The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo | The Genuine ScLoHo aka Scott Howard

Own Your Space

by Scott Howard | May 31, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Here we are in the summer of 2022 and due to some recent business meetings I’ve had, I need to give you a piece of advice that I’ve said repeatedly over the years.

Own Your Space.

Not just any space, but your space online.

This applies to you as a person and if you have a business.

A dozen years ago, I was showing college students how I created my own personal brand, the ScLoHo brand with a couple of blogs that I updated every single day.

Then 11 years ago, my friend Kevin challenged me to create my own space, not for the ScLoHo brand, for me, Scott Howard.

And so I did. It took a few months but I invested in my own website instead of using the free blogger sites from Google. This is that website I created in 2011.

It looks much different than the first version. The domain name, ScottHoward.me, was selected because the dot com version of my name was already taken. So while the layout and design have evolved over the years, this website has been consistently been the Space I Own.

Recently I’ve seen business start-ups that don’t have their own website, they are relying on socials. You don’t have a real business, you’ve got a hobby. Until you spend a few hundred bucks, buy a domain and create a simple landing page, at the bare minimum, you aren’t real.

Not in today’s world at least. Look, you don’t even have to use it to run your business, but if your own website doesn’t exist, neither does your business as legit.

I’m not into building websites anymore, but I can connect you with the people I trust. Believe me, I want you to succeed, and there are always a few exceptions to most any rule, but do yourself a favor and get Your Own Space now, for your business and also for your own personal branding.

Tell The Truth

by Scott Howard | May 24, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

This week I have a message to those people who are in the advertising and marketing world and I am going to also apply it to those of you who are simply in the business world.

The message is one your parents, pastor and teachers told you repeatedly from the time you could talk.

Tell The Truth.

I know, there are people who will say that what they are saying is their version on The Truth, but some things are simply untrue. They are often buried in fine print, or fast talking disclaimers, or sometimes just claims that are bogus and outright lies. You might get away with these because the person you are telling them to, doesn’t know any better.

Here’s what got me on this little rant today.

Along with being the General Sales Manager of WOWO radio in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I also serve on the Board of Directors at a local Non-Profit organization. As the only board member with a background in media and marketing, our board and Executive Director asks me for guidance in those areas.

A few years ago, a local TV station approached our Executive Director with a proposal to buy commercials on their television station and I offered to review it before our Executive Director signed anything.

What I did first however was go through an exercise we call a Marketing Strategy Model.

The Marketing Strategy Model is a template from the radio stations sales consultants that is one of the best ways to determine what to buy because it gives you a measuring stick to use when evaluating advertising proposals that ad salespeople try and get you to buy.

Creating a Marketing Strategy Model for the Non-Profit took a couple of meetings and some really in-depth questioning and research, but it was well worth it.

When I did this a few years ago, and then we looked at the TV station advertising proposal, we saw that their advertising sales rep was way off base and the proposal did not meet the real needs for our Non-Profit. Our Executive Director asked me if there were any media recommendations I would make.

Now I knew ahead of time that WOWO radio was likely the best choice for them to reach the people for their need but that was because of my media background and insider access to rating and demographic data. If I was working for another radio station, I would still recommend WOWO because it was the best fit for the needs we uncovered while creating the Marketing Strategy Model for this Non-Profit that I serve as a Member of their Board of Directors.

The need that this Non-Profit has is for volunteer drivers. They have all the other bases covered, but the work they do relies on volunteer drivers.

One of the other Board Members suggested earlier this year that we look at diversifying our marketing outreach. WOWO is a conservative news talk radio station which is highly popular because this part of the state of Indiana has a conservative leaning population, politically speaking.

This other Board Member suggested we look at getting the word out about needing volunteers by using the more liberal leaning public radio station which also broadcasts a mostly news and talk format during the day. I think it’s a good radio station too and I often listen to it on weekends for some of the Public Radio shows that are both entertaining and informative.

As the media advisor on our board, I was sent a copy of the proposal for the Non-Profit by the public radio station and as I read through the 2 page document, red lights started going off in my brain.

I knew that one line on the first page was a lie. That one lie cast doubt on everything else in the document. It was mentioned as a simple fact that could not be fact-checked unless you had access to the rating database that I have because of working in the local radio business.

It was also an un-necessary lie.

Here’s what it said:

W— Listeners (90,000 in NE IN) are highly engaged in the community.

I am not calling them out by name, but there is only one local Public Radio station, you can look it up.

