Top 10 Holiday Shopping Days of 2023

Top 10 Holiday Shopping Days of 2023

If the experts are correct, retailers should get set for a very Merry 2023 shopping season.

According to the 2023 Deloitte holiday survey, the holiday spirit and spending will rebound and consumers expect to spend $1,652, surpassing pre-pandemic levels for the first time. As givers grapple with inflation expectations, they still plan to spend nearly 14% more than last year.

Are you ready for the rush?

While some gifts have already been purchased and wrapped, on average, the top 10 busiest shopping days in the U.S. account for approximately 40% of all holiday retail traffic.

Businesses that are well-planned and run well-executed events and promotions during and around these ten days will help garner more than their fair share of the holiday shopping pie. Knowing when the shoppers are ready to shop and being prepared for them is paramount to getting that fair share.

Stores that plan in-store special events and then promote them will see more significant store traffic and greater sales than those that simply sit back and “hope” people stop in. Inviting holiday shoppers into the store at key buying times can and will make all the difference.

The busiest shopping days will see some slight changes in 2023, due to Christmas falling on a Monday. With that said,  2 of the top 10 have already passed as Black Friday will hold its title as the busiest shopping day.

Are you ready?

According to an analysis from the retail traffic consulting and analytics group of Sensormatic Solutions, a Johnson Controls company, here are what are expected to be the 10 busiest shopping days of 2023:

1. Friday, Nov. 24 – Black Friday

2. Saturday, Dec. 23 – Super Saturday

3. Saturday, Dec. 16 – Third Saturday in December

4. Friday, Dec. 22 – Friday before Christmas

5. Saturday, Nov. 25 – Saturday after Black Friday

6. Tuesday, Dec. 26 – Boxing Day

7. Saturday, Dec. 9 – Second Saturday in December

8. Saturday, Dec. 2 – First Saturday in December

9. Saturday, Dec. 30 – Saturday after Christmas

10. Sunday, Dec. 17 – Sunday before Christmas Eve

While this article focuses on retail, there is major money being spent in and around the holiday season in many other business categories. For example, life insurance and investments, HVAC, and many end-of-year health care procedures are being completed.  The age-old saying, “making hay while the sun shines” is appropriate in these and other categories as well.

Most, but not all of the companies I work with are not dependent on the end of year sales that most retailers count on.  We build long term, year round marketing campaigns however we will also kick it into high gear when there is a reason like the holidays we are in right now.

If you would like help in planning any of your marketing and/or advertising events for this holiday season, it’s not too late. Or if you want to start planning for 2024, this is the time. Contact me Scott @ ScLoHo.net.

Readers of my Sound ADvice weekly newsletter got that list a few weeks ago and I’ve been working with them to make sure we have everything in place.  If you would like my free Sound ADvice newsletter too, send an email to Scott@ScLoHo.net.

 

Digital Discrepancies

Digital Discrepancies

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.

 

Duty Calls

Duty Calls

When you are good at something and recognized as being good at it, but you’ve stepped away from it and now the challenge to return to it comes up, what’s your response?

That’s the position I found myself in earlier this month and it’s a position that I’ve been in before.

For nearly 10 years, I’ve worked for Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  I began as the 5th person on a 5 person sales team for radio station WOWO.

That was going to be my final job, however at the tail end of 2019, our company underwent some changes in upper management and my boss, Ben Saurer who had served as the General Sales Manager for WOWO radio was promoted to Vice President/General Manager of all of the Fort Wayne Federated Media radio stations.  This created a very important opening, actually a couple of openings that needed to be filled as Ben had been the General Sales Manager for both of our talk radio stations; News Talk WOWO & Sports Talk WKJG AND he was filling in as the General Sales Manager for WBYR, our rock station.

Even though I didn’t have ambitions to return to a management role, after careful consideration, prayer and encouragement from my sales teammates, I applied.  After a nationwide search was conducted, Ben offered me the position which I accepted to lead WOWO.

WOWO has been the “big dog”.  We brought in more revenue than any of the dozen stations in our company and we knew that we were also the leader of all the 25 or so local radio stations.

Honestly, as I was interviewing with Ben for his old job, I told him it was going to be a tough decision for him to make.

See in 2019, I lead not just the WOWO Sales Team of 5, but I was selected as the Account Manager of the year for the entire company.  1 out of 40 or so sales people.  Not bad for starting out at zero when 2014 began.

The decision Ben had to make was to take his top salesperson out of sales and put me in management, or keep me where I was.

The skill sets are similar but the application is very different between sales person and sales manager.  If you are considering a sales management role, or are in that position right now, I recommend you buy a copy of my friend Mike Weinberg’s new book The First Time Manager: Sales.  I was on his launch team and got a preview copy and it’s excellent. I bought a copy too which I am giving to Ben.

So Ben makes the tough decision and I took over as the General Sales Manager 1 month before the pandemic shut down our country in early 2020.  We are working remotely for 3 months and scrambling to figure out what adjustments to make because it wasn’t what they originally promised… a two week shut-down to flatten the curve.

Low and behold, when 2020 was over, WOWO and our other stations survived, better than had been expected. As I continued my position as the General Sales Manager of WOWO in 2021 and 2022 we faced what a lot of companies faced.  Shortages, but ours was the people kind.

About a year ago, one of our other sales managers moved to a sales person position because their talents were better than any of the candidates we’d been interviewing.

That manager was overseeing three stations and about a month after they joined my WOWO Sales Team, I took over as the interim General Sales Manager for those stations too in addition to WOWO.

This summer I went on a hiring spree to add two more salespeople to the stations I was temporarily overseeing.  Last month and this month those two salespeople began and will be selling for our rock station.

In the meantime, we also hired a new General Sales Manager for those stations I was overseeing for the past year and he begins in October.  He’ll do fine, he spent most of his 25+ years working in management and with Federated Media.

Another change, and this is the reason for the title of this today, Duty Calls, I am switching gears and returning as a Senior Sales Person for WOWO.  Try as we might, we have been challenged with having a full team of sales people on WOWO the past 18 months and it’s time for me to step in and fill that role again.  As far as I know, Ben is going to be doing both jobs of V-P/General Manager for Federated Media Fort Wayne; AND overseeing the WOWO sales team.

As Duty Calls me to help in a sales role again, I look forward to helping more businesses invite our listeners to become their customers and you’re likely to see me out of the office a lot more than I’ve been since 2020 and I look forward to it.

No longer will I refer you to someone else on the WOWO sales team, I’ll get to work with you personally just like before.

The Long Game

The Long Game

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.

Bigger and Better WOWO

Bigger and Better WOWO

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.