State of The Station for WOWO Summertime 2021

State of The Station for WOWO Summertime 2021

by | Jun 16, 2021 | 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

Here we are in the middle of June 2021 and this weeks article and podcast is a little different from my usual weekly updates.

Today an update on what is going on at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana, from an insiders perspective as we peak behind the curtain and give you some insights.

First a bit about me, just so you know who I am and how I know what I’m going to tell you.  I joined WOWO Radio in December, 2013 as the 5th person on a five person advertising sales team. WOWO is one of 6 radio stations owned by Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  I not only survived, but thrived.  I won my first Feddy Award in 2014 for Supergoal.  Feddy’s are the Federated Media achievement awards, like Grammy’s or Emmy’s.

As the years went by, I continued to grow and I won my second Feddy Supergoal Award in 2019 for Federated Media’s Fort Wayne division.  These Supergoal awards are only given to one person each year in Fort Wayne and they do the same at our Federated Media South Bend division.  I also won my third Feddy in 2019, but this was company wide, not just our division.  This Feddy Award is Account Manager of the Year for our company.

The past nearly 8 years is just a portion of my background in radio, advertising and marketing.  I started while I was in high school on the radio and worked for a few other stations on the air and on the advertising business side for a few decades.  Finally, I will mention that right after I won my second and third Feddy Awards, I was promoted to become the General Sales Manager for WOWO Radio and now lead the team to help businesses connect with our listeners and convert them into customers.

Now let’s move on to what I really wanted to share with you.

WOWO radio is nearly 100 years old.  2025 will mark a century of WOWO radio.  The past 20 or so years, WOWO has been a news and talk formatted radio station.  Since I joined in 2013 we’ve had a couple of changes in our programming line-up:

Fort Wayne’s Morning News with Charly Butcher was on until August 2018 from 5am to 9am.  Charly unexpectedly passed away while on vacation and our company had to scramble and plan at the same time.  Charly was a beloved radio icon who I worked with when I was on the air at our sister station WMEE and when the opportunity arose for a new morning anchor on WOWO, Charly was given the opportunity which he handled marvelously.  He was in his early 60’s when he died and Federated Media had a couple of guest hosts as they did a local and national search for his replacement.  Turns out our news director, Kayla Blakeslee was selected and Kayla has been doing an outstanding job these past 3 years.  Looking forward, Kayla has decades ahead of her as the host of WOWO’s fast paced morning news show.  Her advertisers are getting results and her personal endorsement clients are thrilled.

National talk show host Glenn Beck kicks off the WOWO Mid-Day Double Play at 9am as he has for years.  Glenn also will endorse local businesses, ask me about it.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh anchored the noon to 3pm portion of the Mid-Day Double Play on WOWO until February this year.  He passed away a little over a year after announcing he had lung cancer.  Rush was able to continue his radio show with a rotating cast of fill-in hosts in 2020 when he was off for treatment.  After the announcement of his passing this year, the program continued with hosts playing clips from the Rush radio archives that were woven into the events of the day. 

The Rush Limbaugh program was syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks and while we at WOWO waited to see what Premiere was going to do to replace Rush, we looked around to see what our options were.  Should we wait and see or pick someone local?  Is there someone that we should consider that another network was offering? A lot of activity was going on behind the scenes even before Rush died because we knew we would need a plan.

We needed a plan to satisfy two groups.  The WOWO listeners who were loyal to conservative talk radio in the style of Rush Limbaugh for decades, was one group.  We also wanted to give our advertising partners a radio show that they would want to continue to support.  Now let me share with you something about that.

Not all of our advertisers would be called supporters of the conservative talk programming WOWO offers.  But they see the value in inviting the WOWO listeners to their business.  Advertising on WOWO is a great investment and I’ll have more on that in a moment.

Around the country over 1000 radio stations carried Rush and as we contemplated our options, we also knew the timing would need to be right.  Rush listeners grieved and by continuing with the legacy Rush shows on WOWO, it helped them, I’m sure.  We also did a poll to our database of listeners to see who they wanted and it turns out the listeners top choice was also ours.

