WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard | The Genuine ScLoHo aka Scott Howard

The State of WOWO Radio Fall 2024 Edition

by Scott Howard | Sep 16, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

About once a year I share some insider information about the state of radio, specifically WOWO radio, the primary radio station I’ve represented since 2013.

Today’s the day for an update.

A lot has happened the past 11 years I’ve been here. WOWO had their 90th birthday in 2015 and we turn 100 next year. Most of those 100 years WOWO has been on 1190am and occasionally also on FM. 92.3 was the FM home for WOWO when I started and then we brought music back to 92.3 for a few years. Big 92.3 was a classic hits music station for a few years until May 2023 when WOWO returned to 92.3FM.

For close to 3 decades, WOWO has been a News/Talk radio station and when we put music on 92.3 a few years ago, we added two more ways to listen to WOWO on FM that are still available. Some of you can pick up WOWO at 107.5FM, that’s a low power FM signal with limited range in the Fort Wayne Indiana area and as vehicles started adding HD radio, we also included WOWO programming on 97.3 HD2.

So ever since May 2023, we’ve got multiple ways for listeners to listen to the News/Talk programming on WOWO including:

1190am

92.3 FM

107.5 FM

97.3 HD2 FM

and the streaming platforms including the WOWO app, Alexa, Google Home, your laptop, and others like iHeart, Spotify, and TuneIn.

Let’s take a look at what’s going on now and I’ll start with some public information from Nielsen, the ratings company that measures all kinds of data including radio listenership.

In Fort Wayne, we have two annual rating periods, Spring and Fall and then it takes a few weeks to get the results.

The public data is picked up by various news sources and I saw this graphic from Radio Online dot com.

WOWO is listed as the number one radio station this year with a 9.5 share. This means that of the 20+ radio stations listed nearly 1 out of ten people listen to WOWO.

Considering there are over 20, but I’m just going to count the top 20 stations, if listenership to each station was equal, each station would have a 5 share because when you do the math, 100 divided by 20 = 5.

According to this WOWO has nearly double the number of listeners, and when we step back to the Spring 2023 numbers, it’s an 86% improvement.

However, here’s what’s really important and while I can’t publish the numbers publically, I can share privately the exact data.

WOWO has 4 daytime shows we call primetime because the primetime for radio listening is during the day.

Fort Wayne’s Morning News with host Kayla Blakeslee continues to grow. It was 6 years ago that Kayla took over after the unexpected passing of our legendary beloved morning host Charly Butcher in 2018. Kayla has increased total number of listeners and they are tuned in longer compared to a year ago.

Next we have national syndicated hosts Glenn Beck and Dan Bongino in the middle of the day and they continue to win. Glenn’s listeners from 9am to noon are growing and the same can be said for Dan’s show from noon to 3pm.

What’s new is WOWO’s long time afternoon host moved to a Saturday only show and around the 1st of February this year, Casey Hendrickson took over the 3pm to 6pm slot. Casey is from our sister station in South Bend and currently does most of his shows from their studio but is increasing his time in Fort Wayne and using the WOWO studio to do his show that airs on both our stations.

Originally there was some loyal listener push back. Pat has been doing afternoons on WOWO for over a two decades and Casey also has been with Federated Media, our parent company for 13 years. When one of them would take vacation days, we would broadcast the other persons show for the last 10 years, so our WOWO listeners had a little bit of familiarity of Casey.

During the last couple of years of Pat’s afternoon show, there was some declines but he had a very loyal fanbase. When we got the rating information for Casey in the afternoon on WOWO this summer, it conformed that this was the right move to make. Listenership is up and like the rest of WOWO, loyalty measured by the amount of Time Spent Listening is also up.

WOWO continues to be a dominate radio station for listenership and also for advertising. The advertising is what pays everyone to keep doing their jobs and in turn the advertising has to produce a Return On Investment for the businesses that invite WOWO listeners to become their customers.

The Talk Radio Advantage

by Scott Howard | Sep 9, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Are you annoyed by ads?

Most of us are, and that creates an interesting conundrum for businesses that need to invite potential customers to spend money with them via advertising.

In the early 1980’s when I was a top 40 rock and roll radio disc jockey on WMEE, I remember when we introduced “20 minute commercial free music sweeps” and even though I was all about the music and not really caring about advertising, this bothered me.

This was the beginning of conditioning our audience to perceive advertising as bad, as undesirable, as something to avoid.

Radio stations that played music would stop the music up to 4 times, maybe 6 times an hour to play a couple of commercials. These commercial free music sweeps were to prevent listeners from changing stations when the ads played because the ads played less often. The problem was that many stations still played the same number of commercials per hour but now instead of two in a row, they would play 4, 5 or 6 commercials back to back. I recall about 15 years ago when a local music station promised to only stop the music once an hour. I listened and counted 18 ads playing back to back to back for over 10 minutes. Yes, they played 45 minutes of music back to back but all of those ads back to back created so much listener annoyance that people either switched stations when the ads came on, or they mentally tuned out.