They don’t have 90,000 listeners in Northeast Indiana. They have less than half that many.

I did my research and looked at monthly rating data that goes back 16 months, to 2020, and none of the months showed they had close to 90,000 weekly listeners.

If their underwriting director had been truthful and said “we have over 40,000 weekly listeners” that would have been a credible statement.

And honestly, for the needs of this Non-Profit, the total number of listeners is not as important as the actions those listeners take when hearing the message about needing volunteer drivers.

That’s another challenge when using Public Radio or Public TV stations. They are prohibited from selling commercials that have distinct call to action in the message or a comparative statement. They position themselves as commercial-free because their broadcast licences don’t allow them to sell regular ads. They are underwriting messages, which are pretty bland.

If our Non-Profit was looking at creating community awareness with a branding message, this could have been an option to consider. However there is a current urgent and on-going need that needs to be filled and that is recruiting volunteer drivers. That was determined a few years ago when I helped them create a Marketing Strategy Model.

There were other disadvantages of using the Public Radio Station versus WOWO along with the limitations of the message.

The audience size, no matter how I sliced it, was half of the WOWO audience and for the money, the Public Station offered only 6 or 7 ads per week compared to 30 per week with WOWO.

When I shared this insider information with the Executive Director of the Non-Profit, she also told me about how she had to make multiple calls and emails inquiring about advertising before the Public Station returned her calls and then he was incomplete in answering questions.

No matter what business you are in, always be truthful, if you lose your credibility, you have nothing.

And if you want information on using WOWO, I won’t make you beg for it. My pledge to you is no less than 1 or two business days is the longest you’ll have to wait. Most likely, it will take minutes, or hours, not days or weeks. Scott@WOWO.com is your direct line to me.

Are You The Alternative?

by Scott Howard | May 17, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Everyday each of us are faced with multiple decisions.

Some are mundane, others are life changing.

Deciding which socks to wear, what to have for breakfast including which flavor coffee I was going to brew, all decisions that I made before I started my workday.

Every decision we make is a selection between at least two choices, right?

For each choice we pick, there was an alternative, right?

I think we can all agree that on this so far.

In my world of marketing, a key component is to create and communicate the valuable differences that you and your business offer.

However some of you when asked, “who is your competition?”, say “No one”.

And that is a lie.

I’m not calling you a liar, I just believe you don’t understand that there are alternatives to what you offer.

I recently needed to get my hair cut but the usual shop I went to was booked. So I waited and tried another day.

Same thing the next day I had open, and the next.

Nearly two weeks went by from the time I wanted to get my hair cut and when I finally got it trimmed.

So the first alternative was to NOT spend money. Finally when I did, I went someplace else.

Those are the choices your current customers and potential customers have too.

There’s an exclusive steak house in town that will set you back a few bucks for a really nice dinner. Do they have competition? Yes, but it’s not what they think it is.

They only compare themselves to other high end steak house style restaurants, but the real competition is anyone that can provide food for the person who is hungry at that moment. It’s not even limited to other restaurants. The grocery store is competition to the steakhouse.

But it’s not the same experience.

You are exactly right.

But this takes us back to what I started talking about regarding decisions and choices.

If you have a business and decide to run it as a copy cat business and attempt to duplicate someone else, you are heading down the wrong path. You’re just a second choice.

Instead, become an alternative. Offer something that people want that is different and unique.

Same thing with your marketing messaging. Don’t just copy what the others do, make sure your advertising is uniquely yours.

I know this can be tough, but there are professionals like myself and my team that focus on this. If you need help, reach out.

Local Connections Matter

by Scott Howard | May 10, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Last Thursday, a couple things happened that I’m going to share with you.

First off, a little after 6 in the morning, I got a message from an old friend of mine from my youth who told me he was in town and wanted to get together. He had me pick a place and I selected a local joint that I haven’t dined at in a few months that was also in my friends old neighborhood. Gene lives out of town and I wanted to treat him to a local favorite, not a national chain.

Before I left to meet him, I realized I needed an update on the website and found this article I wrote 4 years ago but never published and it is still very appropriate today. The rest of this piece I composed in 2018…

Who do you trust more to give you wisdom and advice… a nationally known celebrity spokesperson or your best friend?

Fred Jacobs and his brother are specialists who formed Jacobs Media in the 1980’s and take credit for the Classic Rock Radio Format. The other day, Fred wrote about some of the results of a study they conducted pertaining to the Local factor. Over the years due to deregulation the broadcasting world became a different animal than it was previously.

