by Scott Howard | Aug 15, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Time to introduce myself, again for some of you that I’ve known for awhile, and perhaps for the first time if you are unfamiliar with this website and podcast.
This is episode 75 of the weekly podcast titled, The Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast.
Launched in early 2017 as a request from a couple of the managers at Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana, they were asked to create a sales and marketing oriented podcast and they asked me if I would consider doing it.
See this ScLoHo thing has been around for quite awhile. On the ScottHoward.me website are over 13 hundred articles I have written, edited and published since 2011 and the Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast is simply an audio version of most of the articles I have created since March, 2017.
The history of ScLoHo however is much longer that that.
And before we dig into that history, I want to clear something up about what ScLoHo is.
ScLoHo began as an email address and grew into an online moniker, identity and nickname. I even registered a marketing company with the ScLoHo name. ScLoHo is a made up word that takes the first two letters of my first name, middle and last names and mashes them together. Scott Louis Howard becomes ScLoHo. Look for me on Twitter, Instagram and nearly any other social media site that I am on as ScLoHo. Before launching the ScottHoward.me website, I published over 10,000 articles on ScLoHo branded blogs starting around 2005.
So ScLoHo and Scott Howard, that’s me, are synonymous.
I began working in the media world as a teenager when my high school launched a radio station. After school, I landed my first full time job on the air in Marion, Indiana at WBAT, followed by WIOU in Kokomo, WMEE in Fort Wayne, WKSY in Columbia City, WZWZ in Kokomo, and WXIR in Indianapolis. At all of these stations, I worked on the air as a disc jockey and radio personality.
Life changed when I turned 26. I crossed over to the advertising side of the radio business. I was impressed by the philosophy that the Crawford Broadcasting Company had regarding the relationship between the listeners, the radio station and the advertisers. I moved my young family to work for WMUZ in Detroit, one of a dozen Crawford stations at the time. My job was to write and produce advertising campaigns.
I loved the challenge and learning that occurred during my 8 years at WMUZ. I also did fill-in work in the afternoon and spent about a year hosting WMUZ’s morning show in Detroit. My first venture as an advertising salesperson was also at WMUZ.
The philosophy that I learned related to the trust factor we as people have. WMUZ was and is a commercial Christian radio station that has a special bond with their thousands of weekly listeners. Listeners trust the WMUZ radio personalities. Those personalities often talk about their advertising partners and so that trust factor is passed along to the businesses that advertise. WMUZ listeners trust that the businesses that advertise on their station are trustworthy.
My job was not just to create effective advertising campaigns, but to screen out the bad businesses from the good. I carry this philosophy today as I consider which businesses I want to work with at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne.
In the mid 1990’s, we decided to leave Detroit and return to Indiana. I worked on the radio again in Fort Wayne at WBTU, WFWI, WGL and WAJI. Between 1995 and 2003, along with some part-time radio work and voice over production I was doing, I took a few blue collar jobs too in the printing business, the plastics industry and even automotive.
2003 was the year that I returned to media and marketing full-time in Fort Wayne when I joined a group of radio stations in the advertising sales side of the business. I spent 8 years rising as high as one could advance at that company before I was lured away to work for a website development company and later manage the social media for a $50 million dollar internet sales company.
Kevin, Ric and me. Picture snapped by my friend Ryan Recker.
I also served on the Board of Directors for the American Advertising Federation/Fort Wayne Chapter for 7 years. I taught personal branding seminars, guest lectured at a local university, was featured in some national publications including the Wall Street Journal, won a few awards and have had a lot of fun. I have consulted and coached businesses doing newspaper and magazine ads, billboard advertising, social media and all kinds of internet marketing, along with television and event marketing. More recently I was featured on an international podcast for broadcasters to share what it takes to be successful in broadcasting.
I only share all this with you because I want you to have confidence in the Scott Howard dude a.k.a. ScLoHo, that I’m not just hear to sell you stuff. I am here to help. I’m here to teach, to consult, to advise, to coach and even guide you through the process of marketing you and your business.
