Overcoming Ad Blockers

by Scott Howard | Mar 15, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Most consumers would agree that ad blocking devices on digital and social media is one of the greatest inventions of all time. As technology advances, it’s gone from the digital world of advertising to the traditional media, specifically TV. You can now, with the touch of a button, roll through ads without ever seeing them.

But if we’re honest, ad blocking is nothing new. The human mind learned how to block out and avoid annoying ads in all media way before the internet came along.

Marketing experts have professed for years that there are no media that do not produce results; there are only messages that do not produce results. They have also known that people don’t dislike ads; they dislike bad ads.

When you’re creating your next message, whether it’s for online or on-air, ask yourself what’s in it for your prospects to listen to (or view) this ad? Is there any information or entertainment value for the listener?

Advertising guru Roy Williams, also known as the Wizard of Ads, is often quoted as saying, “For some insane reason, advertisers want their ads to look and sound like ads.”

Understanding that NO ONE consumes any media to see or hear ads is key to creating more effective ads.

A study by Nielsen and Nielsen Catalina Solutions indicates that 49% of a brand’s sales lift from advertising is due to the creative, which refers primarily to the quality and the messaging, A better message will garner a better response every time.

Click here for a list of tactics you can employ to make your ads more relevant and make your prospects more receptive to your message.

Apples, Oranges and Gasoline

by Scott Howard | Mar 8, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights

The main point I’m about to share with you is that not all advertising is the same and that’s good.

Also you need to understand the differences before you say yes to spending anything.

Apple, Oranges, and Gasoline.

At first glance the first two, Apples and Oranges have nothing in common with Gasoline.

However consider this:

Apples, Oranges and Gasoline are all fuels.

Yes, Gasoline is the most obvious fuel because that is what we pump into our cars, but Apples and Oranges are fuel for our bodies. It is because our forefathers were able to fuel their bodies with food including fruit like Apples and Oranges that the science and technology was invented and created to produce Gasoline.

And now, Gasoline, and other petroleum based fuels are needed to transport the Apples and Oranges from their trees to our homes.

I bet you never thought about Apples, Oranges and Gasoline like this before.

Perhaps you are also wondering what Apples, Oranges and Gasoline have to do with advertising and marketing.

I just used them to create a word picture or two as we dig deeper.

Let’s pretend Apples and Oranges are two different radio stations with different formats. The Apple station plays Country Music and the Orange station features News and Talk as their format.

The expectation of what you’re going to get when you bite into an apple is very different than a bite of orange. One isn’t better than the other, they are just different. Some people prefer one over the other and it may also depend on the person’s mood or time of day.

Same applies to radio stations. I know some people who only listen to News and Talk radio during the week, but on the weekend, they crank up the music of their favorite station.

Just like their are differences in the chemical and nutritional composition of Apples and Oranges, there are also distinct differences between music based radio stations and news talk radio stations that you should know about before you purchase radio or any broadcast advertising. It’s not just as simple as picking your favorite fruit.

What about that Gasoline? In our story today, let’s equate Gasoline with Social Media.

Both Gasoline and Social Media can be very beneficial. They can both be very dangerous. The properties of Gasoline that powers our cars are the same properties that can be explosively dangerous.

Same with Social Media. With the growth of platforms like Facebook, I’ve connected with dozens of people from my past along with made hundreds of new connections. That’s the good side. Social Media sites like Facebook have also fueled some terrible things and created divisions and ignited countless negative things too numerous to mention today.

Apples, Oranges and Gasoline can work together for good. I’ve seen Social Media work in sync with News Talk and Music radio stations too.

My challenge to you as a business owner is what I said at the beginning, that not all advertising is the same so please work with someone that understands how to use each and how not to use each.

It’s more than the cost, it’s the purpose of what you want to accomplish.

I just looked up the cost of a gallon of Apple Juice, gallon of Orange Juice and a gallon of Gasoline and while Gas is still the cheapest of the three, you wouldn’t drink a glass of gasoline as a substitute for your morning O.J. right?

Need some guidance figuring all this out for your business? Contact me.

Happiness is an Inside Job

by Scott Howard | Mar 2, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Let’s be honest, compared to years gone by and even before COVID, fewer employees bring their smiles to work on a regular basis. Depending upon which source you want to believe, 50-70% of the American workforce is disengaged and/or unhappy.

There was a time when being positive, upbeat, and happy was a given. As an employer, offering them a job was enough. In today’s “me” world, it’s not enough! The challenging question is… is it worth the price and effort to intentionally create a happy work environment.

Here are some fascinating, yet not surprising, facts that prove having happy employees will reap great rewards. Companies with happy employees…

Have 50% fewer workplace accidents
Happy employees have 37% less absenteeism
Companies with happy employees outperform their competition by 21%
69% of employees said they would work harder if they were better appreciated
Employees who like their job are 10 times more likely to deliver good service

The statistics of happy vs unhappy employees are startling.

As owners and managers, it’s easy to zero in on those things that employees do wrong, and we take for granted the things they do right.

Psychologists will tell you, “Behaviors that get rewarded get repeated”. If you want your staff to exhibit more customer-friendly behaviors, you need to recognize those behaviors.

If you aren’t intentionally creating a work environment that breeds happy employees, start doing so today.

When it comes to creating a culture of happiness, start at the beginning. Tip #1 in the Twelve Ways to Create Happy Employees is “Hire Based on Attitude, Effort, and Honesty”. Attitude will win over skill nearly every time. Skills can be taught; attitudes are hard to change. Effort nearly always follows attitude one way or the other, and you can never go wrong with hiring based on honesty.

The rewards of happy employees will pay huge dividends!

To improve morale and productivity in your company, click here and read the Twelve Ways to Create Happy Employees.

Advertising Extra’s

by Scott Howard | Feb 22, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights

Regardless of the advertising vehicle you choose to use, you have a preconceived expectation about what your investment should yield. You refer to it as ROI, Return on Investment.

When you invest money in advertising, depending upon what you are trying to accomplish, the results may vary. If you are running a special event, you should expect that your advertising will drive potential customers towards your products or service immediately. If you are running a Branding Campaign, the results are spread out over time and you may not see or feel the immediate impact.

However, businesses that advertise, especially on traditional intrusive media like TV, radio, and billboards will have a unique and distinct advantage over businesses that do not advertise, and it has nothing to do with customers calling or coming through your doors. There are “Hidden Benefits” to advertising that are rarely taken into consideration when calculating your ROI.

Hidden Benefit #1 is Improved Closing Ratio. It’s much easier for your salespeople to sell a product that has created a pre-need awareness and preference. If you were selling vacuum cleaners door to door or even online, would you rather try to sell a well-known brand like Hoover or a brand that no one has ever heard of?

Hidden Benefit #7 is Recruit Higher Quality People. The best quality people prefer and aspire to work for a business that they have heard of and trust and has created a well-known name through advertising.

Smart business owners understand the hidden benefits of advertising. This, along with knowing your non-advertising competitors don’t have this advantage, can set you well on your way to owning your category.

If you would like to see all 9 Hidden Benefits of Traditional Media, click here.

And contact me directly if you need more customers or to hire more people.

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.