Creating Success with WOWO Radio in 2021

Creating Success with WOWO Radio in 2021

by | Jan 5, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

As much as we want to kiss the year 2020 good-bye and move forward as if it never happened, we can’t. And we shouldn’t.

12 months ago all of us were planning on a very different year than what unfolded in 2020.  The economy seemed to be moving forward after a market correction at the end of 2019, but unemployment was at record low numbers and it seemed like we were going to have a boom of a year.

It boomed alright, just not with confetti.  More like a nuclear explosion.

Here in Fort Wayne Indiana, that boom hit around Friday March 13th, 2020.  The Governor of Indiana was mandating restrictions on businesses that would take place the next week and suddenly we all had to determine what was essential and why.   Many of my clients and advertising partners on WOWO radio were essential but some had to shut down for awhile.  It didn’t seem fair that the small local business retailers were not allowed to stay open while the bigger national big box stores were still able to allow customers inside.

At WOWO radio and our parent company, Federated Media, we instituted a Work From Home Policy that was designed to keep everyone safe and healthy. In Fort Wayne, we operate out of two separate buildings.  The south building is where the studios for WOWO, WMEE, K-105, The Bear, Big and the Fan are located.  Our engineer was able to modify studios and set up equipment so our on-air talent was able to minimize the risk including broadcasting from home in several instances.

On the north side of town, Federated Media Fort Wayne Sales and Executive offices were also affected but differently.  Our usual weekly in-person sales team meetings for WOWO were suspended.  Federated Media had already instituted a work from home policy for their local sales teams over a decade ago, which meant instead of having an office or cubicle at the Fed Med office to report to everyday, if you were on the sales team for one of our local stations, you only had to come to the office occasionally.

When people asked me about my job, I would tell them most weeks I have two hours that I show up to the office, the rest of the week is mine to use as I see fit to do what I needed to accomplish.  As a result, I spent between 10 and 25 hours a week in coffee shops.

Something else that was new in 2020 were some management changes at Federated Media in Fort Wayne.

At the end of 2019, our former market manager Jim Allgeier left Federated Media. After a nationwide search was conducted, they promoted from within.  Ben Saurer, General Sales Manager for WOWO, WKJG & WBYR took over to lead Federated Media in Fort Wayne as our Vice-President and General Manager.  For those of us who had been working directly under Ben at WOWO, it was a mixed blessing.  We had a tremendous amount of respect for Ben and believed that he was the right person to step up and lead all of Fort Wayne.  Yet we also knew that if he was promoted, someone else would take over the General Sales Manager position for the 3 stations he was taking care of.

So with the announcement  of Ben’s promotion, came another nationwide search that Ben conducted to hire his General Sales Manager replacements.  Initially Kassie Taksey was hired to become the Sales Manger of two of our smaller stations, WFWI & WKJG and shortly afterwards also became the General Sales Manger of the Bear.  All three of these stations had great potential and Kassie was brought in to create a local sales team that would live up to that potential and she has done an excellent job with that in her first year especially with Covid and the ramifications.  She took over our sports station when live sports were being cancelled and two of our music stations when concerts and events were being postponed or eliminated in 2020.  Hat’s off to Kassie on her teams accomplishments!

The WOWO General Sales Manager position was (in Ben’s words) “The Most Important Hire I Make”.  Here’s why:

Back in 2013, when I joined Federated Media, WOWO was one of the top 3 or 4 stations out of a dozen in Federated Media which operates stations in South Bend/Elkhart and Fort Wayne Indiana.  The past few years, WOWO  (under Ben’s leadership) became the top station in the company with a local sales budget that is nearly double (or more) than any of the other stations in our company.

The new WOWO General Sales Manager would be tasked with… Don’t Screw It Up.

Federated Media General Sales Managers have many roles but carrying their own list of accounts is not one of them.  Only during certain circumstances does that happen and usually for a short period of time.

Coaching is the most important role I believe because if the GSM isn’t selling, then his/her team is and they need a coach to help them be their best.

Let’s look at the 2020 calendar again.

Right before Christmas 2019, Ben is told by the Chief Operating Officer of Federated Media that he will be promoted to VP/GM of Federated Media in Fort Wayne, leading the entire management team in the sales, programming, engineering, and special teams support staff effective in January 2020 which is when the announcement is made company wide.

