by Scott Howard | Oct 27, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Search Engine Optimization. It’s been a “thing” since 1997 according to Wikipedia.
Here’s the basic premise. The Internet has close to 1,000,000,000 websites right now. How in this World Wide Web is anyone going to find yours?
Directories were created and that was okay for awhile then this company called Google came along and developed an easy to use simple way to find stuff online. The modern Search Engine was born and by the end of 1998, techies were praising Google.com:
“PC Magazine” reports that Google “has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results” and recognizes us as the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites for 1998.
Jump ahead 10 years to 2008 and I’m telling some of my radio clients that they need to blog regularly. At least once a month, but once a week is better. At this time, I’ve plunged myself into the blog world with over 3,000 articles I published on my own blogs that year alone, on a part-time basis.
The blog articles I was writing and sharing were being picked up by Google. Let me explain. If someone was to do a Google search for something I wrote about, I occasionally would appear on the first or second page of Google. Now Google is much more sophisticated these days and there are companies that specialize in optimizing websites for Google which still has over 65% of the search engine use market worldwide. Bing is #2 with around 20% of the market.
When I launched this website four years ago this month, I worked for Cirrus ABS, a website development firm in Fort Wayne and learned a lot of stuff I could be doing S.E.O.-wise for this site, but I didn’t. I was too busy working at my paid job and writing articles on the side to take the time to add those extras to my articles.
Time Travel with me to December 2013, about 23 months ago. That’s when I returned to radio to work at WOWO. I was given permission from management to write about WOWO and radio and advertising and marketing and just about anything I wanted because they trusted me.
As I went about my work at WOWO as an advertising sales person who prefers to offer advertising and marketing consulting 1st before the selling part of my job, I started writing about my experiences with WOWO radio and recently I noticed a trend.
People were paying attention. Mary, whom I’ve known for a few years was recommending articles I wrote to her clients. But this month in particular, I was getting phone calls, text messages and emails to my ScLoHo email account from strangers wanting my help with advertising, marketing and some were specifically wanting to advertise on WOWO. It was time to do some research.
I cleared my cookies and browser history and did a search for WOWO Advertise and was pleasantly surprised.
7 of the Top 10 Google Listings pointed to ScottHoward.me
The first three listings linked to our company website at WOWO.com But the rest all went directly to articles that I wrote over the past 22 months.
I sent a note and screenshot to my friend Kevin Mullett at Cirrus ABS who decided to investigate further wrote back, Maybe even more impressive. “radio advertising fort wayne” “fort wayne radio advertising” “fort wayne radio” incognito. Depends on how people are searching.
This is what I call the power of Accidental SEO. I almost called it lazy SEO but that’s not really what happened because I haven’t been lazy. I write and publish 5 articles each and every week on this website/blog. Many of them, but not all mention WOWO. That’s not being lazy, that’s being diligent.
The reason I called it Accidental SEO is because I didn’t add all the extra tags and metadata that would help Google find me and boost my results. I just wrote a blog and didn’t stop.
Maybe what I have done isn’t duplicate-able by you. Maybe it is. You’ll never know until you start and don’t stop.
If you want to be found online in a more purposeful way, I can help you with that with the services of the Federated Digital Solutions division of company. Contact me and we will see what is the best path for you.
by Scott Howard | Oct 23, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Last time, I shared with you two very different ways to buy advertising. Today, I’ll teach you the simple way to buy radio advertising. 
It’s pretty smart too.
Buy an audience that you can dominate and create top of mind awareness.
For this example, I’m going to use my radio station, WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana. WOWO is a news/talk radio station that has the largest adult audience of all the stations in our area.
A 1 minute commercial is priced around $100 during primetime.
Primetime on the radio is between 5am and 6pm, weekdays. That is when WOWO and most radio stations have the most listeners. This is different from primetime on television which is 8pm to 11pm. That is when television stations have the most viewers.
So let’s say you have $500 a week to spend and you need a full 60 seconds to get your message out. Plan on doing this 52 weeks a year. What’s the best way to spend that $26,000 in 2016?
The simple way to build your business, given these circumstances would be to pick one hour each weekday that your commercial will air. The same hour every day, 5 days a week, every week of the year.
If we were to do that between 7 and 8am, your message would reach over 37,000 adults age 25 and older an average of 90 times over a year. You would be one of the top, or perhaps the top of mind (fill in your profession), to those 37,000 people.
Pick 11:30 to 12:30 (lunchtime) and you get similar numbers, 39,000 adults. 2pm-3pm and it’s 38,000. Here’s a very important question. How many new customers can you take on in a year? 350? That’s less than 1%. 3500 is less than 10%.
This is just one example. But it is a much simpler way of buying radio advertising than the complicated mess I showed you yesterday.
Don’t take this as the only way, or best way to schedule your ads on the radio. It’s simply an easy and effective way that could be used. The best way can only be determined after you and I talk about your goals and look at your individual scenario. Contact me to do just that.
by Scott Howard | Oct 16, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
Wrapping up the week, with Timeless Marketing Rule #7: Adapt to Their Favorite Way of Communication, as I finish this series I started a couple weeks ago.
Here’s what I said in the original article:
7. You need to communicate with people using the medium they prefer.
You may like T.V. but do your customers?
You may like Instagram, but do your customers?
