Memes and Birthday Wishes on Facebook

by Scott Howard | Sep 25, 2016 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

A peek into the personal, fun side of ScLoHo.

If you are connected to me on Facebook and have had a birthday recently, I may have “memed you” on Facebook.

I’ll show you some examples in a second, but here’s the reason.

Facebook can be a wonderful tool to stay in touch with others and see what they are up to and share glimpses into your life too.

I am a pretty open book and will connect with both business and personal connections on my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Scott.Howard.aka.ScLoHo along with Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. But here’s something really cool about Facebook that you are aware of if you use it… Facebook tells you when your friends birthdays are so you can wish them a Happy one.

Because Facebook favors visual messages over text only messages in their algorithms, if you include a picture when you post, it will get more views.

So here’s what I started doing when I had the time. When a friends birthday was coming up, I would search thru their Facebook photos and find one that was fun and playful. Download it, (sometimes crop it) and then run it through an online meme generator and then post on on their Facebook page.

You can do this too in 5 minutes or less and create some extra smiles with your connections. Take a look:

Lee Tobin roots for the Phillies

Cappy works at the same place as Lee, thus the same silly hat.

Some pictures are fun

Some pictures are a bit wild

You never know your friends until you explore the pictures they post on Facebook!

I like to use pictures where their mouth is open

Sometimes you have to be creative with your captions

This is so much more fun that talking politics on Social Media!

This is so much more fun than talking politics on Social Media!

WOWO’s Baby Boomer Listeners are Online Too

by Scott Howard | Sep 22, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

A great article from Mediapost that I read this week was about Baby Boomers defying certain stereotypes, especially when it comes to tech and online activity.

Numbers show that Baby Boomers are a valuable customer that you can reach online

Since 1/2 of WOWO radio’s huge audience is the Baby Boomer generation, it makes sense to share this with you and as WOWO is my radio station that I work for and it also helps explain what I shared earlier regarding Why Does A Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions.

Here’s a few highlights:

Of the many misconceptions about baby boomers, perhaps the one most perilous to marketers today is that those in the demographic aren’t tech savvy. In fact, according to a 2016 Boston Consulting Group survey, boomers’ top 20 favorite brands include Amazon, Apple, Dell, HP, LG, Samsung and Sony. In my own personal experience as a Boomer, I use Amazon weekly and have bought products from Dell, HP, LG and Samsung. (Sorry Apple & Sony).
…contrary to stereotypes, aging doesn’t cause us to lose long-term memory. Instead, the change is a reduction in memory recall. For marketers, repetition is an effective way to ensure messages are properly processed and later recalled. This is why the Custom Audience Targeting with Digital Display Ads I offer works well, just like the ads I air on WOWO for my advertising partners.
In fact, a study by visual engagement analytics firm Sticky found that baby boomers engage with digital ads significantly longer than do millennials. Again, this explains the success I’ve seen with my advertising partners who are inviting older adults to their websites.

Want to know more? Let’s talk.

Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?

by Scott Howard | Sep 20, 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

It’s a question that some people ask out loud and others may not ask me directly but they are thinking, “Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?”

Excellent question.

Here’s the answer.

My background is in radio. From the time I was 16 until I was 26, I loved being on the air. Then I moved over to the business side creating ad campaigns in Detroit for my radio clients. I became a student and teacher of marketing, advertising, sales, persuasion, and something I call human relationship marketing.

Jump ahead to 2005 and I started using digital (the web) to market myself using the same concepts I had learned 15+ years earlier.

With me, Scott Howard aka ScLoHo, you get to work with an individual who understands both the traditional broadcast world and the newer digital world. I walked away from my paying jobs in radio twice in recent history to work full time in the digital world. The first time was in 2011, when I joined a website development firm. A couple years later, I joined a multi-million dollar e-commerce biz as their Social Media director.

Now I work for WOWO radio which is one of the stations owned by Federated Media. Federated Media also has a digital division, Federated Digital Solutions.

Federated Media created Federated Digital Solutions because many of their radio advertising clients were also looking for ways to market themselves online. Federated Media decided to invest in creating another division of the company. During my three years, I have seen our digital division grow and we now have 20+ people working for Federated Digital Solutions.

Those 20+ people at Federated Digital Solutions (FDS) have a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. The goal was to find the best available talent in the country and create the FDS team.

But there’s more.

Several of the digital solutions use outside vendors that we have access to that you simply can’t buy on your own. We also have two layers of expertise working on all of these digital marketing campaigns. There’s the expertise of our vendors and the expertise of the FDS team.

With me, you actually get a 3rd layer of expertise. Me. Scott Howard aka ScLoHo.