In January 2020 Ben begins his nationwide search for his General Sales Manager replacements and brings back Kassie to take over three of the four stations that need a leader.

It takes 6 weeks and multiple interviews with candidates across the country before Ben pulls the trigger and promotes from within his WOWO local sales team and I am offered the WOWO General Sales Manager position the week after Valentines Day 2020.

Earlier in 2020, Federated Media had our annual awards ceremony called the “Feddy’s” and I had won a couple of awards for being the top salesperson in our entire company in 2019.  Which presented a dilemma… does Ben take his companies top salesperson out of a sales role since that would not be my job anymore?

Throw in a couple more circumstances that I was not initially aware of in January 2020.

WOWO’s legendary salesperson and former air personality, Art Saltsberg was going to go into full retirement.  A few years ago, Art scaled back his work load and was now only taking care of about 6 or 7 of his favorite clients.  Art was now going to walk away completely in the first quarter of 2020. I remember listening to Art on WOWO when I was a kid in the 1970’s.

At the end of 2019 one of WOWO’s other top sellers decided to leave to take care of some personal matters.  This lead to Ben recruiting two brand new salespeople to the WOWO Local Sales Team, a process that takes a couple of months before the decision is made.

The same week I was offered and accepted the General Sales Manager position for WOWO was the same week Ben added Andrew and Blake to the team to join the rest of us on WOWO.

A month later COVID hit and we all had to scramble to figure out what to do for the best interests of our advertising partners, our company and everyone involved.  As weeks became months, most of us learned new ways of doing things.  One member of the WOWO sales team who didn’t, left after 4 years.  Meanwhile the WOWO sales person who has been with us the longest, had her best year ever due to learning how to adapt to circumstances.

As all of us reflect on 2020 and put together lessons to implement in 2021 there are a few items I want to share with you pertaining to working with WOWO radio to create success for you this year.

  1. We want to help your business be successful. Every member of my WOWO local sales team will focus on your success. 
  2. We don’t just sell advertising schedules.  This relates to #1.  We want to partner with you and learn & understand your marketing, advertising and overall business needs and goals to craft a plan that we all agree on for the long run.
  3. You are experts in your business.  We are the experts in ours.  It’s how we became the number one radio station in not just Federated Media, but in all of Fort Wayne with over two dozen radio stations.
  4. We work as a team.  This is one of the things I am most proud of regarding the WOWO local sales team. Tracy, Rob and myself have made ourselves available and are lending ideas, experience and expertise to Andrew and Blake who are completing their freshman year with WOWO.  Now that Chris is back, he too is contributing to the collaboration that goes into the planning process for our advertising partners.  We also have learned some ideas from Blake and Andrew too!
  5. We will be honest with you and only make recommendations we believe are in the best interest for you.  Want to sell Jordon’s on WOWO? We’ll connect you with one of our other stations unless you are a vintage collectors store that sells stuff our listeners would buy.
  6. Advertising Partnerships.  That is our goal. We want to create a bond between you and our listeners and it takes a commitment from you and us to make that work.  If you want to “test the WOWO waters” with just a short term advertising schedule, you are not likely our ideal advertising client.
  7. Flexibility. Or as I said last year, Pivot.  Doing business in 2021 requires that we all do things differently than we were at the beginning of 2020.  Yes, we can do Zoom meetings. Yes, we can change your message when circumstances change.  Yes, we can… was our motto last year and it still is.

Ready for our help?  Contact me: Scott@WOWO.com

Ask The Right Questions

Ask The Right Questions

by | Oct 27, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

9 months is the usual length of time it takes a baby to develop from conception to being born.

During those 9 months, the new parents are preparing for the future, the changes that will be occurring in their lives, especially if they are first time parents.

While each pregnancy is unique, just as each of us human beings are unique, there are several predictable events and circumstances that will be occurring and we have plenty of wisdom from our family and friends along with healthcare and other experts.

You want to know what to expect when you are expecting?  You ask.  You ask the right questions to get the right answers. It’s pretty straight forward.

