The Trust Factor

by Scott Howard | Feb 15, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

A couple of Thursday mornings ago, a couple things happened before 8am.

An email from Insider Radio that included the headline:

Americans May Love Social Media, But Survey Finds It’s Radio That They Trust.

Also it was the beginning of day 2 of a weather-induced work from home day as our area was getting non-stop snow with predictions of well over 15 inches which becomes much more severe when the winds kick in and “drifts up to 4 feet” were predicted by the national weather service.

(I heard that prediction listening to my local news/talk radio station WOWO.) We ended up with a little less and by Friday, I was back at the office and by Monday most of the rest of the city was back to normal.

Social Media has been the darling media that normal Joe’s and Jill’s turned to for communication to the masses. What began with MySpace and then Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and numerous others became the bright and shiny new place for advertisers to run ads. Promises of “hundreds of people for mere pennies” and “trackable results” along with “targeted ads that produce less waste” were all made and continue to be made.

To which I can say, not really.

Look, I am speaking from a multitude of perspectives. Yes, I’ve spent the majority of my career in radio. However a couple of times I worked full-time in the online world. First time was 2011 when I anticipated never returning to radio and instead I was highly immersed in the digital world where we crafted websites that were built to convert traffic into sales. We looked at, what appeared to be heat-map technology and a deep dive into analytics to design websites that improved the UX or User Experience and so I know how that is done and not just the technology but psychology behind it all.

I also worked full-time for a multi-million dollar world-wide company that transitioned from a print catalog sales model to an e-commerce based outfit. I was one of a half dozen specialists in the Internet Marketing Department and my chief role was Social Media for our multiple brands.

Then there is my own personal success story of creating an online following and connections with the ScLoHo brand identity, so I am a believer in the power of online and if you and your business can’t be found online… well you simply don’t exist. Get your company a website now. Claim your social media profiles for you and your company. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram at the bare minimum.

However, if that is all you do, the online stuff, you are being short sighted and leaving yourself very vulnerable.

It was just announced that Facebook actually lost members recently. That’s right the biggest Social Media company in the universe, saw a decline.

But that’s not the real reason you are vulnerable. It has to do with the Trust factor.

A dozen years ago I was giving a presentation to students at Huntington University and part of the discussion demonstrated the good stuff that was happening on Facebook. I used the example of my friend Heather who was looking for a new dentist for her family and so she asked for recommendations. Dozens of friends responded with both recommended dentists and a few to avoid. This was modern day word-of-mouth and crowd-sourcing done on a personal level.

However when companies tried to tap into the social networks by running ads, it just wasn’t the same. It was an advertisement, not a personal recommendation. Like so many other forms of advertising, except it started to become annoying because all we wanted to do was see what was going on with our friends and family and instead we were being served ads every few posts on our newsfeeds. I just took a look at my Facebook newsfeed and of the first dozen posts, numbers 2, 7 and 11 were ads.

Another factor creating distrust in Social Media is the political climate for the past several years. I think it has intensified online when we were limited in our ability to gather in-person due to pandemic restrictions.

Here are some quotes from the story I referred to at the beginning of our talk today:

A new MRI-Simmons survey finds that nearly two-thirds of Americans say radio is either “very trustworthy” or “trustworthy” with radio topping every other media type other than newspaper – trailing by a mere one percent difference.

Also:

More than twice as many adults consider radio trustworthy compared to social media. When it comes to fake news, it seems Americans have concluded it is not traditional media outlets that are the source, but rather online media options.

And finally:

In its analysis, Katz says the MRI-Simmons research shows why radio is an “ideal platform” for advertisers looking to make their voice heard and their message count. “Radio is a trusted environment with vested local connections to consumers across demographics, and all types of media users,” it says, adding, “Radio provides the best chance for messaging to break through, resonate, and not be mistrusted by consumers.”

Contact me for more information and insight.

Brand Building in Dollars and Sense

by Scott Howard | Jun 30, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Did you notice the title of this article has a play on words?

Or did you think it was just a typo?

Brand Building in Dollars and Sense with the word Sense spelled not like the cents we use to refer to money but as sense, as it makes sense or common sense which people say isn’t common anymore. I wonder if my grandparents said that too back in their day.

Anyway, I was reading a couple of different online articles, one from Roy H. Williams, the self proclaimed Wizard of Ads. Roy is a couple years older than me, and has created quite a reputation for media and marketing over the past few decades. He has a free weekly email called the Monday Morning Memo that I subscribe to and if you click on the picture in the email, you travel thru the rabbit hole created for that week. It’s an interesting journey most weeks.

