Are You Living In The Past?

Are You Living In The Past?

by | Feb 8, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

There is an old perception among TV people that “everyone watches the Olympics”. Because of this, the old broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox usually air reruns of regular shows instead of new episodes. (NBC is the official network this year).

However there are millions of people who are not going to watch because they either have no interest, or time to watch. Our TV viewing habits from 40 years ago simply are not applicable in 2022.

Live TV viewership is a fraction of what it was. Screentime has increased when you count our phones, laptops and tablets but what we watch and how we watch is radically different.

In the middle of the 2022 Olympics we have the Superbowl. This one live sports event is guaranteed to have more viewers than any single event of the Olympics.

My take away for all this is to question things you are doing that may be outdated but you keep doing them anyway.

And since I write about media and marketing, this caught my attention because the couple of TV programs my wife and I like to watch are in their winter hiatus and it’s going to be a few more weeks before they present new episodes.

No, I’m not going to switch from watching NCIS to Figure Skating this month.  I’ll find something else to do with that hour of my life. Much of the media I consume is by appointment. Not all, but nearly most of it when it comes to TV.

What is “by appointment”?  It’s the ability to watch what I want when I want.  The emphasis is on the when.  As a baby boomer who grew up without this option, I really like it now.  In our house we cut the cord a few years ago an instead use streaming services.

Amazon Prime I’ve had for years originally for the free shipping since we have many family members out of town, but we also use the video platform to watch stuff, “by appointment”.  YouTubeTV is our main replacement for Xfinity and we have a choice to watch something live or recorded.  The shows my wife and I used to watch live, like NCIS, we now watch on the weekend, at a time that works for us “by appointment”.  Because of this, we don’t get any local TV commercials.  If your business is trying to reach me by spending money with the local TV stations, it isn’t working.

My screen time is further divided up between other streaming services including Hulu, Netflix, HBO+, Paramount and Peacock.  No, I don’t watch all of these, but they are coming into my house and maybe my wife has a show that she watches on these streaming services.  The point is, you need to reconsider where you place your advertising and see if the expectations and results that you had in the past are even achievable today.

I’m not just picking on TV by the way.  Printed media has undergone tremendous changes too. Newspapers, magazines and remember the phone book?  Are you still paying for ads in any of these because it’s been traditional and you want to do what Dad and Grandpa did to build the business?

I must caution you however,  there are some value to nearly any kind of marketing you do, but you have to understand the return on investment principles and other factors and not just continue because the advertising salesperson had a slick sales pitch.  I’ll be talking more about some of the specifics in the weeks ahead, and if you want my help now, reach out to me.

 

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast

by | Feb 1, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

This year marks the completion of 5 years of creating, hosting, recording and producing a weekly podcast and it seems like an appropriate time to introduce myself or reintroduce if we’ve been friends for awhile.  By the way, don’t worry when I say completion, I decided to use that word and not conclusion.  I’m not planning on stopping my weekly articles and podcast episodes, it’s just that we are entering year number 6 of the podcast.

First off, my background.  I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and as a kid dreamed of doing all kinds of professions.  Astronaut and race car driver, gave way to television production by the time I was in middle school and then high school set the stage for radio.  When I was growing up, I listened to Bob Sievers in the morning on WOWO Radio to see if we had school delays.  Back in the 70’s over 70% of people in Northeast Indiana listened to WOWO in the morning.  Some to hear about the weather and school closings, others for farm news delivered by Bob and farm director Jay Gould on the Little Red Barn radio show on WOWO.  I also listened to Chris Roberts in the afternoon after school and Ron Gregory at night on WOWO as a young teenager and that was what planted the seed to be a radio personality.

WMEE was another Fort Wayne radio station that was influential as they played the Top 40 hits of the day.  WMEE was AM radio station at 1380 in the 70’s and WOWO was also on AM at 1190.  At the end of the 70’s WMEE moved to 97.3 FM where they have been ever since.

My high school, Concordia started an FM station when I was there and that was my first on-air experience.  After graduating I began a full time on-air career at WBAT in Marion, Indiana, followed by WIOU in Kokomo and then I ended up on WMEE for 3 years.  I returned to Kokomo, Indiana for about 3 years on the air and as Program Director at WZWZ until the station was sold.  I worked briefly on the air at WXIR in Indianapolis before moving my family to Detroit and WMUZ where I first ventured into the advertising and marketing side of the business.

I did some additional on-air work both part-time and full time at stations WMUZ, WBTU, WGL, WFWI and WAJI. In 2003 I entered the ad world in Fort Wayne, working for a group of 6 radio stations for more than 8 years and it was during that time I began blogging using the online name ScLoHo.