I’m going to apply this to the past 9 months or so.  We were a couple months into 2020 when we started hearing about what has become the Covid-19 Corona Virus Pandemic. At first we believed it would have a limited impact on a very small number of people in our country and most of us would live our lives as normal.

By April, multiple states had stay at home orders that closed down parts of the economy, led to panic buying of toilet paper and created something that nearly no one in business had ever lived thru before.  100 years ago was the last pandemic of this magnitude and even if a business has been around since that time, the actual people are no longer here to tell us what to do.

So questions were asked about the virus.  How serious is it?  What are the risk factors?  A great political divide was created over the precautions that we should be taking and all of this in the midst of a dozen other political and social battles.

We were learning as we went along and none of us wanted to deal with a deadly virus pandemic that would upend not just our physical health and well being but also mental health, business health, and the well being of our friends, family, co-workers and neighbors.

We also thought that the impact of the virus would be short-lived.  Weeks, not months.  Hopefully not years.

It all boils down to this.

Ask the right questions.

While we rely on the health care experts to work their butts off to find the answers and solutions to halting the spread of the virus and lessen the impact on individuals health, I challenge you to ask the right questions regarding the future of your business.

This fall as the weather changes in Indiana, local restaurants are closing for two reasons.

They can no longer offer outside dining spaces like they did in the warmer weather, so they have limited capacity for social distanced seating.

They are being impacted by people in the midst, either on staff or patrons who have tested positive for the virus which means everyone needs to get tested, the building is shut down and scrubbed clean and they lose even more money.

Here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself for the future of your business:

If the business environment with strict lock-down restrictions were to return and stay in place for all of 2021, how would you adapt the way you operate to provide goods and services to customers and be profitable?

What operating procedures have you changed this year that you will continue, even after the pandemic restrictions are eventually lifted?

What can you improve upon to provide goods and services in the months and years to come that benefit you, your customers and your employees?

What can you do to invite people to spend their money with you no matter what the future holds both health wise and politically?

I know, that last question is an advertising and marketing question.  All three questions are extremely important. In the near future I’ll help you with a refresher on timeless advertising and marketing principles. and in the meantime, if you need help evaluating those first two questions, reach out to me.

I started out talking about the 9 months of pregnancy that new parents go through in joyful expectation.  Believe it or not, even though 2020 has not been as predictable as the birth of a new baby, we are all going to be better in the long run, no matter how many months it takes.

 

[wd_hustle id="sound-advice-sign-up" type="embedded"]

Long Term Losses Over Short Term Cuts

Long Term Losses Over Short Term Cuts

by | Oct 13, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom

You cut your advertising, you could lose a heck of a whole lot more than you realize.

Odds are against your business ever recovering.

There are multiple stories over the past 100 years of how during an economic downturn a business cut their advertising and ultimately lost their standing against their competition.  During the Great Depression the Post Cereal company lost to Kellogg and never regained the top spot for breakfast cereal.

Here’s a quote from net360solutions.com of how it went down:

Post did the predictable thing: It reined in expenses and cut back on advertising. But Kellogg doubled its ad budget, moved aggressively into radio advertising, and heavily pushed its new cereal, Rice Krispies. (Snap, Crackle, and Pop first appeared in the 1930s.) By 1933, even as the economy cratered, Kellogg’s profits had risen almost 30 percent and it had become what it remains today: The industry’s dominant player.

Recently I read a story about a study from the Kantar Group that I need to share with you.  Because the battle of consumers dollars is just as real today as it was last century.

A year ago there were no real warning signs of an economic downturn in the United States or around the world because we were unaware that a new pandemic would strike in 2020 and besides the health consequences, there would be economic consequences too.

I’m going to share quotes from the Inside Radio article that refer to the Kantar study.

Consumer packaged goods is a growing ad category for radio as major brand marketers like General Mills, Procter and Gamble and Coca Cola have made radio part of their media mix.

But what are the risks of stopping or cutting back on advertising during what is now the worst recession on record?

Based on media effectiveness studies conducted around the world, Kantar says that stopping or significantly reducing advertising could have impacts that take years to recover from.

The average short-term effect from advertising is an incremental 4.5% sales increase, and that usually occurs in the month after a typical eight-week campaign.

