Duty Calls

Duty Calls

by | Sep 25, 2023 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

When you are good at something and recognized as being good at it, but you’ve stepped away from it and now the challenge to return to it comes up, what’s your response?

That’s the position I found myself in earlier this month and it’s a position that I’ve been in before.

For nearly 10 years, I’ve worked for Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  I began as the 5th person on a 5 person sales team for radio station WOWO.

That was going to be my final job, however at the tail end of 2019, our company underwent some changes in upper management and my boss, Ben Saurer who had served as the General Sales Manager for WOWO radio was promoted to Vice President/General Manager of all of the Fort Wayne Federated Media radio stations.  This created a very important opening, actually a couple of openings that needed to be filled as Ben had been the General Sales Manager for both of our talk radio stations; News Talk WOWO & Sports Talk WKJG AND he was filling in as the General Sales Manager for WBYR, our rock station.

Even though I didn’t have ambitions to return to a management role, after careful consideration, prayer and encouragement from my sales teammates, I applied.  After a nationwide search was conducted, Ben offered me the position which I accepted to lead WOWO.

WOWO has been the “big dog”.  We brought in more revenue than any of the dozen stations in our company and we knew that we were also the leader of all the 25 or so local radio stations.

Honestly, as I was interviewing with Ben for his old job, I told him it was going to be a tough decision for him to make.

See in 2019, I lead not just the WOWO Sales Team of 5, but I was selected as the Account Manager of the year for the entire company.  1 out of 40 or so sales people.  Not bad for starting out at zero when 2014 began.

The decision Ben had to make was to take his top salesperson out of sales and put me in management, or keep me where I was.

The skill sets are similar but the application is very different between sales person and sales manager.  If you are considering a sales management role, or are in that position right now, I recommend you buy a copy of my friend Mike Weinberg’s new book The First Time Manager: Sales.  I was on his launch team and got a preview copy and it’s excellent. I bought a copy too which I am giving to Ben.

So Ben makes the tough decision and I took over as the General Sales Manager 1 month before the pandemic shut down our country in early 2020.  We are working remotely for 3 months and scrambling to figure out what adjustments to make because it wasn’t what they originally promised… a two week shut-down to flatten the curve.

Low and behold, when 2020 was over, WOWO and our other stations survived, better than had been expected. As I continued my position as the General Sales Manager of WOWO in 2021 and 2022 we faced what a lot of companies faced.  Shortages, but ours was the people kind.

About a year ago, one of our other sales managers moved to a sales person position because their talents were better than any of the candidates we’d been interviewing.

That manager was overseeing three stations and about a month after they joined my WOWO Sales Team, I took over as the interim General Sales Manager for those stations too in addition to WOWO.

This summer I went on a hiring spree to add two more salespeople to the stations I was temporarily overseeing.  Last month and this month those two salespeople began and will be selling for our rock station.

In the meantime, we also hired a new General Sales Manager for those stations I was overseeing for the past year and he begins in October.  He’ll do fine, he spent most of his 25+ years working in management and with Federated Media.

Another change, and this is the reason for the title of this today, Duty Calls, I am switching gears and returning as a Senior Sales Person for WOWO.  Try as we might, we have been challenged with having a full team of sales people on WOWO the past 18 months and it’s time for me to step in and fill that role again.  As far as I know, Ben is going to be doing both jobs of V-P/General Manager for Federated Media Fort Wayne; AND overseeing the WOWO sales team.

As Duty Calls me to help in a sales role again, I look forward to helping more businesses invite our listeners to become their customers and you’re likely to see me out of the office a lot more than I’ve been since 2020 and I look forward to it.

No longer will I refer you to someone else on the WOWO sales team, I’ll get to work with you personally just like before.

300 Media and Marketing Tips… Maybe

300 Media and Marketing Tips… Maybe

by | Aug 20, 2023 | ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

For those of you who are reading this and wondering what’s the deal with the number 300, I’ll tell you.  If you are listening to this podcast, you already have a clue from the introduction I gave.

