The Danger of Relying on Facebook

The Danger of Relying on Facebook

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.

Reintroducing ScLoHo

Reintroducing ScLoHo

Last week, when I was recording the podcast version of my weekly update I mentioned briefly what a ScLoHo is. Today, that is the focus of both this article and podcast episode.

If this is the very first time you’ve listened to the Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast, welcome aboard.  If it’s the first time you’ve read an article I’ve published on this website, come on in.

Today I’m reintroducing myself, Scott Howard also known as ScLoHo.

I’ve been podcasting nearly every week since March 2017, so this is the beginning of my eighth year hosting a podcast.

I also checked my blogging history and I launched my first blog in 2004, 20 years ago.

The ScLoHo nickname began even before that as an email address because there are many Scott Howard’s out there and I needed something unique.

ScLoHo is a mash-up using the first two letters of my first name, Scott, first two letters of my middle name, Louis, and first two letters of my last name, Howard.

When you take those 6 letters and try and pronounce them, it becomes two syllables because there are only two vowels. Sclo (Sclow)- Ho (Hoe).

In 2004, I launched a couple of blogs, one was a personal blog, the other a media and marketing blog using Google’s old Blogger.com platform and eventually launched a few more blogs, all of them under the ScLoHo online persona.  At one point, for a couple of years, I was posting over 30 times a week on all of these blogs and this was not my fulltime job.  I was working for a group of radio stations from 2003 thru 2011 and blogging was just an unpaid side passion.

However, the ScLoHo name became pretty well known both locally and online.  I have used ScLoHo as a Twitter or X handle, along with nearly all my other social media profiles.  My personal email is @ScLoHo.net; I own the ScLoHo.com and .net domains and basically it use to be if you Googled ScLoHo, you’d find me.

Interestingly there were some people who knew me as ScLoHo and others who only knew me as Scott.  In the  summer of 2010, I was walking at the Tincaps baseball game, taking a lab around the stadium, when a group of friends from an advertising agency saw me and shouted my name.  Except, some yelled ScLoHo, and the others shouted Scott.

In 2011, I left radio for 10 months and worked for a website development company where a friend of my challenged me to merge the two and launched the ScottHoward.me website.  The dot me domain was not due to my ego, it’s because both the dot com and dot net domains were taken by other Scott Howard’s.

I imported over a thousand stories to this website from my blogs and eventually scaled down my updates from several a day to one a day to once a week.  The only time I’ve done less than a weekly update was a few months in 2022 and 2023 when my duties at the radio stations as a sales manager overseeing 4 stations and 8 salespeople needed my attention more than this. At the time, I also figured after 300 podcasts and over 1500 articles, I pretty much had shared everything there was to know and media and marketing.  I did monthly updates.  My focus was to help my team grow and to take the spotlight off me and on them.

However at the end of last summer, things changed.  I decided to step back from management and rehire myself as a member of the WOWO radio sales team.  With that change, I decided to return to weekly updates and to get back out in the community again instead of behind the scenes like I had been doing for nearly 4 years as a manager.

What’s my backstory?  Well first of all I never wanted to do sales.

In high school, my first venture into radio was on the air.  After graduation, I was on the air at radio stations full time in Marion and Kokomo Indiana and then returned to my hometown of Fort Wayne and was on the air at WMEE.  WMEE has always been owned by Federated Media and in the 1980’s WOWO was our competition, owned by another company.  WOWO was the big dog, the radio station that had the highest ratings and most listeners for decades.  However in the early 80’s I was part of the WMEE air team that finally beat WOWO and became the most listened to radio station according to the ratings.

Next stop was back to Kokomo and Indianapolis before taking my growing family to Detroit.  Up until I moved to Michigan at the ripe old age of 26 with 10 years of on-air experience, I had only voiced radio commercials, but never wrote and produced advertising campaigns.  The company I joined in Detroit was different and awakened a curiosity in me to figure out how to communicate and motivate people with a radio commercial to spend their money with a particular business.  I learned how to create ad campaigns that were distinct and unique, and most importantly, created top of mind awareness of a business so that consumers would eventually need them, those businesses were already Top Of Mind.

While in Detroit at Crawford Broadcasting and station WMUZ, I grew our production department, did a stint as fill-in host and eventually hosted the morning show for awhile and also took my first advertising sales position.

In my mid-30’s, we moved my family back to Indiana, I returned to working on the radio at WFWI in Fort Wayne and then took a hiatus and worked outside of media.  Finally in 2003, it was back to radio full-time for good, all most.  Eight and a half successful years with a group of Ft. Wayne radio stations, followed by full time at a website development company, another radio station and as the Social Media Guru for a multimillion dollar eCommerce company and then back to Federated Media in 2013.

