Getting Paid For Your Work

Getting Paid For Your Work

by | Oct 1, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Recently a friend of mine who is in the advertising business was lamenting about how he has “challenges” getting his clients to pay him in a timely manner.

I rarely have this problem and I thought this would be a good topic for an article and podcast.

No matter what you do for a living, there is money involved. What I am about to share with you is how I work and will give you some insight on expectations I work with in my world, so if you and I ever work together, you’ll know how the money side all works.  For those new to the idea of paid advertising this is part of the conversation I have with them, because, well they don’t know how it works.

We are all in business and we need money for our businesses to stay alive.

You should never be sheepish about asking for payment due to you, however you need to have the discussion before you agree to do the work.

In my note to my friend, here’s what I shared about my experiences of getting paid:

If it’s a new company or one that is new to advertising, they prepay monthly with a credit card we keep on file. If they have established credit for advertising that we can verify, then we extend credit.

For Example:

Advertising that runs in September. If it is pre-pay, we need payment before September 1st.

If Credit is extended, then it is due within 30 days from us sending the invoice. Invoices for ads that ran in September will go out not later than October 1st. We expect payment before October ends.

Some organizations get 60 days because they are a third party biller, like an ad agency that bills their client and that adds an extra 30 days for them to get their money and then cut us a check.

Anyone that is in danger of going 90 days gets a phone call, an email, a text, a message somehow, someway by the 75 day mark to make arrangements to get the old payment paid before 90 days.

I have two clients that are always in that last category. With one, I send him a reminder and a deadline and he emails me his credit card payment. The other one, I visit and they hand me a check.

Sometimes, the owner and the bookkeeper are not on the same page and so if I need to get the owner involved, he makes sure I get paid so we keep his ads running.

In my 16 years of doing this in Fort Wayne, I have had very few losses, sometimes it was due to unfortunate circumstances on their part like a divorce that tied up their funds.

This is the professional way of taking care of business. Do it with a firm smile and expectations up-front when you start the business relationship.

You started your business because of a passion and I bet that passion was not hunting down a paycheck.  But like taxes and payroll, this also has to be done, or you will not have a business.

Do you have any questions about advertising and marketing that you don’t know who to ask?  Ask me.  Email me at Scott@WOWO.com

You can also get my free Sound ADvice Marketing and Business Tips weekly email by filling out the form below.

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The Power of Audio

The Power of Audio

by | Sep 17, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Which is more powerful…

Audio or video?

Is what you see more powerful than what you hear?

What stirs your heart, your emotions?

If you have never been asked these questions, you should take some time to contemplate the answer before we continue.

The visual  is thought to be more powerful than the audio but it’s just not true.

Earlier in my life, I was a radio disc jockey.  I was the voice between the songs that played on the radio.  This was before there was a TV channel devoted to playing music videos.

MTV was just that at the beginning. 24 hours a day on cable TV MTV played the Top 40 Contemporary Hit Music Videos with real live V-J’s (video jocks) doing the kind of stuff I did on the radio.  It was wildly successful at first.

But there’s a reason why MTV is not a 24 hour music video channel anymore.

It’s not that the music videos are not any good anymore.  Nope, there is another reason.

Video took away an important element from the music.

Music Video’s stripped away the personal imagination and personal emotion from the music.

Before music video’s became widespread, each of us had a more personal experience with the music when it came on the radio.

We created our own personal story.  A unique personal story, all ours, not shared with anyone because it was written in our imagination and our heart.

Now I’m going to jump 30+ years to today.

Pretend you were in a coma and suddenly you woke up 3 decades later.  Or perhaps you prefer a time machine, that sounds less scary.

As we prepare for the next decade of the 2020’s I have been noticing a trend to personalized experiences once again.

I’m referring to entertainment and information.  

Instead of watching a particular TV show on Tuesday nights at 8pm, we now watch on our time schedule.  A personalized schedule. 

This has contributed to the decline in traditional TV watching on broadcast and cable channels and the increase in viewership to services like Netflix and other streaming services.  Binge watching?  Yes, that’s part of it, but it has more to do with creating our own personalized schedule.

You may ask, “What’s this have to do with playing music on the radio or music videos?” , that I was talking about a few moments ago…

Personalized Audio experiences are also on the rise.  Here’s how and why:

The options of what to listen to continue to grow.  