Human Relationship Principles are the heart of most successful marketing and advertising efforts and I can help you employ them with your business, organization, or event.
I have learned a lot from a lot of people and continue to learn more and more every week. If you have any marketing or advertising questions or answers, I’d love to talk with you.
by Scott Howard | Aug 1, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
In my continuing informal series of information about advertising with the radio station I work for, WOWO, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I am going to share more research info that attempts to address the question some local business owners face:
Should I buy radio ads or television ads?
More specifically:
Should I use WOWO Radio or one of the Local TV stations?
I have access to local radio station ratings but not local TV station ratings, so I keep an eye out for research that fills in the gap of what I know.
Let’s start with WOWO Radio.
Overall, based on the population figures and the listenership numbers, I know that between 25 percent and 40 percent of the total Metro Fort Wayne population listens to WOWO every week. In the spring ratings report that was released, WOWO has the largest audience of all the Fort Wayne radio stations again.
As a news and talk radio station, WOWO’s audience is adults, or grown-ups as I like to say.
I also know that 80% of our 100,000 weekly listeners are age 45 and older.
Compare that to TV viewing.
Overall, screen-viewing has increased, but the way we watch and what we watch has changed dramatically in the past decade.
Cutting the cord, or not having a TV at all was the trend of Gen Z and it has been moving to older generations too.
My millennial kids don’t watch local TV. They get their news, weather, information and entertainment from a different kind of screen. Netflix is huge. So is YouTube. But local news? Nope.
Recently my wife and I were spending the evening with some older friends in their 60’s and they confessed the same thing. They watch more on their iPhones (including full length movies!) each week than they do live local television.
I don’t have the figures for local TV viewership like I do for local radio listenership, but I saw a report that shows that my antidotal observations are part of a trend that is not going away.
MarketingCharts.com reports that “Roughly Half of Households Headed by People Ages 55+ Stream Video”
Nearly 80% of 18 to 44 year olds watch streaming video, and while that is not surprising, the fact that older adults have moved to what I call “on-demand programming” has to be alarming to those in the television business. At least the local TV broadcasters.
So here’s what my assessment for businesses that are considering television advertising to invite Fort Wayne area consumers to do business with them….
Be very, very careful and cautious.
Local Newscasts and a few sporting events are about the only television programming that is exclusive to the TV stations. Everything else, we can time shift and watch on our own schedule. When I watch a show like NCIS after it originally was broadcast by my local CBS station, I don’t see your local TV ads.
Ask your television sales person, “How many people will see my TV ad?” Go deeper and ask them how they came up with that number.
If you want more help on deciding if an advertising campaign on TV is a good idea, contact me and I’ll gladly help you sort out the offer and teach you what to ask and look for.
Or better yet, let’s talk about inviting WOWO radio listeners to become your customers. We have 100,000 local listeners. How many do you want as your customers?
by Scott Howard | Jul 18, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized
Usually I talk about Media and Marketing and that includes the Advertising world. Often I will include something about the radio station I work for, WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Today, however, a look at Advertising without Media.
Let me explain. Recently I shared insight on the Decline of Mass Media. The focus was on the media that reaches the masses and is advertising supported.
Eric Shippey, the CEO of a local specialized advertising company that offers advertising options that are not associated with mass media commented on LinkedIn:
Good read. All mass media is on the decline. Ad Agency’s are still feeding it to all their clients though. The one thing that will never change and Ad Agency’s and marketing people alike, obviously don’t think about this….outdoor advertising will never change. It is one media that will always have a massive audience. Yet, most businesses and agency’s don’t use it or use it enough.
What Eric is talking about is billboard style advertising and other similar forms of outdoor advertising.
Traffic counts are important, that’s the number of cars that will drive by your sign, but so is the placement of the sign on the left or right side of the road and what the average speed is of the cars that drive past.
The message on your outdoor advertising needs to be appropriate for all the factors I just mentioned and quite frankly, most are way too wordy or try and pack too much information onto a sign that is only going to be seen for a few seconds. If you want help understanding all these factors, let’s talk.