Nearly 30 years between my first time with Fed Med as a WMEE Disc Jockey to my current position on the WOWO Sales Team.  I also spent close to 4 years as the General Sales Manager of WOWO and a year on an interim basis as sales manager of 3 other stations.

I’ve been a guest speaker with Huntington University a couple of times, Ivy Tech Fort Wayne, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and this year will be making my second appearance speaking at Trine University.

I’ve worked with over a hundred companies and organizations and consulted around a thousand in both formal and casual settings to help them become better with their media, marketing, public relations and internal sales and marketing.  Just in my 10+ years with WOWO have won a few achievement awards, called Feddies for Federated Media and even my own website won a best of contest by a competing media outlet.  Awards are nice, but what really motivates me is to have the opportunity to help others and share the wisdom and knowledge I’ve picked up over the last few decades and I’m continuing to learn as a life-long student.

Teaching, Training, Motivating and Encouraging has been a lot of what I do.  Helping people make wise spending decisions with their advertising and marketing is my bread and butter.  Being a dad, husband and grandparent keeps me grounded as well as my Christian faith.

There’s a philosophy about marketing and advertising that I call using Human Relationship Principles that I’ll review in the near future, but for now, you now know a lot more about this Scott Howard aka ScLoHo then you did 10 minutes ago.

 

The State of Radio and WOWO in 2024

The State of Radio and WOWO in 2024

Is Radio still a viable advertising media in 2024?

The TL;DR answer is yes.

Last week I shared the story of the demise of our local newspapers over the past 20 years and my insider numbers.  Today, I’ll review the local radio scene and include some numbers from a recent study on the benefits businesses can get from becoming an advertising partner with me on WOWO.

There are all kinds of studies and surveys and polls that are used to predict what is going to happen.  In Fort Wayne, Indiana there were two companies that were measuring radio station listenership, Eastlan and Nielsen, but with some changes back in 2022 and 2023, we just have Nielsen.

Federated Media which is the company I work for, subscribed to Eastlan for well over a decade.  I was working for some competing stations when we heard that Fed Med was switching to Eastlan while the rest of the Fort Wayne area stations were still using Arbitron.  Arbitron was bought by Nielsen, but Nielsen and Arbitron are essentially the same for radio.  Eastlan used a different methodology for doing their research, and when we were subscribers, it served it’s purpose.

However at Federated Media we wanted some of the additional research tools that Nielsen offers and that’s why we returned and dropped Eastlan.

Fort Wayne is market number 116 in size and we get surveyed twice a year, in the spring and fall and we just received the results from the Fall 2023 survey. The rating numbers for all of the local Federated Media stations, including WOWO are good.  Depending on the demographics we look at all 5 stations are doing exactly what we want and that is being listened to by the locals more and more.  Just the opposite of the newspapers which saw readership declining as I shared last week.

Overall, Federated Media’s Rock station, WBYR, 98.9 The Bear along with Country Station WQHK K105 and Hot Adult Contemporary Music station WMEE are strong and growing with the most listeners overall, and each of those music stations have a competing station in Fort Wayne that we are beating in terms of listenership.

Our two talk stations are also doing well.  WKJG 1380 The Fan is a Sports Talk station that has a steady niche audience with both local and national sports talk and play by play games.

WOWO, my primary radio station is also setting new records.  As a News Talk radio station for 25 years at 1190AM, we’ve also had an FM signal.  10 years ago it was at 92.3FM, then Federated Media made 92.3 and FM Music station for a number of years.  May 1st, in the middle of our last rating period, we flipped the programming on 92.3 FM back to a News Talk Simulcast of WOWO 1190 AM.  This most recent rating period shows the full impact of putting the WOWO News Talk programming on 92.3FM along with 1190AM.

As a side note, because 92.3FM still has the legal call letters of WFWI, when we look at the ratings, we do a combination on WOWO & WFWI to get a true picture.  WOWO’s target audience is what I call grown-ups.  Adults ages 35 and older.  Those are the ones that are spending money on big and important stuff for their families and for themselves.  Sure there are a few teens and 20 year olds who listen to WOWO too, but at that stage of your life, you’re more likely to listen to the radio for music, not news and information.

Of course the real reason WOWO and our other Federated Media stations are successful is that they are also a good choice for businesses to advertise.  The antidotal stories of success from WOWO advertising partners keep coming, but today I’m going to point to a national study that shows why radio is relevant for businesses to grow this year.

Inside Radio reported last week a summary of marketing researcher Peter Field’s latest study.

Based on case studies from 2000-2022, advertisers using AM/FM radio have seen notable increases in brand trust (up 58%), profits (+42%), market share (+28%),and return on ad spend (+23%). Also notable among Field’s findings is that since 2016, profit increases among advertisers using AM/FM radio have steadily grown, compared to those not using the medium. What’s more, over the past two decades, AM/FM radio advertisers have experienced a 23% greater return on ROI vs. non-AM/FM users.