Podcasting is not a foreign concept, it is mainstream.  

Now the content that you find in the podcast world ranges from one extreme to another, and the quality varies tremendously too.

There are a couple dozen podcast networks that you can use to listen to your favorite podcasts with the big three currently being:

  1. Apple or iTunes
  2. Google Play Podcasts
  3. and Spotify

If you are going to have a podcast, you want to make sure you are on those three platforms.

Something else that has lead to a resurgence in listening to audio is the growth of Smart Speakers.

This summer the Nielsen company released a couple reports that MarketingCharts.com shared that showed some interesting facts about all this.

A couple of key takeaways:

  • 92% of American Adults listen to the radio every week.  What I find interesting is that in reality, they could be listening to a local radio station on a traditional car radio, at home through their smart speaker, out and about listening on earbuds plugged into their phone, or streaming on their laptops… it all counts and the relevance of local radio stations continues to remain strong.
  • 2/3 of all “out of home listening” is in cars. The numbers show that the majority of our radio listening is done away from home. Also: For advertisers trying to get the attention of adults, the prime time for listening on the weekdays starts at about 7 a.m. and remains relatively steady until it reaches a peak between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. during drive time. I can verify this in the rating information I have access to for Fort Wayne, Indiana. 
  • 9 out of 10 Podcast Listeners are also Radio Listeners. Now we’re getting to the connection between radio and podcasts. My radio station, WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne Indiana is a news and talk formated station.  WOWO has the largest number of weekly listeners according to the latest independant rating survey.  

WOWO and our other local Federated Media radio stations take the content that was first heard live on the radio and we make it accessible to listeners anywhere and anytime as podcasts too.  Did you miss an interview with the Mayor this morning during Fort Wayne’s Morning News?  You can listen to it via the podcast.  Same with nearly any interview on WOWO and some of the morning show content from our music stations too.

We also have created podcast only shows that get a ton of listeners also.  Podcasting has helped make the entire radio experience a personalized experience. 

And remember what I said at the very beginning about listening to music and not just watching the music video?  That is why our radio stations still are so popular even today.

By the way, these listeners to all this audio on the radio and podcasts are also consumers and I have ways for you to invite them to be your customers.  Contact me: Scott@WOWO.com 

Also sign up below to receive my free Sound ADvice Marketing Tips newsletter in the box below. 

 

 

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Avoid A Digital Disaster

Avoid A Digital Disaster

by | Sep 10, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

I walked in for my 1 o’clock meeting, and there was a strange kind of energy at their office.

I’m talking about energy in the air, the people were not their usual happy selves.

I asked if Doug was in and they pointed to his office and went back to their computer screens.

I climbed the steps to his office and he greets me and tells me what’s going on.

It turns out Facebook shut down his company Facebook page.

Now that may be no big deal to you and your company, but it was for Doug and his business.

If you are relying on some marketing platform like Facebook to keep your business alive, you are risking a Digital Disaster.

Long story short for Doug is that he lost a lot but his business will recover, but it is expensive in time and money.

You may not be so fortunate.

By the way, the story I am telling is true, but Doug is not the business owners real name.

Let’s dig into the details and see how you can avoid losing your business.

Lesson Number ONE, when you name your business, register that name with the proper authorities. That’s usually at the city, county or state level. Depending on what your business does and what marketing you do, you may even need to trademark it which is at the federal level.

Doug’s business page on Facebook was shut down by Facebook because the name he had been using was trademarked by another company hundreds of miles away.  Doug was unaware of this conflict when he selected the name of his company and it wasn’t until that Monday morning that he became aware of the problem this could cause.

Doug used Facebook as his primary marketing and lead generator. His second most successful lead generator was my radio station, WOWO and it reality we married the two of them as a marketing tactic. 

Doug’s business is a home improvement company and everyday his team would be taking pictures of the transformations they did at peoples homes and sharing them on Facebook which worked when you put a considerable amount of money behind those Facebook posts like Doug did.  He spent double on Facebook what he spent with my radio station, otherwise we would have been his top lead source.

Anyway, the mistake Doug made was that he trusted Facebook.  When they took down his business page, they did without warning and all the hundreds of pictures and success stories were not just gone, but lost.

