by Scott Howard | Jul 6, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Around the radio station we talk about offering a “CAT” advertising solution as one of the methods to help our advertising partners.
But most of you are clueless if I were to ask you, “Do You Know What C.A.T. Is?”
That’s alright because I’m going to take a couple days to explain.
First off C.A.T. is a made-up word. 
But that’s okay, because it’s an acronym for something pretty spectacular that is offered exclusively by Federated Media, the parent company of my radio station WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We have a digital division called Federated Digital Solutions, and C.A.T. is one of the solutions.
C.A.T. stands for Custom Audience Targeting. Here’s why those three words were selected.
Imagine if you could targeting your advertising so only specially qualified individuals saw or heard your ad?
If this was possible while watching T.V. that means the ads that you see while watching your favorite show would be different than the ads I see, while watching the same show at the exact same time!
Say you are into Country Music, and I’m more of a Classic Rock fan, you’d see ads for the upcoming country concert coming to town and I’d see some old rockers concert commercial.
So far, that’s not possible. It’s not possible with television, radio, print ads, billboards either.
But it is possible with the power of digital display ads. These are the ads that seem to follow you around after you’ve been to a website and ads for that website appear when you’re off looking up something else online.
What I just described is called Retargeting and it works by the website you visited placing a pixel or cookie on your web browser. Retargeting is the oldest form of this digital display ad technology.
When I combine it with three other methods of finding the right target for your ads, it can be pretty powerful.
Those three other methods include Search Retargeting, Contextual Retargeting and GeoFencing. Together, these 4 methods of finding the right audience for your digital display ads combined with other qualifying data helps us to create a Custom Audience Target.
Curious about how this works? Contact me and I’ll show you.
by Scott Howard | Jul 5, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
I work in a world of opposites.
I help people solve their marketing problems.
I help them buy the solutions that take care of those marketing problems.
I don’t like selling.
Hang on a second. Let me clarify.
I don’t like selling stuff to people who don’t want to buy the stuff I have for them to buy.
I prefer to sell solutions to people who want to buy solutions.
So what happens when I offer solutions to people that they should buy but for some reason they can’t or won’t?
I either wait or move on.
See, I prefer a no-pressure method.
If you are a potential client of mine, we’ll work on your schedule to launch because we need to use your time table.
Because I see opportunities as we discuss your business, I will stay on top of things and present options that may not be on your radar yet. But compared to the sales guy that are focused on their monthly quotas and packages and what-not, I am “no-pressure”.
I call it focusing on the big picture.
Seth Godin wrote about this approach, calling it The Long Run: 
It’s about scale. Pick a long enough one (or a short enough one) and you can see the edges.
In the short run, there’s never enough time.
In the long run, constrained resources become available.
In the short run, you can fool anyone.
In the long run, trust wins.
In the short run, we’ve got a vacancy, hire the next person you find.
In the long run, we spend most of our time with the people we’ve chosen in the short run.
In the short run, decisions feel more urgent and less important at the same time.
In the long run, most decisions are obvious and easy to make.
In the short run, it’s better to panic and obsess on emergencies and urgencies.
In the long run, spending time with people you love, doing work that matters, is all that counts.
In the short run, trade it all for attention.
In the long run, it’s good to own it (the means of production, the copyrights, the process).
In the short run, burn it down, someone else will clean up the problem.
In the long run, the environment in which we live is what we need to live.
In the short run, better to cut class.
In the long run, education pays off.
In the short run, tearing people down is a great way to get ahead.
In the long run, building things of value makes sense.
Add up the short runs, though, and you’re left with the long run. It’s going to be the long run a lot longer than the short run will last.
Act accordingly.
by Scott Howard | Jun 30, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
Our previous article talked about making sure you put together a marketing strategy plan by asking and answering the right questions in the right order. But hand-in-hand with that, I also need you to consider, What Happens When I Google You?
I do this all the time. Before I meet with someone, I ask Google to find out whatever it can about that person or business. 
I’m not the only one who does this. With the advances in our mobile tech to be able to search simply by talking, this is quickly becoming the norm. So it doesn’t matter if you Google others, others are Googling you.
Back to the question, What Happens When I Google You?
The worst that could happen is a bunch of negative results on page one.
But right behind that is no results on page one.
According to the internet, you do not exist.
I find this too often with business people that are wanting to promote their business.
In the olden days, before the internet, you needed a physical location and a phone number to be legit.
Now you need to be found online. That’s more important than a street address and phone number.
And if you are on the first page with a link to what you want people to find when they Google you, excellent!
You need to invest in more than a Facebook page, you really need to pony up the cash and buy your own domain and create at least a landing page that you control and is about you.
Let’s review:
- People will Google you to learn about you
- Negative results about you are bad
- Not being found at all is also bad.
- You have the power to be found by creating your own spot online
Need help? Talk to me.
by Scott Howard | Jun 29, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
This week I was asked by my friend Kevin Mullett to sit on a panel for the Social Media/Marketing Breakfast that he emcee’s each month in Fort Wayne, Indiana along with Ric Johnson from Xymmetrix.
Kevin, Ric and me. Picture snapped by my friend Ryan Recker.
