Media or the Message

Media or the Message

by | Jul 14, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

In the never-ending maze of online media, on-air media, outdoor media, direct mail, and print media, business owners often ask, “Which media work best?” or, “Which media platforms will give me the highest return on my investment?”

If you ask an honest and knowledgeable media person, they will tell you that the media isn’t necessarily the most important criteria when it comes to effective marketing. The truth is, there are no media that will not produce results, there are only messages that do not produce results.

The next time you hear about a hugely successful ad campaign, look at the message. I can guarantee you it was profound and something other than the norm.  Seldom will it be the media, but rather the message, that created the results. Of course, the media must be scheduled appropriately, with the right combination of reach and frequency, but it is the relevance of the message that will make consumers respond to a campaign… on any media.

Former Katz Marketing Solutions President and one of America’s smartest marketing minds, Bob McCurdy says, “No medium is any more captivating or engaging than any other, as the effectiveness of any medium is largely determined by the quality of its commercial content. If the creative is weak and ineffective, the medium will be thought of as weak and ineffective”.

It’s understood that generating great creative is an art form but there’s some science behind it as well. McCurdy created 14 key creative insights derived from five years of Ipsos Research, spanning dozens of radio commercials and thousands of respondents.

Click here to receive McCurdy’s 14 Key Creative Insights to ensure that your marketing message achieves the results you desire.
 
What I just shared with you is from the Sound ADvice newsletter that I send out nearly every week, you can get it delivered free to your inbox by signing up in the box below.
 
I actually disagree with a couple of items that  Bob McCurdy says, but that’s only because of the experiences that I’ve witnessed with advertising partners on my radio station WOWO, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
 
Some forms of media can be superior to others and can overcome a mediocre message.  Yes, I’m referring to WOWO with our news talk format, having local hosts and nearly a century on the air, WOWO has undergone tremendous changes over the decades but currently has the largest audience, by far of all 30 + radio stations according to the rating data I get each month.  More important than those facts are the benefits I see every month of our listeners becoming customers of our advertising partners and the WOWO connection often cements the deal.  Want more info? Contact me, Scott@@WOWO.com.
Follow The Leader Off The Cliff

Follow The Leader Off The Cliff

by | Jul 7, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom

Are you a Follower?

Or are you a Leader?

A couple weeks ago I read a statistic about advertising spending that didn’t surprise me but kind of made me sad.

It’s estimated that this year, digital advertising will account for nearly 67% of all media spending.

That was the opening line in a story from Mediapost that actually advices that going all digital is dangerous to the health of your brand and company.  Their headline reads: 5 Reasons To Keep Traditional Media In The Mix.

Radio, TV, newspapers, they are considered traditional media compared to digital media when has been around for nearly two decades.

All media can have some value for advertisers but you have to understand the way people use them and have the right expectations for what you are wanting to do.

Coupled with the rise of digital, the media landscape is increasingly complicated. The best approach is an integrated one — utilizing both digital and traditional tactics.

The reason I titled this Follow The Leader Off The Cliff is I have seen too many business people abandon traditional and go all digital, only to suffer the consequences or wake up and return to radio, print and tv.  National companies like Proctor and Gamble did it, and I have a friend that was nearly put out of business when Facebook shut down his Facebook page.

Let’s dig in with the 5 reasons from Mediapost:

More real estate. Smart traditional media placements can complement your digital campaign, in many cases offering additional real estate for comprehensive storytelling. 

Added value. Traditional media offers far more opportunity for added value than digital. 

 

Content alignment. Traditional broadcast and print media offer more content alignment opportunities, allowing the message to complement what audiences are already seeing. Negotiating fixed positions adjacent to this content through sponsorships and specific placement can help brands avoid getting lost in the clutter.

 

Endorsement opportunities. Endorsements promote credibility, particularly for campaigns meant for diverse audiences. By leveraging endorsements with “original influencers,” from DJs to on-air broadcast personalities, messaging is delivered by people whom audiences already trust, allowing paid content to come across naturally.

 

Internal alignment. It’s normal to want to see a campaign in-market once it launches. However, clients and their internal teams may not always be the target audience for a digital campaign, therefore not ever seeing it. 

