by Scott Howard | Jul 11, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
As a member of the WOWO radio advertising sales team, I have some insider information to share with you.
As a member of the Fort Wayne, Indiana community for the past 20 years, I have some insight to share with you.
As a marketing professional who has worked for other media companies, including those that competed with WOWO, I have some perspective to share with you.
As a Baby Boomer who grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where WOWO radio is located, I also have some history to share with you.
At the conclusion of this article, you will have a greater understanding of WOWO, Fort Wayne, and if we should talk about your business using WOWO to invite people to become your customers.
Twice a year, Fort Wayne radio stations receive the results of an independent ratings survey that tells us who listens and when they listen. Not in any scary, meta-data manner, but in demographic and geographic terms. June 29th, I received the results of the Spring 2018 rating survey.
I was not surprised by the data. I look for a couple of things such as the total number of listeners each week. When a business advertises with a radio station, there is a finite number of people that will hear their ads. Same is true with any advertising medium.
So I want to know how many total listeners WOWO has and once again, WOWO is listed as the radio station heard in Fort Wayne that has the largest number of listeners. Over 99,000 every week just in the 6 counties that include Allen County, where Fort Wayne is, and the 5 Indiana counties that are adjacent to Allen. That includes, Adams, Wells, Huntington, Whitley and Dekalb Counties in Indiana.
WOWO has listeners beyond those counties including the Indiana counties of Grant, Wabash, Kosciusko, Noble, Lagrange, Steuben, and several Ohio counties. The listeners in those counties are not included in the survey, but they are there. We know this because of the advertisers and listeners tell us.
The rating survey also tells me that 95% of WOWO’s radio listeners are grown-ups, age 25 and older.
Again WOWO leads the pack, we have nearly 30,000 more grown-ups listening every week compared to the next most popular station that has less than 70,000 listeners aged 25 and older.
Charly Butcher and the Fort Wayne Morning News Team have nearly 50,000 weekly grown-ups listening to WOWO.
So does Glenn Beck, whose 3 hour national talk show comes on at 9am.
Rush Limbaugh’s 3 hour national talk show has over 60,000 weekly listeners on WOWO between noon and 3pm and local WOWO Talk Show host Pat Miller has nearly 55,000 listeners every week between 3 and 6 in the afternoon.
There is no other radio station in Fort Wayne that has this massive number of listeners week after week, of grown-ups. Remember it’s the grown-ups that have the money, not the 13 year olds.
Why is WOWO so popular?
WOWO is a legacy radio station in Fort Wayne. When I was a kid, WOWO played music and the disc jockeys were allowed to be personalities. Bob Sievers, the legendary morning show host would tell me if school was delayed, but hundreds of farmers all across Indiana, Ohio and Michigan also listened to hear the farm reports.
In the evening, I listened to Ron Gregory when I was supposed to be doing my homework and enjoyed his wry sense of humor and puns.
But the WOWO of today is different. Now over 90 years on the air, mostly on 1190am, WOWO has been broadcasting a news and talk format for a couple of decades.
Politically, Northeast Indiana, or “WOWO-Land” as it is called to include the entire tri-state area leans conservative. With the line-up of conservative talk show hosts like our own Pat Miller along with national radio personalities, Glenn, Rush and Sean Hannity and Buck Sexton at night, WOWO has a strong format that attracts grown-up listeners.
We are not totally a conservative part of the country. Our mayor is serving his 3rd term as a member of the Democratic Party and his predecessor also from the Democratic Party served as mayor for two terms. The City and County Councils however lean Republican.
Our Fort Wayne Morning News with Charly Butcher, isn’t really a talk show, more of a news program with interview segments lasting 3 minutes or less, because it’s jam packed with 4 newscasts, 6 traffic and weather reports, 2 sports updates and 2 farm reports every hour! Interview segments with our Mayor and other city and county officials, state government leaders including the Governor and our Congressmen and Senators are featured live each week along with what ever else is timely and appropriate. And yes, just like when I was listening as a kid, WOWO still has school delays and closings in the morning when the weather is bad.
95% of WOWO listener tune in weekdays between 5 in the morning and 6 at night. I call in WOWO Primetime. 70% listen on the weekends.
There are other stations in Fort Wayne that are targeting the same age demographic as WOWO, but they have half as many or even a third as many weekly listeners.
There are also other stations that have a news or talk format, but again their total number of listeners is a tiny fraction of the weekly listeners that WOWO has according to the latest radio survey I’m looking at.
