by Scott Howard | Mar 15, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
We are well into 2018 and I have a very important question:
How’s Your Online Visibility?
When was the last time you did an overhaul of your website? If it’s been more than 18 months, your business is hurting.
I sell a variety of radio and digital advertising solutions and there are times when I tell people before we can send people to your website, you need an update.
Here’s a few key items to keep in mind in 2018:
Mobile has overtaken laptop and desktop. This means instead of sitting down with our computer to look for stuff, we are more likely to grab our phone. Your website has to be more than “mobile friendly”. Think Mobile First.
Responsive websites are the new norm instead of having a separate mobile site and a more robust desktop website with the exception of e-commerce sites. When I say Mobile First, assume that the first visit someone is going to have to your website is that tiny screen on their phone, not the big desktop monitor.
So design your website for the best UX (that’s User Experience) on Mobile First and then include a full experience for the minority of folks who will use their computer to visit your site.
Next up, is Voice Search is taking over the world. All the Apple Fans thought it was cool that they could have a conversation with Siri until I showed them how I could also get what I needed by talking to my phone with the “Ok Google” technology.
But that was just the beginning of voice activated devices. With Alexa and all the others battling it out to be our best buddies in the artificial intelligence world, is your website and company up to the latest standards?
Search Engine Optimization is part of it, but if you are only using methods that were the gold standard in 2015 or before, you risk getting lost online. Searches are based on so much more than keywords these days. Search is personalized to each of us. Your previous browsing and search and your location is all known and while that helps you find what you are looking for when you are browsing, it has also changed the rules for a business to be found online.
Google continues to penalize old and outdated websites and web-pages and is always looking for the best content to serve you and I as consumers, not you and I as business owners and marketers.
How are you using Social Media for your business? Are you using Facebook Live? Do you know how to create engaging content? Do you know the differences between Likes and Engagement? Is your LinkedIn profile set up properly?
When was the last time you Googled yourself? Do it. Also on Bing, Yahoo, and YouTube and Facebook.
Are you listed on the review sites? Are you monitoring and responding to reviews?
I know this is a lot to consider but it really is important stuff.
Some of these things you cannot do yourself, you will need to pay professionals to do it. And even though I’m a professional at some of this, and I can help guide you, most of my recommendations will involve hiring people and companies besides myself. I have contacts and connections to people and companies that are good at these things and stay on top of it so you can focus on what you do best in running your business.
Remember my original question: How’s Your Online Visibility?
Need some help or guidance on what we’ve talked about today? Reach out to me.
And here’s a study just released about the smart speakers that are growing in popularity.
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 | Dec 6, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Why do I say Your Digital Marketing Is Bologna?
Especially because I actually sell online digital marketing solutions along with the more traditional radio advertising solutions?
Because it hit me the other day, that those people who only sell digital marketing are often selling the same line of bull, excuse me, bologna that Yellow Pages people used to sell to prove they were a good advertising investment.
Laura from Bain and Company was quoted in an article from Google:
We need to move away from last-click attribution models to something that better reflects a consumer journey, which is nonlinear and has gaps in the data.
In order to tell you why this is important, we’re going to take a minute and explain the old phone book advertising sales technique. I learned this years ago from a co-worker who used to sell yellow pages advertising before he made the conversion to radio advertising sales.
This is what a phone book used to look like
The phone book advertising sales people would tell the businesses that advertise to track their advertising by asking some variation of this simple question:
How did you get our (business) phone number?
More than half the time, sometimes as much as 90% of the time, the customer on the other end of the phone would say:
I got your number from the phone book.
Which was probably true. I mean, they had no reason to lie, and yes they really did get your number from the phone book.
But that’s not the right question to ask to track your advertising.
Depending on the other advertising and marketing that the business was doing, along with their word of mouth reputation, the really successful businesses already were being considered by the customer and the phone book was simply a tool to get the phone number to call the business.
The phone book does absolutely nothing to brand a business, it’s just the way we get the phone number. That’s what I used to say all the time until Google changed the internet and Facebook changed our social communication.
Since the advent of the internet and the demise of the paper-published-phone-book-yellow-pages-directory, the phone books are a lot skinnier.
Only old people have a phone book anymore. And by old, I’m saying 85 year olds.
Those last couple of statements are broad generalizations. Yes, there are some 70 year olds who still have a phone book in their junk drawer in their kitchen and a few other people too.
Digital marketers for the last several years have adopted the tactic that the old yellow page advertising sales people used to use to claim credit for making your business phone ring, or any of the other ways your future customers can contact you.