Ownership rules changed which allowed national media companies to form an own hundreds of stations. On the radio side, they were able to cut staff and have the same morning show playing in several cities. Actually they could eliminate all their local staff and fill the airwaves with syndicated programming 24/7.

The upside at first was a higher quality radio program at a lower operational cost. The downside was that the local feel and flavor disappeared.

Fort Wayne, Indiana currently has over 20 radio stations. But if you look closely, several of these stations are licenced to neighboring towns. Columbia City, New Haven, Woodburn, Decatur, Churbusco, Huntington, Roanoke, all of these small towns and more had their own radio stations at one time, or perhaps they are the town that the Fort Wayne stations are really licenced to serve.

These small town stations were bought and moved to Fort Wayne and are now part of a larger radio station group(s).

Similar stuff happened in local television too. WPTA, originally was an ABC affiliate licenced to Roanoke, Indiana. During the past couple of decades, I’ve watched as multiple changes have taken place. It used to be WANE was 15 and CBS; WPTA was 21 and ABC; WKJG was 33 and NBC; WFWA was 39 and PBS; and WFFT was 55 and Fox.

Consolidation and reorganization has changed this line up to a degree too. Most of the Fort Wayne audience was unaware that for awhile, some of our local TV newscasters were also anchoring a newscast in Detroit on a station that was owned by the same company. This was about 10 years ago.

I want to return to my original question and share what Fred Jacobs discovered and how that applies to us in Fort Wayne.

Fred’s article is about Public Radio but we can draw some conclusions that also apply to commercial radio and actually all media.

This graphic really caught my eye and was this inspiration for today.

For my podcast listeners, I’ll share what I’m looking at.

In response to the statement, “One of radio’s primary advantages is its local feel”, nearly 70% agreed or strongly agreed.

All generations agree that local is what makes radio worth listening to. Even the youngest surveyed, the Millennials, 4 out of 5 of them. had the highest preference for local content. 7 out of 10 News Talk radio listeners want local content too.

What’s so important about local? I’ll ask my question again:

Who do you trust more to give you wisdom and advice… a nationally known celebrity spokesperson or your best friend?

See how this all fits together?

One more reason why my radio station, WOWO radio continues to dominate in Fort Wayne, Indiana

Is Generational Relatability An Issue?

by Scott Howard | Apr 19, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

We’re going to talk about generational differences today and how they impact our relationships with others that are older or younger than us.

Last month, Mediapost shared a Quick Refresher on Demographics and that was part of the inspiration for this along with some stuff going on in my own life.

First, I’ll reveal me:

Baby Boomer, graduated from high school in the late 70’s. I was alive when JFK was shot but have no memory of it because I was a toddler. During most of the 60’s, I was not aware of the political turmoil or cultural revolutions that were going on. I was just a kid.

Watergate was the first time I really noticed much about political stuff. When Nixon resigned, I was becoming a teen and was more into teen stuff like girls and music than adult stuff. Musically I was into Top 40 and those songs from the mid 70’s to mid 80’s were the foundation for a couple of reasons. 1st, was listening to the radio as a kid and then I was a teenage disc-jockey from age 16 to 25 on the radio for a decade before moving to the advertising side of broadcasting in Detroit in the late 80’s.

My wife is 8 years older than me and most of her friends are around her age, not mine. We’ve been married for a couple of decades and I would tease her about stuff that happened “before I was born”. Yet as we get older, we’ve realized that those 8 years are not as significant compared to other generations.

Our 5 kids (from our first marriages) were all born in the 80’s and most of them have kids so there’s another generation in our family now.

I recall 20 years ago when I took a break from media and marketing and learned how to run a thermoformer in a plastics plant that the people working for me were closer to my kids age than mine and that was one of the motivating factors to return to radio and get out of the very physically demanding factory world.

Now at the broadcasting company I work for, we are hiring people that are 10 years younger than my kids. While it kind of makes me feel old at times, I’ve also enjoyed the role I play as a leader, mentor, and coach. Plus I can still out perform many of the advertising account executives in our company, but that is not my focus.

So as you and I move forward in 2022 and the years ahead, it’s important to understand some of the differences in generational relatability that I’m about to share. A dozen years ago I was a guest speaker on personal branding to a group of Huntington University students and realized that an example I used of TV personality Larry King was unrelatable, so the following year I updated my presentation to fix that.