By the way, this dominance of WOWO is not new, it’s been consistent during the 15 plus years I have worked for WOWO and before when I worked for the other radio station companies in Fort Wayne.
All this information is good and great and wonderful, but how does WOWO perform for business that advertise with us?
I’m impressed and that’s not a bunch of hype. Because of all that I have already mentioned, there are certain characteristics and options that I have with WOWO that are not available anywhere else in Fort Wayne that have created phenomenal results for advertisers that partner with us. Nothing is 100%, but compared to other stations I have worked for since 1986, I don’t have to cross my fingers and hope for the best when I have a true advertising partner who takes my guidance, coaching and follows that plan we create together.
Not every business that I talk to however qualifies to work with me. Want to know if you qualify? Hit me up, and let’s connect.
by Scott Howard | Jun 14, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
I offer both radio advertising services with WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana and digital marketing services via our Federated Digital Solutions division. But today, I’m going to break the hearts of my digital marketing friends with the declaration that: Radio Advertising is the Real SEO!
Every week I have someone tell me that they want to increase their Google rank, which means that they want to be at the top of the Search Engine Results Page when someone Googles their business category.
While that may be a worthy goal, I’m here to tell you, it’s kind of a stupid goal. I’ve been around the advertising world to remember when the printed yellow pages were still being used by consumers.
The Yellow Pages was what our parents and grandparents would use to find a phone number for a business before the internet made it obsolete. This annual publication would list businesses that bought ads in each category and in alphabetical order.
For example let’s say you want to order a pizza.
This is a real pizza from Acme’s FB page
If you don’t have the phone number memorized, ah yes, we used to memorize phone numbers, now I don’t even know my kids phone numbers. Anyway, if you wanted a pizza you got out the phone book and if you were not sure which pizza place to call, you’d look in the Yellow Pages under the category Pizza. That’s where all the pizza joints would be listed in alphabetical order, at least the ones that bought an ad in the phone book.
It was better to be named Acme Pizza than Zoli’s Pizza because Acme was in the front of the listings. Sort of like looking up Pizza on Google, Acme would automatically rank number one on page one . That is until someone opened up Ace Pizza. Because alphabetically Ace Pizza comes before Acme Pizza.
I’ve had pizza from the Acme
That’s how our parents would find the number or address to all kinds of places, the phone book, because they didn’t have the internet.
But you know what was even better than being found in the Yellow Pages with all the other Pizza shops?
Having your customers remember your pizza place so they could look in the white pages instead of the yellow pages. The white pages of the phone book listed everyone in alphabetical order instead of by business category. If my parents wanted a pizza from Zoli’s pizzeria, all they had to do was open the white pages of the phone book, flip to the Z’s and find Zoli’s.
How did businesses like Zoli’s become well known so that people would look for the number for Zoli’s Pizza and not any other pizza place? They developed Top Of Mind Awareness. Their customers knew that Zoli’s was where they wanted to order their pizza from and they did.
This Top Of Mind Awareness is a Human Relationship Principle that I talked about recently. We develop preferences and those preferences are on our short list of consideration. So when someone says, “let’s get a pizza!” we don’t have to wonder, “who can sell me a pizza? and start searching the yellow pages, or to move this scenario up to today, we don’t Google “Pizza”, we Google “Zoli’s”.
Top Of Mind Awareness can help set a business apart when we look online in other ways too.
Because sometimes we do Google “Pizza” and Google gives us about 10 results on the first page of results. Let’s say Zoli’s is on that first page, but they are number 7 and the first 6 listings are for places we either don’t like, have never had, or never heard of before. Top Of Mind Awareness will motivate us to call skip past those first 6 pizza joints and call Zoli’s because just like in the old phone book days, we know we are going to like a Zoli’s Pizza.
A very old ad for Zoli’s
So back to that statement, Radio Advertising is the Real SEO? How does that work? Radio ads can create Top Of Mind Awareness. Even when we are not thinking about pizza, when the radio station plays an ad for Zoli’s Pizza, we hear it and it reinforces the idea in our head, hearts and stomachs that the next time I want pizza, it’s going to be a Zoli’s Pizza.
I’m going to use a real life example, hamburgers. McDonald’s is the most recognized hamburger brand around the world because they continually advertise to keep that Top Of Mind Awareness going. You can buy a better burger and spend more money than McDonald’s, heck you may never eat at McDonald’s but they certainly have Top Of Mind Awareness, right?