Dan Bongino debuted on WOWO and hundreds of other radio stations on Monday May 24th and the response has been excellent.  Dan’s show is not from the Premiere Radio Network so it created a bit of confusion when about three days after Dan debuted, the Premiere network announced they were going to pair Buck Sexton with a guy from the Fox Sports network to co-host from noon to 3pm.  Dan did an excellent job of explaining that they were a different network and he wasn’t going anywhere.

I am very happy with Federated Media’s decision to add Dan Bongino from noon to 3pm and I think you will be too if you listen.

Afternoons on WOWO continue to be the Pat Miller Program.  Pat marked a 20 year milestone on WOWO this year.  He started out hosting a Saturday morning show on WOWO and then took over afternoons from 3pm to 6pm when that daily show became available.

Nights on WOWO continue with a tape delay (by three hours) of Sean Hannity’s radio show from 6pm to 9pm. We have one more change occuring starting next Monday night at 9pm.  Mark Levin returns to WOWO.  Mark is another national conservative talk show host that was on from 9pm to midnight when I started at WOWO and his return is welcomed by all.

Now that you know the line-up, what about our ratings?

Ratings are done by an independent company that surveys people in the Metro Fort Wayne area and provides us with monthly updates.  During my time at WOWO, we have been either number one, two or three out of nearly 30 radio stations in the number that matters most, total number of listeners.  It’s been at least 5 years since we were third and usually we were number two behind our sister station WMEE in total listeners ages 12 and older.  We’ve always been the most listened to station for grown ups.  Well the last rating update has WOWO as the most listened to radio station with over 100,000 listeners every week.  Hat’s off to all of my co-workers in the programming department and news department for that outstanding accomplishment. 

I was asked this week by the manager of one of the largest retailers based in Fort Wayne, how we are doing financially?  Did we take a hit during 2020 and have we started to recover?

Here’s the answer:  March 2020 was when the state of Indiana was told to stay at home to prevent the spread of Covid.  Federated Media made some adjustments and also worked with our advertising partners to help them survive.  Numerous times I have been thanked by our clients for our being sensative to their situations and it has paid off for both them and us.

WOWO’s goals are to not just beat 2020, but to grow beyond our 2019 pre-pandemic levels.  We are doing it.  I have some of the very best advertising and marketing people in our city working for me at WOWO.  We hear it from our advertisers that we really listen, care and respond to what our clients need.  

As you look forward to the rest of 2021 and the years ahead, my pledge to you is to continue that level of service and earn your trust month after month after month.

Email me if you would like more information, Scott@WOWO.com and one more item…

I am looking for just the right person to join our WOWO Advertising Sales Team.  Email me Scott@WOWO.com and I can give you more details on what can be one of the most rewarding careers available in Fort Wayne, Indiana at WOWO Radio.

Work for WOWO

Work for WOWO

by | Aug 30, 2020 | ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

The final weeks of 2021 are here and I have an update for you. I just started running an ad for an advertising sales account executive to join my team at WOWO.  And I’ve included a healthy hiring bonus.  Here’s the text of the radio ad:

It’s true. Everyone is hiring. But you’re not just anyone. You’re a self-motivated, over-achiever who’s looking for a new career home. Have you considered that home might be right here, working for your favorite radio station? The legendary WOWO radio has been making an impact on our community nearly a century, and I’m looking for our next radio sales account executive to join our growing team. This is Scott Howard, General Sales Manager for WOWO radio. We invest in you before day one on the job: it starts when you take our free sales talent assessment.  Text sales to 46862. That’s sales to 46862 to receive your free talent assessment. With only one sales opening, do it right now! If you wait, you’ll also miss out on the five thousand dollar, $5000, $5000 sign on bonus. That’s right – a five thousand dollar sign on bonus for the next WOWO account executive. Text sales to 46862 so we can start investing in you at Federated Media; or send me an email: scott@wowo.com. Federated Media  an equal opportunity employer.