This is what you need to defend just to stand still, and what you stand to lose if you choose not to advertise.

In other words if you stopped advertising for what ever reason, you are coasting and you can only coast downhill.  When you stop inviting people to spend money with you, you lose customers and their money.

When considering the impact of an advertising hiatus, it’s imperative to take into account the consumer penetration of the brand, Kantar says. Almost nine in 10 of the brands that grew in 2019 did so by increasing their penetration. A brand must replace 50% of its buyers each year just to defend its current position.

That 50% figure of course depends on the industry.  For example if you are a roofer and you are selling roofs guaranteed for 20 years, it’s unlikely that you will retain any of your customers year after year. Other industry’s like mine for example, we average about at 85% retention rate year after year.

“It’s crucial to keep gaining new shoppers in order to secure the long-term health of the brand and build its potential for growth,” according to the study. Typically, in the short term, growth driven by penetration gains accounts for two thirds of the post campaign sales uplift. And because advertising also reminds and retains existing shoppers, it can take years to recover from the loss of heavy buyers.

Now listen up, because the loss of your brand in the mind of the consumer is not just a small loss.  And if you are only counting the dollars saved that you would have spent advertising, you are missing the big, long term picture.

My wife and I’s favorite restaurant closed down a couple of years ago.  The owner lost the lease and it was weeks before a new restaurant took over that retail space.  What did my wife and I do on Saturday nights when they closed?  If you think we just stayed home feeling hungry, you’re wrong.  We started checking out other places. If you stop inviting people to do business with you, not only do you lose, your competition wins!  And just because you start advertising two months later, it doesn’t mean your former customers are coming back.  They’re created new habits, new places to spend their money and it’s all your fault.  You lost momentum and it will take time to recover.

If a brand loses share, it’s 70% likely that its share will still be lower five years later, a study found. And brand share winners have a two-thirds probability of still having a higher share after five years.

Let this be a word of warning if you have considered cutting your advertising.  And likewise, this is a time of opportunity for others, maybe you to increase your advertising to invite people to become your customers to fill the void.

 

[wd_hustle id="sound-advice-sign-up" type="embedded"]

Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising (Part One)

Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising (Part One)

by | Aug 18, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Today I’m kicking off an occasional series of Why WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana is the Best Choice for Advertising Your Business. I am calling it an occasional series because, every few weeks I’ll add another article interspersed with the other articles I share each week on this website and the Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast.

While just this year I was named the General Sales Manager for WOWO radio, and this is my 7th year working for WOWO, I’ve been writing and publishing these stories and insights for over 15 years.  Pretty soon, I’ll have my 20th anniversary of returning to the media and marketing world in Fort Wayne after having worked in radio in Detroit and other places too.

Recently Marketing Charts.com published a story on the “Graying of America” that caught my attention. I’m a young Baby Boomer and for most of my life, I was part of the most sought after demographic for advertisers.  I was part of the Pepsi Generation.  Until I turned 55 that is.

See, in my work in advertising, the desired demographic was either the 18 to 34 year olds when the Baby Boomers were that age, and then more recently 25 to 54 year olds were the hot target market.

When the advertising guru’s followed the Boomers in to middle life with that initial switch, many of them forgot what they were chasing.  As the Boomers got older, the advertising people stayed with the 25-54 year olds which was foolish.

Why?

Because the age 55 and older people in America are not the same as their grandparents were when they were in their 60’s.  We didn’t turn into a bunch of grumpy old men and women sitting around playing checkers and reminiscing about the good old days.  We blew that stereotype sky-high.

Boomers have more money, more free time, more overall freedom and they’re not sitting around waiting to die.

Coupled with the misconception of what Boomer are doing, the advertising people ignored the fact that the younger generations are smaller.  That’s what this story from Marketing Charts dot com points out.

Over the past 10 years, since 2010 the number of pre-teens has been going down, so has the teenage population and college crowd.  There has been 11 percent growth in the 25 to 34 year olds, but less than 2% growth in the 35 to 44 age group.  45 to 54 year old population had a big loss of over 9% in the past decade. So if you are targeting your advertising to 25 to 54 year olds today, there are statistically fewer of them.  That mean less people to buy your stuff than a decade or two ago.

