Bigger and Better WOWO

Bigger and Better WOWO

by | May 1, 2023 | The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

For the past couple of weeks, my primary radio station, WOWO, has been teasing our listeners about something coming that would make WOWO Bigger and Better.

Today, in the 7am hour WOWO Afternoon host Pat Miller joined Kayla Blakeslee, our host of Fort Wayne’s Morning News to reveal what the BIG deal was that we’ve been talking about on air and online.

(At least I hope they did, because I’m writing this article and recording the podcast a few days before.)

The BIG reveal is that WOWO is adding another way to listen to us.

Now Listeners in Fort Wayne, Indiana can listen to WOWO at 92.3 FM too.

Here’s the details and backstory:

For all of my lifetime (and before) WOWO has been on 1190 AM.  When the station first debuted 98 years ago it was on another AM frequency and moved around until 1941, so 1190 WOWO has been “The Place To Go When You Need To Know” for 82 years.

WOWO has also been a full time news talk radio station since 1996, but when I was a teenager in the 70’s WOWO was what they called a full-service radio station that played music along with having a full-time news department too.

WOWO had the distinction of being one of a hand full of Clear Channel AM radio stations in 1954 with the maximum power of 50,000 watts, That continued until the mid 1990’s when WOWO was purchased by Inner City Broadcasting whose intent was to buy WOWO and turn it off.  Why?  Because Inner City Broadcasting also owned a radio station in New York that was broadcasting on 1190 AM, but was required to sign off the air every night because of the Clear Channel license that WOWO had enabled WOWO to be the only station broadcasting east of the Mississippi River at 1190 AM at night.

Fortunately Federated Media stepped in and saved WOWO.  Federated Media owned two other stations in Fort Wayne and around the midwest and negotiated a deal.  The result was Inner City Broadcasting got to go full-time with their New York station on 1190 AM and WOWO would reduce their night time signal to 9800 watts, retaining the 50,000 watts during the day.

1190 WOWO is not going anywhere with this BIG announcement.

Now, why was the addition of 92.3 FM a BIG announcement?

It was a play on words.

Ever since 2016, Federated Media has been playing a Classic Hits Music format on 92.3 FM.  It’s Moniker was BIG 92.3.

Now WOWO has been on FM before.  If you review the History of WOWO website like I did, you’ll see that there was a WOWO FM briefly in 1955 and again in 1985 for a number of years.  When I joined WOWO in 2013 WOWO’s FM signal was 92.3.

Let’s go down the rabbit hole of 92.3 FM.  WFWI was originally put on the air at 92.3 FM in the mid 1990’s by Russ Oasis.  I happened to work on the air for Russ Oasis for a year, starting out doing afternoons on Music 92 and then we flipped formats to an all 70’s music station as the first version of 92.3 The Fort where I did mornings.  Eventually Federated Media bought 92.3 The Fort and for years it was the Fort Wayne home of the Bob and Tom Show in the morning and then Classic Rock the rest of the day and night.

According to my sources, 2012 was the year that 92.3 The Fort went away and that FM signal was given to WOWO.  However I recall going to breakfast meeting where it was announced that Federated Media was going to put music back on 92.3 FM in 2016.  That’s when BIG 92.3 FM launched.

When BIG 92.3 took over WOWO’s home on the FM dial, they also launched another FM home for WOWO, 107.5 FM along with 97.3 HD2 FM.  Forgive me for going all technical for a moment.

The Federal Communications Commission, which is the licensing and regulatory body of the Federal government created subchannels for FM radio stations that had High Def capabilities. So WOWO has been available on the HD2 channel of our sister station WMEE at 97.3 FM.   However HD subchannels are only available to you if you have a special HD radio, or if your car has an HD radio.

The F.C.C. also created another class of FM, Low Power.  Federated Media got licenses for our two Fort Wayne AM stations to also broadcast on FM using this technology whose only limitation was signal strength and thus coverage area.  107.5 FM has been WOWO’s FM signal but it’s only 75 watts and that limits the range.

92.3 FM is nearly 2500 watts which is full power and covers our the entire Fort Wayne Metro Area of 6 counties and beyond.

For now WOWO will continue to be heard on 107.5 FM but not very long, it’s not needed with the more powerful, BIGer 92.3 FM Signal.