C. T. R. which stands for Click Thru Rate which is the digital equivalent of asking where do you get our phone number.
Both only measure the last action taken and totally disregard all the previous marketing and advertising efforts that led to that last action or conversion.
We are not robots, we are humans. That’s why I look at all this marketing and advertising from a human relationship standpoint that takes all of the influencing factors into consideration.
I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that I sell both radio and online advertising solutions with WOWO radio and Federated Media Digital Solutions and often use a combination of these to drive more business to my advertising partners.
While it is possible to look at Click Thru Rates and other tracking with your online and digital efforts, if I were to tell you that was the only way to determine your success, it would be a lie. That’s why I say Your Digital Marketing Is Bologna. There is really nothing wrong with it, just the way you are being sold and I’m sure you prefer an honest approach right?
Talk to me if you want to… talk.
by Scott Howard | Oct 31, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
As many of you prepare your business for 2018 and are wondering about Social Media marketing, here’s some numbers that were shared by Mediapost. Remember that these are just numbers and you really should talk to a professional about what this means for your individual situation. If you are in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area, reach out to me.
Social Media Strategy Opportunities by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research
A potpourri of popular social media platforms, and how brands and retailers can implement strategies, better reach, and engage with different audiences.
Facebook
- 2 Billion monthly users
- 75% of users spend 20 minutes on the site every day
- 500 million people watch facebook videos every day
- FacebookLive popularity has risen 330% since launch
- Users watch FacebookLive videos 3X longer than non-live videos
- Strategy: Drive awareness and engagement with videos and live streams
Twitter
- 328 Million active monthly users
- Daily active users have increased 14% each year
- The average user follows 5 businesses
- 80% of users have mentioned a brand in a Tweet
- Companies active on Twitter see a 19% increase in customer satisfaction
- Strategy: Prioritize customer service and engagement
Instagram
- 800 Million monthly users
- Monthly users grew 24% in 2017
- Half of users use Instagram Daily Posts tagged with a location have 79% higher engagement
- Strategy: Post highly visual, geo-targeted content to boost engagement
Pinterest
- 200 Million monthly users
- 50 million more users that October 2016
- 67% of users visit Pinterest on mobile while shopping in-store
- 1/3 of users choose Pinterest over Google search
- Strategy: Link Pinterest to your website to increase traffic and sales
Snapchat
- 375 Million active monthly users
- Growth slowed 82% after instagram stories launched
- 3 Billion snaps are created each day
- 63% use Snapchat as their primary medium for messaging friends
- Users younger that 25 visit more than 20X a day for at least 30 minutes
- Strategy: Leverage geo-filters to create interactive content
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/309125/social-media-strategy-opportunities.html
That’s the latest number’s from the Mediapost article. But what does any of this mean to you the local business person? It’s nearly useless data for deciding how to reach people and invite them to become your customer.
However here are a couple of considerations…
Facebook has officially moved to a pay model. In other words, it is nearly impossible for a company to get exposure for anything considered advertising or marketing unless you pay. I saw this first hand in 2013 when I worked full time in social media and it continues today.
Instagram is owned by Facebook and many including myself crosspost between the two.
Twitter is still better to use by the customer service department than the marketing department of a business and Snapchat, well it’s demographics are below the ages of people I target for most of my advertising, so I personally don’t care. I even deleted my own Snapchat account this year.
Social Media is still the bright shiny object that marketing people are trying to figure out and tons of businesses are dumping their advertising budgets to online stuff like the platforms mentioned here. However you and I as consumers are not fond of the ads that interrupt our newsfeed when we just want to see what’s going on with friends and family.
This is why we use social media.
One platform mentioned in that Social Media Report is different and if you are in retail, you should give it consideration.
Which one?
Pinterest. It is an online wishlist and shopping list for the heavy users. It takes time and knowledge to build Pinterest Boards that pay off financially as I immersed myself in it a few years ago and saw the largest measurable Return On Investment that was trackable for my social media activity.
Let me leave you with this. Advertising and marketing is best done by those who are professionals and that also includes social media platforms. Don’t be swept away by big numbers like I shared at the beginning of this article and think that you can have instant success. The folks behind the scenes at these social media companies are constantly tweaking and changing the rules of the game and what worked last year may not work next year so you need to be sure the person handling your social media is staying on top of the changes every week.
by Scott Howard | Oct 29, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
I am constantly surprised that smart people fall for Click-Bait and Fake News these days.
Even more, I’m surprised at the websites that allow this on their pages.
Today I was visiting the newly redesigned website for one of my former hometown newspapers, the News-Sentinel which recently stopped printing their afternoon paper after 100+ years.
Take a look at the ad on the right side of this page.
The beloved Doctor Oz is dead, according to the copy, right?