 

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Breaking The Rule Of 3

Breaking The Rule Of 3

by | Jul 7, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Last week I shared with you the “rule of 3”.

It’s a standard rule in communication that says in order for a message to really be remembered, you have to hear it 3 times.

Feel free to go back and read about how this is used in teaching and preaching.

In the advertising world, this is usually important too and is a formula we use in creating ads.  When I write ads for clients or even for myself, and I am wanting listeners to remember a website as the call to action, I mention the web address 3 times in a 60 second commercial.

I have been running ads on my radio station, WOWO radio for over a year that offer free business tips if you send an email to Scott@WOWO.com and I get results from those ads because I give my email address 3 times in the ad.

Now there are other reasons why I get results too and that’s what we are going to talk about today.

WOWO’s audience is consistently the largest radio audience in Fort Wayne. We have more adults age 25 and older listening every week than any other station. That is another reason we get results for our advertisers.

Right messaging to a large audience sounds like a winning formula, right?

However there are some special characteristics of the WOWO radio audience that allows us to break the rule of 3 sometimes.

WOWO is a news and talk radio station, so our listeners are not using us as background music.  Many music stations have what I call passive listeners.  They may listen to their favorite music station but it’s not something that they are doing as a primary activity.  The music plays while they are working or driving or doing stuff around the house.  When ads play on a music radio station, many listeners subconsciously or even deliberately tune out.  The impact of an advertisement playing on a music station is less than a talk station, generally speaking.

Ads on a music radio station are also more likely perceived as an irritant. 40 years ago when I was a top-40 radio personality and the station I worked for created and promoted “commercial-free-music sweeps”, we were actually implying to our listeners that listening to ads on the radio was bad.

Compare that to a radio station like WOWO that doesn’t play background music. As a news and talk radio station, WOWO is foreground listening, not background. WOWO listeners are more “tuned in” mentally and emotionally to the words they hear on WOWO compared to a music radio station. So when an advertisement comes on WOWO radio, yes it’s still an ad, but it is less of an irritant compared to an ad on a music station.

Both music stations and talk stations can create emotional bonds with their audiences.  We recently saw the departure of a couple of morning shows on two of our companies music stations and listeners were sadden and expressed it on social media.  But both stations listenership levels remained steady despite the change in personalities.

Talk radio, is different.  The radio personality sets the tone for the show and the bond with the listener is huge.

Here’s how the rule of 3 applies and how we can break it on WOWO.

As a loyal listener to WOWO for years before I started working here in 2013, I had a perception of certain businesses that I thought advertised all the time.  Turns out I was wrong.  One example from nearly 20 years ago was a small meat market and deli that I would hear the afternoon talk show host talk about all the time and how they had the best ham salad made fresh in their store.  Turns out the ad ran once a week.

My jaw dropped when I learned this.  Because I was usually listening to WOWO on Friday afternoons which was the one day this ad would air, I thought they were a major advertiser, when in fact they were doing the bare minimum and getting results.  They broke the rule of 3.

However, here’s why they were successful despite having such a small advertising schedule. They were long term.  They may not have been following the rule of 3 on a weekly basis, but over time, yes it worked.

These days, we don’t accept advertising schedules that are that small on WOWO because the rule of three is still important.  Often what we recommend is that businesses follow the rule of 3 when they begin with WOWO so listeners can build familiarity with them as quickly as possible.  I start with placing all of their ads on one of our 3 hour talk shows.  If you air 10 or 15 times per week in a 15 hour radio show, you can create a level of trust and familiarity with that audience. Then, we can make adjustments over time to expand their advertising to include other shows on WOWO in order to expand their audience.

The rule of 3 when applied to music radio stations usually means buying 21 ads per week which divided over 7 days = 3 per day. But as I mentioned earlier, the effectiveness of those ads are probably less simply because of the listening environment and attentiveness of the audience.