On Monday June 21st, as I traveled thru the rabbit hole of the Monday Morning Memo, Roy shares the story of a client of his. I’m quoting Roy here:

One of my clients asked me to explain our marketing strategy to a guy from a private equity firm that is hoping to buy a chunk of my client’s company for a few hundred million dollars.

When we were retained 7 years ago, the company was bringing in barely $9m a year. Using radio as our primary driver of new business, we did nearly $250m in 2020 and are tracking to surpass $300m in 2021.

Did you catch that? In 7 years this company grew from 9 million in sales to over 300 million dollars this year and advertising on the radio is the primary driver of new business.

Here’s more of Roy’s story:

The private equity guy suggested that we should redirect our radio budget to online advertising because, “no one listens to the radio anymore.”

Now Roy goes into a lengthy and detailed explanation of how radio ratings work and how they know from the ratings service that the private equity dude is wrong. Then he decides to use not just statistics, but the real life example of this particular company.

“The objective of a radio campaign is to become the name the listener thinks of immediately and feels the best about whenever they need what we sell. Today’s ads aren’t meant to sell customers today. Today’s ads are just one more tap of the hammer as we drive our message into their minds. We want to achieve automatic, involuntary recall. Scientists call it ‘procedural memory.’”

And here’s where it gets really good. Roy asks the companies online marketing manager about the traffic they get to their website and she tells them there are just 10 search strings that make up most of the traffic to their website. The top 9 all include the name of the business. That is what the radio ads are doing… Branding the name of the business so when a potential customer needs the product or service, they Google the name of the company to get their contact information.

That last search string that drives people to their website amounts to just 5% of their website clicks. It uses a more generic search string that doesn’t include the company name.

Roy Williams continues:

So without the name recognition and goodwill built through radio, we would have done only 12-and-a-half million dollars last year instead of 250 million dollars.

That’s some real dollars there and it makes a lot of sense, right?

Don’t just take my word or the words of Roy H. Williams, the Wizard of Ads. I also read about the benefits of branding from an article published in June from Nielsen that uses the classic buying funnel example.

WHEN IT COMES TO BRAND BUILDING, AWARENESS IS CRITICAL

The title of the article and the information point out why what Roy was saying works. Targeted online ads may be one of the ways that companies get traffic to their website, but unless their is familiarity of the company or product, we are not likely going to click on it. This familiarity is what brand building does and it’s at the top of the buying funnel.

This Upper Funnel Marketing is actually the foundation that will drive future sales because the future buyer is aware of the company before they have a need. 60% to 80% or more of your radio ads in most cases should focus on Upper Funnel Marketing. You may never need to spend money on the Lower Funnel Marketing which is the conversion stage because if we as marketers do our jobs building the brand reputations, the consumers will actually convert themselves when they have the need or want.

Want to know more about building your brand and growing your business for the future, not just this months sale? Contact me, Scott Howard. Drop me a note to Scott@WOWO.com.

Aiming at the Wrong Target

by Scott Howard | Mar 24, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Too many business owners aim their advertising at a single target. While that may have been a decent strategy twenty years ago, today, by narrowly aiming at a select group, you may be missing a much larger potential audience.

The goal of advertising should always be one of two things and in most cases both; it should be to increase sales AND build brand awareness. But all too often we get hung up on targeting very specific demographics when creating our media plans.

For example, it might not seem only reasonable for a baby-products retailer to target “women 18-49 with infants”. But according to the market research firm Scarborough, nearly half of those who bought infant clothing, 47%, were from households without children.

When it comes to grocery shopping, whom should you target, men or women?

The assumption is women do most of the grocery shopping. But do they? The answer is yes… and no! Statista research from 2020 will tell you that the primary shopper in the average household is 65% women and 35% men. However, in households where the grocery shopping duties are shared, men do 59% of the shopping compared to only 41% of the females. Furthermore, 70% of all secondary shopping is done by men.

Scarborough Research also found that nearly a quarter (23.5%) of all women’s cosmetics and perfumes were bought by men.

In his Twelve Causes of Advertising Failure, Roy Williams wrote. “The importance of qualitative data has been grossly overestimated by many advertisers and media professionals. In reality, saying the wrong thing has killed far more ad campaigns than reaching the wrong people. It is amazing how many people become ‘the right people’ when you are saying the right thing.”

Thinking beyond the traditional demographics your competitors are ‘targeting’ with their advertising can help you reach untapped markets to increase your sales.

Click here to read how to reach and influence “purchasers” rather than “demographics”.

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Caring About Your Customers

by Scott Howard | Feb 10, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

If you want to earn a consumers business this year, you have to appeal to what matters most to them.

That statement is true if you are selling Land Rovers or if you are running a dollar store.