15 years ago when businesses were jumping on the “I gotta have a website for my business” bandwagon, I helped several companies be found online by promoting their website in their radio ads. We still do it. Because it works.
When a business owner tells me that he gets all his customers from Google, we dig a little deeper and discover if they actually had Top Of Mind Awareness when his customers went online or are they just one in a thousand in the search results.
I can help you become the preferred choice for your customers, want my help? Let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Mar 28, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
The President does his annual State of the Union Address, the Governor and Mayor of Indiana and Fort Wayne do their annual State of the State and City Addresses, so how about a look at The State Of Media Advertising?
As we wrap up the 1st quarter of 2018, several items are going on that you need to know about.
First off, the television industry is going thru a transformation similar to what the newspaper industry and phone book business went thru years ago.
The short story is they are suffering. And so they are making changes.
But first let me fill you in on the paper stuff I mentioned.
Phone books have shrunk because of a couple of technology changes. One was the rise of cell phone usage and the dropping of residential landlines. Next was the rise of the web combined with smartphones that now allow us to talk to our phones and have it dial the business we want to call.
Newspapers are an anorexic shell of what they used to be. And again the villain is the internet. It’s not really fair to call the internet a villain, because for us as consumers, the internet is our hero. However, both the phone book and newspapers are only possible if there are advertisers paying to be in those print publications. And they depend on readers reading them. That has dropped year after year.
In Fort Wayne, we had two daily papers that operated under a joint operating agreement for advertising but finally last year, the afternoon paper went to an online only version with the exception of getting a page or two included in the morning paper.
Earlier this month, while waiting for a meeting, I saw a couple of local newspapers in the reception area. It was the Thursday edition and I know they printed it at a loss. Less than a dozen ads in the entire paper except for the classified section. Some sections had zero paid ads.
My industry, the radio broadcasting businesses is well over 100 years old and has had to deal with technology changes. AM radio stations used to broadcast network programs all day and night. CBS and NBC radio networks operated the way that broadcast TV networks do now. As a matter of fact, some of the early TV shows in the 1950’s originated on radio. With the growth of television, and decline in network radio programming, radio stations became more local and they also discovered a new focus.
That local focus included music and records. When I was a kid in the 60’s and 70’s listening to the radio was how we listened to new music. Some stations had personalities that were local celebrities and that was what drew me into a career in radio.
I could continue this history trip down memory lane, but let’s jump ahead to 2018. The internet is no longer the bright and shiny new thing, it’s an intricate part of our lives. This is having an impact on the TV business as mentioned in some stories I read in Mediapost. For example:
TV Enters Permanent Ad Recession
Declines in national advertising revenue have occurred in 8 straight quarters. Starting in July 2016 thru this week, advertising revenue for broadcast TV has been down between 1 and 4%.
Why? Well we have more viewing choices and some are really taking off. Netflix and other web based screen options have been posting gains over the years and that has hurt broadcast TV.
Some broadcast networks are attempting to fight back by reducing the number of commercials they will air.
Fox’s Two-Minutes-Per-Hour Ad Plan: The TV Times They Are A-Changin’
Fox will attempt to lure viewers back to their network by decreasing the number of commercial minutes down to 2 per hour and those two minutes will be very expensive for advertisers to buy. This might be a good move, but they are focused on the wrong problem. The real problem is having shows that people want to watch.
NBC created a hit recently with This Is Us. ABC has The Bachelor and Dancing With The Stars. CBS continues with hits like NCIS. None of these shows cut their commercials to keep viewers.
These TV networks are doing more than just reducing commercial time. They are adapting to the technology. My wife and I now watch more prime time TV on our schedule, with the on-demand feature from Xfinity. People can binge watch on their laptops or smartphones. Will the broadcast TV networks survive? Only if they have advertising support or subscription support.
The digital revolution that TV is going thru is also one that newspapers are trying to use by adding paywalls to their online content. But those dollars will never replace the lost ad dollars they used to bring in when newsprint was in its heyday.
Radio is also at risk, but for the most part it is less dependent on national trends. iHeart radio, the owner of over 1200 radio stations in the country filed for bankruptcy protection, but their downfall is not really a radio issue, it was a series of financial decisions that led to them owing billions in loans.
My company, Federated Media which owns WOWO radio and close to a dozen stations in Indiana is a privately held company and we are doing well. We also have a digital division that was started years ago because our advertising partners wanted someone they could trust to help them with the digital marketing revolution.
Which brings me to another Mediapost article and question:
Has Marketing Gone Too Digital?