Since 2017 I have written, created, produced and published the Scott Howard Genuine ScloHo Media and Marketing Podcast and the audio version of what you are reading or listening to is episode #300.  If you’ve never listened, that’s fine too.  This is article #1584 that I’ve published on my website ScottHoward.me.

When I started publishing stuff online, on my own webpage it was in 2004, before Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other social media platforms that are popular today were even launched.  Google offered a free blogging platform and I created a personal blog, and a separate media and marketing blog. both of these were being updated daily.  I created a couple other specialized blogs and by 2011, after 7 years I had created and published over 11,000 articles all under the online moniker of ScLoHo.

When my friend Kevin challenged me to create a name for myself online with a real website, I took a couple of months to plan and then purchase a domain and build out this website.  Scott Howard dot com was already taken and so I used the dot me domain.

I imported most of the blog articles to the new website and continued writing and publishing every day.

Eventually I decided to slow down and focus more on quality instead of just quantity of content.  None of this was for profit.  Never made a dime directly from anything I wrote, and kept the content and webpages ad-free.   The benefit I was getting was the creative outlet and I was able to get noticed online and offline, so it helped me build my reputation and community.

When I started blogging nearly 20 years ago I worked full time for a group of radio stations and stayed with that company for 8 years.  I left to join a website development company and left that to return to radio and left radio again to work full-time in social media for a multi-million dollar international eCommerce company.  That last job I got because of my 9 pervious years of doing this kind of thing on my own.  Self- taught? Perhaps, but it was more of a process of self-educated, reading and learning and experimenting and talking with others.

Nearly 10 years ago I decided to return to the radio world and this time it was with Federated Media and WOWO radio.

I continued to write and publish but sometime ago decided to go from 7 days a week, to 5 days a week and eventually once a week.

It was Fall of 2016 when two of the Federated Media Sales Managers approached me asking if I had time and interest in doing a podcast on advertising.  It was a new initiative at Federated Media and they were aware of my background behind the microphone as a broadcaster, my experience in sales and my current weekly writings on my own website.  I suggested doing an audio version of what I was already writing and that set the stage.

Looking back I created the first 6 podcasts in December of 2016 but we had a management change and it wasn’t until a few months later the podcast was launched as a weekly companion piece to what I was writing and publishing.

At the beginning of 2020, my position changed and I stepped into management with Federated Media and then nearly a year ago took over two more stations in our company and decided it was time to slow down a little more.  At the end of 2022, I announced that instead of weekly updates, I would publish monthly.   Sometimes more often like this month, but once a month was going to be the standard.

Which brings us to today and the 300th episode of the Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast.

So many others have started an online project like I did and simply quit or lost interest.  There are plenty of others who launched a podcast and then quit after a few episodes.  My friend Steve was amazed at the longevity of my continuing to do this month after month, year after year.

Those 300 Media and Marketing Tips that I mentioned in the title… review the podcasts and you’ll find them, or search the ScottHoward.me website and there are a few thousand tips. For now, I’m going to start planning next months update as we continue

Timely Marketing Principles That Are Timeless

Timely Marketing Principles That Are Timeless

by | Jul 30, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

It’s been two full decades that I’ve been in the advertising, media and marketing world in Fort Wayne, Indiana, non-stop.

During the past twenty years, there have been a lot of changes in technology and how the world operates.  However, no matter what the technological advances, there are certain principles that you can follow to be successful.  You just need to see how to apply them to whatever your marketing options are at the moment.

First a little backstory.  In was 25 years ago this month of August, that I moved back to my hometown after my Dad passed away and I thought it was going to be for a couple of months to help my Mom downsize and move to a smaller place.  But I neve left.  Instead I got married again, and my wife and I have moved a few times, all on the northeast side of town including our last move 9 summers ago that was half a mile from our old home.

