by Scott Howard | Nov 20, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo Sales Tips, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
The Holi-daze are upon on and this is a weird and wonderful time of year. I’ve created a few items that you as a business person or marketing person, or what ever kind of person you are, you can take a look at and use to help you navigate the last few weeks of this year.
If this is make it or break it time for your retail business, it’s time to suck it up. Just because you are having to work long hours and cover for the employees that are sick or you just are short handed because all the good people have jobs elsewhere due, remember your customers.
The customers who actually drove to your store really want to buy something that you sell. Otherwise, we would have ordered it online. Just the other day, my wife was working on a project and after making a couple trips to the store, she asked me to order a tool online. It took me less than 10 minutes on a Saturday afternoon and it arrived at our house Monday. While that was convenient for my family, we are also a shop local family. Of the $200 we spent on this project, $185 went to a local store and $15 went to Amazon.
That’s because we are consciously looking to support our friends and neighbors. Locally owned coffee shops and restaurants get most of my food and beverage money every month.
The point is, the people who come to your store, have a choice to buy from you or someone else. Super-serve them and keep them coming back. Create a positive shopping experience for them and they will come back. Make it a bad experience, and you may have lost them forever.
Advertising is the part of marketing that functions as the invitation to your company. But advertising can’t fix problems that go on inside your company.
Last week I was meeting with someone who wanted to hire me to train his staff on how to upsell his customers in a manner that is not annoying, but instead is genuine.
Speaking of advertising, you really need to invite people to your store right now. People are spending for themselves and for others. They are overspending, maxing out credit cards this time of year. While I don’t believe that is a good thing to do, I’m not their mom and they are grown ups right?
Advertising this time of year might be challenging if you haven’t planned ahead.
Using television ads means you need to get a fresh ad produced and that takes time and money. Also the television viewing is different this time of year due to the holiday specials on TV and combined with the changes in TV viewing habits, I recommend you stay away from TV unless you already have it planned out.
Print ads might be available in the daily newspaper, but with the dwindling number of readers, just say no.
Social Media including Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest might work, but you better have a professional managing it, or else you can waste time and money.
I offer some online advertising options through the Federated Digital Solutions division of my company, but again, it’s kind of late to plan for this Holi-daze season. If you want to talk about it, let’s plan a campaign for the new year.
My suggestion is using radio advertising to capture customers right now for the Holi-daze season.
Within a couple of days, I can get your message in front of thousands of people right here in our city who are shopping. WOWO radio continues to be one of the most listened to radio stations in Fort Wayne and it’s a hot time right now. Our annual Penny Pitch drive is underway with money being raised for two local non-profits. Weekly events that you and your business can be associated with provide a feel-good connection.
I also can create room for advertising for a special event. Earlier this month, I put together a radio advertising campaign for an event that was less than a week away. I wrote the ads, we produced the campaign and in the 5 days leading up and including the sale days, over 50 ad invitations were heard by over 75,000 WOWO listeners.
If this is crunch time for you, let’s talk now.
Or if this is a slow time of the year for you because you are not part of the retail Holi-daze season, this is an excellent time to plan for the new year. I can make time to help you with your planning, reach out and we’ll get started.
By the way, I have a couple of ideas for retailers that you can do right now for this Holi-daze season:
- This first one was inspired by Amazon. I use Amazon to buy gifts for my relatives that are hundreds of miles away. I often spend a little extra to have Amazon gift wrap those presents. What if you offered to gift wrap purchases as an upsell to people who are in your store? Make it easy and just have a stock of gift bags and tissue paper, and charge them your cost plus an extra buck or two. You can even partner up with a local charity and give the proceeds to them.
- This other idea also was inspired by something Amazon does not do. Sometimes I buy a gift ahead of time and I don’t want it to arrive before hand. What if you offered a Santa’s Closet for people who want to buy presents now, but wait a few days or weeks to take them home?
- My last idea is something you need to start and continue forever. Collect email addresses and text numbers and offer a program to customers who sign up to be notified of special events. Most major retailers do this and you should too.
by Scott Howard | Sep 17, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
If you don’t own it, you and your business are at risk. Years ago, my friend Kevin Mullett and I had this discussion and it’s true. Don’t Be Social Media Stupid with Your Business.
Let me explain.
Facebook is the world’s largest Social Media platform and they offer a multitude of ways for people like you and me to start a business, promote and grow a business, even become independently wealthy with a business that lives on Facebook.
The problem is if your business relies only on Facebook, you are eventually going to be hurt.
Facebook is your virtual landlord. Except when you have a real landlord relationship, there are contracts that you read and sign. Promises made by both parties and some guarantees for a period of time.