The reasons are numerous. Most of the problems are related to marketing people abandoning something that is working and jumping on the digital bandwagon without fully understanding it. And the digital world is constantly changing.
I keep an eye on this stuff for my own interest and also for the best interest of my advertising partners and even before the outrage over Facebook and privacy issues that are still being sorted out as I write this, I pulled some of my advertising partners Facebook Ads and moved their digital spending to a couple of other options that have been very successful. Contact me if you want to know more.
Here’s the big picture to keep in mind. The technology isn’t going to retreat. And just because something is new and shiny doesn’t mean you should be an early adopter and abandon what is working. But neither should you stubbornly hang on to the old ways and ignore the future.
Want help? Let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Feb 28, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo Sales Tips, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized
I bought a car this month and thought I’d share some lessons for you and your business in this essay I’m calling Selling a Salesperson.
While I am keenly aware of the process because of my profession, the general public is more aware of the tactics too than ever before. Here’s the list of 9 observations I wrote right after buying my car:
- Customers may be smarter or better informed than you.
- Over reliance on certain sales phrases can actually work against you.
- Ask the right questions and pay attention to the answers.
- Using your customers name is nice, except when you get it wrong.
- Upselling works with some people but you have to be straight with your customer.
- Customers can walk away if they don’t like the deal you are offering.
- Tracking your advertising is usually a guessing game at best.
- Honesty wins and builds trust.
- Follow through helps with referrals and additional sales.
As I share my story, see how it applies to you and your business and what lessons you can apply to make things better for all.
My wife, Kathy, was driving home from a friends house and noticed the temperature gauge on her 1999 Chevy Lumina was sneaking into the danger zone so she pulled over and let it cool down before heading all the way back to our place. She took it to our mechanic who popped open the hood, opened a few things and pronounced the verdict: blown head-gasket.
(Kathy found this car a few years ago as a steal. Only 30,000 miles and in decent shape. Since then she has racked up another 20,000 miles and we’ve had to replace a couple tires, but she loves this classic beast.)
When I heard about the situation, I knew we were not going to spend a thousand bucks or more on this no matter how much attachment my wife had to her baby. I followed the advice of a friend to try a special sealant and when that failed, I started shopping.
I started the process online, doing research and asking the auto experts in my family that I trust for recommendations. On Friday night, while I’m at a hockey game, they are sending me links to cars they found online in my price range that were recommended. Saturday I narrowed it down from 10 to 2 cars and then Sunday, when the car dealers were closed, I visited and checked the two contenders out in person.
By this time, we decided that I was going to get a new (used) car and my wife was going to reluctantly inherit mine. Not that she didn’t want my car, but she LOVED hers and it was hard to consider saying goodbye to her baby.
Sunday night, I decided which car I was going to buy. It was because of who I was buying from more than anything else. A Toyota Prius from a used car dealer or a Honda Fit from the Honda Dealer, and I decided the Honda Fit would likely be my next ScLoHoMobile. After doing my online research, it was my gut that told me to check out the Fit and I sent the dealer a note that I was interested using the online form on their website.
Monday morning, I got a phone call from Ross, one of the sales guys at Don Ayres Honda to set up a test drive for 12:30. Remember point 1: Customers may be smarter or better informed than you.
When I arrived at the dealership, I knew who I was looking for because I looked on the Don Ayres website and saw a picture of Ross. I surprised him when I arrived and simply said, “Hi Ross, I’m Scott Howard.” It caught him off guard because we had never met in person before, but I did my research.
Your potential customers are also doing their research and may know more than you realize
In my case, I was better informed than Ross on this vehicle. I spent a few hours researching not just this model but also this particular car using the free Carfax that was in the online listing. When we got in for the test drive, Ross told me he didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission which was not problem for me, I did.
When I walked in and told started my conversation with Ross, before the test drive, I told him I was planning on buying the Honda Fit if the test drive checked out and the deal was good. I knew what options I had with payments so I was 95% sold before Ross saw me.
Before the test drive, Ross asked me numerous routine questions that would be used to start the finance process and I started noticing point #2: Over reliance on certain sales phrases can actually work against you. No matter what I said, he responded with, “Great!”, “Fantastic!”, or some other positive affirmation. Some of my answers were certainly not worthy of a “Fantastic!” like when I told him I’ve lived in my current house for nearly 4 years. I almost tossed in a comment like, “my Dad died”, just to see if I’d get a “Great!” but I controlled my tongue.
