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 10, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
I confess. sometimes it’s hard to explain what I do. I am in a BNI Chapter and every week we have 45 seconds to stand up and tell the guests and members who we are, what we do and who we would like to connect with as a referral.
How explainable is your work?
If you are a realtor, you buy and sell houses.
If you are a dentist, you take care of peoples teeth.
If you are an engineer, well, I have no idea what you do except it’s important.
When you are marketing your business, you and I need to be able to communicate to others what we do and sometimes it can’t be done easily.
But just because it isn’t easy to explain your work, doesn’t mean all is lost.
Perhaps the big picture of what you do combined with a personal uniqueness is the key.
Like, “I’m the dentist who loves kids so much we just had our 7th baby”. I have an advertising partner that has a bunch, maybe only 5 or 6. But that sure makes an impression right?
I went through this exercise several years ago with a realtor and found out that of the THOUSANDS of Real Estate Agents in our area, she was the 2nd best or 3rd best in several categories so we had to dig deeper and find out why her clients liked her and we came up with an easy way to explain her work when we were done.
By the way, my simple way of explaining my work is, “I help businesses invite people to become their customers.” I still need to tweak that some more because the long version is about 5 minutes. I shared it the other day, but if you missed it, click here.
Another by the way… When I am helping someone determine how to explain their work, for advertising and marketing purposes, it helps me to determine which advertising options are needed and will be most effective.
Will a 60 second live endorsement ad on WOWO Radio be the most effective because we need time to explain a bit about your business?
Or…
Do we simply need to drive people to your website with shorter messages that with more frequency?
Or…
Do we need to reach people online with a Custom Audience Targeted Digital Display Campaign?
Or…
Do should we do an email campaign, or a contest, or a combination of all of the above plus a few other options?
It’s all part of determining what you really need and it begins with the ability to explain your work in such a manner that it motivates people to want to know more and then spend money with you.
Want help? Contact me.
by Scott Howard | Sep 29, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Last time I talked about the ScLoHo Advertising Process with the First Step: Who are You?
I met last week with a gentleman who started his own company less than a year ago and is still in the process of figuring that out because he is trying to match what he wants to do with what people will pay him to do that is profitable and at the same time look towards the future with what he wants to be doing in 5 years.
It’s tough at first, but everyone who is starting a business goes through it and as the years pass, you will continue to change and tweak. 
Today, I’m going to jump forward and dig deeper into the WHO are YOU?
As I help you formulate an advertising and marketing plan there are certain key considerations that will determine what is important and what you should and shouldn’t invest your money on.
First Question: Are you open year round? Most businesses are. The heating and cooling company, the doctors and dentists, the retail stores, they are open 12 months a year. They have seasons, and slow times but they are still open for business.
If the answer to Are you open year round? is yes, then you need a 12 month plan. Every single month you should be visible and inviting people to spend money with you.
Not every business is open year round. Some businesses are strictly seasonal. The Halloween stores that pop up in September but will be gone in November are one example. The guy with the Christmas tree lot set up near Jefferson and Illinois roads in Fort Wayne won’t be selling trees in January, but he’ll be back next year. These are definitely not year round businesses but they are open each year for a period of time.
Seasonal businesses should not spend money advertising during their off season, after their season is over.
Which brings me to a 3rd category.
Event Oriented Businesses.
An example that I work with is the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. They are one of the finest musical entertainment organizations I’ve ever seen and they are one of Fort Wayne’s treasures. You can buy one of a combination of season ticket packages or you can buy tickets to individual concerts. While it would make sense on one hand to advertise year round, every week, a better investment of their limited advertising funds is to promote individual concerts, which is what we do. Event Oriented Businesses need a different advertising strategy than Year Round Business.
If you are not having these kinds of conversations with the people who help you with your advertising and marketing then you may only be a “customer”, not an advertising partner in their eyes.
Sadly, I know some professional advertising salespeople in town who only know how to sell, but not dig deep and help figure this stuff out.
Recently I met with a friend who spent $2000 to promote an event and she wasted about $1500 of her budget on a TV campaign. We asked people who attended her event how they heard about it and when I was with her, no one said they saw the TV ads. She asked me if WOWO radio would have been the better advertising choice and my first response was no. Based on the conversations we had with people who attended her event, she needed to invest more in online marketing solutions and, well, we’ll dig deeper soon so I can help her plan for next year.
Want help digging deep? Ask me.
by Scott Howard | Sep 22, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
A great article from Mediapost that I read this week was about Baby Boomers defying certain stereotypes, especially when it comes to tech and online activity.
Numbers show that Baby Boomers are a valuable customer that you can reach online
Since 1/2 of WOWO radio’s huge audience is the Baby Boomer generation, it makes sense to share this with you and as WOWO is my radio station that I work for and it also helps explain what I shared earlier regarding Why Does A Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions.
Here’s a few highlights:
- Of the many misconceptions about baby boomers, perhaps the one most perilous to marketers today is that those in the demographic aren’t tech savvy. In fact, according to a 2016 Boston Consulting Group survey, boomers’ top 20 favorite brands include Amazon, Apple, Dell, HP, LG, Samsung and Sony. In my own personal experience as a Boomer, I use Amazon weekly and have bought products from Dell, HP, LG and Samsung. (Sorry Apple & Sony).
- …contrary to stereotypes, aging doesn’t cause us to lose long-term memory. Instead, the change is a reduction in memory recall. For marketers, repetition is an effective way to ensure messages are properly processed and later recalled. This is why the Custom Audience Targeting with Digital Display Ads I offer works well, just like the ads I air on WOWO for my advertising partners.