 

While digital media is a critical component of paid campaign strategies, traditional media tactics still have unique strengths. Depending on location, demographics and other key qualifiers, there can be an argument made to focus on one over the other. Integrating both digital and traditional together can expand reach and engagement, while also increasing impact.

 

Brand Building in Dollars and Sense

Brand Building in Dollars and Sense

by | 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.

 

Maybe it’s the Weather…

Maybe it’s the Weather…

by | Jun 27, 2021 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Going to do some personal reflections on this Sunday…

You may wonder, why? I thought this website was all about business, media and marketing stuff?!

Yes that has been the focus for the past several years but I’ve sprinkled in some personal posts too.

This habit of sharing words online for me began over 15 years ago with a couple of blogs.  Those blogs are what launched my online reputation and then in October of 2011 I launched this website at the urging of my friend and one-time co-worker Kevin Mullett.  Uncle Kevin as he became known affectionately in Fort Wayne for his wisdom and guidance in the web world, particularly social media.

Back to the beginning of my sharing online.  It was in the days of MySpace, before Facebook… I launched 2, then 3 blogs plus a few more that were side projects. The original 2, were ScLoHo’s Collective Wisdom which shared articles and stories from others that I got permission to quote with a link back to my source.  This was the media and marketing blog.  At the same time I launched ScLoHo’s Really? which was my other thoughts and reflections.  The 3rd blog I mentioned was inspired by a conversation with my wife who was encouraging me to write a book, and instead I launched The Not-So-Secret-Writings-Of ScLoHo as another marketing site that only were my own words to keep it different from Collective Wisdom.

I was cranking out a ton on content back in those days around 2010. 35 a week, I think was the tally according to the schedule I created for myself.  No need to go back to those old blog sites unless you are really curious.  When I started this website, I imported nearly 10,000 of the articles and they live here now too.

When I was doing multiple postings a day, I was also working full time in radio. All the online ScLoHo stuff was a non-paying side hustle, that in measurable dollars, cost me each year, out of my pocket.  But it was my hobby, my passion, and it was creating my ScLoHo brand along the way.  I don’t know all of the ways it has paid off, I know a few in that I’ve been invited multiple times to speak and teach at the University level which I find humorous and ironic.  A long time ago I was in the running to be the Executive Director to lead a non-profit Christian radio station and in the final interviews I was asked about my college credentials.

I didn’t have the required minimum degrees, but was light years ahead of the other candidates.  I told them to give me an Honorary Degree to fulfill their needs, but that wasn’t acceptable.  Looking back, I am thankful for the course my life has taken.

Looking back today is sort of the theme for my writing this piece today.  Outside in Fort Wayne, it’s sunny at the moment, but I’ve already been rained on.  This kind of weather is expected all week.

2020 was not the year any of us expected, some are calling it the “lost year” because of the many times we catch ourselves talking about “…last year when we did______” but it wasn’t last year, it was two years ago in 2019.

My wife and I are both on our 60’s this year and it seems like time has flown by since she threw me a surprise party for my 50th. And it also seems like it could have been just months ago too.

Mental health has been a topic of conversation publically more than ever with the disruption in lifestyles and daily habits due to the pandemic.  Personally, I believe I was doing fine.  None of us knew what to expect but by June of 2020, I was returning to work in my office after nearly 3 months of working from a home office.  My wife Kathy and I took advantage of the summer weather to live as normally as we had in years past, except with less close contact in person with friends and family.

This weekend’s sermon at our church we watched last night because it’s one of the options our church implemented in 2020.  Pre-recorded online services are released on Saturday mornings and are available on YouTube.  The pastor referred to a New York Times article from May, 2021: There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.

Many of you have felt this, and for me, it didn’t seem to fit.

Until it did.

Today.

This morning I did my usual Sunday morning run to the Firefly Coffee Shop that I’ve been doing for nearly two decades and as I was buying my coffee, I saw they taped an obit on the glass of a regular, Greg that died this month.

Except for the lost year of 2020, I would see Greg on Sundays hanging out, talking, working on the Sunday Crossword from the paper.  Greg and I would chat and it was just one of those comforting pieces of your life that you don’t notice until it’s gone.  According to the Facebook posts of the Firefly, Greg passed away just four days after his last Sunday visit, a shock to many.

