How’s Your Culture?

by Scott Howard | Nov 11, 2024 | Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

First, I’m sharing information that readers of my Sound ADvice newsletter received October 30th and if you’d like a free email subscription, just let me know. Then I’ll add some additional insights…

Today’s #1 concern of most business owners is not what their competition is doing, when the next recession will arrive, or how much business Amazon may be taking from them. Most business owners and managers will tell you their #1 concern is… finding good employees!

Ask yourself, “If the perfect person walked through my door today and was looking for a job, what would I do?” Would you ADD this new-found superstar to your team, or is there someone on your team that you would “offer an opportunity to find a new career”, i.e. replace them?

The cost of emotionally disengaged employees is staggering, and the number of disengaged employees is huge. In America, a Gallup Research Poll found that 70% of employees would consider a better opportunity if one was presented to them. They also found that 51% of employed people already have a resume put together and are actively looking for their next job or career.

One consistent sign of any great company is the longevity of its employees. Smart business owners understand it’s a far better investment to pamper, reward, recognize, support, train, pay your current employees well, and keep them than to continue hiring, training, and rehiring unengaged employees.

The things employees want most vary from survey to survey, but they include flexibility, opportunity, defined responsibility, attention and recognition, autonomy, and purpose, to name a few.

As a business owner, gauging or rating your employees’ happiness isn’t easy. A quick way to do this is to have each employee take a simple survey. This simple, non-threatening exercise will answer nearly everything you need to know about their level of engagement, and whether or not you need to put the HELP WANTED sign out front of your business.

Consider asking your employees these two powerful questions to find out if they are happy, or if they are part of the 70% that would consider a better opportunity:

1) Do you feel like your supervisor cares about you as a person?

2) Do you feel like there is an opportunity for you to grow here?

Caution: DO NOT have your employees put their names on the survey. I can almost assure you that you will know who they are by their answers.

If you would like the complete list of 11 Survey Questions to Measure your Employees’ Happiness Level, click here or contact me

Since 2013 I’ve worked for WOWO radio, which is owned by Federated Media. Started out as one of 5 on the advertising sales team for WOWO, was asked to lead our team in 2020, added three more stations sales teams to manage in 2022 and then at the end of 2023, recruited myself back to ad sales for WOWO and our sports talk station, The Fan.

This is not my first job in radio advertising, but it’s one that I plan on doing until I retire.

Why?

It’s a culture thing.

That includes happiness, but it also includes freedom and support.

We are currently short staffed on our sales teams at Federated Media in Fort Wayne which is one of the reasons I’m back in sales instead of management.

We have 4 sales teams, one for each radio station. That includes WMEE, K105, 989 The Bear and WOWO plus the WOWO team also sells our other talk station The Fan.

One of my most challenging duties as a General Sales Manager was recruitment.

We have high standards and that starts with taking an online talent assessment to see if we are a good fit for the candidates that apply.

My last summer in management, I hired two for the Bear and only one is still there. I reviewed over 400 applicants to get those two.

Right now, we have 10 total for all stations, we should have 16 to be fully staffed.

One of the things sales people hate is unnecessary meetings and so most weeks we are fortunate to only have a couple of hours each week that we need to be at the office for a meeting. The rest of the time, we’re out taking care of clients and finding new clients.

Well last month we were “pulled off the streets” as the saying goes for a half-day session with our sales consultant. As I was looking around the conference room, I saw a bunch of individuals that while small in number (10 instead of 16), they are all the right people for right now. Everyone there is doing their job and doing it well. Not perfect, none of us are.

But myself and the other 9 sales people along with the 3 managers in the room are the core for producing revenue. Some have more than two decades with Federated Media. Some just over a year. Some have left and then came back. That’s a good sign when someone leaves and then decides the grass isn’t greener out there and they return.

By the way, in the 11 years I’ve been here, I’m guessing there are around 30 people who used to work for our sales teams but don’t anymore. That online talent assessment isn’t a predictor of an individuals success, it’s just the qualifier to be considered for employment. Before I was in management, there were some managers who hired people that according to the talent assessment, were not a good match and none of those people lasted even a year.