My media and marketing background is much longer than 20 years.  I was a teenage radio disc-jockey and pursued that career path for 10 years before moving my family to Detroit and working in the advertising side of the radio business.  I left radio in the mid 90’s and know how to drive a fork truck, run a tool crib and operate a thermoformer.  At least I did until technology changed and improved processes with automation.

April 2003 was my return to radio advertising and I took a whole, big-picture consultive approach.  While I earned my money from the advertising I sold, I really wanted to help businesses succeed and that was more of a motivating factor than money for me.

The past two decades, I’ve worked in radio, also website development, a niche newspaper, and was the social media voice for a multi-million dollar e-commerce company.  I mention my background not because I’m bragging, but to give some substance and add some credentials to what I’m sharing.

The Timely Marketing Principles That Are Timeless transcend the limitations of technology and get to what is the most important.

What is the Most Important?

Human Relationship Marketing Principles.

  1. Your Reputation Matters.
  2. People Need to Know About You Before They Will Spend Money With You.
  3. It’s Best to Be Known BEFORE You Are Needed
  4. That last one, it’s all about Top Of Mind Awareness.
  5. Build Relationships With People, not machines.
  6. We Want To Trust, so Don’t Blow It.
  7. If You Do Blow the Trust Factor, Apologize and Make it Better.
  8. Everyone is either a potential Customer or person that can refer potential Customers to YOU.
  9. Value is the sibling of Trust.

Apply these 9 Principles to what ever you do to market your business and you’ve established a foundation for success.

Now here’s a few more Timeless Tips:

The environment of your message matters. Take the old-fashioned standby of roadside billboards. If you are a roofing company looking to sell metal roofs to homeowners, the wrong place for your message is probably the sign next to the 40 year-old apartment complex.  A better location could be the road that the exclusive golf course is on.

The content of your message matter.  Don’t yell and shout at your potential customers in a radio ad, instead talk to them as individuals, in a friendly trust worthy manner.

Be strategic and consistent with your message. A lot of business people are looking for instant results.  When they think that something isn’t working they stop it and move on to something else.  Or they are having an identity crisis and sending multiple messages out that don’t fit a strategic master plan.  Apply human relationship principles of dating to your business marketing.  Most of us are not going to commit to a long term marriage relationship on the first date.  Or on the first attempt to get a date.  You can date one person for 50 dates and get a better result than if you were to go on 50 dates with 50 different people.

And Finally…

Be where your current and future customers are so you can connect with them.  If they are radio listeners, pick the radio station that has listeners that are a good fit to become your customer.  If they are on social media, use the social media channels that are also a good fit.

Be prepared to try something new, but don’t stop doing what works, without a solid reason.

And if you need help learning how to apply any and all of this to your situation, reach out to me.

Is It A Thing or Is It A Fad?

Is It A Thing or Is It A Fad?

by | Jul 11, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Let’s jump into this topic headfirst with the reason I’m talking about this subject right now.

Around July 5th, a new social media app, Threads was launched and it’s been all over the news because… well.. the news media thinks it’s newsworthy.

Threads is connected to Instagram which is connected to Facebook which actually changed their corporate name to Meta in 2021.  Sort of like when Google changes their corporate name to Alphabet in 2015.

Anyway back to Threads and the news it’s making, mostly because of the number of users or subscribers it’s signed up.  News reports proclaiming it’s breaking records compared to other social media apps are true but with a footnote.

Facebook or Meta or whatever you want to call it is still the worlds largest social media platform when you count the number of accounts or users they have.  However if you look under the hood and ask some reasonable questions like “how many active users?” and “how active does an account need to be to be considered active?” , those numbers will shrink.  More on that in a moment.

The reason Threads has gained so many subscribers so quickly is because of two things:

  1. The Hype.  Free advertising from the media.  Because when Elon Musk took over Twitter and started making changes in 2022 that disrupted the Twitterverse, many Tweeps from the old days were not happy and looking for a Twitter Alternative.
  2. The Facebook/Instagram subscriber database.  If you have an Instagram account, you can sign up for Threads in less than a minute because Threads is currently tied directly to Instagram.  As of March 2023, Instagram has 2 Billion Monthly Average Users. That’s made it easy to pull those people over to Threads.  Twitter only had 233 MAU in March and as I write this just 5 days after the Threads launch, over 100 million have created a Threads account.