When you compare that with the growth of the older population…

55 to 64 year olds grew in size by over 15%; 65 to 74 year old grew by  almost 45%; and even the 75 and older crowd grew by more than 20% in the past decade.

Clearly the Baby Boomer population is still alive and kicking, and not just dying off.  Some Boomers parents are very active in their 80’s and 90’s.

WOWO Radio has been the most listened to radio station for adults age 25 and older for years and admittedly the biggest chunk of our listenership was age 50 and older.  But we’re not our grandparents.  We’re upgrading our lifestyles, socking it away for retirement one day and living longer, healthier lives than previous 50, 60, and 70 year olds were.

One more statistic I noticed this summer from our most recent ratings survey was that the WOWO Radio audience is becoming more diverse.  We are also getting younger listeners, those between the age of 25 and 50 have grown in the past year.  Another trend is the ratio of men and women listening to WOWO Radio.  We used to be 60% guys and 40% women 10 years ago.  Today it’s nearly 50/50.

Let’s wrap this up with a few more facts and figures from the Marketing Charts report.  Baby Boomers have more than 54% of the nations wealth, and if you add it the money from the next older generation, that’s where 75% of the buying power is in America.  These people are also the least affected by the fall out of COVID-19.   And these are the WOWO Radio listeners.

There you have it, Part One of Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising.  Contact me to get started with a campaign to marketing your business.

 

[wd_hustle id="sound-advice-sign-up" type="embedded"]

Reboot Your Business

Reboot Your Business

by | Jun 23, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Do you remember at the end of 2019 how we thought it would be really cool to hear Barbara Walters welcome in the new year by saying,
“This is 2020”, the way she did for 25 years.

Little did we know what kind of year 2020 would be, not just in our own little worlds but the entire world.  I’ve seen friends ask if we can go back 6 months and do this over again, but the answer is no, we just need to ReBoot 2020 and your business given the circumstance we have now.

There are some big changes that have occurred in the way businesses operate and yet there are some things that haven’t really changed.

Some call it the differences between tactics and strategies. Wikipedia says:

The terms tactic and strategy are often confused: tactics are the actual means used to gain an objective, while strategy is the overall campaign plan.

In terms of rebooting your business, there are certain tactics that have changed, such as social distancing, or offering curbside pickup for your customers.  Meetings with clients now include video which was a bit on the controversial side 6 months ago or at least cutting edge.

What about the advertising and marketing?  Some of the patterns we saw 6 months ago are continuing while others are completely different.

Broadcasting, the world I work in has seen television’s model having to make some drastic changes while my radio world has been pretty stable for the listeners at least.

On the TV side, they halted production of the network shows and jumped to reruns or come up with a broadcast from home version of many shows which isn’t the same as before.  I don’t know if or when my favorite shows are returning to production.  Meanwhile at my radio station, WOWO in Fort Wayne, we implemented a couple of changes to accommodate our afternoon talk show host who has a weakened immune system due to the anti-rejection meds he is on after having kidney transplant surgery a few years ago.  Pat Miller broadcasts his show from his home every afternoon for the foreseeable future. The host of Fort Wayne’s Morning News on WOWO also did her show from home for 10 weeks since was pregnant with her firstborn.  Kayla did her show live every morning up until her water broke live while she was on the air.  We lined up 8 weeks of fill-in hosts while she is out, but everything on our station sounds normal.

As WOWO radio has experienced a big uptick in online listening as people were now listening from home on their smart speakers and looking at the stats, those numbers are still up there as the travel restrictions are being lifted.

The tactics of listening to WOWO shifted to more devices than just the traditional radio, but the strategy never changed.  We didn’t change our programming or anything like that.  Let’s see how we can apply that to your business moving forward.

Are you going to still provide the same basic services and products as you were before?  That’s the strategy.

Are you offering different or additional ways for consumers to receive your products and services?  That’s the tactics.

Also remember the timeless principles like honesty, fairness, under promise but over deliver. Keep your word and never stop inviting people to do business with you with advertising and marketing.

That’s how you can successfully ReBoot Your Business for the rest of 2020 and beyond.

[wd_hustle id="sound-advice-sign-up" type="embedded"]