There are plenty of other Advertising without Media options you can buy. There’s still the phone book and other print advertising directories, some restaurants have ads on their place-mats, sports teams from Little League on up offer signs and space for banners, grocery stores have ads on their carts and your receipts. Nearly all of these advertising without Media options are pretty cheap or at least they sound inexpensive. Some of these are good if you know how to properly use them and how to include them with the rest of your advertising.
Here’s my warning… a lot of the people selling you advertising are in it for the money. I know that sounds harsh and it is. That’s why I am constantly looking for people who are trustworthy and who can sell you advertising solutions that I don’t offer. I even can help you negotiate not just the price but all the other important factors to make your advertising be as successful as possible.
Eric was correct in that Outdoor Advertising will not be going away, but whatever form or advertising you decide to buy, Mass Media Advertising or Advertising without Media, you need a Marketing Strategy first. Want help and live in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area? Reach out to me and let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Jun 28, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Over the next few weeks, I’m sharing with you a formula for advertising success that I was reminded of recently. Last week it was The First R in Advertising Success (part one), and today The First R in Advertising Success (part two).
This is part of the 3 R Formula; it goes like this:
Right Message + Right Audience x Right Number of Times = Success
Last time I talked about the content of the Right Message, today, a different angle on the right message, and I’m going to call it the style and length of the Right Message.
Using Human Relationship Marketing Principles in your advertising will give you an advantage in the impact your advertising has. I’ll use examples from the radio world, since I work for WOWO radio in Fort Wayne Indiana.
Most radio ads are a minute long and recorded with a music background. The person writing the commercial has 60 seconds to fill and they sometimes use that time to throw in way too much information. TV ads are usually 30 seconds long and with the power of visual and audio, they do the same thing. We’ve all seen or heard a car commercial that has 3, 4 or 5 different cars and or trucks in one commercial, right?
Problem is, that is way too much information to cram into one commercial and it violates a rule of ONE MESSAGE PER MESSAGE. That rule is not a law, that’s why it gets violated all the time and the only consequence is response and results are less than if that rule ONE MESSAGE PER MESSAGE was followed.
Maybe you really don’t need all that time to get your message out. Copywriters are notorious for filling an ad with extra junk because they have a full minute to fill up. Or the business owner tells them to include their business hours and free parking and other stuff that takes away from the real message.
When I joined WOWO radio in 2013, I noticed that we had something that others on the WOWO advertising sales had not been using as an option for advertisers. Well, some were using it, but not very much.
It became my secret sauce recipe and within about 18 months, others started doing it. The popularity of my secret sauce led to us having to keep track of the special radio advertising format because we were getting close to selling them out!
Here’s what I’m talking about and how it became my secret sauce.
Live News, Weather, and Sports sponsorships on WOWO.
Weekdays from 5am thru the 6pm newscast, Monday thru Friday, we have a total of 188 opportunities for a business to be mentioned in an “embedded” mention by the local newscaster or program host. These mentions are 10 seconds long and it’s surprising what you can say in those 10 seconds. It has helped me to focus on the ONE MESSAGE PER MESSAGE concept.
I have some radio advertising partners that only do this type of advertising because they only need to get a very specific message out without much explanation that would require a longer message.
In 2013, when I started selling my secret sauce, these sponsorship messages were priced at $20 each because we had plenty of them available. Compared to the price of $100 for one 60 second commercial, if the message only needed 10 seconds, I could get 5 times the exposure.
Prices for my secret sauce have risen since then due to the popularity. $40 or more is the common price during weeks that we are 80% sold out of these live sponsorships. But still, that is a great price that allows me to expose your business to more people than if we used the same total dollars with 60 second commercials on WOWO.
Here’s how the Human Relationship Marketing Principle works with these ads…
Because WOWO is a news and talk formatted radio station, our listeners tune in to hear what our news and talk hosts are saying. For example:
WEATHER BROUGHT TO YOU BY A TO Z COINS AND JEWELRY, IN THE NORTHCREST SHOPPING CENTER NEXT TO FIVE GUYS. DID YOU INHERIT A COIN COLLECTION AND DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT? TAKE IT TO A TO Z COINS AND JEWELRY. OPEN THIS MORNING AT 9.