That’s not the way it works with Facebook or any of the other social media platforms.
Facebook can make changes and you have no say in the matter.
Does anyone remember reading the “Terms Of Service” when they signed up? Over 98% of us blindly just click on the checkbox without reading.
NBC news recently featured an article that included this story about a small business owner that relied on Facebook.
Holly Homer, an entrepreneur from Texas owns the Facebook pages for “Quirky Mama” and “Kids Activities.” With over 3 million followers, Homer’s Facebook page had become so popular she hired five employees and her husband quit his full-time medical job to help with the business. Homer showed NBC News a chart of interactions with her Facebook page that shows a decrease in February when Facebook implemented changes to News Feed.
As you can see, she was all-in when it came to running a Facebook based business. And that is where the problem lies. I did some of my own investigating and her Facebook page is Quirky Mama, but her website where she makes money is KidsActivities.com . But Holly is using another short cut that echos the mistake she made with Facebook. Her KidsActivities.com domain isn’t really her own website. Sure she owns the domain, but it’s actually just a sub-website on the Maven domain. Just like Facebook can change the rules, Maven can make changes and Holly will really be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
I know this is sounding technical, so let’s talk in everyday language. When you lease a car, you don’t own that car. There are some benefits to leasing over buying but because you never owned that car, the only value is the immediate value of having that car to use. You can’t sell it, because you never bought it.
If your business is built on someone else’s platform, like Facebook or Maven, in Holly’s case, she and her entire company are at risk of losing it all. Holly says:
One of the Facebook policy changes that kind of went under the radar and it went into effect in February was the branded content policy. And it decreased my income from Facebook by 60 percent, overnight. No explanation.
Facebook cares about Holly and doesn’t care about Holly. They walk the fine line of working for the greater good. Their priorities begin with #1, that’s Facebook itself. Second on their list is their stockholders and then we have the users. Facebook users fall into multiple categories. There’s you and me as a couple of individuals in the total Facebook universe of over a billion active users.
Holly and her business fall into another category. Facebook is free for you and me to use, but not so much if we are using Facebook to promote our business. Holly and other businesses have to pay to get their Facebook posts seen by the masses. Same is true for any organization that Facebook believes has money to spend to promote their message.
In the summer of 2013, I ran the social media department for a $50 million dollar e-commerce company. Our average sale was under $100, so we had a lot of customers to make up that $50 million each year. That summer, I saw Facebook make a change in their algorithm that reduced the number of people my Facebook post were reaching by 75%. Fortunately, I knew what to do, move some of my budget around and spend a little more.
Facebook is constantly making changes. All you can do is figure out how to adapt. But there is something else you really need to do too.
Own your own online presence. If your only online presence is a Facebook page, Instagram account, Twitter handle, LinkedIn account, Snapchat account, or a free WordPress or Blogger website, prepare to lose it all.
That was part of the lesson I learned from my conversation with Kevin Mullett in 2011. I had made a name for myself with a few marketing blogs that were hosted free on Google’s Blogger platform. They are living there, you can find them if you Google ScLoHo.
However in 2011, I also bought my own domain and website hosting service for ScottHoward.me It’s where all of my content lives. I update every week still with a new story and article like this one.
Facebook and all the other social media platforms have a purpose still. They are being used simply as a marketing tool, not a place to host a business. Websites were around before social media. A website without any publicity is not going to get any visitors. Use social media as a tool to draw people to your website if you want, but please don’t confuse the two.
One more item from the 20 year old in my family, Jake. He posted this on Facebook the other day:
Hey friends and fam ,
I will be deleting my Facebook account or at least the app because I have been really wanting to change my daily habits and my phone is not a good one .. so I will not be on here for at least a couple months but I hope each and every one of you continue to strive to be the best you can be each and every day.
Jake is Gen Z. He’s in college. He and others of his generation don’t care about or even trust Facebook anymore. This is a another warning sign. I have advertising partners on WOWO Radio that use WOWO to drive traffic to their website.There are other ways besides social media to drive people to your website and we’ll talk about that soon. In the meantime please remember this: If you don’t own it, you and your business are at risk.
Want help in figuring all this out and creating something more stable? Let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | May 21, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
What’s a ScLoHo Insider Extra?
It’s an extra article that I (ScLoHo) published that is not going to be available on the Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast. That’s the Extra part. You as a follower, are an Insider. Before I began the podcast in 2017, I would publish at least once a week, but sometimes more often. I still will write these Extra stories on occasion, so let’s dig in.
Awhile ago, I wrote about knowing the difference between Marketing Trends and Marketing Fads. Trends are long-term sustainable and even though they may go out of style, they are worth consideration. Fads on the other hand are dangerous and you need to be cautious if you are thinking of investing time or money in them.
Social Media has been filled with both Fads and Trends and marketing people are always attempting to be on top of both. I went to a Social Media & Marketing Breakfast in Fort Wayne last year that was devoted to Snapchat. I had mixed thoughts on Snapchat as a marketing platform before and after the event.
Granted, I’m not in the target demo for using Snapchat, but never-the-less, I’m a marketing dude who understands the big picture and the human relationship principles of marketing and advertising.
Turns out that Snapchat is falling out of favor with Social Media Marketers.
This is from Mediaposts Marketing Charts:
What’s trending in social media marketing? The latest annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Social Media Examiner, based on a survey of more than 5,700 participants around the world, offers some insights into marketers’ preferences surrounding social media platforms and content.
It’s worth noting at the outset that the majority of respondents are from small businesses (1-10 employees), so this report is likely not a reflection of the activities of larger enterprise businesses.
(I work with small and medium sized businesses for the most part.)
The first chart is shows where Social Media Marketers are going to spend their time with organic posts. This next chart shows where they plan on spending their marketing money:
Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) are winners in both organic and paid activity. By the way, think of Organic as an investment in time and Paid as an investment in money. Having been a full time Social Media Marketing Manager in my previous full-time employment, I have the credentials to speak from experience.
When I had a budget for Twitter and Pinterest, I actually moved those funds to Facebook paid promotion instead. Also I personally don’t use Pinterest, but 5 years ago it outperformed Facebook for trackable sales for the B2C internet retailer I worked for.
I found the better use for Twitter was for customer service and turned our account over to that department to use.
Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram all require someone to run your marketing campaign that really knows what they are doing and are staying on top of the changes that are going on. None of this social media marketing should be left in the hands of amateurs if you really want to use social media to market your business.
Reach out to me if you have questions or want recommendations.
by Scott Howard | Mar 28, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
The President does his annual State of the Union Address, the Governor and Mayor of Indiana and Fort Wayne do their annual State of the State and City Addresses, so how about a look at The State Of Media Advertising?
As we wrap up the 1st quarter of 2018, several items are going on that you need to know about.
First off, the television industry is going thru a transformation similar to what the newspaper industry and phone book business went thru years ago.
The short story is they are suffering. And so they are making changes.
But first let me fill you in on the paper stuff I mentioned.
Phone books have shrunk because of a couple of technology changes. One was the rise of cell phone usage and the dropping of residential landlines. Next was the rise of the web combined with smartphones that now allow us to talk to our phones and have it dial the business we want to call.
Newspapers are an anorexic shell of what they used to be. And again the villain is the internet. It’s not really fair to call the internet a villain, because for us as consumers, the internet is our hero. However, both the phone book and newspapers are only possible if there are advertisers paying to be in those print publications. And they depend on readers reading them. That has dropped year after year.
In Fort Wayne, we had two daily papers that operated under a joint operating agreement for advertising but finally last year, the afternoon paper went to an online only version with the exception of getting a page or two included in the morning paper.
Earlier this month, while waiting for a meeting, I saw a couple of local newspapers in the reception area. It was the Thursday edition and I know they printed it at a loss. Less than a dozen ads in the entire paper except for the classified section. Some sections had zero paid ads.
My industry, the radio broadcasting businesses is well over 100 years old and has had to deal with technology changes. AM radio stations used to broadcast network programs all day and night. CBS and NBC radio networks operated the way that broadcast TV networks do now. As a matter of fact, some of the early TV shows in the 1950’s originated on radio. With the growth of television, and decline in network radio programming, radio stations became more local and they also discovered a new focus.
That local focus included music and records. When I was a kid in the 60’s and 70’s listening to the radio was how we listened to new music. Some stations had personalities that were local celebrities and that was what drew me into a career in radio.
I could continue this history trip down memory lane, but let’s jump ahead to 2018. The internet is no longer the bright and shiny new thing, it’s an intricate part of our lives. This is having an impact on the TV business as mentioned in some stories I read in Mediapost. For example:
TV Enters Permanent Ad Recession
Declines in national advertising revenue have occurred in 8 straight quarters. Starting in July 2016 thru this week, advertising revenue for broadcast TV has been down between 1 and 4%.
Why? Well we have more viewing choices and some are really taking off. Netflix and other web based screen options have been posting gains over the years and that has hurt broadcast TV.
Some broadcast networks are attempting to fight back by reducing the number of commercials they will air.