One last reflection on all this… I was talking to a co-worker who rejoined Federated Media last year and is now with my station, WOWO. He’s one of the ones that has been with Federated Media for more than a couple of decades, and previously he was on the WMEE sales team. I asked him how many different managers he’s worked for in his years here and 8 was the answer. Some of those changes were due to management realignment changes and the last couple were due to management changes we went thru with WOWO.

As he and I were comparing notes, while an individual manager can set the tone for the culture, the best staff are also adaptable and self-motivated to succeed no matter who they are reporting to. Those people you will want to keep and build your culture around them.

23 Percent Don’t Know What They Are Doing

by Scott Howard | Nov 4, 2024 | ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

It’s another election week in the United States of America.

Monday November 4th is when this article gets published on my website and the audio version is released as episode 353 of the Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing podcast.

Because I work in the media, specially for a highly popular news talk radio station WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I’m very aware of the political world. Because I also listen and watch other media that presents news and views from a different political perspective, I’m pretty well rounded.

Because I’ve worked in media for a long time, starting as a teenager, but let’s say 30+ years, I’m also aware of the ways and whys media act the way the do. Not just news but entertainment too.

I’ve now spent 21 years in Fort Wayne media on the sales and advertising business side and every four years some businesses get a little too caught up in political speculation.

Last month a study was released by Borrell Associates pertaining to this. Here’s a quote from InsideAudioMarketing.com:

A lot is riding on the outcome of what happens on Election Day, and one of the potential impacts will be the advertising market. A survey of local advertisers by Borrell Associates finds that nearly one in four (23%) of small and medium-sized businesses say their advertising and marketing spending will be impacted depending on whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins in November. Another 30% say they aren’t sure, while 47% say they don’t expect ad spending to shift much regardless of the election outcome.

Some of my co-workers have seen this apprehension from their advertising partners about how the outcome of the election will determine the success of their business.

Let’s dig deeper into this article:

Borrell data shows supporters of former President Trump are more likely to alter their spending plans based on the winner. Among Trump supporters, nearly a third (31%) of local businesses say their advertising plans will be modified if their candidate returns to office…However, local business owners who support Vice President Harris are less likely to be influenced. Borrell says only 14% of those in the Harris camp say they will change their marketing plans based on whether she is the winner.

While the impact of the policies that each side will have different potential ramifications for business owners, placing that much emphasis on who the President is to determine your ad spend is stupid and ignorant for small and medium sized businesses.

If your business produces a good product or service and uses advertising and marketing correctly, none of this political stuff matters that much.

What do I mean by correctly? Advertising is simple. It’s just inviting potential customers to spend their money with you.

If you slow down or stop inviting people to your business and coast for awhile, your business will decline. Because you can only coast downhill.

When I titled this 23 Percent Don’t Know What They Are Doing, that refers to the one out of four or five businesses that are placing too much emphasis on political outcomes this week and instead should focus on what they can do to improve their company and invite more people to become their customers.

I’ve lived through the financial hiccups of 2008 and saw smart business people surviving while those that were scared shut down.

Or maybe they weren’t smart, they were just stubbornly determined to keep doing the right thing and they pushed forward while others dropped out and as the saying goes, the strong survive.

One more bit of info from that article:

The top three issues facing small businesses, according to Borrell’s survey, are the cost of labor, mentioned by 40% of those surveyed, followed by the cost of technology (39%), hiring and attracting new employees (31%), taxes (28%), and keeping up with technology (18%).

Valid points.

Still you need customers so please continue to invite us.

Is Your Brand Identity Correct?

by Scott Howard | Oct 28, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

My favorite carbonated beverage is changing their branding.

So I’m going to stop drinking it in protest.

Just kidding.

Mountain Dew is changing their labeling to Mountain Dew.

I know, that sounds weird but it’s a visual change, not a verbal change.

Here’s the story from Mediapost titled:

Mountain Dew Unveils New Logo, Visual Identity

After around 15 years, Mountain Dew has found its vowels again.

The brand unveiled its new logo — eschewing the “Mtn Dew” stylization officially introduced in the U.S. market in 2009 –– in favor of the full brand name, while tying the brand’s visual identity back to mountainous peaks portrayed in the background as it approaches its 75th anniversary. Mountain Dew’s new logo also includes small text reading “Est. 1948” over the “W” in its brand name, a nod to the year the trademark was officially established.