A-Z gets an implied endorsement of the radio station because it’s a trusted radio personality talking about them.
None of our other Fort Wayne Federated Media stations offer this live, embedded advertising messaging to the degree we do at WOWO radio.
Before we wrap this up today, I’ll share a little about the other form of live advertising messages I offer with WOWO that was the gold, no, make that the platinum standard.
Live Endorsement and Testimonial Ads. These are done by our WOWO personalities Charly Butcher, Pat Miller and Rick Wolf and are a full minute long. They have the endorsement power of not just WOWO, but also the hosts. These are the most expensive ads you will hear on WOWO but the Return On Investment makes them worth it. They also include a form of exclusivity that I’ll share with you in the future. Or you can contact me and I’ll fill you in on the details.
All of this talk about having the Right Message is extremely important, when you deliver it to the Right Audience. That’s our subject the next time.
by Scott Howard | Jun 21, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share with you a formula for advertising success that I was reminded of recently, and today I’ll start with The First R in Advertising Success (part one).
Let’s actually begin with the 3 R Formula; it goes like this:
Right Message + Right Audience x Right Number of Times = Success
This formula you can apply to nearly any advertising you are involved with, at WOWO Radio we took a look at some of our advertising partners that use us for radio advertising, social media, search engine marketing, digital display advertising, email marketing and a few other options.
The message, the RIGHT message needs to communicate what you want people to do. We call it a Call To Action.
What is it that you want the people that see or hear your advertisement to do?
Do you want them to call you?
Do you want them to visit your store?
Do you want them to visit your website?
Do you want them to buy online?
Do you want them to just feel good about you?
Do you want them to watch a video?
Do you want them to make an appointment for them to visit you?
Do you want them to book a meeting for you to visit them?
Do you want them to attend a special event ?
Do you …. well, specifically what do you want them to do?
Sadly too many advertising messages fail this test.
Either the Call To Action is never given, or there are too many Calls to Action in the message.
Here’s an example of too many: Call us now at 260-255-4357 or visit online at my website dot com or stop in today between 9 and 5. That was three. Now often we are tempted to use two, but I really have my doubts about offering two.
In this smartphone age, we don’t need phone numbers. I don’t manually punch in the digits for most of the phone calls I make. Those numbers are either already stored in my phones contacts, or I ask my phone for the business and Google connects me with their website and a button on my screen I can call to connect.
I am seriously going to ask my current advertising partners for permission to stop giving their phone number in their advertising. It’s wasted space, extra clutter and a call to action I can stop. Actually I will wean some of them off the practice of including their phone number as a call to action in their ads by including the words, “Call right now” but not give the phone number in the radio ad because it’s not needed.
What is needed? If you are in a competitive business then I need to know why I should select you over your competitors. If you tell me, you provide great customer service and have been around for a dozen years, I’ll do my best not to yawn and tell you as politely as possible, “So what?” EVERYONE needs to have a satisfactory level of customer service to stay in business and while I am glad you are not a rookie at what you do, I need a real reason to choose you to spend my money with.
The reason for this aspect of the Right Message is you do not operate in a vacuum, we as consumers have a choice to spend money with you, with someone else or not at all. So in your advertising messages, include a compelling Call To Action of what you want us to do and also a why you if you have competition. What is the Unique Selling Proposition behind your business that makes you … You? Not just Unique, but Selling as in a real reason to buy from you? 100 years of combined experience might be unique, but who really cares? We want to know that you can take care of our needs.
Here’s a simple exercise to test your ads:
Can you substitute your competitions name in place of your name in the ad and it will be pretty accurate? Then it’s time to go back to the drawing board and creative process.
This is not always easy, it’s why even some of the most creative minds struggle with creating advertising messages that are effective, but it’s worth the extra time and effort to craft a message that includes a call to action and a reason to take action.
Next time, I’ll explore another aspect of the Right Message in The First R in Advertising Success (part two).