Fox’s Two-Minutes-Per-Hour Ad Plan: The TV Times They Are A-Changin’
Fox will attempt to lure viewers back to their network by decreasing the number of commercial minutes down to 2 per hour and those two minutes will be very expensive for advertisers to buy. This might be a good move, but they are focused on the wrong problem. The real problem is having shows that people want to watch.
NBC created a hit recently with This Is Us. ABC has The Bachelor and Dancing With The Stars. CBS continues with hits like NCIS. None of these shows cut their commercials to keep viewers.
These TV networks are doing more than just reducing commercial time. They are adapting to the technology. My wife and I now watch more prime time TV on our schedule, with the on-demand feature from Xfinity. People can binge watch on their laptops or smartphones. Will the broadcast TV networks survive? Only if they have advertising support or subscription support.
The digital revolution that TV is going thru is also one that newspapers are trying to use by adding paywalls to their online content. But those dollars will never replace the lost ad dollars they used to bring in when newsprint was in its heyday.
Radio is also at risk, but for the most part it is less dependent on national trends. iHeart radio, the owner of over 1200 radio stations in the country filed for bankruptcy protection, but their downfall is not really a radio issue, it was a series of financial decisions that led to them owing billions in loans.
My company, Federated Media which owns WOWO radio and close to a dozen stations in Indiana is a privately held company and we are doing well. We also have a digital division that was started years ago because our advertising partners wanted someone they could trust to help them with the digital marketing revolution.
Which brings me to another Mediapost article and question:
Has Marketing Gone Too Digital?
The reasons are numerous. Most of the problems are related to marketing people abandoning something that is working and jumping on the digital bandwagon without fully understanding it. And the digital world is constantly changing.
I keep an eye on this stuff for my own interest and also for the best interest of my advertising partners and even before the outrage over Facebook and privacy issues that are still being sorted out as I write this, I pulled some of my advertising partners Facebook Ads and moved their digital spending to a couple of other options that have been very successful. Contact me if you want to know more.
Here’s the big picture to keep in mind. The technology isn’t going to retreat. And just because something is new and shiny doesn’t mean you should be an early adopter and abandon what is working. But neither should you stubbornly hang on to the old ways and ignore the future.
Want help? Let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Mar 15, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
We are well into 2018 and I have a very important question:
How’s Your Online Visibility?
When was the last time you did an overhaul of your website? If it’s been more than 18 months, your business is hurting.
I sell a variety of radio and digital advertising solutions and there are times when I tell people before we can send people to your website, you need an update.
Here’s a few key items to keep in mind in 2018:
Mobile has overtaken laptop and desktop. This means instead of sitting down with our computer to look for stuff, we are more likely to grab our phone. Your website has to be more than “mobile friendly”. Think Mobile First.
Responsive websites are the new norm instead of having a separate mobile site and a more robust desktop website with the exception of e-commerce sites. When I say Mobile First, assume that the first visit someone is going to have to your website is that tiny screen on their phone, not the big desktop monitor.
So design your website for the best UX (that’s User Experience) on Mobile First and then include a full experience for the minority of folks who will use their computer to visit your site.
Next up, is Voice Search is taking over the world. All the Apple Fans thought it was cool that they could have a conversation with Siri until I showed them how I could also get what I needed by talking to my phone with the “Ok Google” technology.
But that was just the beginning of voice activated devices. With Alexa and all the others battling it out to be our best buddies in the artificial intelligence world, is your website and company up to the latest standards?
Search Engine Optimization is part of it, but if you are only using methods that were the gold standard in 2015 or before, you risk getting lost online. Searches are based on so much more than keywords these days. Search is personalized to each of us. Your previous browsing and search and your location is all known and while that helps you find what you are looking for when you are browsing, it has also changed the rules for a business to be found online.
Google continues to penalize old and outdated websites and web-pages and is always looking for the best content to serve you and I as consumers, not you and I as business owners and marketers.
How are you using Social Media for your business? Are you using Facebook Live? Do you know how to create engaging content? Do you know the differences between Likes and Engagement? Is your LinkedIn profile set up properly?
When was the last time you Googled yourself? Do it. Also on Bing, Yahoo, and YouTube and Facebook.
Are you listed on the review sites? Are you monitoring and responding to reviews?
I know this is a lot to consider but it really is important stuff.
Some of these things you cannot do yourself, you will need to pay professionals to do it. And even though I’m a professional at some of this, and I can help guide you, most of my recommendations will involve hiring people and companies besides myself. I have contacts and connections to people and companies that are good at these things and stay on top of it so you can focus on what you do best in running your business.
Remember my original question: How’s Your Online Visibility?
Need some help or guidance on what we’ve talked about today? Reach out to me.
And here’s a study just released about the smart speakers that are growing in popularity.
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