Lesson Number TWO is to Keep Everything Yourself.  Doug and his team deleted their copies of the pictures and posts once they were on Facebook. Doug now saves all those pictures in the cloud on a space he controls.  

By Wednesday, Doug had moved on and decided to rename his business.  This time he did a more thorough check for conflicts and once he was satisfied he contacted me with the new name.  It was easy for me to help him with his rebranding to our radio listeners, that’s part of the beauty of radio, we can make changes often within 24 hours.  That’s not the case for TV or print advertising.

Over the next few days, Doug started his Facebook marketing from scratch.  He had plenty of jobs that he could post and share pictures of, just like he did before, but the Thousands, yes THOUSANDS of people who were connected to his old Facebook business page, were all gone.  So once again he poured money into promoting those Facebook posts and was able to get things up to a satisfactory level of activity in about a week.  He had one handicap with Facebook marketing however.  He could not mention his old company name or he would risk being shut down again.

WOWO radio to the rescue.  The tactic that we used for Doug when he started with us is live endorsement ads and the call to action was to call them and also visit their Facebook Page.  For the first two weeks since the Facebook page was gone, we continued to promote the old name and phone number since Doug still has the old website up.

This week and for the rest of the month, the radio ads will do something that Doug could not do on Facebook. 

We are promoting the name change on the air.  Both names are mentioned as a transition.  This keeps the reputation and good will that Doug has built with our radio audience and we are also telling people to check out the work at the new company Facebook page.  The only reason I didn’t make the switch earlier is I needed Doug to have at least a dozen completed jobs as Facebook Posts so our listeners would see that this is the real thing.

I mentioned that this is an expensive lesson for Doug.  Besides the money spent to handle all of this mess on Facebook, he also needs to spend money fixing everything else online.  That includes a new website, new email addresses, getting Google reviews built up for the new company name for example.  There is also the hard costs of changing everything else with the old company name to the new name including quote forms, bank accounts, business cards, embroidered shirts for everyone on his team, vehicle wraps for their fleet and work trailers. New logo design, and the list goes on and on.  Did I mention he spent a few thousand on a radio jingle that is now worthless?

The only reason that Doug is not out of business today is he has deep pockets because this has been a good first year for his company.  Also he was not solely relying on Facebook to keep his business leads coming in.  His relationship with me and my team at WOWO Radio has made this painful lesson just a crash, but not a crash and burn.  

Please, there are ways to avoid a Digital Disaster, and I can help.  The earlier I get involved the more likely we can prevent this from happening.  Contact me: Scott@WOWO.com.  And you can also get free weekly Sound ADvice marketing tips by signing up for my newsletter in the box below.

 

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How Much Should I Spend On Marketing?

How Much Should I Spend On Marketing?

by | Sep 3, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

It’s often the question that most business owners dread:

How Much Should I Spend On Marketing?

I have a fresh take on this using the words of Roy H. Williams:

  1. One of the most common mistakes in advertising is to spread your ad budget across several different media so that you “don’t leave anyone out.” But persuasion – in most instances – requires repetition and familiarity. Would you rather reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way, or reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way? Don’t spread your money too thinly by chasing the unicorn of “media mix.”

  2. Expensive rent = cheap advertising. Intrusive visibility – a landmark location with signage that’s noticed even when people aren’t looking for it – is the cheapest advertising money can buy.  This is true for service businesses, too, not just retail. The extra cost for this kind of location should be taken from the ad budget.

Roy’s first point is one that I’ve said repeatedly and his second one, well I can give you a real life example of it in action.

When I help my advertising partners schedule their ads on my radio station, WOWO radio, I do it the same way I advise people to buy television ads.

And that is to get ownership of an audience.

For people who want to buy TV ads, I tell them to do the opposite of what most TV ad salespeople try and sell.  The TV stations here are notorious for throw ads all over their station with very little frequency. Instead I tell them to concentrate on a couple of popular shows, even if it means they get less ads for their budget.

When it comes to the radio ads on WOWO which is a news/talk station, I employ a similar tactic. Between 5am and 6pm weekdays we have 4 distinct programs.  The day starts with our local Fort Wayne Morning News with Kayla Blakeslee.  Then national talk show host Glenn Beck comes on at 9am followed by Rush Limbaugh at 12noon.  From 3pm to 6pm, it’s all local again with the Pat Miller Program.