Before you decide to use the rule of 3, or break the rule of 3, I urge you to talk with me or a member of my marketing team to craft a campaign that fits all the criteria needed to be a profitable investment for you and your business.

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Leadership Lessons from Jack

Leadership Lessons from Jack

by | Mar 24, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Lead Like Jack

Considered one of the greatest CEOs of all time, Jack Welch passed away on March 1st, 2020.  Jack was the CEO of General Electric (GE) from 1981-2001.  He is known for changing the way leaders lead.  His style was to hire the best people, let the people do the work, and get out of their way.  

During his tenure as CEO of GE, the value of the company grew from $14 billion to $400 billion in just 20 years. In 1999, Fortune Magazine named him “Manager of the Century”. 

While he did have his adversaries and not every deal he made was a winner, in the end, Jack Welch is most noted for his management style that turned GE into one of the largest companies in the world while under his guidance.

In his “8 Rules of Leadership”, Jack’s Rule #1 says, “Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence”.

The lessons taught and used in a mega-company like GE can and should relate to all businesses of all sizes.

If you would like to see the complete list of Jack Welch’s “8 Rules of Leadership” as published in Inc. Magazine’s November 13th, 2017 issue, click here.

Last year my company had the opportunity to upgrade their team. Federated Media is a privately owned company based in Indiana with radio stations and digital marketing divisions.  When an opening for a new leader for the Fort Wayne, Indiana division of Federated Media was announced, the search began nationwide to find the person most capable of not only leading our team for the next year, but also for the decades ahead. 

After multiple candidates went through the process, our CEO selected Ben Saurer to become the VP/General Manager of Federated Media’s Fort Wayne operations.  Ben is no stranger to the company, he has been the General Sales Manager of my station WOWO for years.  Ben was also responsible for leading the sales teams of our sister stations WKJG (ESPN) and WBYR (98.9 The Bear). Ben was also the local favorite for leading us, even though those of us who worked for him directly were a little nervous about who would and could replace him as General Sales Manager of those three stations.

One of Ben’s first roles as the Fort Wayne VP/GM was to hire his replacement General Sales Managers. Again a national search was conducted and within 8 weeks of Ben officially in his new position, he filled all three G.S.M. seats with two people.  Initially hired to become the Sales Manager of our ESPN station and our Classic Hits station (BIG 92.3) Kassie Taksey in January, it was announced that she would also take on the General Sales Manager role for 98.9 The Bear.  Kassie is a Federated Media veteran, having worked for us before and is an excellent choice to lead those sales teams.

The same thing happened with WOWO Radio. After a nationwide search and interviews, Ben Saurer announced that I would become the WOWO General Sales Manager to lead our team.  Over the next few months my role is changing as I divest myself of most of the advertising partners I was personally taking care of.  We also hired two brand new team members to replace me and to move forward in 2020. As Jack Welsh said, “Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team…” and that includes adding the right people to our teams.

If you would like to be considered to work for my team or any or the Fort Wayne Federated Media radio stations, start here: https://www.federatedmedia.com/fort-wayne-market/ 

And if you would like more business tips and insight, subscribe to my free weekly Sound ADvice email newsletter.

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Ad Fraud is Real

Ad Fraud is Real

by | Apr 26, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

The topic Ad Fraud  is one that has been tossed around in reference to digital/internet marketing.  

Today I read a story in MediaPost that calls out Ad Fraud in the Television industry.

Before I dig in, let me make it clear what type of Ad Fraud I am referring to.

I am not talking about commercials that make fake or questionable claims or are for shady businesses.

The type of Ad Fraud I’m talking about today pertains to the buying and placing of ads on any type of media, and today I am going to address Television and the Internet.

There is a whole lot of trust that media buyers or business owners place in digital advertising that is worrisome. A few years ago when I worked full time in social media for a multi-million internet retailer, I learned how to game the system for getting Facebook likes for our brands pages.  I was given the assignment to double our Facebook page likes over the next 9 months.  Because I knew some tactics that they were not using, I was able to complete that task in just 3 weeks, not 39 weeks.