In the meantime if you want my help, contact me.
by Scott Howard | Jun 14, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
I offer both radio advertising services with WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana and digital marketing services via our Federated Digital Solutions division. But today, I’m going to break the hearts of my digital marketing friends with the declaration that: Radio Advertising is the Real SEO!
Every week I have someone tell me that they want to increase their Google rank, which means that they want to be at the top of the Search Engine Results Page when someone Googles their business category.
While that may be a worthy goal, I’m here to tell you, it’s kind of a stupid goal. I’ve been around the advertising world to remember when the printed yellow pages were still being used by consumers.
The Yellow Pages was what our parents and grandparents would use to find a phone number for a business before the internet made it obsolete. This annual publication would list businesses that bought ads in each category and in alphabetical order.
For example let’s say you want to order a pizza.
This is a real pizza from Acme’s FB page
If you don’t have the phone number memorized, ah yes, we used to memorize phone numbers, now I don’t even know my kids phone numbers. Anyway, if you wanted a pizza you got out the phone book and if you were not sure which pizza place to call, you’d look in the Yellow Pages under the category Pizza. That’s where all the pizza joints would be listed in alphabetical order, at least the ones that bought an ad in the phone book.
It was better to be named Acme Pizza than Zoli’s Pizza because Acme was in the front of the listings. Sort of like looking up Pizza on Google, Acme would automatically rank number one on page one . That is until someone opened up Ace Pizza. Because alphabetically Ace Pizza comes before Acme Pizza.
I’ve had pizza from the Acme
That’s how our parents would find the number or address to all kinds of places, the phone book, because they didn’t have the internet.
But you know what was even better than being found in the Yellow Pages with all the other Pizza shops?
Having your customers remember your pizza place so they could look in the white pages instead of the yellow pages. The white pages of the phone book listed everyone in alphabetical order instead of by business category. If my parents wanted a pizza from Zoli’s pizzeria, all they had to do was open the white pages of the phone book, flip to the Z’s and find Zoli’s.
How did businesses like Zoli’s become well known so that people would look for the number for Zoli’s Pizza and not any other pizza place? They developed Top Of Mind Awareness. Their customers knew that Zoli’s was where they wanted to order their pizza from and they did.
This Top Of Mind Awareness is a Human Relationship Principle that I talked about recently. We develop preferences and those preferences are on our short list of consideration. So when someone says, “let’s get a pizza!” we don’t have to wonder, “who can sell me a pizza? and start searching the yellow pages, or to move this scenario up to today, we don’t Google “Pizza”, we Google “Zoli’s”.
Top Of Mind Awareness can help set a business apart when we look online in other ways too.
Because sometimes we do Google “Pizza” and Google gives us about 10 results on the first page of results. Let’s say Zoli’s is on that first page, but they are number 7 and the first 6 listings are for places we either don’t like, have never had, or never heard of before. Top Of Mind Awareness will motivate us to call skip past those first 6 pizza joints and call Zoli’s because just like in the old phone book days, we know we are going to like a Zoli’s Pizza.
A very old ad for Zoli’s
So back to that statement, Radio Advertising is the Real SEO? How does that work? Radio ads can create Top Of Mind Awareness. Even when we are not thinking about pizza, when the radio station plays an ad for Zoli’s Pizza, we hear it and it reinforces the idea in our head, hearts and stomachs that the next time I want pizza, it’s going to be a Zoli’s Pizza.
I’m going to use a real life example, hamburgers. McDonald’s is the most recognized hamburger brand around the world because they continually advertise to keep that Top Of Mind Awareness going. You can buy a better burger and spend more money than McDonald’s, heck you may never eat at McDonald’s but they certainly have Top Of Mind Awareness, right?
15 years ago when businesses were jumping on the “I gotta have a website for my business” bandwagon, I helped several companies be found online by promoting their website in their radio ads. We still do it. Because it works.
When a business owner tells me that he gets all his customers from Google, we dig a little deeper and discover if they actually had Top Of Mind Awareness when his customers went online or are they just one in a thousand in the search results.
I can help you become the preferred choice for your customers, want my help? Let’s talk.
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