Every one of these 4 programs has a weekly audience of 40,000 to 70,000 listeners.  None of my advertising partners can handle half that amount coming to them in a week.  So what I do is take a look at the best 3 hour radio show to place my advertising partner.

What makes a show “the best”?  I look at competitors on the air, I look a little deeper at the personalities of the show and other aspects that I have insight on and we start with about 15 hours a week which is 3 hours a day times 5 days per week to place their ads.

As they build success on one WOWO radio show, we look at expanding to a second or third show, but the idea is to build positive Top Of Mind Awareness with a select group of people first.  I have ways to tweak this too, just ask me.

Now regarding Roy Williams comment about Real Estate being apart of your Marketing…. I say yes and no.  If you can secure a location and the signage at a well known spot in town, good for you.  This was the reason shopping malls used to attract tenants who paid extra high rent.  But now, it’s probably not needed as much.  With technology and smartphones being able to give us driving instructions, as long as you have your online listings current, I tend to disagree.

However there is a drug store chain that saw tremendous growth a few decades ago by taking the location factor as part of their marketing to heart.

I’m talking about Walgreens.  When I returned to Fort Wayne, 20 years ago, all the Walgreens were in a strip mall.  The one closest to me built a free standing store across the street from their old location and shut down the previous store.

You’ll probably notice that most Walgreens are located at an intersection where there is a traffic light.  Most also have an LED electronic message sign that has specials rotating that people see while they are waiting for the light to change from red to green.

This is by design.  This is brillant, but wait, there’s more.

As Walgreens was making this change in the placement and design of their stores, they also incorporated a new advertising slogan that most consumers didn’t overtly notice, but when I tell you, you see too the clever marketing tie-in.

Walgreens, at the corner of Happy & Healthy!

And yes, they are really at a real street corner. Plus everything they sell is designed to make you either healthy of happy or both.

Most businesses don’t have the deep pockets that Walgreens has to do a complete rebrand of that proportion.  However there are plenty of opportunities to use this kind of wisdom with the marketing and advertising of your business.

Want help?

Contact me:  Scott@WOWO.com

You can also review the entire list of 20 points Roy H. Williams made in Advertising Oversimplified by going here.

And fill in your information on the form below for my free weekly newsletter, Sound ADvice.

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Do You Provide Meaningful Touches?

Do You Provide Meaningful Touches?

by | Aug 21, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Maintaining a good relationship with your customers is critical to your lasting success.

Roy H. Williams in his article on Advertising Oversimplified covered this:

  1. Most customers are repeat customers or referral customers. Mass media is the most efficient way to maintain top-of-mind awareness among these groups. In addition, it will bring you new, first-time customers.

  2. Your plan to stay in touch with your customers through social media and email blasts is based on the assumption that your customer is willing to open, read, listen to, or watch what you have to say. Is this actually happening? And if not, why not? (HINT: The Subject Line gets people to open it. The content, itself, gets people to share it.)

I get direct mail pieces from a couple realtors and other business people I know and I also get some emails but most of them get deleted or tossed without being read.

I even have a weekly marketing email you can subscribe to free using the form below for Sound ADvice.  

As business people we are told that we need to be doing something to maintain that connection, but is what you are doing the right thing for your individual customers?

Even if you are doing the right number of “touches” with your email or direct mail…

Are they meaningful to the people on the receiving end?

I’m not suggesting you drop everything you are currently doing unless you see no value in it at all.

I am suggesting that you also add a personal touch, the kind that is not “mass media”.

Every once in a while, I will contact some of my advertising partners with a note, a phone call or an article that would be of interest to them.

When I did this with a Financial Planner friend of mine, she asked me how I found the article I sent her because it’s from a publication written specifically for people in her field, not the general public.  I told her my research secrets and she got a greater understanding of how I am looking out for her interests, not just selling her advertising.

Like I said, I don’t recommend stopping all your mass media advertising and only focusing on personalized one-at-a-time marketing; that proved disastrous for an old friend of mine who thought word of mouth alone would be the way to go.  He had to shut his doors after he tried that experiment and his business had a 25 year history.

Do both.

Mass media reaches both your current and future customers.  Personalized messaging can be used to retain that relationship.

Want help? Contact me: Scott@WOWO.com

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