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.

How To Build Instant Trust For Your Business

How To Build Instant Trust For Your Business

If there was only a way to get someone to trust you instantly…

Actually we were born that way.  We trust from the very start.  Then as we experience life, we discover that things aren’t always trustworthy.

Depending on a persons life experiences and outlook, we develop either an optimistic or pessimistic attitude.  Most of us are a blend of both depending on the situation.

As I’ve talked about in the past, Trust is one of the key foundations of our lives and this applies to everything.

I’m going to focus on the necessity of trust in business and marketing including your advertising.

I’m also going to share with you examples that you can use today to create “Instant Trust”.

Trust is an emotion first, and logic second. No matter what the data says, you have to win the heart, not just the mind.

Certain forms of media are trustworthy for different people.

A century ago, newspapers were the trusted source of information.

Half a century ago, TV was, especially CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite who would end his nightly broadcasts with his signature sign-off, “And That’s The Way It Is”.

All of this was before the online world which gave anyone and everyone a voice.

The most trusted media people in my city are now the local radio and television personalities.

But they are not all equally trusted.

Particular stations and networks have their own brand and people put trust in that brand.  If your business advertises on a particular station that is trusted, there is a transfer of trust that spreads to your business.

In the TV world, we have newscasts on 4 stations and over the past couple of decades there has been a changing of the guard so-to-speak as some TV veterans retired and others took their place.  TV viewership has eroded as alternative sources of news and entertainment have continued to become available.  I no longer have to sit down at the appointed time to watch the evening news to see what happened while I was at the office.  I get news instantly from the apps on my phone, whenever I want. I have not watched a single local newscast from start to finish this year and I see no reason for that to change.

The radio world in Fort Wayne has nearly 2 dozen radio stations.  The oldest is WGL which I worked for a couple of times. Listenership is very small according to the rating data I have access to and the format has changed numerous times.  The next oldest is WOWO.

WOWO will be a century old in 2025 and for more than a quarter century has been a news and talk radio station.  In December I will have completed 9 years at WOWO with many more to come.  When I was a kid I listened to WOWO and it was the most listened to station with over 70% of all of the listeners tuning in each morning.  WOWO is still one of the few stations with over 100,000 weekly listeners.

Federated Media bought WOWO in the 1990’s and owns and operates other heritage stations in Fort Wayne including WMEE, which I once worked for a few decades ago. 98.9 The Bear and K-105 are the other two Fed Med stations that have huge audiences in Fort Wayne and have earned the trust of our listeners.

One of the things that makes WOWO unique however is the whole news/talk format and how listeners interact with WOWO.  When you listen to a music station, you pick the station that plays the music you enjoy listening to.  The radio personalities are there to complement the music and add to your listening pleasure. 70% or more of what your favorite music station plays is music.  Music is the main emotional connection.

With WOWO being a news and talk radio station, we don’t play music.  We talk instead. In the morning, it’s news, weather, sports, traffic, farm reports, and interviews. The rest of the day the newscasts are twice an hour with talk filling in the rest of the hour.  People listen to WOWO to hear people talk.  Big difference.

WOWO Listeners Trust the WOWO Brand.

WOWO Listeners are not annoyed by talking the way they can get annoyed by too much talk on a music station.

WOWO’s advertisers are trusted simply because those businesses are on WOWO.  There is an implied trust and emotional bond that businesses get that advertise on WOWO.    But that’s not all.

WOWO cranks it up two more levels for our advertising partners.

There is what I refer to as a Platinum Level for WOWO Advertisers.  We all know that the Gold Standard is the highest level of any business.  This is a step above the Gold Standard.

Platinum Level Sponsorship on WOWO is the personal endorsement or testimonial of one of either or afternoon host Pat Miller or morning host Kayla Blakeslee.  This is the trust factor on steroids that no other station in Fort Wayne offers.  A Pat or Kayla endorsement campaign means they will be your local spokesperson and do live 60 second ads for your business.

They receive a talent fee for this and WOWO charges a premium for that minute of airtime.   But it’s well worth it.  I’ll give you a couple of examples in a moment.