It’s also been a truth that has been around forever, but now I have a fresh set of data to help you navigate 2021.

It comes from a survey just released last month on MarketingCharts.com.

Do you know what tops the list?

Convenience and Safety. I’m willing to bet that before our pandemic, those two items wouldn’t be linked together and be a the top of the list. Sure, we’ve been steadily looking for ways to make our lives easier forever, so convenience would be pretty high on the list anytime, but coupled with the repeated and continuous warnings about our health and safety due to the virus, this is a new category of consideration that we need to keep in mind for many more months to come.

The idea of getting your groceries delivered to your doorstep was an option very few people were willing to spend the money on. Even curbside pickup was a concept that was still in its infancy a year ago for grocery shopping.

Sure we’ve been having pizza’s delivered to our door for decades. That concept was expanded awhile ago locally by a company called Waiter on the Way that would take your order over the phone from dozens of restaurants and deliver to you for a small charge. Of course this concept has since expanded with national companies now providing this service.

Ordering online with delivery of nearly anything has become the mainstay of Amazon’s retail operations for years. As consumers we knew that we could order online and buy stuff that would be delivered to our homes, or our cars, but the pandemic created the increased need perceived by consumers who were previously not even considering these conveniences, but now do it for safety’s sake.

My question to you, is what have you done this past year and what will you be doing in the months and years ahead to adapt to this trend?

Also on the list is the word Empathy. How do consumers feel about your company and the way you care about them? How do you manage this internally and externally? If you have a customer that leaves a less than 5 star review online, how do you respond? Are your marketing and branding messages conveying empathy and do you live up to those expectations? Time to clean this area of your business up because this relates to another item on the list.

Losing loyal customers. With all the changes in buying habits and the disruptions caused by the pandemic, this has also accelerated in the past year and will continue in 2021.

Two more items on the list go hand in hand.

The acceleration of e-commerce and providing the best customer experience. The best way for a local company to compete with an online, out of town company is the customer experience angle. We want to shop local, make it easy for us to do that because there is an alternative. Better yet, have you added an e-commerce option for you local customers?

Looking for ideas on how to implement some of these ideas and concepts? Contact me and we can explore some options. Send an email to Scott@WOWO.com .

Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising (Part 3)

by Scott Howard | Nov 24, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, wowo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

As we move toward a new year, many business owners are attempting to figure out the best bang for their buck when it comes to marketing and advertising.

If you are in the Northeast Indiana region, specifically Fort Wayne, Indiana and nearby communities and you want to invite adults age 25 and older to buy from you, become your patient, or client, I urge you to contact me and my team at WOWO radio.

Marketing Charts dot com released a couple of articles that I’m going to use in the 3rd installment of my series this year of Why WOWO Radio is the Best Choice for Advertising.

About half of US adults say they trust the information they receive from reviews of products or services from other users or customers.

Also in this study, less than 25% of us, trust TV advertising.

One big trend that companies have been relying on is using Influencers on Social Media who have thousands of followers to convince their followers to buy the products they pitch online. According to the study that marketing tactic only works on about 15% of us and nearly half of us distrust these so-called influencers.

Follow along with me as I relate this information to the capabilities of WOWO radio.

Besides WOWO having the largest weekly audience of adults, our news and talk format means our listeners are actively listening to the words our radio personalities are saying, compared to a music station that has passive listenership because music is often used as background music.

At WOWO, our morning news host Kayla and afternoon talk host Pat have the ability to connect with their audiences much more deeply than any other form of media as they share not just the latest news but also their personal lives too.

They have built a trust relationship with their listeners.

Imagine if that trust relationship could be transferred to your business. That would be incredible. Pat and Kayla and the other WOWO radio personalities become friends with their listeners and in the same manner that you trust your friends to make recommendations, WOWO’s listeners trust them too. I call it Word of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth,

Yes, many of the businesses that use WOWO also use Kayla or Pat testimonial endorsement ads and are seeing the benefits.

Now there was another article that confirmed the power of a host doing a live ad.

Host-read ads were also found to outperform non-host-read ads on several key marketing metrics. Most notably, they were found to produce some 60% higher intent to seek information, a 50% higher intent to purchase, and 50% higher recommendation intent. Additionally, host-read ads produced 67% higher affinity and 33% higher familiarity than non-host-read.

The data I just shared pertains to podcasts, but it is both reasonable and acceptable to apply this to WOWO.

Not every business qualifies for a testimonial endorsement from Pat or Kayla on WOWO. When you contract with WOWO for this type of ad, you are category exclusive. Ask me or my team for details on this. We actually have a waiting list for some categories.

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