There’s also something in this report that I’ve seen during my 10+ years at WOWO and also at stations I worked for previously, but even more so with WOWO and that is Top Of Mind Awareness of a company.  I’ve called it Word Of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth for years.  This report on radio stations overall states that there is a 13% increase in what they refer to as Mental Availability.  This simply means your company, your brand, your product lives in your future customers mind so that there is a greater chance of you being considered when they are ready to make a buying decision and that is due to the power of radio advertising messaging.  You won’t get that from a Tik Tok video.

Want help seeing how to apply this in 2024?  Reach out to me,  Scott@WOWO.com or 260-255-4357.

 

 

What Happened to Our Newspaper?

What Happened to Our Newspaper?

I get to work with all kinds of businesses, new ones, old ones, online only and brick and mortar only along with many that are some kind of combination of all these factors.

This is the final few months for one of my favorite clients in Fort Wayne, a retail shop that has sold coins since 1976.  They used to also sell stamps and then switched over to jewelry along with the collectable coins and related supplies.  They were a big advertiser in the local newspaper when they began and only in the past decade have stopped their newspaper ads.

The reason they are closing is their business has changed.  Michelle is the youngest of the owners at 58 and her partners are 70+.  When their lease expires this summer, they will have liquidated all the gold, silver and collectables and either retired or picked up something else to do with their time.

The store closure is a sign of the times as many businesses have closed as the owners have decided to call it quits.  Some are sold to new owners, some are passed down to another generation, but those that last have made some changes over time.

Another client of mine recently completed an ownership transition as the previous owners sold the company to some of the management staff.  That company is over 70 years strong and will continue for a few more decades I predict.  They also used to run newspaper ads and don’t anymore.

Two decades ago when I returned to the radio advertising world in Fort Wayne Indiana, the major media sources that you could use to advertise with were radio stations, television stations and newspapers.  Fort Wayne had a pretty healthy newspaper business with both a morning paper and afternoon paper and it was filled with ads and local news.

This would have been 2003.  We had the internet, but MySpace was the primary Social Media platform until Facebook launched a couple years later and grew to be the dominant online site in the world.

Traditional media has made adjustments, as radio and TV have evolved and added services to keep and grow their audiences so businesses could continue to advertise and invite those viewers and listeners to spend money with them.

Newspapers however have not faired as well.

Earlier this month, on Facebook,  I posted a picture of the building that used to house our two daily newspapers.  All day long and for a few more days, people were commenting about how much has changed with the newspaper business.

For starters, the afternoon paper finally ceased publication a few years ago and more recently the morning paper dropped from publishing 7 days a week to just 6 with a combined weekend edition for Saturday and Sunday.

As I was sharing some of my insider knowledge about the reasons the newspaper has become so small with a fraction of the number of pages, I decided to also share some data that I received with actual numbers.

For a long time the Radio Advertising Bureau was able to provide me with personalized reports that were verified and audited for our local papers.  My access to this service ended in 2015 but the numbers tell the story.

In a snapshot in the time from 2009 to 2014, the number of households in our area climbed 2.6%.  That’s good.

Newspaper subscriptions to the morning paper fell by over 34% during those 5 years.  The number of subscribers to the afternoon paper declined by over 40% in those same 5 short years.  In an attempt to hang on, the newspapers increased their advertising rates on their rate card by 18.5 percent.  That’s bad.

If you were unable to cut a deal with the paper you were paying over 18 % more to reach between 30% and 40% less people than you had 5 years before.   That’s a spread of over 50% that is not in your favor if you were a newspaper advertiser.

This downward spiral of decreased subscribers which lead to decreased ad revenue (despite the attempted ad rate increases) has lead to less pages in the daily paper.  Less reporters too along with less people overall.  In short, that’s what happened to our newspaper.

The last set of circulation numbers for the afternoon paper was less than 13,000 and the morning paper 42,000. Population figures in my reports indicate there were over 300,000 people in our area back in 2014.

I tell this not to gloat about how great radio is compared to our papers.

While it is true we have more radio listeners to WOWO and our sister stations at Federated Media then the remaining paper has subscribers, and I can help you invite those listeners to become your customers…

… I am saddened by the demise of our local paper.  The journalists and the people who supported them are a type of news media that needs to find a way forward.  Long form investigative reporting along with seeing the news about your family or neighbor making a positive impact, that’s good news worth keeping alive.

On The Road Again

On The Road Again

‘Commutes Are Back’ As Time Spent With AM/FM In Cars Hits Eight-Year High.

That was the headline of an InsideRadio.com story last month and that’s great news for those of us in the radio broadcasting industry.