That’s the BIG news for WOWO and let me wrap this up with a couple of answers to questions I’ve been asked:

  1. Why did WOWO leave 92.3 before?  It was a counter-programming move by our company.  Ever since they dropped the Classic Rock format of 92.3 The Fort, the two local stations that played classics had all those listeners.  We wanted to offer Fort Wayne area music listeners another choice and we did by also offering the Two Minute Promise.  During regular programming BIG 92.3 commercial breaks were only two minutes or less.
  2. Was BIG 92.3 successful? Yes and no. Yes, it made an impact on the radio landscape as it gained a lot of listeners, over 32,000 according to the last rating period. That weakened the other two classic music stations listener bases.  But No too. Because as a business, BIG 92.3 was never profitable.  It was the one division of our six Fort Wayne radio stations that wasn’t making money.  Every year since I’ve been in management, the question was do we keep BIG 92.3 or replace it. And every year it was keep BIG until now.  Music licensing fees have been increasing and even though there are no live radio personalities on BIG anymore, we still were paying one of our people to program 168 hours of music every week.
  3. I heard that some car companies like Ford are going to stop offering AM in their vehicles…  and 4. What happened to WOWO on 1190 AM? We live (80 miles away) and can’t hear WOWO anymore?  The answer to these two questions are circumstantial and coincidental.  With the government mandate to move to Electric Vehicles there are some car companies that decided that they were not going to offer AM in EV’s because it requires extra expense to create shielding to prevent interference, or at least that’s their story. Meanwhile the National Association of Broadcasters is lobbying Congress to create a law mandating the AM radio continues to be included in new vehicles.  And regarding the WOWO 1190 AM signal… a few weeks ago, our engineers had to make repairs and improvements to the WOWO towers and power had to be reduced from the 50,000 watts for what was originally going to be a few hours at night and over a weekend.  Unfortunately, once they were up there, they discovered more had to be done and that included ordering parts way beyond the original plans.   As I was writing this today, I received an email saying that WOWO will be back to our full 50,000 watts on 1190 AM by Monday morning too.

While I’m at it, let me leave you with a few applications:

  • First of all, carefully consider all the areas of your business and evaluate their value.  Long term and Short Term.  That’s what Federated Media did with 92.3 FM.
  • Do this evaluation more than once.  We did it every few months and made changes along the way.
  • Not all decisions should be based solely on money.  However there is a cost to the actions you take or don’t take too.
  • Keep looking forward and plan for the potential possibilities.  Even if some of the futurists and forecasters are wrong, it’s better to be prepared for if they are right than try and play catch-up. 
Google is the Wrong Answer

Google is the Wrong Answer

by | Mar 21, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

I was in a meeting with a business owner this month and as we were doing our usual “Discovery” meeting, one of the questions that was asked was:

Where are your current customers coming from?

He answered, “Google”

Bzzzzzz.  Wrong answer.

Well, perhaps it was really the wrong question.

Google for advertising veterans is the new Yellow Pages.   

For those under the age of 45, before Google was launched last century in 1998 and became the top search engine about 5 years later, consumers would use the Yellow Pages section of a phone book to get the phone number to a business they wanted to call or visit.

Yellow Page ad salespeople trained their business customers to ask new people calling, “How did you get our number?” and a sizeable percent of the answers were the phone book.

I mean it made sense, the phone book is where I got the number, so technically the answer was correct.  This is how the Yellow Page ad salespeople sold ads, by “proving their worth” and getting the business owner to buy a bigger ad each year.  

In the old days of the phone book or today of Google and smart phones, the answer to the question is predictable.  If I’m in front of my laptop, I’ll Google it.  Otherwise, I’ll ask my phone, because I can search with my voice.  Siri, Alexa, and Hey Google are all similar current replacements for the both the phone book and laptop versions of Google.

Here’s why that’s the wrong question to ask if you are attempting to decide where your customers are coming from or where to invest your advertising dollars.

Google is the last step in a long series of steps that your new customer made to connect with you.  We call it the Zero Moment of Truth.  

All they need is the phone number, or if I’m searching from my phone, I don’t even need the actual number, I can call without even knowing the number.

The question you want to know is what are all the other influencing factors that prompted your customer to Google you?  Was it word of mouth from a friend?  Was it a 10 second video ad they had to watch before YouTube played a cat video?  Was it the radio ad, the endorsement from the podcast host?  The highway road sign they drive by daily or even the Pay Per Click Ad they saw when researching the kind of stuff you sell?

