by Scott Howard | Mar 14, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Last year I wrote about the problem with bad websites that are not just ugly and dated, but hurt your business reputation and the ability to be found online by people who want to spend money with you.
I’ve updated it a bit, but the basics are the same:
There are times when I need to walk a fine line.
In the marketing worlds I work in there are times when something is just not good.
The two areas I work in these days are radio broadcasting and digital marketing with WOWO Radio and Federated Digital Solutions. This isn’t a new field for me, I’ve worked in radio for decades and the digital world for 10+ years.
Click on this picture to read the sad story about this “ugly baby”
The past couple of years, I have had to tactfully tell business owners that their baby is ugly. Not their offspring, their website.
It’s hard. I had a former advertiser show me his new website and while it was an improvement on his previous site, it was still lacking many of the elements needed to bring it up to today’s standards.
And I’m not just talking about my standards, I’m talking about industry standards.
I’m going to give you a couple of links that you can use to see if your website measures up or if it needs an overhaul. Be prepared to learn a few things.
First off, there is the mobile-friendly test. Google will now punish your website search ranking if your site is not mobile friendly. Click here and find out if your site passes. Oh, Yahoo and Bing are also penalizing you too.
Another place to check is Hubspot’s Marketing Grader. You’ll get a report with a score and suggestions on what to do.
This is a good starting place but instead of simply relying on these automated tools, you really need a professional evaluation done by a human being (ME) that can sort through these reports, do a few other checks and evaluations and tell you if you have an ugly baby or just need to give her a good cleaning.
We can also talk about the purpose of your website to determine if you need to hire a professional team and create a custom site, hire a smaller developer, or perhaps do it yourself.
Are you prepared to see if you have an ugly baby of a website? Click on those links and then let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Feb 16, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
My radio station WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana, just released a new smartphone app as one of our improvements for 2016. You can find it here for Android and for those of you Apple fans, go here.
We just revised our website this year too with a cleaner, less cluttered look than our previous site. The WOWO App and the website are continuously updated with the stories and interviews minutes after they first appear on the air at WOWO radio. You can also listen online from the website or the WOWO App.
Why the changes?
Multiple reasons but a big one is the continued growth of smartphones, both iPhones and Androids. Nearly 80% of us have one now.
This means if your website is not mobile friendly, you are annoying, no, let me say it stronger, you are pissing off 4 out of 5 people because you are behind the times.
Need help with an upgrade? Contact me. Like Yesterday.
by Scott Howard | Jul 13, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
There are times when I need to walk a fine line.
In the marketing worlds I work in there are times when something is just not good.
The two areas I work in these days are radio broadcasting and digital marketing with WOWO Radio and Federated Digital Solutions. This isn’t a new field for me, I’ve worked in radio for decades and the digital world for 10+ years.
Click on this picture to read the sad story about this “ugly baby”
The past couple of years, I have had to tactfully tell business owners that their baby is ugly.
It’s hard. Recently I had a former advertiser show me his new website and while it was an improvement on his previous site, it was still lacking many of the elements needed to bring it up to todays standards.
And I’m not just talking about my standards, I’m talking about industry standards.
I’m going to give you a couple of websites that you can use to see if your website measures up or if it needs an overhaul. Be prepared to learn a few things.
First off, there is the mobile-friendly test. Google will now punish your website search ranking if your site is not mobile friendly. Click here and find out if your site passes. Oh, Yahoo and Bing are also penalizing you too.
Another place to check is Hubspot’s Marketing Grader. You’ll get a report with a score and suggestions on what to do.
This is a good starting place but instead of simply relying on these automated tools, you really need a professional evaluation done by a human being (ME) that can sort through these reports, do a few other checks and evaluations and tell you if you have an ugly baby or just need to give her a good cleaning.
We can also talk about the purpose of your website to determine if you need to hire a professional team and create a custom site, hire a smaller developer, or perhaps do it yourself.
Are you prepared to see if you have an ugly baby of a website? Click on those links and then let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Oct 28, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
I come across lots of businesses with crummy websites.
They are:
- old and dated
- not completed
- hard to navigate
- not mobile friendly
Pick any one of the above and you are losing business because:
- customers can’t reach you
- your old site casts a negative image on your company
- customers will find a site that works for their needs and wants
Last week I read an article from Mediapost regarding the mobile shopping experience.
Mobile, in case you don’t know is the term used to describe accessing the web on a device besides a desktop or laptop computer. It could be a smart phone, a tablet, or any devise that a customer can use while walking.
I’m here to help you stop losing those customers.
I work for Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Specifically for WOWO Radio, the most listened to station in this city. But I also have under my belt, another division called Federated Digital Solutions. This team has been growing and growing and growing over the years by scooping up the most talented folks from other firms along with the brightest graduates and recruiting a few of us who have experience in both traditional media and new media.
Federated Digital Solutions began as a supplemental service offered exclusively to our radio clients but we have expanded and now also offer our services to anyone, anywhere in the U.S.A.
Contact me and we’ll see how to help you… but hang on a second.
The solution to those old clunky websites that are not mobile friendly?
We have that too and it’s pretty simple and has legs. Ask me about it.