Which brings me to point #3: Ask the right questions and pay attention to the answers. Ross was not paying attention to the answers I was giving him. At one point in our conversation he asked me if I wanted to look at any other cars, I told him, “no, I’m hear to buy the Honda Fit.” A few minutes later he offered to show me some other cars and again I reminded him, “I’m here to buy the Honda Fit.”
Point #4: Using your customers name is nice, except when you get it wrong. My name is Scott, yet I counted at least 3 times that he called me Steve in our interaction. When I looked over the paperwork, I double checked that it said Scott Howard and not Steve Howard. I’ve been guilty of this every once in awhile myself but I am much better because I decided to overcome this kind of mistake.
Finally it was time for me to talk with Taylor in Finance. I had a few minutes between the time I was first introduced to her and when we went to her office to work out the final details so I Googled her from my smartphone and found her LinkedIn profile. From that I learned that this was her first job in automotive and she had been there less than a year. I knew where she went to college and that she had worked in a coffee shop awhile ago. In my conversation with her, as she was trying to get me to buy stuff I didn’t want to buy, I sprinkled some of the information I learned into our talk, not in a creepy way, but just enough to throw off her pacing of her sales pitch.
This part of the car buying process is not my favorite but I’ve made it a game. Taylor was there to seal the deal and get as much money from me as possible. Those Finance people are also sales people, sometimes better than the salesperson on the floor. Which brings me to our next point: Upselling works with some people but you have to be straight with your customer.
Because I was buying a used car that was out of warranty, they offered me three additional warranty options. Each time I declined. Why? I did the math and I knew my own risk tolerance. The first option would add $100 to my monthly payment for the life of my loan. That would mean paying about $5,000 extra. I knew that if I needed a repair for my Honda Fit that cost anywhere up to $5000, I had the means to pay for it myself. The other options she offered were not anything I wanted either.
Under most circumstances, customers have an alternative to spending money with you.
Remember I was 95% sold on buying the Honda Fit from Don Ayres Honda, before I talked to Ross or Taylor. It was their deal to lose. Because, point #6: Customers can walk away if they don’t like the deal you are offering.
In the end, I bought the car and Taylor asked me to tell her how I decided to shop at Don Ayres that day by using a tracking sheet, On a sheet of paper where various advertising and marketing options and I was asked to circle the one that fit. I circled the Cars.com logo and no further questions were asked. Point #7: Tracking your advertising is usually a guessing game at best.
Cars.com is not why I bought the car from Don Ayres. It just happened to be the website that first introduced me to the car along with several others. And it really wasn’t the website, it was my son-in-law who sent me a link to the car and also recommended both the car and dealership to me. Cars.com didn’t deserve credit for that sale. But when I was given the choices on the sheet of paper, my son-in law was not listed as one of the choices.
If you want to track the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing, you need to ask the right questions otherwise you are bound to get inaccurate answers.
Point #8: Honesty wins and builds trust. I may be coming off a little harsh as you read this, but overall I really like Don Ayres Honda and here’s a couple reasons why. Ross told me at the beginning of our conversation that he is not a car guy. Not that he doesn’t like cars, but he is more like me, someone who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of what’s under the hood and I really don’t care, except for my car. My expectations are that everything works and that leads me to what happened after the sale was complete…
I noticed when Ross and I were talking that there was only one key, so I asked for them to provide me with a second key as part of the deal. No problem. That night however I noticed two additional items that were not discovered during the test drive. The interior dome light was not working and the heater blower only worked on high speed. I wrote an email to Ross and mentioned that I was sure that these couple of items were probably overlooked by the service department when they prepped the car for sale, and I asked them if they would fix the light and heater.
Ross introduced me to one of Don Ayres Service Advisors, Pete, and got permission from Carlo, the Used Car Manager to get those items taken care of at no charge. Pete gave me his business card that included his cell number and told me that he would let me know when the parts would be in and we booked an appointment to get everything taken care of.
Which brings me to our final point: Follow through helps with referrals and additional sales.
The day I came in to get the repairs made on my new Honda Fit, Pete told me that Ross is no longer working for Don Ayres, but if there was anything I needed, to please contact him (Pete). There was a slight hiccup in the repair paperwork that Pete took care of and I have written positive reviews online and shared with friends and family my experience and recommendation for Don Ayres Honda. As you can tell, everything was not perfect and smooth sailing but that was okay.
What matters most is how you take care of those customers and potential customers along the way.
I learned somethings about the way I conduct myself in business, what lessons can you apply to you and your business?
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 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.
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