That’s what you should measure, and make it multiple choice because odds are it’s a combination of multiple influences that were the steps that lead to that final step of connecting with you because they Googled you.

Google is not the answer to your business success, it’s just the final step that connected them to you.

Where’s The Money in 2023?

Where’s The Money in 2023?

by | Feb 27, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Depending on where you get your news and information, you’ve probably heard a lot of Gloom and Doom stories about the economy.

Some say we’re in a recession, others say “no, not yet, don’t label it with the R word.”

Some blame the President, others blame the previous President, some say Covid, others say… well whatever, it doesn’t really matter.

For those of you who age 35 or younger, your adult lives were relatively stable until 3 years ago, economically speaking.

By 2010, a mere 13 years ago, the U.S. economy was in a growth mode that lasted 10 years. Inflation was down, unemployment was disappearing, stock prices were on the upswing and overall, except for the political bickering, we really didn’t that much to worry about.

Sure, there was and is talk about climate change, human rights, making sure everyone was being treated fairly without bias due to gender, skin color, race, or anything else that needs improvement.

But for today, I’m talking about money and the health of our economy in the United States.

Generally speaking, as a group, we were doing well.

But the impact of Covid related decisions has thrown us into a bit of turmoil and confusion.  Shutting down businesses, toilet paper shortages, overwhelmed health care operations.  Followed by disruptions in the supply chain for essentials besides toilet paper and eventually rising prices has had an impact on most people.

Those of you under the age of 35 haven’t seen this before and that can create fear of the unknown.

Those of us who are old enough to be your parents, have lived through challenges similar to this and I’m here to attempt to reassure you.

I turned 63 on my last birthday and am at the tail end of the baby boomer generation.  When I was a teenager, Jimmy Carter was the President.  We had just survived the Watergate years with the resignation of Richard Nixon.  Gasoline rationing was going on because we didn’t have enough.  Our country recovered and grew in the 1980’s.

The next big crisis I recall off the top of my head would have been September 11th, 2001.  The world stopped as all air flight was grounded and we had no idea what to expect.  We made adjustments and continued until the housing market took a tumble in 2008 and again, gloom and doom was the mood.

2008 was the year that a widely unknown candidate for the Presidency of the United States went all the way to the White House on a message of Hope & Change. It was during the Obama years that those of you that are 35 or younger first started becoming aware of money and what things cost.

On my team at Federated Media, the youngest is turning 26.  She is the first year of Gen Z.  I also have three Gen X and two Boomers. The life experiences color each of their perspectives and outlooks on life today and in the future.  But each is different too due to factors not related to age.

The original question of this piece is not about attitudes but reality.

The reality of who’s got the money to spend in 2023.

As a generation, the biggest chunk is still with the Baby Boomers, followed by Gen X and then Millennials.

In advertising, there used to be an ideal age demographic that was initially 18 to 34 year olds for a number of years and then shifted to 25-54 year olds.

Nearly all the advertising was targeted to people in this demographic and the question to ask is why?

Baby Boomers were the largest generation ever, spanning the years 1946 to 64 for their birthdays and by the 1980’s most of them were between ages 18-34.

As Boomers aged and started families, the desired demo shifted to the 25-54 year olds and sort of stuck there.

Problem is the youngest of the Boomers are turning 59 this year and have fallen out of favor due to their age for the advertising community.

The exception seems to be all the medical and retirement advertising.

But believe me, the people who have the money to support your business still are the Baby Boomers with over 50% of the wealth and Gen X with nearly 30% according to several studies including MarketingCharts.com.

Marketers like to focus on youth, whether that’s Millennials or Gen Z, but Baby Boomers are the big spenders. A MarketingCharts review of the latest data published by the Federal Reserve confirms that Baby Boomers hold the largest share of US household wealth. However, Gen Xers, and to some extent Millennials, are seeing their wealth climb.

As the General Sales Manager of 4 radio stations in Fort Wayne, Indiana that target our programming to reach people with money to spend, even now, I can help you by connecting our listeners to you and your business so you can convert them to become your customers in 2023.   Email me for information:  Scott@WOWO.com

7 Considerations For Successful Advertising

7 Considerations For Successful Advertising

by | Feb 13, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

As I write this on February 13th, not quite 24 hours have passed since I watched Super Bowl 57 and yet the impact of that game is reverberating in my world.