It’s also fantastic news for businesses that want to reach a regular and consistent audience and invite them to become their customers.

Naysayers have been predicting the end of radio relevancy for decades, and when something like a pandemic happens that disrupts our daily lives including our time spent driving, those negative voices get louder.  However as a radio insider, I have the facts that say differently.

Here’s some more from that story:

Compared to results from earlier surveys by MARU/Matchbox and Nielsen since April 2020, the height of the pandemic – when more than half (52%) of pre-COVID commuters were working at home – that share gradually fell to just 6% in the recent survey, meaning 94% of average Americans are now commuting to work.

Here in Fort Wayne, Indiana the average commute time is around 20 to 30 minutes.  Longer in the afternoon than morning for some reason. Radio continues to live in the car, or whatever you drive.  The radio station I’ve been working for the past decade, WOWO in Fort Wayne Indiana did something this year that we’ve been talking about for a few years, we added an FM signal to the WOWO listening choices.

The backstory is that with the growth of EV’s many car companies were not including AM radio in the dashboards, only FM.  While the broadcasting organizations having been lobbying Congress to force AM radio to be included in all new cars, at WOWO we decided to be proactive and rebrand with a focus on our full strength FM signal 92.3 along with our 1190 AM radio signal.  And not to get all techy, but before May, you could listen to WOWO on the FM band at 107.5, but that was a low-power FM signal.  If you had an HD FM radio, WOWO could also be heard at 97.3 HD2, but those were not as popular as a traditional full strength FM signal like we have now at 92.3 FM.

Going back to talking about people driving, last month I noticed that our two major malls were getting busier and busier as the holidays approached. Which means even more time spent in cars, listening to the radio on the way to buy from traditional brick and mortar stores, similar to what we had 4 or 5 years ago.

It’s a good sign for the local economy to see people buying locally and for radio stations like mine that are providing news and local information.  This trend will continue after the new year too and if you want help driving our listeners to your business, contact me.

 

Top 10 Holiday Shopping Days of 2023

Top 10 Holiday Shopping Days of 2023

If the experts are correct, retailers should get set for a very Merry 2023 shopping season.

According to the 2023 Deloitte holiday survey, the holiday spirit and spending will rebound and consumers expect to spend $1,652, surpassing pre-pandemic levels for the first time. As givers grapple with inflation expectations, they still plan to spend nearly 14% more than last year.

Are you ready for the rush?

While some gifts have already been purchased and wrapped, on average, the top 10 busiest shopping days in the U.S. account for approximately 40% of all holiday retail traffic.

Businesses that are well-planned and run well-executed events and promotions during and around these ten days will help garner more than their fair share of the holiday shopping pie. Knowing when the shoppers are ready to shop and being prepared for them is paramount to getting that fair share.

Stores that plan in-store special events and then promote them will see more significant store traffic and greater sales than those that simply sit back and “hope” people stop in. Inviting holiday shoppers into the store at key buying times can and will make all the difference.

The busiest shopping days will see some slight changes in 2023, due to Christmas falling on a Monday. With that said,  2 of the top 10 have already passed as Black Friday will hold its title as the busiest shopping day.

Are you ready?

According to an analysis from the retail traffic consulting and analytics group of Sensormatic Solutions, a Johnson Controls company, here are what are expected to be the 10 busiest shopping days of 2023:

1. Friday, Nov. 24 – Black Friday

2. Saturday, Dec. 23 – Super Saturday

3. Saturday, Dec. 16 – Third Saturday in December

4. Friday, Dec. 22 – Friday before Christmas

5. Saturday, Nov. 25 – Saturday after Black Friday

6. Tuesday, Dec. 26 – Boxing Day

7. Saturday, Dec. 9 – Second Saturday in December

8. Saturday, Dec. 2 – First Saturday in December

9. Saturday, Dec. 30 – Saturday after Christmas

10. Sunday, Dec. 17 – Sunday before Christmas Eve

While this article focuses on retail, there is major money being spent in and around the holiday season in many other business categories. For example, life insurance and investments, HVAC, and many end-of-year health care procedures are being completed.  The age-old saying, “making hay while the sun shines” is appropriate in these and other categories as well.

Most, but not all of the companies I work with are not dependent on the end of year sales that most retailers count on.  We build long term, year round marketing campaigns however we will also kick it into high gear when there is a reason like the holidays we are in right now.

If you would like help in planning any of your marketing and/or advertising events for this holiday season, it’s not too late. Or if you want to start planning for 2024, this is the time. Contact me Scott @ ScLoHo.net.

Readers of my Sound ADvice weekly newsletter got that list a few weeks ago and I’ve been working with them to make sure we have everything in place.  If you would like my free Sound ADvice newsletter too, send an email to Scott@ScLoHo.net.