growth | The Genuine ScLoHo aka Scott Howard

Lessons from the NCAA Basketball Finals

by Scott Howard | Apr 22, 2024 | ScLoHo Sales Tips, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

It’s been a few weeks and hopefully the sting of your broken bracket has faded enough to apply some lessons from college basketball to our businesses.

Living in Indiana, I was rooting for the Purdue Boilermakers to win it all. In my family we even have a Purdue grad, my step-daughter.

April 7th and 8th, the top teams played in the Womens and Mens championship games and as I was listening to some of the commentary during and after the games, there was a common theme that the champions had that was different from the runner-ups.

In the Women’s championship game, Iowa had Catlin Clark who was their superstar and has been a media favorite. She scored 30 points and was the leading scorer of the title game. Catlin Clark is a college basketball superstar.

The next night, Purdue’s Zach Edey racked up 37 points and outscored everyone of the players from both teams.

Both Catlin Clark and Zach Edey finished their season on the losing team. Purdue lost by 15 points to UConn and Iowa got beat by a dozen points to South Carolina.

Why is it that Iowa and Purdue, both teams with nationally known superstars lost the most important games of the season?

It’s because Basketball is a team sport.

As I glanced at the scoring stats, this years college champions, both the Men’s and Women’s side, the schools that took home the top trophies had a balanced team that didn’t rely on just one superstar.

The Iowa Hawkeyes had just 5 players that scored while the Women’s champs had 9 players adding to the South Carolina Gamecocks final score.

The UConn Huskies had 7 players contributing points in their win, while Purdue’s Zach Edey, only had 4 teammates sinking the ball.

The day after the Men’s Championship game I was talking with my boss about all of this and applied it to our situation at Federated Media.

My station, WOWO is one of 10 in our company. 5 are in South Bend, Indiana and the other 5, including WOWO are in Fort Wayne, Indiana. During the 11 years I have been with WOWO, either on the sales team or as the General Sales Manager, WOWO has grown to be the highest scoring revenue station out of all 10. It’s not the one with the largest audience, and it’s not the one with the most popular music. They don’t play music, WOWO is a news/talk station.

WOWO’s sales team has depth and balance. When I was hired in 2013, I was the 5th person on a 5 person team and typically that position is a revolving door. However in a few years I became 2nd in longevity and when I was promoted to General Sales Manager in 2020. The year before, in 2019, I was named the top Account Executive in our entire company so my priority was to hire someone to replace myself. Nearly 4 years later, I hired myself back to the sales team for WOWO and left most of the management duties.

Then and now the WOWO Advertising Sales Team of Account Executives has been filled with strong players. Tracy has been with us 23 years. Rob joined 11 years ago and we just added another Federated Media veteran, Brad who spent two decades with our sister station WMEE and returned 6 months ago, this to on the WOWO team. Having a strong team has helped us nearly triple the revenue results and it doesn’t rest on one person. Everyone has a slump every once in a while and if you don’t have the others to carry your team through, it can be very challenging.

What about your organization? How much of the success relies on one person? Are you vulnerable if something were to happen to that person? I understand that most companies in the past few decades have become lean and reduced redundancies and back in 2020 with the Covid pandemic, our company did too. However, we should also create backups for people, not just systems.

Need help on any of this? Ask me and if it’s not in my portfolio of services, I have connections to people who can assist.

3 Ways To Grow Your Business

by Scott Howard | Feb 19, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Last week subscribers to my SoundADvice email newsletter learned we the advantages of knowing your competitors and finding ways or areas where you can exploit your competitors’ weaknesses and find areas where you can grow your business.

As owners or managers of a business, it’s our responsibility to not only figure out how to keep our business functioning properly and effectively but also how to GROW our business. Staying even or going backward are not options. Growth is vital!

Growing a business is not nearly as easy as it may appear and it’s certainly more complicated than just increasing sales. Understanding that there are only three ways to grow a business is a great place to start.

Regardless of what type of business you have, there are only three ways to grow. They are…

Sell more of what you are currently selling.
Sell what you are currently selling for more money.
Add additional product(s) or service(s) to what you are currently selling.

Regardless of how you slice it, nearly everything you can come up with to grow a business will fall under one of these three headings.

We suggest that you look at each area and identify within your business how you might increase your sales.

Selling more this year than you did last year isn’t as easy as it sounds and simply opening up your doors and hanging a “We’re Open” sign isn’t the answer. What can you do to get the same people, or new people, to buy more of your products or services?
Can you increase prices? If not on every product or service, can you increase the pricing on some of them? Which ones? Identify them!
Adding products or services gets tricky. Think within your business category and then think outside of it. Are there products or services that you can add that won’t distract from or replace your current offerings?

Attracting a customer and getting them to open their wallets can be a difficult and costly process. But once they’re in your showroom and have their wallets open, an accompanying up-sell is relatively easy. Once the customer has chosen a new outfit, getting them to consider adding a pair of shoes or belt is relatively easy and it can be a big step towards growing your business.