I had no skin in the game, even though the thought crossed my mind to wager since it’s now legal, but I declined.

Many advertisers, both national and local wagered that the game would be a good place to advertise and they ponied up the funds to do so.  Despite my media and marketing credentials, I watched the game as a normal person, live and on the screen.  I am going to review the game that my YouTubeTV account recorded for me, but for now, I’m just like you.

There are very few ads that I recall as being outstanding.  I remember the Pepsi Zero ads, a couple of movie ads (but don’t recall the films they were promoting), and a T-Mobile ad.

Here’s why I remember them:

I’ve seen Pepsi Zero and Mountain Dew Zero at the store recently but decided not to buy, because I like my Diet Dew just fine.  The T-Mobile ad was for $50 home internet service and it’s because I’m already a T-Mobile customer for our phone service and I’ve checked out their internet service before.   None of the ads I saw prompted me to take action and it’s doubtful that any will in the future because, well like I said, none of the other ads are top of mind with me, less than 24 hours later.

Now I know there were other companies advertising, but some of the companies I had never heard of before and I don’t remember them now.  Even the ones that I liked, I don’t recall who they were for.

Oh wait a second, I just remembered one more for Dunkin Donuts.  They used Ben and Jennifer but gave me no reason to buy a donut or whatever they were promoting.

Super Bowl Advertising used to be considered the best place to buy advertising because of the tremendous number of viewers and the supposed impact it would have on your business or brand.

Not really, instead I’ll share with you 7 Considerations For Successful Advertising:

  1. Reach. How many people will your ad reach?  Not just anyone, but the people that are likely to be your customers.  The greater the reach, the more it will cost.
  2. Frequency. How many times will those people be exposed to your ad?  During the Super Bowl all the national ads played only once so they get a frequency score of one. Some brands aired more than one ad like the Pepsi Zero ads I saw, so they get a score of two.  The higher the frequency to potential customers, the better in most cases.
  3. Messaging. A co-worker of mine has been getting a barrage of emails from a local company that have no purpose.  He entered a contest this business has going on for several weeks and every day he gets an email from them, wishing him a nice day, or something like that but there are no offers or calls to actions.  Most people would delete, unsubscribe or report this as spam.  Your Messaging has to have a purpose.
  4. Trust.  Does your advertising build Trust in your company?  Or is it detracting from your brand and image?  If your advertising has to have a lot of legalese or fine print disclaimers, you are not building trust.
  5. The Environment. Not mother earth, the environment of where your advertisement is placed. The advertising media that you are using has it’s own brand and if your brand and theirs are not compatible, that’s not good at all.  I used to work for a group of radio stations that allowed ads for “Gentlemen’s Clubs” after 9pm at night.  Unless you are running a business that doesn’t mind being associated with that, then you better not advertise on that station.  Think about it this way.  Would you want your businesses physical location next to them?  If the answer is no, then consider the same concept for your advertising.
  6. Human Relationship Principles.  Do your ads mimic normal human relationships in their presentation?  Or are they annoying ads that make you want to tune out?  You can use humor, you can use music, you can even use a straight voice, but the very best ads are the one that flow the way our conversations do when we are talking with friends and family.
  7. Trustworthy Marketing Consultant.  The majority of advertising sales people are not trustworthy marketing consultants.  Many are simply salespeople who are limited in their capabilities.  This limitation is either because of their personality, their training, or both.

It doesn’t take a Super Bowl ad to make your business successful, it takes working with someone that can help you navigate and understand what I just mentioned and who has the competence to work with you to dig in and create what’s needed.  Contact me if you want help,  Scott at WOWO.com

Looking for the Very Best Sales People

Looking for the Very Best Sales People

by | Sep 13, 2022 | The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

It’s a crazy time out there.  It seems like so many companies are suffering from shortages.

First it was supply chain issues that were either created or amplified by the numerous complications of Covid-19 shut downs in 2020.

Then came staffing shortages.  Even as businesses wanted to open up after the worst of Covid, many businesses simply didn’t have the people.

I’ve talked to numerous business owners and employers and most are in the same boat of not having the ideal working conditions and employment pay and benefit packages to convince someone to come work for them.

While each week I give them advice, I’ve also been listening to the people who want to work to hear both sides.