Greg and I weren’t close, there were others that knew him much more than I did and yet, it’s rather eye opening when you realize that you’ll never exchange hello’s again with someone that was a part of your personal routine for years.

There are a couple of other regulars from the Firefly that are no longer around and their passing over the years was not entirely unexpected to me as they were pushing 80 years old or older.

I lost a best friend this spring that was nearly 80 and I shared that with you too.

I’ve got another younger friend we thought was being stubborn about not wanting to see the doctor for over a week who finally went and is getting treatment and should be recovering.

I have an optimistic attitude and that includes excitement and joyfulness for the days, weeks and years ahead.  We are doing a combination of living in the moment, planning for the future, and embracing the past, something that I hope and pray you do too, no matter what your current age or status is.

By the way, as I get ready to publish this, I glanced over my shoulder out the window, and it’s getting dark with clouds again.

No need to get stuck there though, sunshine will return.  It always does.

Audio Insights

Audio Insights

by | Jun 23, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Of the 5 senses most of us are born with, some have different filtering properties.

Those 5 human senses are

  • Taste
  • Touch
  • Sight
  • Hearing
  • Smell

Some of these might diminish as we get older, the most common ones are sight and hearing. Others vary depending on the individual as my wife’s sense of smell is much stronger than mine.  

In the media and marketing world that I work with it’s usually the sense of sight and hearing that are most important.  And there is one huge difference.  

We can close our eyes and stop the visual messaging, but our ears are always listening.  Even when we are dead asleep, we can be woken by an unexpected sound, right?

A recent report  offers insights on different audio and why people listen to them.

Traditional AM/FM Radio,  Owned Music such as CDs, Vinyl Albums, Downloaded MP3s , Music Streaming Services and Podcasts were all examined.

In my role as the General Sales Manager of WOWO radio, a news/talk station that’s nearly 100 years old, I always find these independent studies interesting and they often confirm what I already know.

There has always been an interesting relationship between music radio stations and “record companies”.  When I worked for music stations we relied on the records/cds/mp3s for our programming.  The record companies relied on the music radio stations to play and promote their recordings because it led to sales of their product.  

There has always been a segment of the population that would find ways to get their music without either paying for it, or avoid commercials and the reality is that Never Radio group is actually a tiny percentage of the population.  Most of us are consumers of multiple sources of audio.

Let’s dig in to the research.

AM/FM Radio stands alone as the audio most widely used to ‘get information’ and ‘feel connected. Podcast listeners most commonly listen to satisfy their curiosity: they listen ‘to learn something new’ but also ‘to be entertained’ and podcasts are the only audio type where many also listen ‘to be inspired.’

WOWO radio accomplishes this with our news talk format and our Federated Media Podcast network includes both archived highlights and interviews along with original content.  On a personal or side note, the growing popularity of podcasts fits in with the current trend to On Demand entertainment that so many of us have been doing with TV viewing.

The top seven activities taking place while listening to AM/FM radio are: commuting by car, shopping/running errands by car, relaxing at home, working, doing chores/gardening, eating breakfast and driving kids to school/activities.

Traditional thinking has been that the most listened to times for radio stations is “drive times” because people are listening  as they drive back and forth to work. Looking at the rating data I have for WOWO radio however, our listenership remains strong all day long.

AM/FM radio again carves out a distinct profile, most frequently riding shotgun as listeners commute, shop or run errands in their cars. Listeners to the other types of audio are more homebound, being most likely to listen while ‘relaxing at home.’ Many listeners to podcasts and owned music also listen in the car, unlike music streamers where data charges likely get in the way. AM/FM Radio serves a particularly distinct set of needs and use cases, reaching listeners when they are seeking information and connection and when they are out and about.

Also unique to the talk radio format is what I call “appointment listening”.  Some of the most loyal talk radio listeners tune in daily to hear what their favorite talk show host has to share on WOWO.  Music radio listeners are less likely to do this and may tune out if the station plays a song they don’t like or too many commercials in a row.

Want to know more about how to invite our listeners to become your customers?  Contact me, Scott Howard  with an email. Scott@WOWO.com is my email.  I also have sponsorship opportunities for our podcasts along with on the radio, and if you’ve ever considered doing your own podcast, we have the tools and technology for that too.