The formula works regardless of whether your business is retail, service, medical, or professional.

If you would like to see a simple worksheet that can help you start the process of utilizing the three ways to grow your business, click here.

Also if you want to start receiving these Sound ADvice emails free every week in your inbox, let me know.

Digital Discrepancies

by Scott Howard | Nov 20, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

I was born in the 1900’s.

I heard that line last month when comedian Nate Bargatze was hosting Saturday Night Live. Of course I didn’t watch it live on Saturday night, I saw it a few days later because we have YouTubeTV as our streaming service and my wife was catching up on some of her favorite shows.

Back in the 1900’s, (I’m talking about the century, not the decade) we saw a change in advertising targeting options mostly with the growth of cable TV that happened in the 1980’s and 1990’s and what that brought us as consumers was hundreds of TV viewing channel options instead of just the local broadcast TV signals.

Baby Boomers like my wife and I, Gen X and even Millennials like my kids are different from the current Gen Z in terms of media and entertainment experiences and choices. Social Media giant Facebook is on the cusp of being 20 years old, and that was a game changer. Media was not just one way from them to us. With Social Media, we all got the opportunity to have a voice online and share our thoughts and media beyond what the traditional media companies were offering.

A dozen years ago, I took a break from radio and worked for a couple of web based companies. Targeting to the “right people” was the sales pitch for these new digital advertising options which was pretty cool we thought. I mean if you could only send your ads to the people who are most likely to respond… that was a game changer too.

However, there are a few flaws with that kind of thinking because it ignores Human Behavior. I’ll dig more into that in the future but the basics are that we don’t just respond to targeted ads when they are presented to us, there has to be a need on our part to spend our money, or something stronger than a targeted ad that has created the desire within us.

There is a real problem with highly targeted ad placement, in that the controls for the systems that spit out those ads are not very reliable. Some of us are overserved ads for things we might want to buy is one flaw. Another is getting served ads AFTER we made the purchase because the algorithms haven’t been created to address that flaw.

MarketingCharts.com released a report that says:

Only 15% of US advertisers are very confident in their ability to see all creative running across all channels, and even fewer (13%) are very confident in their ability to tie creative performance back to campaign ROI, according to a survey commissioned by Claravine and conducted by Advertiser Perceptions.

In total, the advertisers surveyed – all of whom spend at least $50 million on digital advertising each year – estimate that the wrong creative is served to the wrong consumer about one-quarter (25%) of the time. That includes a majority (56%) who believe the wrong ad creative is served at least 20% of the time, and about one-sixth (17%) who estimate that it’s served to the wrong consumer at least 40% of the time.

Advertisers believe that their ROI would increase by an average of 29% if they were able to serve ad creative to the right consumer every time.

Now, I’m not at all against digital advertising, I just believe it’s not as complicated as some will have you believe.

Instead of targeting individuals, you need to go back to targeting known audience groups. You can do this with social media and other digital advertising but it’s what really what advertising was all about back in the 1900’s.

When mass media like radio, print, TV, heck even Cable TV were the choices business had, they used the characteristics of the media channels audience as the determining factor for where to spend their advertising money.

Going back to my knowledge and expertise in tracking digital targeted ads, I know that when you dig deep enough, all the data becomes less and less reliable.

I challenge you to think like a person, a consumer, a person that could be your customer and the habits and characteristics they have, and then create ad campaigns that speak to them with a relevant message on a form of media that they are likely to use.

If you’re in the Fort Wayne Indiana area, I can help you walk thru this process in person. Contact me, Scott@ScLoHo.net and we can set up a time to help you avoid all of these Digital Dispensaries and actually grow for the future.

The Long Game

by Scott Howard | May 30, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

When I say the word “Future”, how far off in the future does your mind think?

Is the Future 5 years away?

Is the Future 20 years away?

Is the Future next week or even next month?

Does it hurt your brain to think beyond today?

Here in the United States we live in short time spans, relatively speaking compared to some other countries around the world.

We elect a President every four years which for many countries is very unstable. And the election cycle has become shorter and shorter. If you like your President then, you want them to last not just 4 years, but 8 years. However if you don’t like your President, you start talking about the next election as soon as possible, sometimes within 6 months.

I find it interesting that we elect government representatives who then create laws that outlast their term in office or in some cases, the laws don’t come into effect until after those that wrote them are out of office.

But enough about government and the Future, let’s talk about business and the Future. In my world of radio broadcasting, I work for a radio station that is now 98 years old. WOWO radio began broadcasting in 1925 and was one of the first AM radio stations. This year there was big news about the death of AM radio because certain automakers announced that they were not including AM radios in their new vehicles. Ford was the big one that caught peoples attention.