Television suffered the same fate as ads became an irritant and people spent money on ad-skipping devices such as VCRs so we could record a show and play it back later and fast-forward past the ads.

What’s that have to do with Talk Radio?

Last month I was meeting with a new advertising partner and she was telling me why she believes Talk Radio is the best play for her ads.

To paraphrase what she told me, her perception is that when people are listening to Talk Radio, they are wanting to hear what is being talked about and they are more engaged than music radio. When a commercial break comes on as she is listening to music radio, she’s no longer invested in that station because they are not playing music and whatever song they play after the ads, she may or may not like. However when listening to Talk Radio, the conversation that she’s listening to will likely continue after the ads and she continues to be invested in that conversation.

There’s also the less annoying factor of ads on Talk Radio.

The theory is that I’m already listening to someone talk so when the talking on the commercial starts, I’m already accustom to talking on the radio.

I’ve got fresh radio rating data that I’ll share in a few weeks that show me the listening habits of listeners of all the 20+ local radio stations here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This data doesn’t tell us the why behind the ratings, but combined with my personal antidotal research over the years and some other studies, we can understand the Talk Radio advantage for advertising.

By the way, I can help your business reach Talk Radio listeners now on three radio stations…

News Talk WOWO continues to be my primary station, and I also have Sports Talk radio, 1380 The Fan that is filled with live play by play and commentary for sports enthusiasts. There is also one more radio station that has a 4 hour talk show every morning, 98.9 The Bear, home of Jason Lee and Kluck in the morning until 10am. The other 20 hours a day The Bear is a rock music station, but those morning drive hours are an excellent spot for your business to connect with Talk Radio listeners.

Generational Changes and Media Use

by Scott Howard | Aug 12, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Frequently I’ve pushed back against generational stereotypes with the simple premise that activities and behaviors that are being assigned and labeled according to what generation a person is, are really due to lifestyle and life-stage.

And while many of that is still true, there are some big swings in media consumption that still can be broken down by generation due to the technology changes the past couple of decades.

Even the past 10+ years that I’ve worked for WOWO radio have seen a shift that should not be ignored.

MarketingCharts.com released an article on social media use that actually has a misleading headline: Most US Weekly Facebook Users are Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

However looking at the actual chart and data from YouGov, the headline should have been Most US Weekly Facebook Users are Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

Those three generations make up 84% of Facebook users in the United States. The Silent Generation, which are those still alive born before the end of World War 2 make up 1% and the youngest Generation, Gen Z account for 13% of Facebook users.

Overall, Facebook still is king with more users than any of the other social media platforms but it appears YouTube is close although many of us “older folks” don’t consider YouTube to be social media. But with the popularity of video content verus still photos or no graphics, YouTube should be included even though they were not listed in the survey and article

So I decided to do a double check on the current ages of Gen Z and as of right now, 12 to 27 year olds are Zers.

The youngest most marketers usually target is around 12, so Gen Z is a real, viable target market for companies that produce products and services for teens and young adults.

To put that in perspective, 10, 11 years ago when I joined WOWO radio, some of them were still in diapers and none were old enough to vote yet.

IF that’s the age group you want to reach, you should dig a little deeper into social media and the various platforms and targeting potential.

However, here’s a reality that is back to the lifestyle and life-stage argument….

Most significant purchases are not made during the teen years or even by 20 year olds. Look at age 35+, or even older like 45 or age 50+.

Gen Z is inching to that age but for the next decade, unless your consumer is in their 20’s and younger, you need to really continue to focus on older adults.

I call them “grown-ups” . They’re in their late 30’s, 40’s and 50’s making significant purchases for themselves and for their families.

My primary radio station, WOWO is a news talk formated radio station and we’ve seen wonderful results for our advertising partners. I’m not arrogant enough to say that traditional radio ads are all you need to do. I usually offer a number of items off the menu of messaging options that include traditional AM/FM radio ads, streaming, emails, texting, and social media including Facebook.

Do you want help sorting all this out to help you decide where to invest your ad dollars? Want to talk with someone who’s got the experience in crafting solutions that are appropriate for your business and that sometimes includes connecting you with others that I trust? Let’s talk. Email Scott@ScLoHo.net

Are You Too Close?

by Scott Howard | Jul 22, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Last weeks Sound ADvice newsletter was too good to only share via email:

You’ve heard the old expression about being too close to the forest to see the trees? As a business owner, it’s easy to fall into this trap. You have a lot going on and a lot of different things to think about, every day!

Some spend so much time focusing on mending their weaknesses that they neglect to promote and capitalize on their strengths. Still, others are so caught up with their strengths that they neglect the weaknesses that are driving customers to their competitors.

And still, others lack the objectivity to candidly assess their strengths and weaknesses. Regular objective self-analysis is crucial to the success of your business. Learning to be your own devil’s advocate can help you uncover many things that can help improve your business in many areas.