I know, it’s shocking. I say that with a ting of sarcasm.

Because honestly, I don’t recall them dropping the vowels out of Mountain in 2009. I didn’t change my buying habits and I won’t now, or when the new logo comes out in 2025.

I was trying to recall when I started drinking the Dew, and I’m guessing it was in the 90’s as an alternative to coffee. Nothing wrong with coffee but the Dew also replaced Pepsi as my go to cold beverage. I recall having a conversation with my kids when they questioned my drinking Mountain Dew in the morning and I pointed out to them that the second ingredient on the label was concentrated orange juice. Let’s be honest, besides the taste and the O.J. Mountain Dew had more caffeine than Pepsi or Coke and that was the main reason I drank it. Also a little over 20 years ago I switched to the diet versions of soft drinks.

What I just shared was my own story and reasons for drinking Mountain Dew.

It has nothing to do with the name, or the logo. Yet someone in their advertising agency was paid big bucks to revamp their visual image.

I’m not against updates. One of my favorite advertising partners on WOWO radio has done an internal name change this year and we’ve updated his ads and also the visual elements. There was nothing wrong with the previous name, Moore and Associates, but it really didn’t identify his brand. Unless you knew from the advertisements that have aired on WOWO for over 29 years who Chris Moore is and what he does, Moore and Associates could be a law firm, or a plumber or nearly anything.

His new name is much more clear and a much stronger branding statement. Moore Wealth Management. Chris and his team have grown over the past 3 decades and the new name is accurate as it reflects what they do now and what they’ve been doing for years.

With all do respect to my friends who specialize in graphic design and understand the subconscious influences of color and typography including font selection, those are secondary to having a good product and service that people will talk about positively. As a side note, I like Comic Sans. Time to crack open a Diet Mtn Dew.

Success in Sampling

by Scott Howard | Oct 21, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Debbie Fields was only 21 years old when she opened her first Mrs. Fields Cookies store in Palo Alto, California in 1977. Seven short years later, in 1984, the marketing “novice” had 160 stores selling more than $45 million worth of Mrs. Fields Cookies.

There are a lot of lessons we can learn from Debbie’s marketing success. Her passion and determination caused her to succeed even though she had no experience, and was told by friends, family, bankers, and others that her “idea” would not succeed.

The marketing campaign that drew customers to her stores consisted of simply going out into the streets with trays of free cookies for people to sample. If you have a great product, consider finding a way to offer free samples to your customers.

Car dealers know the value of the free test drive, and vendors at local farmers’ markets have learned they sell more produce by offering free samples.

Advertising that you offer free trials or samples also speaks volumes about the confidence you have in your products or services. Mrs. Fields did not wait for customers to come into her store to offer them free samples, she went out into the streets with trays of goodies.

“Free” is one of the most powerful words in advertising and giving samples of your product engages “psychological reciprocity” in the minds of your prospects.

Psychological reciprocity is defined as “a deep-rooted subconscious need to do something for those who do something for us”.

FREE! If you have a product that customers will love, click here to read the 8 Keys to Successful Sampling.

Mrs. Fields Cookies was one of the first franchised cookie shops in the country and we use to have a couple of them here in Fort Wayne Indiana. We don’t anymore due to the changes in consumer behavior and decline of major malls that was going on for awhile but then took a big hit in 2020 with covid.

When Mrs. Fields started in the malls around the country, that was a strategic location move. See, the rent in a mall was usually higher than a smaller strip shopping center. Just the mall itself was a destination, not just specific stores.

So the Mrs. Fields cookie stores took advantage of the foot traffic created by the other well known stores and built their brand that way.

Some of my radio advertising partners have used a free offer that was in response to a genuine need to create increased business in the past few years. Let’s talk and see if there’s something that might be appropriate for your business.

Audio Advertising: Sports Talk on the Radio

by Scott Howard | Sep 30, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Continuing a short series focused on Audio Advertising as it’s sometimes called, this week I’m going to highlight a radio format we call Sports Talk.

As a radio veteran of a few decades and a radio listener for even longer, listening to sports on the radio was a part of the my life… forever.

A couple of recent studies present some fresh information on why sports radio is a great choice for businesses to advertise too.