I have also dug deep into the Google Analytics of various businesses that I’ve worked with and unfortunately, the digger you dig, the more likely you are to find stuff that doesn’t look so good.  

Before you invest ANY money on anything in the digital world, you have to know the limitations and also know that along with any good stuff, you may end up with some worthless stuff.  I know that sounds vague.  

One of the promises of digital and internet marketing is that it is highly targetable and also highly trackable.  Those who sell those types of advertising like to promise that they “eliminate the waste” and “only deliver your ads to real customers.”

Bullshit is the most direct way I can tell you what those promises are.

Look, I can sell you digital solutions too, but not with the false promises that those others are pushing.   I’ll be honest with you.

Let’s go back to what prompted me to write this today and that is Ad Fraud in TV-land.

The headline from MediaPost is:

Top Media Buyers Allege Networks Lied — And Stole From Them — In Last Year’s Upfront

FYI, Upfronts are the meetings and presentations that traditional television networks have before the Fall TV season to roll out the new and returning shows to the media buyers to get them excited and get commitments from the media buyers to spend advertising dollars on those shows.  

Not only do the networks present the shows, they also share their plans for how they are going to promote, attract and retain audiences for their show.   In recent years, one tactic that was promised is the networks would reduce the number of ads.  This would mean the remaining ads would be priced higher but the audience retention rate would also be higher.

However:

A panel discussion featuring some of Madison Avenue’s biggest network TV buyers Thursday morning accused the network TV industry of misrepresenting itself in the previous year’s negotiations, even to the point of explicit fraud.

“It’s robbery,” Mike Law, head of U.S. media investment at Dentsu Aegis Network, asserted during the opening session of MediaPost’s Outfront Conference in New York City, adding, “They actually lied to us.”

Law was speaking about promises made by some major networks to reduce their prime-time commercial loads on the premise that it would improve their viewers’ experience and boost ratings and attention to advertising.

“I firmly believe they lied to us,” Law added, declining to name which network he was referring to, but it is well known that Fox and NBC took the most aggressive positions on reduced ad clutter pitches coming into last year’s upfront.

Here’s more:

He described going into some kind of post-delivery meeting with network executives and said, “I’m a pretty casual guy and I dropped f-bombs in that meeting, because it is ridiculous.”

While he didn’t use the word fraud, Law said, the network sales executives “sold us on a proposition that you thought was going to happen.

“You paid more for something they told you was going to happen and none of it happened.”

“We heard promises last year that we were going to see a reduction in commercialization and the fact of the matter, with that particular network, who is now my client — I would prefer not to mention who it is — their commercialization actually went up by 2%,” echoed John Muszynski, chief investment officer, Publicis Media Exchange.

Citing an analysis of upfront media buys for the major broadcast and cable networks over the past five years, their prime-time ad rates have risen 38%, said Muszynski, while their delivery of adult 18-49 viewers declined 39.%

“That’s having it both ways,” he said, adding that agencies and their clients also have been hit with a variety of ratings and format packages that do not necessarily benefit advertisers, but are intended to boost the “yield” of the networks’ sales organizations.

Law said his team did an analysis looking back to 2001 and said “the number is actually worse” — noting that prime-time ratings have declined 78% while ad rates have increased 180%.

“It’s a model that is completely broken,” Law said, adding, “If we come back and everybody walks back to the table with the same amount of money for television, like, shame on us, because it’s just playing right into their hands.”

In fairness, no one from the supply-side was represented on the panel, but all of the buyers were in agreement that this year likely would be one of massive correction, including shifting as much of their ad budgets out of the upfront and putting as much of it as possible into other media.

On a local level, I have no reason to believe that television stations are committing Ad Fraud.  I don’t any information one way or another.

Here is my advice:

Look for real measurement benchmarks.

Set up 3 or 4 or more ways to track what people are doing in their “consumer journey”.