Regarding Threads, Is It A Thing or Is It A Fad?

Honestly it’s way too early to tell.

I recall in 2009 when the program director of one of my radio stations proclaimed that Twitter was just a Fad.  This was 3 years after Twitter launched and a year after I hopped on as a Tweep and built my ScLoHo Brand to national recognition with some of my Tweets being quoted by mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal along with some more niche platforms.

The real test will be as the year unfolds and next year too. Right now people are signing up because they’ve heard about it and it’s easy.  But are they going to be active on Threads?  We have to wait and see over time.

There are some limits to the functionality compared to Twitter and other social platforms and that will evolve with time.  I’ve seen my friend Kevin Mullett and others explain the pros and cons of Threads. Scroll thru the Facebook comments until you find Kevin Mullett  here: https://www.facebook.com/djtrend/posts/pfbid02A7eh8tYxLLhcc1vmhf7xxfzLpzYXyQRU12swiuXTjTsc2JD6cro9V3DBP9ZCE9GVl

Also my friend Anthony Juliano had a very common sense approach that he shared on LinkedIn this week.  Anthony wrote:

My take on Threads, in a nutshell:

1. Yes, it’s a thing
2. A lot of people are joining it
3. But you don’t have to
4. Unless you want to
5. Oh, I understand: new stuff is neat!
6. But it probably won’t change your life, and
7. Do you really need another distraction?
8. It’s okay if you do, though, or see it as something that will move you toward your goals
9. But it’s okay if you don’t
10. And you can always change your mind later. To join or unjoin Threads. Or anything else. These tools aren’t going anywhere, and if they do you didn’t miss anything.

Except that last point #10 .. you can’t unjoin Threads without deleting your Instagram account right now. However, you can decide not to participate and simply keep your account without using it.

If you are an early adopter like I used to be and Kevin still is, go exploring on Threads.

But for marketing your business the way some people have relied solely on Social Media platforms to be the lifeline of revenue for their income… hold off.  At this moment Threads doesn’t have a way to run sponsored content, but they will in order to survive.

Because not all social media platforms last, no matter how much money the parent company has.  Google has failed numerous times including their Google Plus social platform that they simply could not convince enough people to use and it was killed off.

One last thought on the counting process of users or subscribers.  Monthly Average Users seems to be a standard for  many including the social media world. Monthly is also number that is used in the radio broadcasting world. The Radio Advertising Bureau says that over 90% of Americans listen to radio at least once a month.

I can give you real numbers that are much better criteria to look at when deciding where to spend your ad and marketing money.

In Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Nielsen company does a survey twice a year that gives us weekly numbers, not monthly.  And by taking a deep dive, we can look at specific hours or listener demographics.  Much like the targeting options on Facebook for certain qualitative criteria, we can look at that information for any of the radio stations in Fort Wayne, not just the 5 stations Federated Media operate.

Our oldest station, WOWO is now 99 years old and doing well.  Our other stations which include Sports Talk 1380 the Fan, WMEE, K105, and The Bear are also  doing well with a lot of listeners that want to spend money with businesses they trust.  This is not a Fad, it’s a Thing.  A Real Thing and if you want more information contact me.

 

What Are You Waiting For?

What Are You Waiting For?

by | Jun 19, 2023 | The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Today I’m talking to those of you who are waiting for something…

I’m not sure what exactly you are waiting for and maybe you don’t either.

Because I write about and talk about media and marketing, I’ll at least narrow this subject down to that world.

In the 20 years I’ve been back in this business, I’ve witnessed and experienced dozens upon dozens of changes regarding media and marketing.