ScLoHo is a mashup of my first, middle and last names. Take the first two letters on Scott Louis Howard and it spells ScLoHo.  Many people have attempted to pronounce it without success.  Often they leave out some letters or add extra letters.  Not even Alexa knows how to pronounce ScLoHo.  

I had multiple ScLoHo blogs on the Google Blogger platform and my friend Kevin challenged me to create an online reputation under my birth name of Scott Howard so in 2011, when I was working fulltime in the webworld, I launched the first version of the Scott Howard dot me website using over 10,000 articles I had already published as the foundation.

Ever since around 2004 or 2005, I have published a minimum of one new article per week.  I used to do it daily and multiple times per day, that is how I ended up with over 10,000 articles in just 6 years.

15,000 articles and counting was what I was continuing to work on when I was approached in 2016 with a request to do a podcast.

More on the podcast in a moment, but first back to me and radio.  In 2013,  I was hired to join WOWO radio, not on the air, but as one of the Local Advertising Sales People.  Official job title was Account Executive and I added Marketing Consultant too it because that was what I did besides selling advertising schedules.  By 2019,  I grew to be the top local advertising account executive not just at WOWO but in our entire company at Federated Media which included a dozen radio stations and nearly 40 A.E.’s.

At the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, before the pandemic hit, Federated Media had a couple of management changes.  My boss, Ben took over as the Federated Media Fort Wayne Vice-President and General Manager and I became to General Sales Manager for WOWO.  These were not “automatic” promotions due to longevity.  Both Ben and myself were promoted from within after our company conducted extensive nation wide searches to find the best leaders for management. Both Ben and myself are now in our 3rd year in our current positions with Federated Media.

Let’s go back to 2016.  Ben and another manager, Suzee were given the task of starting an advertising oriented podcast for Federated Media.  Podcasts were still an early adopter thing 6 years ago and Federated Media wanted to get in on the ground floor.

Ben and Suzee, were aware of my weekly articles I was writing about advertising and marketing on my website at Scott Howard dot me and they might have been aware that I had experience talking behind a microphone too, so they approached me to consider being the one to launch this podcast.  After a little bit of thought, prayer and negotiation, I said yes and by March of 2017 The Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast was launched as a weekly audio version of the articles I was writing and publishing.

While the written form of this is article 15,000 and something.  This is also episode 250 of the podcast.

Who chose the name of the podcast and why?  I did.  Because of my online identity as ScLoHo and the subject matter dealing with media and marketing, that’s why those words were selected.

Why is it the “Genuine” ScLoHo podcast?  As a way to clearly claim my work.  Several years ago when I was just publishing online under ScLoHo, I discovered someone was stealing my articles and republishing them on another website site without my permission.  I also voice my own podcast and identify myself as Scott Howard in each podcast episode. 

One change was made a few years ago with the advent of smart speakers.  I discovered that Alexa doesn’t know how to pronounce ScLoHo so I amended the name to Scott Howard’s Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast.  Now if you ask Alexa to play the Scott Howard Genuine Podcast, she usually knows where to find it.

Unlike the audio version of this article, nearly every weekly episode is less than 10 minutes.  Just long enough to give you an update without eating up too much of your time.

As we move forward this year, I’m going to revisit and update some of the topics I have covered in the past along with keeping you current on the latest trends and thinking to help you with your advertising and marketing as you run your businesses.

There are some Timeless Human Relationship Principles that should be applied to your marketing and advertising and that is where we will start again in some upcoming articles and episodes. 

Wanted: Unhappy Customers

Wanted: Unhappy Customers

by | Jan 25, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Who in their right mind would ever “want” unhappy customers? The truth is…no one. But an ever-bigger truth is… if you run a business that deals with customers, you will have unhappy customers. 

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” –Bill Gates

The key is, how do you deal with unhappy customers?

When it comes to handling problems or unhappy customers, using this philosophy can help you look at the situation in a better light: “It’s never a problem. It’s an opportunity to create a solution to a certain situation”.

Handling customer complaints IS an opportunity to turn an unhappy customer into one of your biggest fans!  A study done by Ford Motor Company revealed that an unhappy customer who is turned into a happy customer is twenty times more loyal than a customer who has never been unhappy.

In the pre-digital world, studies proved that an unhappy customer would tell at least twelve other people about their poor or unpleasant experience, and a happy customer would tell one or two. In today’s digital world this quote is apropos, “A happy customer tells a friend; an unhappy customer tells the world.” 

Ask yourself this:

• Is your staff trained and empowered to turn unhappy customers into happy customers? 

• Do you regularly survey your customer satisfaction levels intending to improve the customer experience at your business?

One of the most important things a business owner can do to achieve high customer satisfaction is to look for and talk to the unhappy customers. Whenever possible, even if it costs you some money and pride, make it right. It will prove to be a good ROI!

We know you will get a higher return on every customer our advertising generates if you can keep them happy spreading word of mouth and keep them coming back for more.