Deal with people you trust to have your best interests at heart.  They are usually able to talk to you in terms that you understand without the need to have a masters degree in media and advertising lingo.

If you want my help as an advertising and marketing coach, just ask.  You can also sign up to receive my weekly Sound ADvice media and marketing tips newsletter using the form below.   

 

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The Talk Radio Advantage For WOWO Advertisers

The Talk Radio Advantage For WOWO Advertisers

by | Dec 12, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Not all advertising venues are created equal. The idea of an ad is an ad is an ad is like saying a cow is a cheeseburger is a filet.  Yes they are all forms of beef, but with big differences.

In Fort Wayne, I’ve worked in the radio advertising world since 2003.

I have created successful advertising campaigns for hundreds of companies using all formats of radio stations including both music and talk formats.  But this story is not about me.  It’s about what I have observed over the past 5 years that I’ve been on the WOWO Radio advertising sales team.

Quite simply, WOWO listeners pay attention to the ads on WOWO and respond to them like no other form of advertising I have ever seen in Fort Wayne.

This is a conversation I have several times each month.  It is about the mental state of people who are exposed to your advertising messages. 

We are going to look at the big picture and include many of the places you can spend money to advertise.

Start with television.  When you and I sit down to watch a show, we are paying attention to the show.  When commercials come on, most of us stop paying attention, at least not the same level of attentiveness that we have during the show.

Newspapers and magazines.  Unless it’s a fashion magazine that is chocked full of 50+ pages of ads before the articles start, we are not really interested in the ads.  We bought the paper to read the stories, get the scores, or see if someone died.

Social Media.  Facebook for example is a place to go to find out what’s happening with friends and family.  They have managed to work ads and sponsored posts into out timelines so we can’t help but seem them but we are not on Facebook to check out the ads.

Radio. Not all radio stations are created equal.  For this discussion, let’s look at the difference between music based stations and talk based stations.  The reason we tune in to a station that plays music, any music for that matter, is to hear music that we like.  In Fort Wayne we have country music stations, rock music stations, pop music stations and plenty of variations.

Every listener to a music radio station selects that particular station because they want to hear that particular style of music.  Anytime the music stops for any length of time, say 2 minutes, we pay less attention.  If the station plays 5 or 7 minutes of commercials in a row, we really tune out and pay less attention.  Some may even change stations.  The reason we listen to music radio stations is to hear music.  It’s to escape.  Anything other than music on a music station is an irritant.

Talk based radio stations are a different animal. Stations like WOWO which are a combination of News and Talk have listeners who tune in for information.  The programming on talk radio stations is brain food, not escapism like the music on a music radio station.  When the newscaster or program host is talking, listeners are paying attention to the words.  It’s the information that people want to hear.

So what happens when your commercial airs on a talk radio station like WOWO? 1st off, it’s not interrupting music, taking the place of your favorite song, so it is less of an irritant. Next, if your ad is a live endorsement from the radio personality, that is the very best kind of commercial because you have the credibility of the radio personality combined with the credibility of WOWO and a receptive audience that is listening to hear the talk, whether it is about politics or your business, it doesn’t matter.

If you air regular recorded commercials on a talk radio station like WOWO, you still get a receptive audience that is not turned off by talking on the radio and you are on WOWO which adds credibility to your business.

I discovered another way to use WOWO’s talk radio format to help your business and that is with our live 10 second sponsorship messages of news, weather, traffic and sports.  These are done live by the newscasters and program hosts and are embedded in the program and carry almost as much weight as a full endorsement.

This relationship between the WOWO listeners and the WOWO air staff with our news and talk radio format is one of trust.

For many it’s as strong a bond of trust as a trusted friend.  

You don’t get that with a newspaper ad.  You don’t get that with a TV commercial, You don’t get that with nearly any other form of advertising you can spend your money on.

This is the Talk Radio Advantage WOWO advertisers receive.   Want more info?  Let’s talk.