In our top seven Devil’s Advocate Questions for self-analysis, question number three asks, “Why should someone drive past your competitors to do business with you?”… “No, really, Why?…..and prove it!”

If your answer is something like, “We provide better service”, “We have friendlier people”, or “We have been in business for 57 years” quit tickling yourself to hear yourself laugh. When you try to promote “better service”, “nice people”, “years of service” or any other “generic cliché”, the skeptical consumer believes you are simply trying to take the focus off your higher prices. It’s either that or your ads become so bland that no one pays attention to the message.

For the most part, better service, nicer people, or years of experience are marketing strategies that are only effective once your customers experience them. Unless you have a way to substantiate those claims, promoting them simply sounds like another hollow advertising claim.

If you need a little nudge to help you become your own devil’s advocate and become more objective in your strategic thinking, click here to see the Devil’s Advocate Questions and discover how they may apply to your business.

You too can get this type of Sound ADvice emailed to you nearly every week, it’s free when you email me, Scott@WOWO.com

And helping you and your business create a solid marketing campaign complete with ads that aren’t filled with cliché’s is what I can help you with if you’re in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area, reach out to me, Scott@WOWO.com

Stop the Ad-Speak

by Scott Howard | Mar 25, 2024 | Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

The dictionary definition of cliché is, “a hackneyed or over-used expression which has literally become meaningless over time.”

Why would anyone invest their hard-earned advertising dollars in an expression that has literally become “meaningless?” In fact, clichés can literally kill any chance an ad has of creating a positive impact.

There’s an old saying in media, People don’t dislike ads, they dislike bad ads. Bad ads, typically, are filled with clichés.

The average consumer today receives in excess of 3,600 advertising messages a day, including radio, TV, newspaper, packaging, signage, internet, and more.

Before today’s cluttered and competitive world, many advertisers succeeded with clichés and by simply keeping their name in front of the public. Today, it’s much more competitive, and simple name recognition and repetition are not enough to ensure a return on your advertising investment. You need to brand your business before the consumer is in the market for your products or services.

Branding, by definition, necessitates differentiating yourself from your competition. Being different cannot be accomplished by saying the same thing as your competitors or using the same tired clichés used by other marketers.

Whether in your advertising or when having conversations with customers, make sure the words you use aren’t the same words that all your competitors are using!

The bad news is that there are way too many ads both national and local that are filled with too many clichés. The good news is… they are easy to fix!

We have developed a list of clichés that should be avoided if your advertising is to stand out among the crowd and be remembered. To see the complete list of clichés, click here.

The Danger of Relying on Facebook

by Scott Howard | Mar 11, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Last Tuesday, the world freaked out because of a glitch in the internet.

Specifically Facebook’s parent company Meta, and most of their affiliated social and internet related sites and features became inoperable starting around 10am eastern time.

I am actually writing this on Tuesday March 5th, two hours later and it’s still down on laptops, but currently working on my phone via the app.

The ramifications for the ordinary, everyday user is just an inconvenience. I can live without Facebook, Instagram, Threads even though I post daily, it’s not like a primary source of marketing or making money for me personally.

However, for others, this kind of thing is costly. Imagine not being able to do business because people could not reach you. It will be interesting to see if there will be an estimate of the millions of dollars lost due to the Meta platforms being down for a few hours. Considering the size of Facebook alone, I imagine over a billion dollars in lost revenue.

I pulled some numbers from the website, The Social Sheperd that say there are over 3 Billion monthly Facebook users world-wide. 2 Billion people are on Facebook daily. In the United States, over half the population has a Facebook account and 7 out of 10 Americans who use the internet are on Facebook too. I have a couple of coworkers that fall into the category of internet users but not on Facebook.

From a business standpoint, I had a client a few years ago that lost at least a weeks worth of revenue what Facebook decided to shut down his business account. He was spending $20,000 a month just on Facebook ads and getting a 4 to 1 return. Fortunately he was able to scramble and rebrand his business and build it up again with money he had saved up, but many business people that place such a heavy emphasis on marketing platforms they can’t control are stuck when that platform fails like Facebook did

My advice has always been to create your own spot on the web, something you own. Your own website, not just a social media page. I know it’s tempting to just rely on the easy way but if it’s also a lazy way, you could be sunk.

One more success story to share with you, and this is about an HVAC company that has been around for 10 years without a website or social media. I met with the owner recently because he is looking to invite WOWO radio listeners to become his customers. I asked him the secret to his successful growth over the past decade without the usual online presence and it came down to having good relationships with a few key people in town that have kept him and his company busy. The good old fashioned trusted word of mouth that you earn when you run your business right.

Now in order to invite our listeners to become his customers, he’s going to invest in a basic website which we can direct listeners to and will give his company credibility to those that don’t know him yet.

What about you? Are you needing some guidance and help on how to market your business? Contact me and let’s talk.