversation with these words,
The more I spoke to Scott about what makes a successful sales person, the more I realized that it has more in common with being on the air. Be authentic, tell the truth, work with the long term in mind…
Good words of wisdom for all of us.
by Scott Howard | Feb 21, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
It’s important to note the difference between real long term changes and short term flukes. Just like it is important to know the difference between a new trend and something that is historically predictable.
Since I write about advertising, media and marketing, I’ll limit this article to those subjects.
A couple of stories I read this month inspired this. One was claiming that the new trend in 2018 would be to tell the truth. This is not a trend.
Telling the truth is what often makes the difference between a short term fluke and long term success.
The Human Relationship Principles that I often talk about that we need to apply to our marketing and advertising starts with Truth Telling. Telling the truth builds trust. And as humans, we want to trust the people we are dealing with and the products and services we spend money on, are of value, at least as much value as we are spending our money on.
Next week, I’m going to share a recent experience I had buying a new car and how trust and value played a critical part in my purchase.
But back to today’s topic, another story I read showed survey results of peoples reactions to advertising in general. The survey was conducted last year with several thousand people from 45 countries across the world. This bothers me a bit because the results can be skewed when you include so many various conditions. Some countries allow more advertising than others and perhaps some have had increases due to changes in regulations. Here in the United States alone, advertising regulations are different from state to state.
So as I share these numbers, remember that there are too many variables to make this a trend.
4 out of 5 people surveyed say Ads Are Appearing In More Places compared to 3 years ago.
This next stat is probably closer to the truth.
3 out of 4 people said I See More Advertising Now compared to 3 years ago
Also a majority of those surveyed said that Ads Are More Intrusive compared to 3 years ago.
Here’s what is most likely going on:
As digital technology evolves and we in the digital marketing world can now deliver ads targeted to the people we want to see those ads, those folks are noticing. The ads were always there but they weren’t as relevant as they are now. Our brains tuned them out. At least that’s one theory of mine.
Besides digital ads stalking us, we also become much more aware of certain things around us when our lives change. Years ago, when I bought a Mercedes, I started noticing other Mercedes on the road. Same thing when I bought my last car from Honda. We become more aware of things that were there all the time, but we didn’t notice.
Two more items about advertising from the survey.
Advertising Now Fits Together Better Across Different Formats and Ads Tell Better Stories Now compared to 3 years ago.
Not everyone agreed with that last one however, because 36% felt that Ads Are Now More Confusing.
The information here is not surprising. It is mostly likely a combination of changes that I mentioned and also our own perceptions. And as we try and remember what advertising was like 3 years ago, our own view and memory is skewed and faulty.
Which brings me full circle back to my other point. Tell The Truth in all your advertising and marketing. That is not a trend, it’s the only way you should be operating.
by Scott Howard | Jan 25, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
If I asked you to Name Your Favorites in a number of categories, depending on the category, you could easily rattle off your top two or three, right?
Here’s an example:
Name your favorite food.
I’ll wait a second.
Depending on where in the world you live, and how specific you want to get, you were able to name at least three things you like to eat.
My top three list would include:
- Seafood (including shrimp, crab and scallops)
- Chicken
- Salad
Your list is probably completely different, but that’s okay. There are thousands of options. And yet each of us have narrowed our personal choices down to a handful or two.
Radio and Television is like this too. So is the internet but I’ll save the way this works on the web for another day.
I still have cable TV and with that there are over 100 choices. But personally, I stick to about 5 or 6 channels for most of my viewing. They are my favorites. Can you Name Your Favorites?
A dozen years ago, I was talking to a local auto repair shop owner about advertising. He hemmed and hawed and finally said there are too many radio stations out there for people and that was his reason for not picking mine.
I did a search for Auto Repair in my area and found there were nearly 10 times as many auto repair shops as there were radio stations and he conceded that he was wrong.
But no matter how many choices there are, we have our favorites in nearly any category.
Nielsen, the company that specializes in radio and television listening and viewing habits around the country recently released a study that shows how this works with radio listenership.
Radio listeners are either extremely loyal or extremely selective, depending on one’s perspective. Whichever it is, the data remains the same: listeners devote the majority of their tune-in time to their favorite station, according to a recent Nielsen study.
In fact, AM/FM radio listeners spend fully 58% of their time with their preferred station. All told, their three favorite stations combine for an impressive 86% of all their listening time.
Due to my working in the industry, I have access to specifics for Fort Wayne radio listener habits and here’s what I discovered:
News and Talk Stations have the most loyal audience according to the amount of time spent listening. WOWO radio and WBOI are the two stations considered news/talk. WOWO is the commercial station I work for and WBOI is the National Public Radio station in town. WOWO’s audience size (the number of people listening) is huge, more than double the public radio station, and the time spent listening to the shows on WOWO each week is also greater than WBOI according the the Eastlan Fall 2017 rating data.
What’s the difference between being someone’s favorite and their second or third favorite radio station?
- Nearly 60% of a persons radio listening is to their favorite station.
- Less than 20% of the time, a person listens to their second favorite station.
- They only spend about 10% of their radio listening time tuned into their personal 3rd favorite station.
A couple of takeaways for you to remember:
- Everyone can name their favorites in many life categories
- Radio stations have a core audience of listeners that are loyal to their favorite stations and you should keep that in mind when deciding where to advertise
And a bonus tip for you:
Some business categories have not been developed with clear leaders or favorites. There are multiple factors for this but mostly it has to do with creating a memorable brand and marketing it to buyers and influencers. Advertising can help establish your business as a favorite and if you want to know more, contact me.
by Scott Howard | Jan 18, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
The Google Advertising Myth continues to live.
