Sound ADvice | The Genuine ScLoHo aka Scott Howard

Set The Bait

by Scott Howard | May 5, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, Sound ADvice

Whether it’s fishing, hunting, selling, or advertising, setting the bait is key to alluring or attracting that which you are trying to capture.

Since the beginning of time, it’s been known that you only have one opportunity to make a good first impression and regardless of if it’s a fish, wild game, or humans, you don’t have very long to capture their attention.

Your advertising message faces the same challenge. What your ads say, how they sound, and how they are delivered in the first few seconds, dictates whether your potential prospects will tune in or tune out to your message, or continue to read the message.

Reporters and authors have long known that the headline and the first sentence are what dictates whether the reader tunes in and continues on with the rest of the story, or tunes out. In an effort to develop the all-important “creative hook” at the top of your ads on websites, many headlines end up with more “creative” than “hook”.

In order to get the maximum effect out of your ads, we recommend you carefully consider the first few seconds of every ad, blog, text, email, or post that you create.

Here is a bonus tip. Oftentimes, you will find that the best line of any ad or letter, or the best words/sentence, is in the middle. When you find it, move it to the first line, or use it as the headline.

To read the 8 Power Openings you can use to capture more attention for your marketing efforts, click here.

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The Voice Of Your Business

by Scott Howard | Apr 15, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Today I’m going update a topic that I’ve spoken on previously.

Who is the Spokesperson for your Business?

Yes, it’s the people who answer the phone, who greet the customers, and the ones that interact face to face or online. But that is different.

I’m referring to your advertising and marketing.

For many of the best-branded businesses in the world, one thing usually stands out and once people hear it, they immediately know what business it is.

Flo and Jamie are two of the fictional character actors that represent Progressive Insurance. Yet, Progressive uses others too.

There’s Jake from State Farm who is just an actor.

The My Pillow Guy was famous for awhile and then when he became political, he offended a whole bunch of people with his passionate support of Donald Trump and election fraud. I had to look up his name, Mike Lindell. He is a classic example of how not to market your company by jumping into the political arena unless you are prepared for the consequences.

But I’m getting off track here.

Some of the most effective marketing successes in history, both locally and nationally, have involved capitalizing on the voices, faces, and personalities of charismatic and humble business owners and corporate leaders.

In decades past, nationally, you may recall Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca or Wendy’s humble founder Dave Thomas. More recently the spokesperson for Quicken Loans was their President and Chief Marketing Officer Jay Farner. In these cases, and many more, consumers have responded positively to the credible messages delivered by real people.

However even these three companies have diverted from what was once a successful advertising messaging campaign tactic. 5 years ago Quicken Loans launched Rocket Mortgage and pretty much abandoned what made them unique in their industry, although thru an online search, I found Jay Farner in a one minute video ad talking about what Rocket and Quicken are doing with regards to the economic hardships many faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Locally, you see and hear business owners voice their own ads, some of which are fantastically real and have moved their business from mediocracy to hometown heroes, and from rags to riches. On my radio station WOWO radio, we have several business owners that voice their own ads.

People buy from people they trust. It’s that simple. But if you don’t come across as real, trustworthy, and humble, the chances of you going from local to national are slim.

Two of the ten tips for being front and center in your campaigns are:

1.) Check your ego at the door. Only voice your commercials or have quotes and photos of yourself in your advertising if it is strategically correct to do so from a marketing perspective. It’s not about hearing your own voice or having mom see your picture; it’s about bringing believability and memorability to your campaign.

2.) Introduce yourself as the Owner, CEO, or President. There is NO reason to either voice the ad or be in the video if you don’t introduce yourself.

As the owner or president, you don’t need to be better at voicing the ads than a disc jockey, actor, or actress. You simply need to serve the purpose of you doing the ad, and that is to become the voice or face of the company. If you cannot add purpose, hire a gecko, create a fictional character, or let someone else do it!

Nothing sells like the human voice and using your own voice and words can make your campaign stand out against a hoard of ads produced by professional, anonymous sources.

Click here to view the rest of our 10 Tips to Being Your Company Spokesperson.

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Aiming at the Wrong Target

by Scott Howard | Mar 24, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Too many business owners aim their advertising at a single target. While that may have been a decent strategy twenty years ago, today, by narrowly aiming at a select group, you may be missing a much larger potential audience.

The goal of advertising should always be one of two things and in most cases both; it should be to increase sales AND build brand awareness. But all too often we get hung up on targeting very specific demographics when creating our media plans.

For example, it might not seem only reasonable for a baby-products retailer to target “women 18-49 with infants”. But according to the market research firm Scarborough, nearly half of those who bought infant clothing, 47%, were from households without children.

When it comes to grocery shopping, whom should you target, men or women?

The assumption is women do most of the grocery shopping. But do they? The answer is yes… and no! Statista research from 2020 will tell you that the primary shopper in the average household is 65% women and 35% men. However, in households where the grocery shopping duties are shared, men do 59% of the shopping compared to only 41% of the females. Furthermore, 70% of all secondary shopping is done by men.

Scarborough Research also found that nearly a quarter (23.5%) of all women’s cosmetics and perfumes were bought by men.