To receive a copy of the Eleven Commandments of Customer Satisfaction, click here. 

The reality of this that I’ve seen over and over again as a customer and as a business person is that when things are always going “just fine”, the customer’s emotional connection with the business is often neutral.  However those emotions flare when something goes wrong.  When  customer emotions are highly negative, you can flip it around and create a raving fan and turn those into highly positive emotions about you and your business.

Brick & Mortar vs E-Commerce

Brick & Mortar vs E-Commerce

by | Jan 18, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, Sound ADvice

“Extra – Extra, Read All About It!!! Brick-and-Mortar stores are dead! E-commerce is the way everyone will shop in the future. Extra – Extra, Read All About It!!!”

If you read the retail industry trades or e-commerce newsletters and blogs at all, that chant has been thrown around for the past decade and the COVID era has made it even louder!

But is it true? To paraphrase Mark Twain, “Rumors of the death of brick-and-mortar retail are greatly exaggerated”

Although e-commerce shopping continues to grow rapidly, brick-and-mortar stores are still holding up well versus online retail sites, as many people still prefer the in-store shopping experience where they can see and try out products before committing to a purchase.

Here are some facts:

In 2020, e-commerce made up 14% of all retail sales.

Brick-and-mortar makes up the other 86%.

Total e-commerce sales in the US in 2020:  $759.47 Billion

Total Brink-and-Mortar retail sales in the US in 2020: $5.6 Trillion (that’s Trillion as in 12-zeros, 000,000,000,000).  Source: Forbes.com

Further proof that brick-and-mortar is here to stay is that Amazon has announced it is opening brick-and-mortar stores. These large department-like stores will be roughly 30,000 sq ft.

It’s not Amazon’s first venture into retail. Amazon, which dominates the online shopping space, made its biggest bet in brick-and-mortar with the acquisition of upscale grocer, Whole Foods, in 2017.

What does this all mean? There is good news and bad news. The good news is.. despite what the e-commerce trade magazines would like you to believe, brick-and-mortar is going to be around for a while. The bad news is.. competition is going to get even tougher for existing retail businesses. Amazon is no slouch!

While there is no denying that e-commerce is and will continue to grow, there will always be local brick-and-mortar retail stores lining our main streets. However, as competition continues to increase from all fronts, the key to survival and continued growth will be your ability to evolve!

In the Six Ways to Compete with E-commerce, tip #2 is: Offer Online Services. They say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. The six most popular reasons consumers shop via e-commerce are lower pricing, free delivery, wider selections/variety of options, comparison shopping, no sales pressure, and convenience. With the exception of Amazon, most products found on e-commerce sights are not less expensive. It’s simple, the “convenience” of shopping online is having products delivered to your door. Keep in mind, the word FREE is key in delivery. Companies that offer free delivery (Amazon Prime) tend to be much more popular than those that add a fee.  

If free delivery is not an option, BOPUS (Buy Online Pick Up at Store) may be a viable option. 

The game’s not over and if you are keeping score, as of the end of third quarter 2021 (latest statistic via Statista Dec 3rd, 2021), the score is brick-and-mortar 87% vs e-commerce 13%. Yes, e-commerce grew from 13.5% in 2020 to 13.8% in the second quarter of 2021, but then fell slightly to 13% in the third quarter of 2021.  

The more the world changes, the more consumers demand. To stay ahead of the ever-changing competition, as business owners we need to continue to evolve. To see Six Ways to Complete with E-commerce,  click here.

Note: The statistics provide are from sites via the internet and are from non-e-commerce companies. If you visit enough e-commerce sites, you will find conflicting data which provides more favorable results for their subscribers.

I have one more important fact for you to consider and that is the reliability factor of measuring your advertising R.O.I. attribution. 

Those in the web world like to push the falsehood that online is 100% trackable.  Having spent significant time working in the e-commerce world, I understand what they are saying, because it is common practice to put tracking codes on the links that we see in email or online.  But there are other significant factors that influenced us to click on those links such as brand awareness, reputation, word of mouth and other things that aren’t trackable.  If anyone tells you that digital marketing is better than other forms for those reasons, please be skeptical and you can even reach out to me for an unbiased but informed opinion and insight. 

Adjusting To New Realities In The Workforce

Adjusting To New Realities In The Workforce

by | Jan 11, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights

The saying that we are in a new reality was one that many of us didn’t want to hear last year.

But it’s true and the quicker we see what is happening, the sooner we can adjust.

At the end of the year, I read the Monday Morning Memo from Roy H. Williams that talked about 3 realities we are facing today:

  1. Inflation
  2. Covid
  3. Employee Shortages

I’m not an expert on any of these, but I deal with them just like you do.