Last month, a friend of mine that I see every Wednesday morning at a Business Network International breakfast meeting was telling me and another friend that the only advertising that worked for him in 2017 was Google.
His perception that Google works is based on a false premise. I wrote about it last year, in Your Digital Marketing is B… And then I read another expert Roy Williams who also talked about this in his weekly Monday Morning Memo newsletter.
Here’s what Roy says:
“The thing that makes me look at the ground, shake my head and sigh is the dangerous myth of the Zero Moment of Truth. But then again, Google is the new Yellow Pages, so it shouldn’t surprise us that they’ve repackaged and renamed the old Yellow Pages scare tactic.
The fundamental premise of the Zero Moment of Truth is that the customer is going to go online when they’re ready to purchase what you sell.
I have no argument with that.
But the dangerous, underlying assumption is that all contenders are equal during the Zero Moment of Truth. But that simply isn’t true.
The company most likely to get the click, the call, and the sale is the company the customer has heard of and has good feelings about.
The tortoise patiently wins the hearts of the people long before the race is begun. He says he’s ‘bonding with tomorrow’s customers’ .
‘Stupid tortoise,’ says the rabbit, ‘he still believes in branding.’
‘Knowledge is power’ is another dangerous myth.
It doesn’t matter what you know.
What matters is what you do with what you know.
So what are you going to do?”
-Roy Williams, Monday Morning Memo, December 18, 2017
I’m going to dig deeper into this subject soon with examples of short term versus long term which will include exceptions, to give you some guidelines and I’ll go back to examples from my B.N. I. group.
I also had a great discussion with another friend regarding human relationship based marketing that should be used as the foundation of what you do, no matter what tactic you employ.
In the meantime, let me remind you that making advertising decisions for your business are usually best left to the experts and professionals. That is what I do. The home page of my website specifically says I do Media & Marketing Coaching & Consulting. You can be the expert at your specialty and I’ll stick to mine. But when I need your expertise, I’ll call you and you can contact me when you need my kind of help.
by Scott Howard | Jan 10, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Word of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth. That’s a pretty accurate description of the non-traditional advertising options I use with WOWO radio that go beyond what any other advertising medium offers.
Before I go into the details, I’m going to share a couple of highlights from the last Christmas holiday shopping season. A survey of 1000 Americans reported by Mediapost, looks at the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHY consumers bought.
Despite the perception that “everyone is buying everything online”, just 44% of those survied bought that way and the rest went to traditional stores. In reality, most people do a combination. That tidbit of information is WHERE we bought.
The other insight I will share with you is the WHO, as in WHO influenced them to buy what they bought.
Despite all the sales and discounts that are in our face like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and all the other end of year offers, sales and discounts was not number one for deciding what or where to buy.
What about Facebook advertising or TV ads? Each of those barely scored 20%. Here’s what that tells me: Despite the big push the past several years for businesses to advertise online including social media, the power isn’t much different than traditional media advertising.
So what was the number one influencer for what to buy and where to buy?
Personal Recommendations continues to top the list. This is not new. Personal recommendations will always carry the most weight what we are going to spend money. Another term for Personal Recommendations is Word Of Mouth although not exactly the same all the time, those terms are often interchangeable.
Word Of Mouth refers to a recommendation from someone you trust. If there was a way to incorporate Word Of Mouth into a real advertising ad campaign… That could be gold!
That’s the non-traditional advertising options I have with WOWO radio. Word Of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth.
First, an important distinction that WOWO radio has over the other radio stations in Fort Wayne is the reason people listen. WOWO is unique as a News Talk formated radio station, compared to nearly all the other stations in Fort Wayne that play music.
WOWO has a solid reputation in Fort Wayne with a history of being on the air over 90 years including news and talk for the past couple of decades. WOWO itself has credibility that is passed on to the advertisers.
When we listen to a radio station for music, nearly anything besides music is a tune-out. We may not change stations, but we can easily mentally tune out as we wait for the music to return.
When we listen to a news and talk radio station, we are actively listening to what the news and talk hosts are saying. The news and talk show hosts on WOWO have their own trust and credibility factor that is similar to a personal relationship with a friend.
When Charly, Pat, Rick, or any of our news hosts mention an advertiser, their credibility and trust along with WOWO radio’s credibility and trust factor goes beyond what a recorded commercial does as far as influence. This is Word Of Mouth (and with the size of the audience of WOWO) Word Of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth.
This is just an introduction into the unique, non-traditional advertising options I use with WOWO radio that go beyond what any other advertising medium offers. I also have success stories I can share with you that demonstrate how powerful this can work. Want to know more? Contact me.
by Scott Howard | Dec 26, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
TV Audiences Are Shrinking was the title of a story I wrote a decade ago, and unfortunately, the major television broadcast networks are still getting clobbered.
There was hope for some Television folks that in the age of cord cutting, as people dropped their cable TV subscription and started watching channels over the air, like “the good old days” that ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX would see an increase in viewership.
But not so fast…
Many of the cord cutters are not watching the traditional TV networks, some don’t even have a TV like my son and his wife. Netflix and Hulu have been making gains. meanwhile according to a story from Mediapost last week:
…in prime time, broadcast networks were down 16% (to 8.3 million); and cable networks, lost 11% (to 15.5 million).
To my business owner and marketing manager friends who are wondering why your television ad campaigns have been struggling… this could be a factor.
I have a few suggestions, if you want to talk…
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
TuneIn
Deezer
CastBox