Because of my background, experience and knowledge, I really do know more than most of my radio co-workers. No, I’m not a know-it-all, but I do know how to Google to get the answers on stuff that I don’t know.

Here’s something else that’s important.

I care more about my reputation than what I sell.

I care more about your success than what I sell.

When I started at WOWO, I sold next to nothing from the digital solutions offered by FDS. I wanted to see the results and I wasn’t willing to use my advertising partners as test subjects. But as I watched, observed and questioned, I saw that the performance of the Federated Digital Solutions team was top notch. I also got the opportunity to see what other companies were selling and through that comparison, I saw how we were superior to others.

I’ve seen what Nexstar Broadcast Group was trying to sell as digital solutions and it was crap.

I’ve seen the actual results of Dex Media and what they sold to come of my advertising clients and did digging and found a huge pile of manure.

There are a couple of local companies that are selling digital marketing solutions that are worthless. My friend Kevin, called it marketing malpractice when we were discussing what I was seeing, and Kevin is one smart dude when it comes to doing digital marketing correctly.

Advertising agencies, both local and national are understaffed and under-qualified to be doing the digital work they are selling.

This summer I found out one of my advertising partners bought a website for $27,000 from one of these advertising agencies and it’s really messed up. Sure it looks okay to the naked eye, but it is impossible to optimize for the search engines (SEO) due to the platform they built it on. We can rebuild it for less that 1/3 that cost.

One last item in answering the question, “Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?”

There actually is a study that shows how broadcasting works best in driving people to your website. A couple lines from the article that caught my eye:

Here’s why radio and TV have the advantage: While print media requires hands, broadcast media leaves them free to do other things . . . like type in a URL, tweet something, or click “like.”

Want to talk? Let’s connect

Eliminate Spam From Your Inbox

by Scott Howard | Sep 18, 2016 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

I hate spam. It’s not a tasty treat and it’s pretty annoying when it fills your email inbox too.

So today, I’m going to reach out to those of you who are still using Yahoo!, Hotmail, or heaven-forbid, AOL as your main email account.

I used to be one of you and it was so annoying to see all the junk that was making it past the spam filters on those platforms.

Here’s how to Eliminate Spam From Your Inbox.

I hope you’ve heard of Gmail. Google introduced it in 2004 by invitation only and I jumped on the waiting list. By 2007, it was available to anyone. Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google.

What caught my attention at the time was how effective Gmail was at filtering spam. It was virtually fool-proof. Still is, although there are a few that slip into my inbox each month.

But I receive up to 150 emails each day, not counting the spam emails which alone can top 100 each day. Do the math and you’ll see why I’m impressed.

Here’s a screenshot from my gmail spam folder the other day:

A sample of the spam email I receive

Those emails are automatically routed into a spam filter in my gmail account. Also if I get some spam that makes it into my inbox, I just press a button and it will automatically be filtered in the future. You can also tell gmail to NOT filter certain emails to spam.

Also, see all those spam emails with attachments? Those could be very dangerous. Do NOT open unless you want to risk infecting your computer and companies systems.

I highly recommend you switch to a gmail powered email address, just to save yourself time of sorting through spam. And here’s a few ways to do it. Google each of these:

You can set up your old email account to start forwarding all new incoming email to your gmail account.
You can even export your old emails from your other accounts and import them to your new gmail account.
You might want to simply send a “here’s my new email address” to all your contacts, but I would still recommend doing the other two steps.
Import your email contacts into your gmail account and then stop sending emails from those old accounts. Your contacts will get the message, except for your 95 year old Aunt Agnes.

Google’s gmail service is also available for businesses and you can keep your old business account name. For 10+ years, my email address @ScLoHo.net is really a professional gmail account. It’s because of this spam filtering feature that I splash my email address all over the web.

Questions? Ask. Or just Google it.

Are Your Missing Some Customers?

by Scott Howard | Sep 15, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo Sales Tips, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Pay attention as I tell you a true story and see if it applies to your business:

I’ve got a great client, they are a true advertising partner.

Our partnership began last year when I volunteered to help them formulate an advertising and marketing plan that they could use with me or without me.

They decided to use me and a few of the advertising solutions I have available thru my radio station, WOWO and our digital division, Federated Digital Solutions.

I also help them plan and buy other advertising from others. I am their unpaid advertising consultant. But I am going beyond the advertising world with them.

I want them to be as successful as possible and anything I can do to help them to help their customers solve their problems is what I am attempting to do.

I have observed a disconnect at times in how they are communicating with the potential customers that are calling them, and it’s costing them business.