The first two are out of our individual hands, we are powerless as individuals to solve the increase in prices of goods and services because many of us we are needing to also raise the prices to pass along the costs that inflation has had on our goods and services.  Covid, well that has turned into a political football that I’m not about to address, and like you, we have limited power to fix.

What Roy mentioned in his Monday Morning Memo was a concept that I’m going to pass along to you to solve the Employee Shortage reality of 2022.

The staffing shortage was entirely predictable.  In the United States of America, the birthrate has been declining for decades.

“For years many demographers have been warning of a permanent worker shortage in the coming decades. It may just be that the pandemic brought the shortage earlier.”

“An important concept in demographics is the ‘replacement birth rate’. This is the birth rate needed to replace deaths and keep the population unchanged. If the actual birth rate is higher than the replacement rate, then the population increases. Demographers estimate the replacement birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. If the birth rate is lower than this replacement rate, then the population decreases. In the case of the latter, a declining population will eventually result in a declining labor force.”

“Statistics show the US birth rate has been steadily declining and is below the replacement rate. The latest birth rate for 2020 is 1.6, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. This means that, based on domestic births alone, the nation’s population would be declining. So far, immigration has prevented this, but there’s no assurance this will continue in the future…”

The specific idea that Roy Williams shares is for a company to offer free private daycare to employees on-site (or close to) the companies location where parents can drop off their young ones with the assurance that they will be taken care of while Mom and Dad are taking care of business.

That idea might actually work for some companies, but it’s not a universal solution right now.

So what is a universal solution?

I have a two part answer:

1st off, you need to become a company that people want to work for. In the past few years, the company I am with has undergone a specific plan to access our company culture and then improve it.  The ideas come from those who are already here.  We looked at those ideas, and found a few that could be implemented and then measured again and asked again.  It’s an ongoing process at Federated Media.

We realize that not everyone who works for us is going to stay forever. Many will leave for many different reasons, but what we want to do is keep the best and hire others that will contribute both to our mission and also our company culture. As a result, I have coworkers who have been here for years, even decades, not because they have to work here, but because they want to.

Personally the real reason I left most of the jobs I had were due to something in the culture.  The real people problem was not that we couldn’t hire enough, but we hired the wrong people at other places I worked. The answer to this for you and your company is to take that same evaluation and find out why people work for you and what can make it even better.  That is what you need to promote in your recruitment messages and ads.

Here’s the 2nd part of my solution to the labor shortage: Change the number of employees you need to run your business.

The reality is there are less people available to be hired as I mentioned at the beginning and so your business model needs to change.

Business models have been evolving and the side effects of the pandemic shut-down just accelerated some of what was going on already.  Several fast food restaurants closed their dining rooms and some are not planning on opening them up.  Instead they have become drive-thru only establishments.  I’ve seen this in my area for nearly two decades as multiple Pizza Huts created this style of restaurant. I’m sure there are others in your area that are undergoing a similar transformation.  Plus ordering online has really taken off.  Last year I went inside to place an order for chicken and was told that I had to either use the app or drive thru.

Grocery stores and other retailers are relying on self serve check out lanes more than ever.  Now instead of a cashier ringing up one customer at a time, it’s common to see one employee overseeing 6 to 10 self serve checkouts.

I’ve got a third bonus tip for you that I almost forgot because I’ve been doing it for so long and our company has been doing it even longer, at least in the Fort Wayne division of Federated Media.  Flexible work life is what we call it, but here’s how it really works…

The advertising salespeople do not have a dedicated workspace at our office.  Instead, there are a couple of hours each week that they come to the office for meetings with their manager.  Where are they the rest of the time?  Working from home, client meetings, working from their favorite internet cafe a.k.a. coffee shop, who knows?  They might be running their kid to the dentist during the middle of the day, or grabbing lunch with a friend.

This sounds like the Covid inspired Work From Home business model, but we’ve been doing it this way for many, many years.  As a General Sales Manager, I have my own office at our Fort Wayne office that I work from nearly every day.  But those on my sales team are given the freedom to do what works best for them.  We have particular items that need done daily, weekly or monthly but the ultimate measure of their success is the revenue they are responsible for with their individual budgets.  Their success is not measured with punches on a time clock.

Yes we have guidelines and Key Performance Indicators that when followed will create individual successes, but reporting to the office just because it’s always been that way, 5 days a week… We abandoned that years ago to focus on productivity.  In other departments, there are similar flexible work arrangements too.  This has become an important part of our culture.

By the way, I am always looking for qualified candidates to join my advertising sales team at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  We just hired a new team member and I have at least one more opening to fill.  However, I’m going to keep that position open until I find the person that fits us best.  Perhaps that is something you should do with your company too, be picky with who you hire to protect the culture you have in place.

And one last note, if you would like to learn more about the opening I have, here’s a link to the job posting. https://www.wowo.com/wanted-sales-hunter/