- In fact, a study by visual engagement analytics firm Sticky found that baby boomers engage with digital ads significantly longer than do millennials. Again, this explains the success I’ve seen with my advertising partners who are inviting older adults to their websites.
Want to know more? Let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Sep 20, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
It’s a question that some people ask out loud and others may not ask me directly but they are thinking, “Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?”
Excellent question.
Here’s the answer.
My background is in radio. From the time I was 16 until I was 26, I loved being on the air. Then I moved over to the business side creating ad campaigns in Detroit for my radio clients. I became a student and teacher of marketing, advertising, sales, persuasion, and something I call human relationship marketing.
Jump ahead to 2005 and I started using digital (the web) to market myself using the same concepts I had learned 15+ years earlier.
With me, Scott Howard aka ScLoHo, you get to work with an individual who understands both the traditional broadcast world and the newer digital world. I walked away from my paying jobs in radio twice in recent history to work full time in the digital world. The first time was in 2011, when I joined a website development firm. A couple years later, I joined a multi-million dollar e-commerce biz as their Social Media director.
Now I work for WOWO radio which is one of the stations owned by Federated Media. Federated Media also has a digital division, Federated Digital Solutions. 
Federated Media created Federated Digital Solutions because many of their radio advertising clients were also looking for ways to market themselves online. Federated Media decided to invest in creating another division of the company. During my three years, I have seen our digital division grow and we now have 20+ people working for Federated Digital Solutions.
Those 20+ people at Federated Digital Solutions (FDS) have a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. The goal was to find the best available talent in the country and create the FDS team.
But there’s more.
Several of the digital solutions use outside vendors that we have access to that you simply can’t buy on your own. We also have two layers of expertise working on all of these digital marketing campaigns. There’s the expertise of our vendors and the expertise of the FDS team.
With me, you actually get a 3rd layer of expertise. Me. Scott Howard aka ScLoHo.
Because of my background, experience and knowledge, I really do know more than most of my radio co-workers. No, I’m not a know-it-all, but I do know how to Google to get the answers on stuff that I don’t know.
Here’s something else that’s important.
I care more about my reputation than what I sell.
I care more about your success than what I sell.
When I started at WOWO, I sold next to nothing from the digital solutions offered by FDS. I wanted to see the results and I wasn’t willing to use my advertising partners as test subjects. But as I watched, observed and questioned, I saw that the performance of the Federated Digital Solutions team was top notch. I also got the opportunity to see what other companies were selling and through that comparison, I saw how we were superior to others.
I’ve seen what Nexstar Broadcast Group was trying to sell as digital solutions and it was crap.
I’ve seen the actual results of Dex Media and what they sold to come of my advertising clients and did digging and found a huge pile of manure.
There are a couple of local companies that are selling digital marketing solutions that are worthless. My friend Kevin, called it marketing malpractice when we were discussing what I was seeing, and Kevin is one smart dude when it comes to doing digital marketing correctly.
Advertising agencies, both local and national are understaffed and under-qualified to be doing the digital work they are selling.
This summer I found out one of my advertising partners bought a website for $27,000 from one of these advertising agencies and it’s really messed up. Sure it looks okay to the naked eye, but it is impossible to optimize for the search engines (SEO) due to the platform they built it on. We can rebuild it for less that 1/3 that cost.
One last item in answering the question, “Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?”
There actually is a study that shows how broadcasting works best in driving people to your website. A couple lines from the article that caught my eye:
Here’s why radio and TV have the advantage: While print media requires hands, broadcast media leaves them free to do other things . . . like type in a URL, tweet something, or click “like.”
Want to talk? Let’s connect
by Scott Howard | Sep 15, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo Sales Tips, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Pay attention as I tell you a true story and see if it applies to your business:
I’ve got a great client, they are a true advertising partner.
Our partnership began last year when I volunteered to help them formulate an advertising and marketing plan that they could use with me or without me.
They decided to use me and a few of the advertising solutions I have available thru my radio station, WOWO and our digital division, Federated Digital Solutions.
I also help them plan and buy other advertising from others. I am their unpaid advertising consultant. But I am going beyond the advertising world with them.
I want them to be as successful as possible and anything I can do to help them to help their customers solve their problems is what I am attempting to do.
I have observed a disconnect at times in how they are communicating with the potential customers that are calling them, and it’s costing them business. 
Oh, they are very successful despite this, but they can do better.
They are a service business. If you need them to fix something at your home, you call them and they send out a technician who will diagnose the problem and offer to fix it.
But here’s where I have been observing the disconnect…
I have witnessed phone calls where a potential customer calls and asks questions and what they really want is their problem solved. Not a conversation over the phone or even possible answers over the phone.
If you are a service business and your phone is ringing with potential customers on the other end, they have problems they want you to fix. This wasn’t happening all the time with my advertising partner.
I listened to calls that the service manager took and he wasn’t setting up appointments for his techs. I listened to phone calls that the owner answered and they weren’t consistently setting up appointments either.
Advertising can make the phone ring. It’s up to you and your crew to convert those calls into happy customers.
You may not be aware that there is a problem. My advertising partners were not aware. Business was booming and they were busy.
But they could be busier.
So I’m going to do a training session with the office staff. I’m going to teach them how to answer the phone.
I’m going to teach them to answer the phone when a potential customer calls with a problem and set an appointment so they can help solve those problems and create more happy customers.
I care about this stuff. You should too, if you own or run a business. Are you missing some customers?
Want help? Reach out to me. My contact info is below.
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