These live ads are exclusive for a business category.  For example, Pat Miller endorses Fairhaven Funeral Homes.  Fairhaven will be the only funeral service provider Pat will endorse.  Other funeral homes can advertise, but none will have Pat’s voice on them, endorsing them as long as Fairhaven continues.  Kayla Blakeslee endorses Shield Exterior Roofing and so while other roofers can advertise on WOWO, none will have Kayla as their spokesperson.

WOWO Listeners have an emotional bond with Pat and Kayla and they are trusted by their listeners.  When Pat and Kayla are talking about something political, you bet their listeners are emotionally invested.  That emotional trust carries over to our listeners when they also talk about the businesses they endorse.

A few years after I started at WOWO, before Kayla was hosting Fort Wayne’s Morning News, she was the news director and news anchor in the morning.  Charly Butcher was our Fort Wayne Morning News Host until he suddenly passed away 4 years ago this week.  I worked with a small specialty shop that was going to have a special open house on a Saturday and they bought a ton of radio ads on a music station and just 3 or 4 ads with Charly’s endorsement.  After the event, the owner continued with WOWO because he heard customer after customer tell him that Saturday they were at the open house because Charly told them to come.  The music station’s ads did nearly nothing apparently.

Before I wrap this up, I mentioned two levels of trust building beyond the regular ads on WOWO.  The 2nd one is something I started using a lot of when I came to WOWO and they create an implied endorsement of a business to our listeners.  We have news and weather sponsorships that are done live by the WOWO local newscasters.  We have local news 13 hours every weekday starting at 5am, so there are plenty of these “embedded” sponsorship mentions that are live 10 second messages.  This was my secret sauce for success for my advertising partners when I came to WOWO.

Instant Trust? Hmmm, not quite but pretty close.  Contact me for more details.

 

 

Should Your Business Advertise on the Radio?

Should Your Business Advertise on the Radio?

The question for today is:

Should your business advertise on the radio?

The answer is:

A qualified Yes.

Now that may not be the answer you were expecting from the General Sales Manager of the Most Listened to Radio Station in town, WOWO.

You thought I’d say:

Definitely Yes, every business needs to advertise on the radio.

I know that there are people in my position that would say that because they believe any dollar is a good dollar.

I take a different approach here at WOWO.  I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago when I said that the focus of me and my sales team is to get results for the businesses that advertise with WOWO.

We want to partner with you if it makes financial sense for your business.

We want to come up with an agreeable and reasonable Return On Investment formula before we agree to take your money and but you on the radio.

I admit, that’s not always possible.  One of my favorite radio advertising partners hates the idea of tracking and measuring the return on investment.  They simply want to believe it’s working and because of the style of advertising campaign I designed for them, our listeners are vocal enough to let their sales team and their service techs that they listen to WOWO.  That confirmation gets back to the owners and that’s why they believe in WOWO for their advertising.

Borrell Associates shared another survey last month that talked about business owners plans for using radio in the future and part of their report mentioned the value of having conversations with local advertising people:

How do they buy those ads? Three-quarters say via emailing with a sales rep compared to 55% who say they meet with salespeople in person or talk to them by phone. Nevertheless, Borrell says three in four said they like having the option of having a face-to-face meeting with sales reps.

That is more than just being sociable. The survey data suggests that local businesses have a lot more respect for local reps than those selling national advertising. Three quarters of those surveyed said they find local reps more knowledgeable and 70% said local reps are a good source of marketing intelligence.

“Local advertisers see local media reps as knowledgeable resources who care about their business,” says the report. “They may not always help advertisers save money but they bring value in other ways.”

Comparing specifically radio advertising sales people with others, here’s what business owners said:

And as earlier reported by Inside Radio, the perception of radio sellers as expert marketers is higher than it is for any other type of sales rep, and the perception of digital savvy of radio reps is now also the highest. When buyers were asked, which sales reps are considered savvy about marketing, radio  topped all other forms of traditional media.

Advertising sales reps who worked for broadcast TV,  cable TV, newspapers, and direct mail all ranked significantly lower.  Radio people are also at the top of the survey to be considered digitally savvy.

When I took over as the General Sales Manager at WOWO Radio last year, I had a couple of radio experts on my team and a couple of guys who had experience in advertising or sales but not broadcasting yet. Now, 20 months later, everyone is becoming an expert with coaching, mentoring and a true heart for doing what is best for the businesses we work with.