First my personal listening history starting as a kid in the 1970’s…

My next door neighbor was a fan of the Cincinnati Reds and during the summer he blasted the game from 700 WLW as he worked in his backyard. Johnny Bench and Pete Rose were familiar to me then because of the play by play games I heard from over the fence. In the colder months, I listened to the Boston Celtics with Larry Bird on WBZ as I layed in bed with my battery operated transistor radio. Fort Wayne’s WOWO radio, introduced me to the excitement of Komet Hockey with legendary broadcaster Bob Chase. He was still calling the home games when I joined WOWO in 2013.

Another tradition listening to WOWO was Memorial Day weekend and the broadcast of the Indy 500 on Sunday afternoon. Only once have I attended in person but nearly every year I heard the lap by lap coverage as A.J Foyt, Al Unser and Bobby Unser took the checkered flags during my youth.

High school sports on the radio were a mainstay at the first two stations I worked at full time in Marion and Kokomo Indiana. During the time I lived in Detroit, I got to hear the late Ernie Harwell on WJR sharing the Tigers games and even got to meet Ernie when we had him as a guest on our stations Christian Talk Show.

Returning to Indiana and fast forwarding a few years to when my daughter played in the marching band for the Tippecanoe Valley Vikings and I lived about 90 minutes away, I’d listen to the game as I was driving into town to pick her up along with her brother and sister for the weekend as Rita Price did the play by play on WRSW.

I remember all these sports broadcasts clear as day even the ones that are decades old and I’m not a sports junkie. It was exciting to hear the live drama as it happened in the moment.

In the past couple of decades, I’ve worked for stations that carry college sports, pro sports and high school games. Many of the businesses that advertise do it as a passion play. They are fans of a team because they are alumni, or their kid goes to school there. Perhaps it’s the home town pride but there’s something beyond the recognition of having your business as a sports sponsor on the radio that doesn’t get talked about alot.

The ROI of Sports Talk Radio. It’s not always easy, darn near impossible to measure the number of listeners to a specific game on a local radio station because that’s not how rating services work. But there are plenty of antidotal stories from business owners of how advertising on sports talk radio boosts their business.

Here’s some data from a couple of studies that just came out this season.

An analysis of more than 50 locally and nationally advertised brands in seven major U.S. sports markets shows sports-formatted radio stations not only attract listeners who are active fans, but those who are aware of — and are more likely to interact with — advertisers on those stations.

That’s the opening paragraph from an article titled New Research Shows Sports Radio Is ‘A Game-Changer For Brands.’

Here’s more:

Participants in the study — conducted by Vision Insights in July among nearly 2,300 sports fans age 18+ in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco — give sports audio an advantage over other electronic media. The survey finds that while nine in 10 sports fans listen equally to sports talk and live game broadcasts, sports radio listeners are four times more likely to catch a brand’s message there than on TV, while 73% of fans spend more time following their favorite teams on sports audio than sports-related digital media.

Did you catch that? Sports talk radio listeners are 4 times more likely to be paying attention to your ads compared to watching sports on TV. Also over 70% of sports fans spend more time following their teams on the radio compared to other sports themed digital media.

There’s more great news for businesses who advertise on sports talk radio:

…the results of a larger-scale Vision Insights survey of more than 100,000 respondents age 13+ conducted between June 2023 and May 2024, showing that fans are four times more likely to trust brands that support their teams, and that brands doing do receive three times more positive feedback. In addition, fans are twice as enthusiastic about brands that align with their teams.

That article concludes with this summary:

“Advertisers aren’t just background noise for sports listeners, they’re part of the action,” “Sports talk listeners pay attention to ads, unlike many TV viewers who scroll TikTok or go for snacks during ad breaks. This boosts awareness for both national and local brands, with fans finding sports talk ads more relevant, trustworthy, and memorable than TV ads.”

One more recent article that has a couple of quotes to share about sports talk and play by play on the radio:

Audio play-by-play listeners are far more sports engaged and passionate versus TV viewers

The TV and AM/FM radio NFL broadcasts have very different audience profiles. The TV audience consists of casual sports fans.

The AM/FM radio play-by-play audience is far more sports passionate and engaged. This distinction has a significant impact on advertising effectiveness.