In his Twelve Causes of Advertising Failure, Roy Williams wrote. “The importance of qualitative data has been grossly overestimated by many advertisers and media professionals. In reality, saying the wrong thing has killed far more ad campaigns than reaching the wrong people. It is amazing how many people become ‘the right people’ when you are saying the right thing.”

Thinking beyond the traditional demographics your competitors are ‘targeting’ with their advertising can help you reach untapped markets to increase your sales.

Click here to read how to reach and influence “purchasers” rather than “demographics”.

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Are You Using Your Coop Funds?

by Scott Howard | Mar 9, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Your suppliers or vendors have a vested interest in your success, and most of them have access to extraordinary marketing funds and resources beyond traditional co-op to help you sell more of their products.

The problem is, seldom does anyone ask for these funds! If you don’t access those funds, you are literally throwing money away, or worse yet, your competitors will scoop those funds and use them against you.

In our How to Leverage Your Suppliers’ Marketing Muscle, tactic number one is “Tender your Next Ad Campaign”. Present a written proposal for submissions for marketing support to all of your suppliers outlining your proposed advertising schedule and investment, along with any special displays, promotions, demonstrations, or other exposure the winning bidder will receive.

Many business owners believe their hands are tied to rigid manufacturers’ restrictions if they use manufacturers’ co-op advertising funds, but seldom is this the case. The squeaky wheel oftentimes gets the grease!

If you are an appliance dealer, for example, and you sell GE and Whirlpool, your GE representative has a vested interest in you featuring GE versus Whirlpool in your ad.

If you make a presentation outlining the kind of campaign you propose to sell more GE without using the standard GE script or ad copy that the manufacturer supplies, it will generally be approved by their office because they don’t want your campaign to feature their competitor.

Nearly every business that offers products has a supplier, and these manufacturers and suppliers want to sell more products. Give them an idea of how you can sell more and they just might come up with some money. But you have to ask for it!

Still, other businesses opt not to leverage their suppliers’ marketing muscle because it takes time and effort. In today’s competitive environment, you need to take advantage of every competitive edge you can.

At WOWO Radio, me and my team have helped our advertising partners find and use hundreds of thousands of coop advertising dollars that our advertising partners use to get the the word out about their business to invite our listeners to spend money with them over the past few years.

Click here to retrieve our FREE How to Leverage Your Suppliers’ Marketing Muscle.

And reach out to me directly at Scott@WOWO.com for help.

Compare With Caution

by Scott Howard | Mar 2, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo Sales Tips, Sound ADvice

Comparing one product or service or one business to another is always acceptable… when you are the consumer.

But as a business selling itself, comparing comes with caution! Make sure you’ve given deep consideration before you compare your product or service with your competition!

This word of caution holds true whether you are making a comparison in your advertising message, or communicating face to face with a customer.

Think back to the last time a salesperson was comparing his or her company, product, or service to their competitors’. If they went too far and made unsubstantiated claims, degraded the competition or its people, it can easily backfire. Instead of gaining confidence in the product, service, or company, they may end up losing credibility and therefore the sale.

In our Do’s and Don’ts of Comparative Advertising many of the rules that apply in advertising also apply when selling person to person.

This applies to major companies as well as small local businesses. In the famous “Get a Mac” advertising campaign, Apple gave great consideration to the possible retaliation that the PC manufacturers could re-attack with. If you are ever considering comparing your business to another, you should too.

Like dynamite, comparative selling and advertising can be a very powerful strategy, but it can also blow up in your face.

Proceed with Caution!

To see the complete list of the Do’s and Don’ts of Comparative Advertising, click here.

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America’s Payday 2021

by Scott Howard | Feb 23, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Let the tax season begin! February 12^th was officially the first day of tax season 2021.

While it’s not actually a pay “day”, but more like a pay “period”, February 12th through April 15th and beyond. Take note, the 2021 tax season is 2 weeks shorter than both 2020 and 2019.

In 2020, 101.3 million Americans received a tax refund with an “average” refund of $2476.00. Do the math and you’ll discover over $250 billion will be injected into the U.S. economy in a matter of 12 weeks.

The graph below shows when people typically file their returns. As you can see, a large percentage procrastinate and file during the last week.

So, what do Americans do with all this money, and more importantly, are you prepared to capture your fair share of it? The graph below clearly shows that regardless of what type of business you own, you stand a decent chance of being on the receiving end of some of this refund bonanza. But, only if you ask!

While the graph above is from 2019, how people spend their 2020 refunds will remain relatively the same as in past years. This will vary only slightly due to the COVID pandemic and also the pending stimulus checks, but only slightly.

Regardless of your business category, there’s an opportunity to take advantage of the massive amount of money being pushed into the US economy.

Knowing this, we now know why so many companies are running tax refund events and promotions. Americans have a fist full of money and many of them want to spend it.

To increase your chances of getting your fair share, there are some key elements to consider when preparing and planning a successful tax refund sales event. Tip #1 is to have a theme that ties in the tax refund element. As corny as it may sound, telling and specifically asking for part or all of their refund is the best way to increase your chances of getting it!

If you would like to see all 14 Tips to a More Successful Tax Refund Sales Event, click here.

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