Want to know more, contact me: Scott@WOWO.com

Follow The Leader Off The Cliff

Follow The Leader Off The Cliff

Are you a Follower?

Or are you a Leader?

A couple weeks ago I read a statistic about advertising spending that didn’t surprise me but kind of made me sad.

It’s estimated that this year, digital advertising will account for nearly 67% of all media spending.

That was the opening line in a story from Mediapost that actually advices that going all digital is dangerous to the health of your brand and company.  Their headline reads: 5 Reasons To Keep Traditional Media In The Mix.

Radio, TV, newspapers, they are considered traditional media compared to digital media when has been around for nearly two decades.

All media can have some value for advertisers but you have to understand the way people use them and have the right expectations for what you are wanting to do.

Coupled with the rise of digital, the media landscape is increasingly complicated. The best approach is an integrated one — utilizing both digital and traditional tactics.

The reason I titled this Follow The Leader Off The Cliff is I have seen too many business people abandon traditional and go all digital, only to suffer the consequences or wake up and return to radio, print and tv.  National companies like Proctor and Gamble did it, and I have a friend that was nearly put out of business when Facebook shut down his Facebook page.

Let’s dig in with the 5 reasons from Mediapost:

More real estate. Smart traditional media placements can complement your digital campaign, in many cases offering additional real estate for comprehensive storytelling. 

Added value. Traditional media offers far more opportunity for added value than digital. 

 

Content alignment. Traditional broadcast and print media offer more content alignment opportunities, allowing the message to complement what audiences are already seeing. Negotiating fixed positions adjacent to this content through sponsorships and specific placement can help brands avoid getting lost in the clutter.

 

Endorsement opportunities. Endorsements promote credibility, particularly for campaigns meant for diverse audiences. By leveraging endorsements with “original influencers,” from DJs to on-air broadcast personalities, messaging is delivered by people whom audiences already trust, allowing paid content to come across naturally.

 

Internal alignment. It’s normal to want to see a campaign in-market once it launches. However, clients and their internal teams may not always be the target audience for a digital campaign, therefore not ever seeing it. 

 

While digital media is a critical component of paid campaign strategies, traditional media tactics still have unique strengths. Depending on location, demographics and other key qualifiers, there can be an argument made to focus on one over the other. Integrating both digital and traditional together can expand reach and engagement, while also increasing impact.

 

Problems = Opportunities

Problems = Opportunities

Have you heard the classic tale of the two shoe salesmen who were sent to a remote third-world village to sell shoes? When they arrived at the village, one immediately sent a message to his office saying, “There’s a problem. No one here wears shoes. Will return tonight”.

The other salesman, upon arrival, sent a message back to the home office as well saying, “We hit the jackpot! No one here has shoes. Send lots of inventory immediately”.   

COVID-19 has caused one problem after another. However, for every problem it has created, it has also created an opportunity. 

A quote that every business owner should hang on their office wall is this: 

Problems = Opportunities

“It’s never a problem. It’s an opportunity to create a solution to a certain situation.”

The most successful businesses recognize problems as opportunities in disguise. After all, the first premise of marketing is “find a need and fill it”. The best companies and managers see those opportunities, while others are complacent and accept the status quo.

Robert Kennedy once said, “Others see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I see things as they could be and say, ‘Why not?” Do you see things as they are, or, as they could be?

At some point, hopefully much sooner than later, the COVID pandemic will ”officially” be over. But, in the aftermath of recovery impaired by closed businesses, displaced families, and increased competition, it can be easy to see people who “don’t wear shoes” versus people who “need shoes”. 

Many of our clients are busy multi-tasking, negotiating leases, hiring and training staff, buying and selling merchandise, wrestling with health and safety regulations or bankers, and more. While marketing is on their to-do lists, their hectic schedules can cause them to miss some of the opportunities that lie ahead as we sit on the threshold of our world post-COVID.

Often, we need a fresh new perspective to focus on opportunities and growth. Me and my team are here to help with that perspective.

Contact me, Scott@WOWO.com  to arrange a no-obligation appointment to explore how you can grow your business in the months to come.  

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