by Scott Howard | Nov 29, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Okay, you are not really making money by buying, selling or trading human beings, but hang on…
You are in the People Business, no doubt about it. 
In my world at WOWO Radio and Federated Digital Solutions, one of the tactics that I offer that captures the attention of people I talk to is something called geo-fencing. It’s a method to serve digital display ads to individuals based on the places they go. For example, I have a couple of doctors that are geo-fencing other doctors offices to offer an alternative option to those patients.
It’s all done with a bunch of technology that is both impressive and scary at the same time.
However, I need to remind my doctors and others who get excited about technology that they are really in the people business.
Using my doctors as an example…
If Doctor A wants to increase his business by inviting more people to become his patients, he can covert Doctor B’s patients to become his by inviting them through the geofencing method I mentioned. But the advertising is just an invitation. Advertising, even targeted advertising is only an invitation and a fraction of the people exposed to advertising will respond.
This is true of any and every form of advertising. You will never get a 100% response rate to an advertising campaign no matter how highly refined the methods and technology.
Let’s focus on those that do respond. They are people and they want to feel good about doing business with you. If there is some person who answers the phone or deals face to face with your potential customer who makes your potential customer feel less than confident about becoming your customer, than you can lose that customer.
I have seen this happen with some of my clients and all of us have been in the customers shoes where we decide NOT to buy due to something another person did or did not do.
Let me leave you with a few questions to ask yourself:
- When a potential customer calls, what do they really want and how well are we providing?
- When a potential customer walks in to our business, what do they really want and how well are we providing?
- If a customer has a problem or question, how do we take care of the issue to fix the problem or answer their question?
- What can we do to create a positive people experience for everyone?
by Scott Howard | Nov 25, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
Today I’m wrapping up a series of reposts that I discovered in October were the 5 most shared articles I’ve published in the past 12 months. If you want to find your most popular posts on your site, go here.
Many of the people I see selling advertising and marketing seem to get lost in a world of details that most business owners don’t really care about.
I witnessed this last month (again). I sat in a meeting where a salesperson was trying to sell a service my advertising partner would probably like to use, if they are not overwhelmed by it all.
Advertising really is simple, you want to invite people to your business to spend money with you.
You don’t need to know all the complexities of how an ad is created, or how to reach the most people, or “right” people…
You just need to partner with advertising and marketing people who know how to do that effectively.
That’s what I strive to do.
This rose is both simple & complex.
Take the complex and keep it simple.
Want help?
by Scott Howard | Nov 14, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
This is week 3 of 5 weeks, I am sharing the 5 most shared articles I’ve published in the past 12 months. This is from the end of August:
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Lifetime Value of a customer. It’s something that most new business people don’t grasp because they are focused on the weekly and monthly cost of doing business.
(I worked with one fellow a few years ago when we were both employed by an e-commerce business that would watch the online sales volume by the hour. That’s a little obsessive unless you also look at the big picture.)
And it’s the Big Picture that focuses on the Lifetime Value of a customer.
The example I presented was my own experience with a local coffee shop. I may be a $3 cup of coffee, or a $10 food and drink transaction, but my Lifetime Value is thousands of dollars. You can see how I did the math here.
After I published that article, a former colleague of mine, Peter Presnal wrote to me with his comments:
The late, great Peter Drucker said a business has one purpose: to create a customer. What you’re talking about, Scott Howard, is that customer’s value over time (aka Lifetime Value). It seems to me the only real way to evaluate the effectiveness of an advertising or marketing initiative is how many customers the initiative generates and their value OVER TIME. If it cost, say, $2000 in advertising to get you to show up at your coffee shop the first time, and the shop operated on, say, a 50% gross margin, and even if you were the only customer who got popped then that was a successful campaign…it at this point is a 150% ROI. The problem, as you and I both know, most small business owners would say that a campaign that only popped one person failed…but because that’s only because they themselves failed to look at the value of the customer OVER TIME.
Peter Presnal (click on his head to fed his ego and his tummy)
Thanks Peter.
Peter and I crossed paths a lifetime ago when I worked for WMUZ in Detroit which is where I began my journey into the advertising and marketing world. I stayed with WMUZ for 7 and a half years.
Peter has been there over 23 years and has his own website that I invite you to check out at http://socraticduck.com/
by Scott Howard | Nov 7, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Over the next 5 weeks, I am sharing the 5 most shared articles I’ve published in the past 12 months like this one from March 2016:
It comes as no surprise to me, but maybe some of my friends in the advertising industry will have their eyes opened by this chart:
A report came out last month that was conducted to determine how we as consumers of media, get the media we consume.
Radio now beats television according to this data. WOWO radio in Fort Wayne along with our sister stations are the dominate media in town and if you would like data on those specifics, contact me.
by Scott Howard | Nov 1, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Over the next 5 weeks, I am sharing the 5 most shared articles I’ve published in the past 12 months. As we prepare for the final week of the 2016 Election cycle, this look back on the 2015 election still has some truths to consider:
WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne is recovering from the November elections that we just had a week ago today. While it was an off year for Federal and state offices there were many local offices up for grabs including City Clerk, Mayor and City Council.