Oh, they are very successful despite this, but they can do better.

They are a service business. If you need them to fix something at your home, you call them and they send out a technician who will diagnose the problem and offer to fix it.

But here’s where I have been observing the disconnect…

I have witnessed phone calls where a potential customer calls and asks questions and what they really want is their problem solved. Not a conversation over the phone or even possible answers over the phone.

If you are a service business and your phone is ringing with potential customers on the other end, they have problems they want you to fix. This wasn’t happening all the time with my advertising partner.

I listened to calls that the service manager took and he wasn’t setting up appointments for his techs. I listened to phone calls that the owner answered and they weren’t consistently setting up appointments either.

Advertising can make the phone ring. It’s up to you and your crew to convert those calls into happy customers.

You may not be aware that there is a problem. My advertising partners were not aware. Business was booming and they were busy.

But they could be busier.

So I’m going to do a training session with the office staff. I’m going to teach them how to answer the phone.

I’m going to teach them to answer the phone when a potential customer calls with a problem and set an appointment so they can help solve those problems and create more happy customers.

I care about this stuff. You should too, if you own or run a business. Are you missing some customers?

Want help? Reach out to me. My contact info is below.

Sell to People

by Scott Howard | Sep 12, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo Sales Tips, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Too often I see so called marketing experts who are trying to game the system and push some technology that they claim will beat the pants off everyone else and blah, blah, blah…

What I look for when I see this stuff is are they also taking into consideration the human factor? Or more accurately, the Human Relationship Factor? It’s something I preach all the time.

Last week this article from Mediapost arrived in my email which gives a few tips, especially when the buyers are age 50+:

People Make All Purchase Decisions

In a recent article, “All purchase decisions are made by people” Gavin Finn,CEO of Kaon Interactivewrote, “While data science and analytics have become an essential element of every modern marketing arsenal, it is wise to remember that people make all purchase decisions.”

He goes on to say, “Even in business purchases, the individual decision-makers are subject to the same strengths and weaknesses as consumers. Neuroscientists have proven that every decision has an element of emotion to it . . . In fact, many behavioral scientists believe that the primary decision drivers are mainly emotional.”

When marketing to Baby Boomer’s (52 to 70 years of age), focusing on product features and benefits often results in a losing strategy, especially early on in the process. As shown above, research has shown that consumers’ final decisions are not the direct product of the reasoning process; in fact, as we age emotions drive us even more in our purchase decisions. The reasoning process will confirm their decision, but it doesn’t start there.

Although all of us have basic human values and motivators that drive us, we manifest them differently as we move through the spring, summer, fall, and winter of life. Selling to Baby Boomer customers is different primarily because of this shift how we manifest values and motivators.

Our human need for identity, relationships, purpose, gaining knowledge and growth, rejuvenation and recreation are always with us. However, as we age, we focus more on having meaningful life experiences compared to our younger selves that concentrate on gaining material goods. As such, it’s in your best interest to determine and communicate how your brand, product or service provides a gateway to meaningful life experiences.

Sales professionals should begin a sales presentation by first developing a relationship.

1. Understand you’re in an emotionally charged environment and take the time to practice focused listening. Salespeople often speak to the customer in a very staccato fashion. They immediately start talking about their product/service’s features and benefits without trying to build the relationship first. This approach is not usually practical, because as we get older, we become more resistant to absolute guarantees or propositions than when we were younger.

2. Never rush the Boomer customer or patronize them. The older we get, we more easily recognize and the more we reject being patronized. Marketers and sales professionals should allow the consumer to pull wanted information; not push it at them.

3. Deliver objective information at a slow-to-moderate pace. Avoid jumping around on the issue. Maintain a steady equilibrium as you speak. Ask many open-ended questions that start the customer talking.

4. Be vulnerable, honest and open about who you are. The more honest you are, the better your chances are of developing a good solid bond in the relationship. Show sincere empathy and reduce your reliance on sales charts and other tools, and take more time to understand the Boomer’s needs and wants.

5. Saying less is more in many instances especially in the early stages of communicating. Let the consumer use his or her imagination to interpret your communications. Be prepared to provide more detail as requested.

Challenge your current sales approach and gain a better understanding of the physical as well as behavioral changes of aging consumers. Remember that as we age, we can’t hear, or taste or see as well, and if your sales approach, product information or environment isn’t user-friendly to these consumers; you’re often wasting your time.

The American historian Daniel J. Boorstin once said: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” In other words, what stops you from knowing the truth is acknowledging a false truth as the truth. If you think you have the truth, but don’t, you stop seeking it. Keep seeking the truth.