For example the birth of the Social Media platforms such as Facebook which is now a couple of decades old.  Once a way for college kids to connect, it’s now being used by all ages and despite the common thought that it’s just the old people now, the biggest age group is between age 25 and 34. 

When Facebook created a method for businesses to pay to reach their users, it created a billion dollar industry that until recently showed double digit annual growth.  Other social media platforms have come and tried to be relevant, but most have failed. Google has tried a few times but even they couldn’t create a platform that was profitable.  Venture capital only goes so far for so long and that’s why only the strong survive.

If you were waiting for the right social media platform to come along for your business before you started promoting your business, you are wasting your time.  There will always be another online platform and most will eventually fail.

What you need to do is stop procrastinating and start something.  

Now I have spent considerable time in the past 20 years working with a variety of media platforms.  Some are hundreds of years old, like print.  Others are just entering their second century like radio broadcasting.

As you wait to find the perfect place to advertise, your potential customers are spending their money with others because you haven’t invited them to spend it with you.

That’s all advertising is, a paid invitation to get people to spend money with you.  The method you use to invite them can change as technology evolves and usage of some media fades, but if you continue to wait, you are only hurting your chances to earning money from your potential customers.

As we come to the end of the first 6 months of 2023, are you honestly waiting for the right reasons to take action and invite people to your business?  Only you can answer that one.

If you need help, reach out to me.

The Long Game

The Long Game

by | May 30, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

When I say the word “Future”, how far off in the future does your mind think?

Is the Future 5 years away?

Is the Future 20 years away?

Is the Future next week or even next month?

Does it hurt your brain to think beyond today?

Here in the United States we live in short time spans, relatively speaking compared to some other countries around the world.

We elect a President every four years which for many countries is very unstable.  And the election cycle has become shorter and shorter.  If you like your President then, you want them to last not just 4 years, but 8 years.  However if you don’t like your President, you start talking about the next election as soon as possible, sometimes within 6 months.

I find it interesting that we elect government representatives who then create laws that outlast their term in office or in some cases, the laws don’t come into effect until after those that wrote them are out of office.

But enough about government and the Future, let’s talk about business and the Future.  In my world of radio broadcasting, I work for a radio station that is now 98 years old. WOWO radio began broadcasting in 1925 and was one of the first AM radio stations.  This year there was big news about the death of AM radio because certain automakers announced that they were not including AM radios in their new vehicles.  Ford was the big one that caught peoples attention.

The National Association of Broadcasters rallied their members and lobbyists to save AM radio and due to the bad press or pressure either publicly or privately, Ford reversed course and their CEO announced: “For any owners of Ford’s EVs without AM broadcast capability, we’ll offer a software update”.  As a broadcaster who knows how radio broadcasting works, the “software update” made me suspicious.  If all it takes is a software update, that means the hardware was built-in all this time.

Anyway, the future of AM radio accessibility in Ford manufactured vehicles is safe for now.

On the other hand, there has been a lot of noise in government regarding the social media app TikTok.  The concern is that users information is being given to the Chinese Communist Party for evil and it endangers all of us.  The app has been banned by one state and the Federal Government is prohibiting it from being downloaded on devices that are connected to government sites.

Changes are coming as the Future continues to move closer and closer.  How prepared are you for the changes that could occur next year?  Forget about 5 years down the road or 20 years into the future… I bet there are changes that are taking place in your industry that are going to impact your business in the next 18 months or sooner and you have not prepared for them yet.

The idea of The Long Game which is what I titled this piece is not that you need to stick with doing everything the same way forever and ever, but to look to the Future and plan for what is coming or could be coming.

As I announced in May, WOWO radio prepared for the future by adding a strong FM signal, 92.3 to our options for listeners to tune in while they are driving in case their vehicle doesn’t have AM radio.  We were prepared and you need to be prepared too in your business.

When it comes to inviting people to spend their money with you and your business, I have tons of options and ideas that you should consider.  Some are nearly 100 years old, while others are in their infancy.  Contact me and let’s play the Long Game together for today and the Future.