What should you do with all this information? Contact me Scott Howard because I happen to have access to the only local full time sports talk radio station in Fort Wayne Indiana, 1380 The Fan and we also carry some sports on our news talk station WOWO. Email Scott@WOWO.com

Audio Advertising: Streaming Music versus Traditional Radio

by Scott Howard | Sep 23, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

I’ve been getting a lot of research and data coming my direction that I’ve decided to share with you in a series of articles I’m labeling Audio Advertising. As a business owner or just a regular consumer, we hear and read various things that we might think are more true than they really are.

One of the ways to identify these types of mis-information is when they include absolute statements such as:

No one listens to music on the radio anymore.

Sports Fans watch all their games on TV or in person.

Podcasts are what everyone is listening to these days.

Or Radio is dead.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve addressed the Radio is Dead rumor with evidence that it’s not. It’s alive and thriving. If you missed those stories, go back and read or listen to the podcast episodes.

Before I joined News/Talk WOWO radio in 2013, I worked primarily for music stations. The past couple of decades pundits were eager to declare that ad supported free AM/FM commercial radio was dying and people were now going to listen to their favorite songs via streaming services. Pandora Music was one of thee first that has it’s roots going back to the year 2000. It was September of 2005 that they officially launched as a subscription ad-free music service but then they added a free service that included advertising, similar to traditional radio.

According to Wikipedia, Pandora grew to around 70 million active monthly users worldwide, but that number comes from 2013.

What does this have to do with advertising?

A couple of things…

Local businesses can pay to run ads on Pandora.

Pandora is not the only music streaming service and others also offer ad placement, Spotify is the most recognized for home/office and Sirius XM for mobile listening in vehicles.

Pandora and these other streaming radio services never have had the number of listeners that traditional radio stations continue to have and a recent study shows that Pandora’s ability to reach local listeners with your advertising message has been declining for years.

Here are some highlights from a report from Westwood One titled What Ever Happened to Pandora:

Here are five key findings:

Since consumer interest in Pandora Radio hit an all-time high in 2008, its audience and profile have significantly collapsed, according to Google Search trends.
A brand-new Advertiser Perceptions study conducted in August 2024 reveals marketers and media agencies need to “take the me out of media” as they wildly overestimate Spotify and Pandora audiences and dramatically understate AM/FM radio’s shares.
AM/FM radio represents the dominant ad-supported audio platform with a 69% overall share and a massive 86% in-car share.
Podcast audiences soar. At a 19% share of ad-supported audio, podcasts now represent one out of every five minutes of U.S. ad-supported audio.
Among registered voters, AM/FM radio leads in ad-supported audience share (69%), followed by podcasts (19%).

I’ll have more on the podcast growth trend in a few weeks. For now, let’s dig into the Pandora data:

Ad-supported Pandora’s daily reach has been cut in half; AM/FM radio streaming is twice as big as ad-supported Pandora and ad-supported Spotify

Since 2017, Edison’s “Share of Ear” reports ad-supported Pandora’s daily reach has plunged from 12% to 6%. At a 63% daily reach, AM/FM radio’s audience is ten times larger than Pandora. Amazingly, the 11% daily reach of AM/FM radio streaming is double that of ad-supported Pandora (6%) and ad-supported Spotify (5%).

Looking at one of the charts, we see that AM/FM radio listenership either over the air or via a stream was 77% of daily listening in 2017 and in 2024 it’s 70%. Meanwhile Pandora dropped from 12% down to 6%, Spotify went up 1% from 4 to 5 while Sirius remains flat at 5% of daily listening.

Most traditional AM/FM radio stations offer additional ways to listen to your favorite station along with a regular AM/FM radio and that’s where the streaming comes in. In my home we have both Alexa and Google Home smart speakers which have replaced the radios in a couple of rooms in our house.

As an experiment for this article, i listened to Pandora for about an hour and never heard any local ads. When I looked at the display ads, again nothing local and nothing targeted to me despite the fact they have that meta data. The job I had before returning to radio in 2013 involved a lot of desk work and I would listen to Pandora for a portion of the work day.

Bottom line is in order to invite local consumers to your business, local radio is still an excellent choice you need to consider.

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