(I’ll tell you why I used the word recovering in a moment.) 
WOWO has been on the air at 1190 am for 90 years and News/Talk for around 20 years.
As the most listened to radio station by adults combined with the news/talk format, it’s a magnet for politicians to place ads so they can stay in office or upset an incumbent.
We are obligated to accept political advertising from the candidates official campaigns and charge them the same price. At Federated Media, all of our political advertising is handled by our station General Sales Managers. I had a candidate contact me and I passed him on to Ben, the G.S.M. for WOWO.
The reason I say recovering is we had to be very creative and work with some of our advertisers who gave us flexibility in when their ads would air to jockey around some of the ads since we have a limited number of ads we can air each week.
Some of the ads that would have aired in October for some advertisers are going to air next week, for example.
Radio ads and yard signs are two of the most popular ways politicians spend money to get elected. I saw a story last week that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are investing in radio ads for winning primary contests.
Why? Radio works.
But what about T.V.? Let me dig into what happened in the Fort Wayne City elections last week.
Republican Mitch Harper spent money on radio and T.V. along with plenty of other medias to unseat our Democratic Mayor Tom Henry. Mitch lost.
One might expect that since the Democratic candidate for Mayor won, many voters would vote a straight ticket and elect Democrats to the other city offices. Wrong.
The 3 City Council at Large seats were won by Republicans. I bet the 3 top vote-getters are the 3 that advertised the most on WOWO Radio. And I suppose that if Republican Mitch Harper had spent more on radio ads and less on TV ads, he could have been preparing for his first term as Mayor of Fort Wayne.
You may not care about politics, but you can learn from the successes and mistakes that our politicians make during a campaign.
by Scott Howard | Oct 24, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
Do different generations consume and respond to marketing messages differently?
It’s a question that deserves examining and the big question, Is There A Generation Gap In Marketing?
On one hand, I am not typical of my generation and on the other, I fit in perfectly.
I’m a child of the 60’s and 70’s. My kids are children of the 80’s and 90’s. I sometimes forget about the generational differences because I forget either how old I really am or how young they (and their peers) really are.
As usual what often prompts these articles are a series of events that are unrelated but build on one another and this month the topic was Millennials.
Can you count the 4 generations?
My media habits have changed but so have nearly everyone’s due to technology changes.
The dominance of traditional mass media that reached huge percentages of the population at the same time is gone. The traditional mass media consisted of broadcast TV networks that you would watch without having to pay a cable or internet or data fee for (namely ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS & Fox); Local radio stations (Fort Wayne had no more than 10 and only 3 or 4 dominate stations), and the daily newspapers.
First came the internet revolution and then the smartphone revolution and now we truly live in a different world.
Instead of only being able to reach a mass audience with your message, you can also reach a very targeted audience with your message.
Instead of having to choose from two TV shows that are on at the same time on different channels, I can watch them when I want, where I want and on whatever device I want.
Forget about reading the printed newspaper. I get my news, even my local newspaper news online.
Radio for me is still a pleasure to listen to, but the number of stations I have available is now close to 30 and if I had satellite radio in my car, my choices would be in the hundreds. All new vehicles sold in the last few years have offered internet options to replace my radio and on the same token, my favorite radio stations have made themselves available for me to listen to online where ever I go.
The phone book was replaced by Google and I could go on and on, but I risk sounding like an old fogey.
I don’t want to go back to the old days. Instead I want to help people of the older generations adapt to the marketing options that are now available and at the same time, help the younger generations understand the timeless marketing principles that apply no matter what the advances are now and in the future with advertising delivery methods.
At one of the meetings I was at that inspired this article, there was a young man who was a little too passionate about digital media and overselling it to the detriment of traditional media. Because I work in both, I plan on meeting with him to see what’s what. I hope to expand his thinking, not to sell him on the traditional media, but to help him understand the limitations of all media and R.O.I. measurement.
It is true that there is a Generation Gap in Marketing. Take a look at some numbers from a report I read about Small and Medium Business marketing:
In order to better understand SMBs current marketing strategies, Magisto surveyed 500 U.S. based small and medium sized businesses about their digital/mobile marketing strategies and tactics. Key findings in the report continue.
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Millennials spend 58% of their marketing budget on digital media; Baby boomers spend only 14% of their marketing budget on digital media, making millennials 3X more likely than baby boomers to spend the majority of their media budget on digital advertising
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Nearly half 41% of millennials spend the bulk of their marketing budget on mobile media. Less than 10% of baby boomers rely on the same media
and from that same report:
According to eMarketer, 2017 will be the first year in history that digital media ad spending surpasses television ad spending.
When I was in my late 20’s and 30’s the marketing world was also changing and everyone of us, no matter what our generation or age, need to be fully aware of how these changes can impact your business.
Want help figuring all this out? Contact me.
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