Here’s the Mediapost story:

In 2018, the Pew Research Center determined that 1997 was the starting date for Generation Z. Anyone born from 1981 to 1996 is deemed a millennial, and anyone born since 1997 is a Gen-Zer.

At this point, the oldest Gen-Zers are turning 25 this year and the rest are teens or younger. (The cutoff for Gen Z births appears to be 2012.)

Among the differences between Gen Z and millennials (also called Gen Y) are:

–       Most Gen-Zers have little or no memory of 9/11. Instead, they grew up with lines clearly drawn between the political parties after the event.

–       Generation Z is the most ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history. The next most-diverse generation is millennials. Some 52% of Gen Z is white, 25% is Hispanic, and 4% is Asian, again according to Pew.

–       The iPhone launched in 2007, when the oldest Gen-Zers were 10. They came of age as social media, mobile computing and constant connectivity were part of the landscape.

–       According to a 2021 survey, the top brands for Gen Z were Google, Apple and Amazon. Netflix, Chick-Fil-A and Vans came in after that. But that survey is far from definitive. Others have put Nike at No.1, Netflix at No. 2 and YouTube at No. 3.

For millennials, the top brands were Apple, Nike and Amazon, according to marketing firm Moosylvania. Google was No. 8.

In other words, there doesn’t yet appear to be a deep divide between Gen Y and Gen Z. That contrasts with the divide between Gen X and Baby Boomers, which was driven by some big differences. Baby boomers currently comprise 70 million people, versus 65.2 million for Gen X, according to Insider Intelligence. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but Gen X was marked by a “baby bust” mentality that sported attitudes of cynicism and skepticism after the euphoria of boomers.

Baby boomers also had a clear starting point (the end of World War II) and ending (1964, when the birth rate began falling). Since then, the delineations between generations seems somewhat arbitrary. As a result, those expecting a huge chasm between Gen Y and Gen Z may come up short.

Some additional insight as you consider all of this is to not make broad assumptions about someone because of the generation they were born into. I am much more active than my son when it comes to online behavior. I was also an early adopter compared to folks 10 to 20 years younger than me. I had to push and pull some of my former co-workers to move forward with certain things that they thought were just a fad, but clearly were much bigger and longer lasting. Twitter is the example that comes to mind.

Want to know more or do you have some insights to share? Contact me.

More Powerful Than Digital Advertising

by Scott Howard | Apr 5, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Over the past couple of decades, the biggest growth in advertising expenditures has been digital. I’m talking about nearly anything online, from websites, to apps, to Google ads, Social Media Ads, all of it together has consistently seen growth in the double digits, percentage wise.

This is a good thing, by the way. Technology is always evolving and automating tasks… that help us be more productive. Our company just upgraded our CRM system this year from an older, non-intuitive software system to one that was designed specifically for our business.

As we learn to use and trust new tech, we might think that it can replace nearly everything that people used to do.

However, you and I are still people and we still use Human Relationship Principles in our daily lives.

Sure, I mostly trust my digital tech to pay bills and order a pizza, but when it comes to picking a dentist, I want another human being’s input, not just a techy.

The Trust Factor.

It is one of the most important elements of being human.

A recently released study from MarketingCharts.com says that Word Of Mouth Beats Websites, and they also list a few other ways to spread the word.

Word of Mouth has nearly DOUBLE the Trust Factor over branded websites.

Word of Mouth more than DOUBLE’s the Trust Factor on online consumer reviews.

What if there was a way to take the power of Word of Mouth and make it spread faster than just me telling my friend one at a time?

There is.

I’m referring to something I’ve referred to as “Word of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth” It’s my radio station. WOWO, nearly 100 years old and the most powerful Word of Mouth vehicle in Northeast Indiana.

With over 30 radio stations, WOWO is the biggest Talk Radio Station with over 100,000 weekly listeners.

A news/talk format with local hosts and newscasters is a trust machine. Thousands tune in every morning to WOWO for news, weather, sports and current events. Our two local hosts, Pat Miller in the afternoon and Kayla Blakeslee in the morning do the ultimate Word of Mouth endorsement for a select few advertising partners on WOWO and the results speak for themselves.

We actually have a waiting list of businesses that would like to have Kayla or Pat’s endorsement because they will only endorse one business per business category.

This Word Of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth on WOWO reaches tens of thousands of consumers each day. If you are in the WOWO-land listening area and want to know more, contact me. Scott@WOWO.com