Still not convinced you need to update your online presence? Read the Mediapost article that caught my eye:
Mobile Shoppers Need Better Customer Care Or They’re Out
According to new research from Contact Solutions, 30% of shoppers chose physical stores for less than half of their everyday shopping, while 52% do more than half their online shopping with online retailers, and 30% shop on mobile at least as much as they do on a computer.
Consumers are shifting a significant portion of their purchases from retail stores to the web at an ever- increasing pace. According to Forrester Research, U.S. online sales will top $400 billion in 2018, and nearly $1 trillion worldwide, says the report.
Consumers have high expectations for retail care when shopping via a mobile device, says the report, and if those expectations aren’t met, 71% say they’ll abandon the experience entirely. But 75% of shoppers say the ability to get “customer care” impacts their shopping experience, says the report.
However, 55% of respondents struggle at least 20% of the time when using a mobile app to shop. Separately, 43% say they have come to expect no customer service at all from mobile apps.
| Mobile Owner Response to In-App Shopping Difficulties (Share of Respondents) |
| Response |
% of Respondents
|
| Close app and abandon cart |
51.3%
|
| Go to web using desktop or laptop |
36.9
|
| Go to store and shop |
11.5
|
| Call customer service |
8.2
|
| Source: Contact Solutions, October 2014 |
In fact, 77% will be more likely to return to the app, and 95% say “great customer experience” will make them more likely to do business again. The study found that 92% of shoppers say it would be helpful to have customer care automatically provided within an app to help complete a task.
Consumers have less time, are more price conscious, and have access to more information than ever before, and that’s changing buying behavior, says the report. As a result, consumers are shifting a healthy portion of their online purchases from the web to smartphones and tablets. Mobile shopping has arrived.
Some key findings from the study include:
- 3 out of 4 shoppers shop online, and 30% of shoppers shop on a mobile device at least as much as they shop on a computer
- 1 out of 10 shoppers already prefer mobile apps exclusively for their online shopping
- 16% consumers say they struggle with mobile shopping apps at least half the time, and 38% of respondents said they are disappointed with the inability to get help within a mobile app
- 51% abandon the cart and close the app (lost purchase) when they struggle in a retail app, and 20% stop using the app entirely
- 55% of consumers say they struggle at least once every five visits
John Hibel, Director of Marketing, Contact Solutions,says “… customers using apps more frequently for shopping… when they encounter problems… cannot get the help they need… results are disastrous for retailers…
For more information from Contact Solutions, please visit here.
by Scott Howard | Feb 2, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
Yesterday I shared some data about the growth of Mobile Media.
When I saw the following numbers, I was amazed:
(from Mediapost)
Tablets have become the consumer’s fourth screen, especially among those with smartphones. Techies with smartphones continue to use tablets at a higher rate. Those in the United States — at 17% — are among the highest, followed by Japan at 11%, and the United Kingdom at 10%, according to Google. The data appears to fall into line with AdWords tools allowing marketers to add WiFi ad targeting.
Google also added the ability to target by mobile operating system in AdWords.
The research — which Google conducted in two phases during 2011, in January and February followed by September and October — finds consumers shifting from feature phones or smartphones for Internet access. In fact, they use smartphones more than desktop or laptop computers in the U.S., UK, Germany, France, and Japan.
Germany had the biggest increase in smartphone owners using their device for daily Internet access, jumping from 39% to 49%. Japan had the highest percentage accessing the Internet daily on their smartphone, at 88%. A little more than two-thirds of smartphone users in the U.S. — and more than half of smartphone users in the UK — access the mobile Internet daily.
Research firm eMarketer estimates mobile advertising spending in the U.S. reached $1.45 billion in 2011, up 89% from $769.6 billion in 2010. This year, U.S. mobile ad spending will grow 80% to $2.61 billion.
The revised U.S. mobile growth forecast of 47% to $1.8 billion in 2012 — up from $1.2 billion last year — reflects a stream of new market data from major advertising publishers and research firms, as well as better-than-expected performance from Google.
Google’s share of overall U.S. mobile ad revenue rose 51.7%, or about $750 million, in 2011. The company isn’t the only one to see success in mobile. Apple’s iAd platform, an ad network, generated slightly more than $90 million in revenue last year to take a 6.4% share of overall U.S mobile ad revenue. Millennial earned $90.9 million, for a 6.3% share.
As more marketers explore and launch mobile ad campaigns based on the increased use of smartphones and tablets by consumers, do the ads impact purchases? A mobile study of 1,300 respondents conducted between Dec. 26, 2011 and Jan. 11, 2012 from digital marketing firm InsightExpress sheds light on ad recall and perception.
Men ages 18 to 29 are more likely to become aware of having seen mobile ads, are more positive toward them, and are more likely to consider them new and different compared with traditional and digital ads.
Of men who participated in the study, 32% said they use their mobile phones versus a computer Internet connection or walking into a store more often when purchasing items, versus 12% of women in the same age group. Men are more likely to search for an item on mobile. About 65% searched for a product in a nearby store using their phone.
In general, young men use mobile more for information-gathering than women. While 59% of men use their mobile phone to find better prices on items, 49% use their mobile phone to search for an item to find reviews, and 41% use their mobile phone to take a picture or send it to someone.
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