The National Association of Broadcasters rallied their members and lobbyists to save AM radio and due to the bad press or pressure either publicly or privately, Ford reversed course and their CEO announced: “For any owners of Ford’s EVs without AM broadcast capability, we’ll offer a software update”. As a broadcaster who knows how radio broadcasting works, the “software update” made me suspicious. If all it takes is a software update, that means the hardware was built-in all this time.

Anyway, the future of AM radio accessibility in Ford manufactured vehicles is safe for now.

On the other hand, there has been a lot of noise in government regarding the social media app TikTok. The concern is that users information is being given to the Chinese Communist Party for evil and it endangers all of us. The app has been banned by one state and the Federal Government is prohibiting it from being downloaded on devices that are connected to government sites.

Changes are coming as the Future continues to move closer and closer. How prepared are you for the changes that could occur next year? Forget about 5 years down the road or 20 years into the future… I bet there are changes that are taking place in your industry that are going to impact your business in the next 18 months or sooner and you have not prepared for them yet.

The idea of The Long Game which is what I titled this piece is not that you need to stick with doing everything the same way forever and ever, but to look to the Future and plan for what is coming or could be coming.

As I announced in May, WOWO radio prepared for the future by adding a strong FM signal, 92.3 to our options for listeners to tune in while they are driving in case their vehicle doesn’t have AM radio. We were prepared and you need to be prepared too in your business.

When it comes to inviting people to spend their money with you and your business, I have tons of options and ideas that you should consider. Some are nearly 100 years old, while others are in their infancy. Contact me and let’s play the Long Game together for today and the Future.

3 Fundamental Questions To Ask Before You Advertise

by Scott Howard | Oct 4, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

There are 3 Fundamental Questions You Need To Ask Before You Advertise.

I’ll tell you what they are and also go a little deeper.

Question 1:

Who Do You Want to Invite to Spend Money with You?

Question 2:

Why Should Those People Spend Money with You?

Question 3:

What is the Math Needed to be Profitable?

Now, let’s dig in starting with the first question, Who Do You Want to Invite to Spend Money with You?

I want you to think about basic demographics such as age and gender but also deeper than that. Income, lifestyle, values. Once you develop what we call a persona or two or three of your ideal customers, you will be able to decide where to advertise. Most advertising choices have a particular audience and you want to find the audience that matches your ideal customer.

As I tell my advertising sales team at WOWO Radio where I am the General Sales Manager, it’s our job to find business that want our radio audience to become their customers. It’s that simple on our end, and reverse it for you as a business owner and you’ll be able to decide where to advertise, or at least where NOT to advertise.

Let’s move on to the second question and dig in. Why Should Those People Spend Money with You?

This should be an easy question to answer and on the surface it is. You can say, because we make really good ___________. That is just the start. Because, you are not the only one offering what you are selling. Before Apple introduced iPhones, we had cellphones. Many were what we now call dumb-phones, with the ability to text and talk and take a low quality picture. Some people, those who were more advanced had a Blackberry phone, which were nicknamed Crackberries because it seemed like people were addicted to those phones.

I’ve never owned a Blackberry or an iPhone. I went from slider and flip phones to a Samsung Android Smartphone when I joined a tech company back in 2011. Now, it seems like everyone has either an iPhone or Android, and my old Nokia 6170 and Motorola Razr sit in the back of my desk drawer just waiting to be tossed out a dozen years later.

The Why You Question is so important, yet so overlooked. It is the reason that people will switch from what they have been doing or using and try you instead.

The reality is that not everyone that knows about you will abandon their current provider right now, if they don’t have a reason. The reason for someone to switch is a combination of what makes you appealing and a dissatisfaction with the status quo. This is a topic I can do a whole series on in the future, but for today, let’s keep moving.

Question 3 is about Math. Math involving money and customers. How much do you need to sell to break even? Take a step back… How much should you price your goods and services so you will break even? You need to know these numbers because you need to know how to make money. Yes I mentioned break even, but that’s because you need a baseline number. You can then increase your prices on paper to set up a decent profit margin. Then you need to also come up with alternative formulas to get to the end result.

Here’s an example using small numbers. If you need $100 to break even, there are a few ways to do that. You could sell 50 items at 2 dollars each. Or you could sell 2 items at $50 each. Or you could sell 10 items at $10 each. All of these options add up to $100.

In retail, it is common to double the wholesale price to get a retail price and make money. Take those formula’s we just talked about and and double the dollars so now you’re bringing in $200 instead of $100. You have to know your numbers. This gives you a foundation for when inflation hits and your costs climb, you can raise your prices appropriately.

It’s also important to know your numbers for advertising. Many advertising and marketing sales people are afraid to talk about Return On Investment but my team isn’t. We want to know that they money you invest with an ad campaign with us has reasonable goals and we can use those goals along with your tracking the results to decide the success rate and make appropriate moves in the future.

One more time, here are 3 Fundamental Questions To Ask Before You Advertise: