We are hearing stories about the record number of people who are filing for unemployment, the devastating stories of people dying from this mystery virus that we have yet to get a handle on because it is new to the medical and scientific community.
Some of us are working from home, other are at home trying to figure out how to occupy their time.
As business owners and managers, I understand you want some answers, but the answers to the questions you really want aren’t available yet.
We don’t know what the final tally will be healthwise or financially. We are living in the middle of a movie and this is not your typical romantic comedy or action flick where we know the good guys always win. This is real life, your life, my life and the lives of the people we work with and live with.
You want answers, you want solutions, and while I wish I could give you a road map to follow exactly…
I can’t because each of you have different circumstances and variables that will determine the steps to take.
Instead I am going to take a moment and share with you some resources that I shared with my team.
Near the end of February, I was offered and accepted a promotion to become the General Sales Manager of WOWO Radio. WOWO is one of a dozen stations owned by Federated Media in Indiana and the past few years the WOWO Local Sales Team has been the largest producer of revenue for our company. I’ve been part of that team for nearly 7 years.
Less than 4 weeks after the promotion to lead, manage and coach our team, Black Friday hit. It was my wife’s birthday March 13th and the orders to stay at home were causing businesses to scramble and try and figure out what to do next.
One of the things I prepared for my team was a list of some resources that have helped me over the years. With the extra time you have and your desire to find some answers, this list of resources could spur your thinking and creativity.
In 1986 I made the switch from having fun and being creative as a radio personality in the programming side of the business, to needing to learn how to apply that creativity and fun to the money making side of the business, the advertising, marketing and sales side.
And circling back to Roy Williams, some of his partners also write great stuff that you can subscribe to: https://wizardofads.org/articles/
I also have over 1400 articles and over 150 podcast episodes that I’ve created at my own website: https://www.scotthoward.me/ and I update with fresh material every single week.
I have been learning for over 30 years and continue to soak up wisdom from others.
I also have a weekly newsletter called Sound ADvice that is free and delivered to your email Wednesday mornings if you sign up for it.
Every business owner understands that keeping a current customer is much less expensive than creating a new customer. Or at least you think they would! Let me rephrase this; Every SUCCESSFUL business owner not only understands this, but they do things to ensure that they remain a customer and become a Core Customer.
So what exactly is a Core Customer? A Core Customer is someone that has done business with you in the past “X-period of time” and has the potential to do business with you again.
The “X-period of time” depends upon the purchase cycle or how often purchases are made within each business category. For example, in the automotive category, a typical person purchases a vehicle every 3-½ years. In the plumbing business, less than 20% of the population use a plumber every year and 50% of the population only needs a plumber every 4 to 6 years. In the hardware business, it can be 1 time per month or more.
If your current customers have purchased from you within your “purchase cycle” time frame, these people should be considered a “Core Customer”. As a business owner, you want to connect and reconnect with people between purchases until, at minimum, they are out of the “purchase cycle” period.
The other important question is, how often do you need to keep in contact? It can vary to some degree depending upon the buying cycle, but the rule of thumb is 3 to 5 times a year, with a minimum of two.
The first thing you must do is identify your business’ buying cycle. Then, identify who your current core customers are.
If you do not have a list of your customers and their contact info, start to create one. The only info you need is the name, mailing address, email address, date of purchases, and if possible, what they purchased and the transaction amount.
Having this information is useless unless you USE it!
Keeping your current customers is one key to success, but we must understand that regardless of what you do, you stand to lose 20% of your customers each year due to attrition in one form or another. Therefore, it’s paramount that you continue to attract new customers that turn into Core Customers. Once you’ve created the relationship, do everything you can to keep them!
I have 8 helpful tips on how to stay connected with your Core Customers and protect them from predators (your competition). Just email send me an email to Scott@WOWO.com with the subject Core Customers. I also have a weekly marketing tips newsletter that I will send to you free when you fill out the form below.
Are you one of those people who wonder if advertising on the radio would work for your business?
I’ve got something for you to watch, or at least listen to for 5 minutes in a moment.
Last year I turned 59 and listening to the radio has been part of my life since I was a kid. I remember having a clock radio and being responsible for setting my alarm so I would be up in the morning when I was in grade school. Listening for school delays and praying for school closings that never came was my first experience. WOWO radio in Fort Wayne with Bob Sievers was my station.
Later, as I entered my teen years, it was my source of music. My Music, not my parents music. I still listened to WOWO after school and when I was supposed to be doing my homework and felt like I knew Young Chris Roberts and Ron Gregory who did the afternoon and night shows on WOWO. I also discovered the MAGIC MEE and Top 40 Radio with WMEE. The first FM station that was mine and not my parents was ROCK 95, an automated station that played music off reel to reel tapes.
Many of today’s youth and young adults have other ways of getting that same news information and entertainment. Social Media and the entire web have created a generation or two that have choices of where to get those things that I relied on my transistor radio for.
However, I used the word choices just now very deliberately. Because radio listening has not declined, and results for radio advertisers continue to be outstanding when it’s done properly.
What you are about to see and hear is a 5 minute video produced by the Radio Advertising Bureau. They are passionate about radio and rightfully biased, just like I am.
Now let me share with you a bit about my personal story.
Those radio stations I mentioned, WOWO, WMEE, and ROCK 95… the local Fort Wayne stations I listened to as a kid, I’ve worked for them as a grown-up.
WMEE moved from being the MAGIC MEE on 1380 am to 97.3 WMEE and I was on the air at WMEE in the early 1980’s.
ROCK 95 became a soft rock radio station and I worked for them on the air in the 1990’s.
And now, I work in the same building I used to work in during the 80’s… the building that WMEE is in is also the home of 5 other stations including WOWO radio, the station I’ve worked for since 2013. WOWO transitioned from being a music station to a news/talk station a couple decades ago.
Since you’ve read this far, I’ll share with you a couple more cool things. Recently I connected on Facebook with Shotgun Lenny Harrison whom I remember listening to on the MAGIC MEE in the late 70’s. We were trading stories and reminiscing about our days on the air. Lenny worked with Steve Shine, another WMEE d-j who is now our main fill-in morning show host on WOWO. I’ve also connected to other former coworkers from WMEE and other stations on Facebook and face to face too.
One more item is the very same Ron Gregory who inspired me to want to work on the radio when I listened to him on WOWO as a teenager… Ron and I have been friends for about a dozen years now. A couple times a year we will sit and talk over a meal or a beverage. Small World.
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.
The Holi-daze are upon on and this is a weird and wonderful time of year. I’ve created a few items that you as a business person or marketing person, or what ever kind of person you are, you can take a look at and use to help you navigate the last few weeks of this year.
If this is make it or break it time for your retail business, it’s time to suck it up. Just because you are having to work long hours and cover for the employees that are sick or you just are short handed because all the good people have jobs elsewhere due, remember your customers.
The customers who actually drove to your store really want to buy something that you sell. Otherwise, we would have ordered it online. Just the other day, my wife was working on a project and after making a couple trips to the store, she asked me to order a tool online. It took me less than 10 minutes on a Saturday afternoon and it arrived at our house Monday. While that was convenient for my family, we are also a shop local family. Of the $200 we spent on this project, $185 went to a local store and $15 went to Amazon.
That’s because we are consciously looking to support our friends and neighbors. Locally owned coffee shops and restaurants get most of my food and beverage money every month.
The point is, the people who come to your store, have a choice to buy from you or someone else. Super-serve them and keep them coming back. Create a positive shopping experience for them and they will come back. Make it a bad experience, and you may have lost them forever.
Advertising is the part of marketing that functions as the invitation to your company. But advertising can’t fix problems that go on inside your company.
Last week I was meeting with someone who wanted to hire me to train his staff on how to upsell his customers in a manner that is not annoying, but instead is genuine.
Speaking of advertising, you really need to invite people to your store right now. People are spending for themselves and for others. They are overspending, maxing out credit cards this time of year. While I don’t believe that is a good thing to do, I’m not their mom and they are grown ups right?
Advertising this time of year might be challenging if you haven’t planned ahead.
Using television ads means you need to get a fresh ad produced and that takes time and money. Also the television viewing is different this time of year due to the holiday specials on TV and combined with the changes in TV viewing habits, I recommend you stay away from TV unless you already have it planned out.
Print ads might be available in the daily newspaper, but with the dwindling number of readers, just say no.
Social Media including Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest might work, but you better have a professional managing it, or else you can waste time and money.
I offer some online advertising options through the Federated Digital Solutions division of my company, but again, it’s kind of late to plan for this Holi-daze season. If you want to talk about it, let’s plan a campaign for the new year.
My suggestion is using radio advertising to capture customers right now for the Holi-daze season.
Within a couple of days, I can get your message in front of thousands of people right here in our city who are shopping. WOWO radio continues to be one of the most listened to radio stations in Fort Wayne and it’s a hot time right now. Our annual Penny Pitch drive is underway with money being raised for two local non-profits. Weekly events that you and your business can be associated with provide a feel-good connection.
I also can create room for advertising for a special event. Earlier this month, I put together a radio advertising campaign for an event that was less than a week away. I wrote the ads, we produced the campaign and in the 5 days leading up and including the sale days, over 50 ad invitations were heard by over 75,000 WOWO listeners.
If this is crunch time for you, let’s talk now.
Or if this is a slow time of the year for you because you are not part of the retail Holi-daze season, this is an excellent time to plan for the new year. I can make time to help you with your planning, reach out and we’ll get started.
By the way, I have a couple of ideas for retailers that you can do right now for this Holi-daze season:
This first one was inspired by Amazon. I use Amazon to buy gifts for my relatives that are hundreds of miles away. I often spend a little extra to have Amazon gift wrap those presents. What if you offered to gift wrap purchases as an upsell to people who are in your store? Make it easy and just have a stock of gift bags and tissue paper, and charge them your cost plus an extra buck or two. You can even partner up with a local charity and give the proceeds to them.
This other idea also was inspired by something Amazon does not do. Sometimes I buy a gift ahead of time and I don’t want it to arrive before hand. What if you offered a Santa’s Closet for people who want to buy presents now, but wait a few days or weeks to take them home?
My last idea is something you need to start and continue forever. Collect email addresses and text numbers and offer a program to customers who sign up to be notified of special events. Most major retailers do this and you should too.
There are a lot of postings online about the sudden and unexpected passing of my friend and co-worker Charly Butcher. I took some time to find some video’s that give a glimpse into the Charly we all know and love, but first a run-down of what happened in the past 24 hours.
Wednesday evening, August 15th, 2018, I was at home when my phone notified me that a work email arrived. It was the announcement that Federated Media Fort Wayne Market Manager Jim Allgeier sent us:
It’s with a heavy heart that I am sending this email out right now. Charly Butcher has passed away this afternoon. No details as of yet that I can share.
Over the next couple of hours my co-workers in the advertising sales team at WOWO and I were in communication with each other. Numb and shocked were the words that we used as this was totally out of the blue. We wondered how our WOWO News and Programming co-workers would handle this, as Charly worked daily with them in the studio.
A couple hours later, WOWO sent a news alert via text that Charly had died and they posted the initial story on WOWO.com and shared on Facebook and Twitter. Soon the news teams at WANE-TV and WPTA-TV had the news on their websites and I stayed up to see all three local network affiliates, CBS, ABC and NBC lead their local newscast with the shocking news about Charly Butcher. You can search online to find their stories.
Charly was on vacation this week so his usual fill-in host Steve Shine is on the radio all week.
Thursday morning it was all hands on deck at the studios. Many of us wore our WOWO staff shirts all day. The entire morning program, Fort Wayne’s Morning News with Charly Butcher along with the entire afternoon show, The Pat Miller Program were live and local tributes to Charly. Phone calls, emails, text messages, in studio appearances, social media posts were all shared from former Indiana Governor and current Vice President Mike Pence to Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry. Current and former co-workers and others in the media took part. And of course there were plenty of reminiscing moments from listeners and friends of WOWO and WMEE where Charly first built his reputation in Fort Wayne in the 1980’s.
When Charly Butcher joined WMEE in 1983, I was also on the air at WMEE, but it was 30 years later that our paths crossed again when I rejoined Federated Media in 2013. Charly has now firmly in the news/talk business instead of the top 40 radio business and for nearly 5 years now, I’ve had the pleasure of working with him as we would brainstorm ideas for my WOWO advertising partners or just reminisce about our old WMEE days.
Sometimes when you work in local media like Charly did, you don’t realize the impact you are having on peoples lives. Over 3,000 people shared the original Facebook posting and the link on the WOWO.com website crashed as so many people were trying to find out what happened.
A hashtag #RememberCharly is being used on Facebook and Twitter if you care to join in or simply read.
I took some time to find a few videos from the past to share:
Quite a different persona than those who listened to him on WOWO radio, but still the same radio dude.
Here’s at promo clip from when WOWO began our TV simulcast:
As WOWO’s FM signal is now at 107.5FM the TV simulcast is now found on MyTV.
Charly emceeing one of the numerous events in our community from 2009:
Charly never lost his sense of humor at WOWO as evident in this clip from 2011:
Penny Pitch 2013:
Charly got the hang of being both on WOWO and TV:
Charly loved portraying himself as “The Grinch”:
Charly played tribute to another Fort Wayne institution a few years ago:
The last post from Charly on his Facebook page the day before he passed away shows one side of his personality:
Let me leave you with this clip from a couple years ago as Charly tells his story to students at Croninger Elementary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Follow the official post and comment at WOWO.com .
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Podcasts
TuneIn
Deezer
CastBox