The topic was Online Reputation Management which included a great discussion and plenty of advice. This monthly event is 5 years strong and if you want details, contact me.
But what really struck me recently was the way media has changed over the past 5 years and even the 10 years before. Some of the members of the audience weren’t involved in any form of media, online or otherwise 15 years ago.
From a marketing perspective, these millennials don’t know about life without the web. Or they have lived a majority of their lives with the web.
Compare that with the 40 year old or 55 year old business person who has to make marketing and advertising decisions to keep their company alive and growing for the next 15 years.
Before 2000 a minority of businesses had a website. Social Media really started to take off with MySpace from 2005 through 2008. By 2009 Facebook became the largest Social Media platform and others have come and gone while even more have come and evolved as they discovered their niche. In researching this article, I discovered that MySpace has a Facebook account!
Social media platforms have allowed all of us to be both consumers of content along with creators of content. Facebook has launched a live video capability to compete with the others that offer similar options. This is vastly different than the media choices we had before. One of the differences is the size of the audiences doesn’t compare.
Traditional media included T.V., radio, newspapers, magazines. Lots of advertising options in traditional media. Plus other traditional advertising options included yellow page phone books, billboard, direct mail and flyers/posters.
There has been an explosion of choices we have as consumers to get the entertainment and information we want and need. Instead of settling for summer reruns or special summer seasons of TV shows, I will go to my Amazon Prime Video account and stream movies or shows I want to watch. I can use my Google Chromecast to watch on my TV. Others are using Netflix or Hulu or who knows what to watch video entertainment.
We have the ability as consumers to ignore the traditional media and still be informed and entertained.
However many of us don’t ignore traditional media. I work in the radio industry and also online world. Over 90% of Americans listen to a radio station every week.
We just got radio rating information and my station WOWO continues to lead the pack with more adult listeners than anyone. Overall WOWO is one of 4 stations that has over 100,000 weekly listeners and 98% are over the age of 18.
WOWO is still a mass media that produces results for the advertising partners. Sadly that is not always true of all radio stations for a variety of reasons.
What about the online advertising options? Technology has allowed us to pinpoint the people that a business wants as customers, anywhere in the world and deliver advertising marketing messages to them. It’s sort of mindblowing. But I’ve seen it in action with my advertising partners. I’ll delve into some of those details next week.
Bottom line is simple:
- You need to invite customers to do business with you.
- There are people who will become your customers if you invite them. They are spending their money every week on stuff they need and want.
- I can help you make that connection to invite them to spend money with you.
Want to know more? Let’s meet.
by Scott Howard | Jun 27, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
A common mistake I keep seeing business people do is try and put together a marketing plan – backwards.
image from this uk website: https://www.poundstopocket.co.uk/pound-place/dont-fall-for-these-marketing-gimmicks/
I get asked about what specials to advertise, or what discounts to offer and the problem is, those are gimmicks.
Gimmicks are not good. Gimmicks are the result of not figuring out why someone should buy from you.
When I put together a Marketing Strategy Model, the actual advertising portion is the last item on the list.
Here’s a quote from another article that is true:
This marketing strategy requires discovering who you want to invite to do business with you, what those people are looking for, who else they could buy from, why your business compared to those others and then what is the best advertising vehicles to use to invite those folks to you.
Gimmicks are often used as a substitute for a solid marketing plan.
Want to offer the lowest price? Sorry but Walmart owns that marketing position in the retail world.
How about food delivery that is super fast at lunch time? Jimmy Johns already beat you.
Just about anything that you can think of that falls into that “special” category of offers has been tried.
Besides, we now have the power of the internet in our pocket to compare the offers that you think are going to be your marketing and advertising campaign. I did it a couple weeks ago when a salesperson was trying to sell me something based on price alone. (He lost.)
Take the time to do first things first and if you want help, let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Jun 23, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
I have an incredible job. I get to help businesses succeed.
My area of expertise is marketing, media and advertising, something I’ve been doing in Fort Wayne since 2003 and actually for a couple decades before that.
Many businesses struggle with not having enough customers and they don’t know the most effective way to invite people to become their customers. That’s where I come in.
I have two media platforms to work with and depending on the needs, we may use WOWO radio or we may use a digital solution to use the internet.
Right now, I’ll outline the most common methods that I just presented to someone this week:
WOWO Radio has been on the air for 91 years and is the most listened to radio station in Fort Wayne, Indiana by grown-ups. 100,000 weekly listeners is the number we are told by the radio rating/survey people.
WOWO is an excellent way to reach a mass audience. With our news-talk format, listeners do not tune out when commercials come on and as a result, we have countless success stories from our advertising partners. Ask and I’ll share some with you.
The digital marketing solutions are also an extremely effective way to invite potential customers to your business. I can target ads to reach the specific criteria of people that you want to expose your business to. I’m not limited to just our area, I have one campaign that is nationwide. Another is targeted to only certain zipcodes.
With the digital marketing solutions offered by Federated Digital Solutions (the online division of our parent company), I can create a very specific and targeted campaign that is only limited by the parameters we decide.
It’s the combination of these two marketing solutions using WOWO Radio and Digital Marketing that allows me to help you succeed by connecting your business with new customers.
Want more details? Let’s talk.
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