Nah, it’s both Fake News and Click-Bait.
It’s pretty easy for the trained eye to see that this is an advertisement link and for some reason the people behind this ad decided to use the incorrect age of Dr. Oz. He is only 57 and won’t turn 58 for another 7 months. But most people don’t know that including me until I Googled him.
So what happens if you “click” on this “bait” of “fake news”?
Here’s where the link goes:
The domain FoodJarVase.com, which has a link similar to what I clicked on: https://foodjarvase.com/instructions-for-creating-a-hat/
But look at what appears when you click on the Click Bait Fake News:
Looks like the good doctor is alive and well, and the website belongs to US magazine right? But once you get over the shock that the Doc is not dead, and maybe someone you know has E.D. …
Hang on. Because this is not really the US magazine website. It’s FoodJarVase.com correct?
So who is FoodJarVase.com?
I decided to explore by going to the FoodJarVase.com website and it looks legit. But when I went to their contact page, it smells fishy.
There are two addresses listed, one is complete with a street address in Michigan. I copied and pasted that address into Google and it shows a small house in the streetview of Google Maps. The other address on that page is just a city in Virginia. And the phone numbers were incomplete too.
Next trick was to find out who the FoodJarVase.com domain belongs to. Turns out it is registered to someone in Panama City, Panama.
All kinds of red warning signs should be exploding in your brain right now. Who knows what would happen if you or someone gives their personal info over to this mysterious scam artist.
Please, be smart. Don’t blindly click and give your personal info to websites that are Click Bait and Fake News. And perhaps someone at the http://www.news-sentinel.com/ can clean up the types of ads they allow on their site too.
by Scott Howard | Oct 3, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Measuring Return On Investment Is Fake Science. At least the way some people try and convince you that it’s measurable. Or I could say Measuring Return On Investment of your advertising is problematic. Here’s why and what’s really important.
When I talk to business owners and managers about advertising options, they want to feel good about the money they are going to spend.
Did you see that?
They want to feel good.
They want to feel smart, confident, happy and wise.
Often times this feeling comes from examining facts and figures and from calculating the Return On Investment they will get from spending (investing) in advertising.
This is such an imperfect science that we should eliminate it all together but like I said, people want to feel good when they are going to spend money.
I was talking with a friend recently and we came up with a return on investment that looks like this:
For every $3000 he spends, he needs 3 sales to break even and the 4th sale produces a profit. This is based on 3 years of being in business and the knowledge that he has of his average sale, expenses and those operating numbers.
Great information, I wish more business owners knew this.
What we don’t know is how to accurately track the Return On Investment of each individual advertising and marketing message.
Here’s why: His truck is logoed up and has his contact info. When he is driving down the road or sitting in traffic, his truck is planting marketing seeds (impressions) on future customers. You can’t accurately measure the Return On Investment of his vehicle wrap can you?
He takes part in consumer trade shows. Hundreds of people have seen his display and dozens have spoken with him each year. Only a small percentage of the people who see his display (the ones he talks to and gets contact info from) are trackable for Return On Investment measurement.
Advertising and marketing messages overlap. We are exposed to a business via multiple methods which nullifies the results of tracking the Return on Investment of each individual advertising and marketing message.
The web was supposed to be the ultimate source of accurate and fool proof tracking, but it falls victim to the same limitations of measurement that off line marketing has.
You could try combining the two which might help, or produce some really weird and useless ad campaigns like this one from 2012 that tried combining Billboards with QR codes: 
So how do you deal with Return On Investment as a way to measure the success of your advertising campaign and more importantly how do you feel good about spending money on advertising?
Ask the right questions.
Know the limitations.
Deal with trustworthy people.
Here’s a question I usually ask when I am talking with a potential advertising partner:
How are we going to determine the success of your advertising?
And then we will dig in with the knowledge of the limitations I mentioned and come up with an agreeable formula.
Or sometimes we won’t.
In the situations where we know it is impossible to track a Return On Investment of dollars spent versus dollars earned, we look for other methods to determine the success.
Those methods can include:
Year to Year growth.
Perceived name recognition.
Anecdotal stories.
Increased website traffic.
I even have some advertising partners who spend money with me because of the extra stuff that I do that others don’t. The marketing consulting and coaching that I really enjoy.
I strive to provide value that goes beyond dollars because I see things differently. I have a few decades of experience working with a few hundred business people and organizations that were my real life laboratory in this science.
That’s why I say Measuring Return On Investment Is Fake Science. In the advertising and marketing world, it’s an ongoing combination of art and science with the knowledge that it is rare, possibly impossible to be 100% accurate. But that’s okay.
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