And as a result, the company I work for, Federated Media located in Indiana with radio stations in Fort Wayne and the South Bend metros have made a few adjustments and improvements.

As the General Sales Manager of WOWO Radio, I need to hire at least TWO new advertising sales people for immediate openings I have.

While pay and income is important, the people I add to my team are not entirely focused on their paycheck.  Here’s a couple more very important things that I know are important how we accommodate, no more than accommodate, we purposefully incorporate in our culture.

  • Remote work versus 9-5 office hours. Before I came here nearly a decade ago, Federated Media in Fort Wayne created a Work From Home set-up for our advertising sales teams.  Most weeks, my sales team only come to the office two hours a week.  Once for a Weekly Individual Focus Meeting aka One-on-One with me, their sales manager; and once a week for a WOWO Sales Team meeting.  When I was selling and not in management, you would rarely see me in the office.  I was meeting with clients or in a coffee shop.  Two hours a week here, the rest of your work day… go do what needs to be done to create success.
  • Brand New Flexible Paid Time Off policy.  This was launched this summer and basically it means instead of having to use vacation time to take the day off to take help your kids get moved into their college dorm, or whatever is going on in your life, just take the time off.  For sales people this really wasn’t as much of an issue, because sales people set their out schedules anyway, but this really benefits the support staff that work in the office every day.  Guilt Free days off is what I heard someone say.

Here’s what those two things mean for my sales team.  I want you to have a balanced life and do it without feeling guilty or feeling pressure that you have to conform to old fashioned working hours.  I work with you to make sure the couple of weekly meetings we have are a good fit for you too.  Currently our weekly sales team meetings are at 9am on Thursdays.  We used to have them earlier but that created a conflict with one of our team whose child needed to be dropped off for school at a time that created a conflict with an 8:30 meeting, so we changed it a few years ago.  Also, ever since March 2020, our weekly sales team meetings have been on Zoom.  We will return to having them in person in the future but that’s not likely until 2023 or 2024.   I’ll explain more on why in a moment.

All of this work-time flexibility could be taken advantage of by people who don’t have the self-discipline or desire to be productive.  One thing we have always had is a high bar to pass in order to be considered for employment with the WOWO Advertising Sales Team.  Everyone must first take an online sales talent assessment that measures a dozen different talents thru a series of about 60 multiple choice questions.  It takes between 30 and 60 minutes. Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/Work4WOWO .

Only about 40% of the people who take the talent assessments will qualify to move forward in the process.  Someone asked me this summer after they were told their talents did not match what we were looking for, what he could do to improve for the future.  Nothing was my answer.  There is a difference between Talent and Skill.  Talent is part of who you are that doesn’t change; while skill is teachable, trainable and can be improved.  Similar to our height and weight.  Once we become an adult, there’s nothing we can do to increase our height. However we do have control over our weight.  Height = Talent; Weight = Skill.

With the shortage of people looking for jobs, have we lowered our standards?  Absolutely not.  I’ve made the mistake of hiring someone whose talents were marginal and there was only so much improvement they could do… it wasn’t worth it.

How did we get so smart to be able to evaluate a person’s sales talent online?  We didn’t.  We work hand in hand with our sales consultancy, The Center for Sales Strategy who have evaluated thousands of sales people and are pretty darn good.  So good that we use C.S.S. for more than hiring.  They are our partner in on-going training.  Which brings me to my next reason to apply to join me at WOWO:

On-Going Training and Professional Development. I just mentioned the Center For Sales Strategy which is our companies lead sales consultancy.  I also have additional resources and training from both outside experts and internally.  Bottom line is we don’t just bring people on board and wish them luck.  We are always providing training and resources to help you be successful.

I will also be upfront and honest with you.  Currently I’m in my 3rd year as the General Sales Manager at WOWO, after 7 years selling myself for WOWO, plus years of radio, advertising and sales experience elsewhere.  These past 3 years I’ve observed what it takes for someone to succeed and what others have done that have prevented them from being successful.  If you are not willing to do what it takes, and to take the actions needed, be coachable and want to win, then this is not the place for you.

We are an elite team at WOWO and Federated Media.  I was watching the Legacy series on Hulu over the weekend.  It’s the story of the LA Lakers and how they became successful with multiple championships and that is what we are building here too.  Want to see if you can join our team?  Contact me.