Instead of focusing solely on your favorite ways to communicate and market and advertise, look around and see what medium your customers prefer. 
A few years ago, when I was working full time in Social Media taking care of all the social media for a 50 million dollar eCommerce company, I had to make a change in my personal preferences.
I was a huge Twitter fan and disliked Facebook. But for our business, it was Facebook that won 10 to 1 over Twitter.
Then I made another discovery. While we had 130,000 Facebook fans, Facebook was not the social media that produced the most sales.
Our Pinterest account that had only 2000 followers was generating more sales than the much more popular Facebook account. So I worked on growing our Pinterest reach and added another 1000 followers. Before I left that company, our smaller Pinterest account was outperforming our massive Facebook account by a 2 to 1 margin.
That’s just one example from the social media world of how we need to find ways to communicate our marketing messages that our customers will respond to by using the medium they prefer, not just our own personal preferences.
I have made myself available through various channels too. Some people call me. Some text me. Others will Tweet while some people now use the Facebook Messenger app.
I also get emails and face to face conversations are going on every day. I am doing my best to be available to communicate in the way YOU want to reach me. Go ahead and reach out.
by Scott Howard | Oct 13, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
This week we are going to continue our deep dive into the Timeless Marketing Rules I shared last week and today we’ll look at Timeless Marketing Rule #4: Reach & Frequency.
Most media salespeople worth the time listening to will use Reach and Frequency as a guideline for success. I’m not talking about salespersons success, I’m referring to the success of your advertising campaign.
First let’s define the two terms:
Reach. This is the total number of different people your campaign could reach.
Frequency. This is the number of times each individual person will see or hear your message.
Here’s an example of how this can work using WOWO Radio:
Reach & Frequency on WOWO example
For this example I told my software program to use certain limits, such as adults age 25 and older who listen between 6 and 9 in the morning to Fort Wayne’s Morning News which airs Monday thru Friday on WOWO. The total number of people who listen who fit that criteria is 68,963. Using the schedule of 10 commercials in one week, 44,694 will hear your commercial. That is the reach for one week. Over the course of a year, that reach increases to 66,261. The Reach of your advertising campaign cannot exceed the total number of people who listen, which is that 68,963 number for this example.
Frequency is also mentioned in this illustration. If this campaign were to run for one week, the average person (all 44,694 of them) would hear your ad an average of 3 times. Over a year, that number also increases. The average person (all 66,261 of them) would hear your ad an average of 106.7 times.
Please don’t confuse Reach and Frequency. Both are important but a balance is needed.
Too often I see businesses try and reach too many people without enough frequency. Last week I was talking with a business owner who told me about this great advertising package that was supposed to reach well over 100,000 people that he bought. When we looked at it together, we were able to see that his ad may have been seen and heard by over 100,000 people, but there was not enough frequency of exposure to have an impact on any of them.
Besides, he couldn’t handle all of that new business. Ten new customers a week would be tops. We’re going to talk next week about balancing the reach and frequency numbers in his favor. And I’ll have more or this tomorrow.
by Scott Howard | Oct 9, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
The timeless marketing rule that we’re going to look at today is so basic, yet so many business owners miss this.
3. If you want people to show up at something but you don’t invite them, they won’t show up. This is one huge principle I preach about advertising. You have to invite people to become customers.
In conversations with business people I lay out the following scenario:
You’re getting married. You pick a date, get a dress, order flowers, notify the bridesmaids and groomsmen, reserve the church, the minister, plan the reception, order the cake and food and even make a guest list. You do everything right except one thing: You never send out the invitations. How many people do you think will show up?
Now most business people see the problem right away, no one is going to come to your wedding unless you mail those invitations. It doesn’t matter that you planned for 200 or 1000 guests… the answer is still zero.
What a waste. All that planning, all that food, all that money. Sure you can still get married but…
Transfer this line of thinking to starting a new business. You do everything except invite people with an advertising and marketing plan. You open the doors on your first day and there is no one waiting to do business with you because you didn’t invite them.
The invite is critical. Your business will close if you have no customers. You will not have any customers if you don’t invite them.
Marketing and advertising isn’t an extra expense, it’s as crucial as any other part of your business. More on this series next week. In the meantime, if you want help, contact me.
by Scott Howard | Oct 8, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
Digging deeper today into Timeless Marketing Rule #2: Don’t Sell, Help Them Buy.
This is the 2nd of the Timeless Marketing Rules I mentioned this week:
2. People don’t like to be SOLD something. But they usually will accept and welcome help BUYING something. Big Difference.
Here’s where Human Relationship Principles come into play. We are annoyed by pushy salespeople. Even when we are ready to buy something, if the salesperson is a jerk we lose trust and may even delay buying.
Sounds Like a Good Deal?
There are some stores I refuse to go to because the salespeople are too annoying. That act as desperate vultures who see me and anyone else as fresh meat and they are ready to pounce on to see how much money they can extract from me.
Or so it seems.
There are other stores that you walk in and are desperate to find someone to help you find what you need. This is the opposite problem. Sometimes I want advice to decide if I should buy this or buy that. But they only have know-nothing clerks or order takers who are clueless about this, that and everything!
Apply this to your marketing and advertising outreach.
If you and your company are truly experts and knowledgeable beyond knowing how to read the label on the stuff you sell, then you can help people buy. That’s what we want.
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