by Scott Howard | Nov 15, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
The Long Haul.
The Purpose of Your Strategic Marketing is Always, Always, Always to be Known, Liked and Trusted Before You are Needed. I just stole that, well borrowed it from Tim Miles because he is so on target with that statement that I want you to hear it from me too.
Before I share my side of this, here’s how I discovered that bit of wisdom. Years ago, I found Tim and his company as one of Roy Williams Wizard of Ads Partners and was impressed with what he and his staff share regarding marketing and life. I get his free weekly email and have his Good Company book. Here’s a link to get it all too and the email that contained the Tim quote. (Go to the top of that page and follow the directions.)
So why is it important to be Known, Liked, and Trusted Before You Are Needed?
As human beings, we are creatures of habit. We develop preferences for things we like and those things are what we tend to do as long as we are able to.
Take breakfast for example.
I am a breakfast eater. My body requires that I eat something within about an hour of getting up in the morning. By the way, I use the word requires, in reference to myself. I know lots of folks who say they can’t eat breakfast. But play along with me and we’ll skip the pros and cons of what meals to eat or skip.
Between 350 and 360 days each year, I wake up in my own bed and follow a routine that involves eating something and drinking something for breakfast. I either have something at home or pick something up on my way to my first meeting. 50 times each year, I have a weekly meeting that includes a breakfast buffet.
But those other 300 days, I limit my selection to what I am familiar with.
I know how to prepare, find or buy breakfast. I don’t have to Google it or watch a YouTube video on how to eat in the morning. I don’t have to ask my Facebook friends or well, you see where I am going, right?
Regarding breakfast, I have a Top Of Mind Awareness of not just what’s available, but what I, Scott Howard, know, like and trust to fuel my morning.
You do too. It’s the way we as humans are wired.
But what about something we don’t do everyday? How do we learn about those things?
I recall the first time I had sushi. I was adventurous and my wife and I just ordered something. It wasn’t a good experience. A couple years later, my daughter Rachael offered to take me out and teach me how to enjoy sushi.
Because I know, like and trust my daughter Rachael, I took her up on her offer and because she knows, and likes me, she introduced me to sushi style food that she trusted I would like.
It worked. I now know what kinds of sushi I like and I’ve even had it for breakfast once.
How does this apply to your business marketing and advertising?
There are times when everyone of us will need to spend money on something that we have not spent money on before. It could be a furnace repair, maybe buying your first house. Tires or car repair. The first time we spend money on anything new, we are looking for a business or product that we can trust. We want to like the people we are dealing with and if we have some knowledge of them, they are more likely to be on the short list of who we consider to spend our money with.
As I tell my advertising partners, unless you sell Christmas trees and nothing else, you better be building Top Of Mind Awareness every month, year round. There is always someone who wants what you have to sell if you invite them to spend money with you when they are ready to buy.
Most of the advertising partners I work with are not retailers. That’s by choice and design. I get to choose who I work with. And I get to choose who I don’t want to work with. I want to work with business people who understand what I just said and want to learn how to create long term success. That’s why I write, blog, podcast and work for the long term too.
I don’t care if you eat sushi or breakfast, but I do care that you want to do what’s right for your customers. Do you have what it takes to be one of my long term advertising partners with WOWO Radio or any of the additional online marketing options I have? Reach out to me and let’s find out.
by Scott Howard | Oct 31, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
As many of you prepare your business for 2018 and are wondering about Social Media marketing, here’s some numbers that were shared by Mediapost. Remember that these are just numbers and you really should talk to a professional about what this means for your individual situation. If you are in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area, reach out to me.
Social Media Strategy Opportunities by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research
A potpourri of popular social media platforms, and how brands and retailers can implement strategies, better reach, and engage with different audiences.
Facebook
- 2 Billion monthly users
- 75% of users spend 20 minutes on the site every day
- 500 million people watch facebook videos every day
- FacebookLive popularity has risen 330% since launch
- Users watch FacebookLive videos 3X longer than non-live videos
- Strategy: Drive awareness and engagement with videos and live streams
Twitter
- 328 Million active monthly users
- Daily active users have increased 14% each year
- The average user follows 5 businesses
- 80% of users have mentioned a brand in a Tweet
- Companies active on Twitter see a 19% increase in customer satisfaction
- Strategy: Prioritize customer service and engagement
Instagram
- 800 Million monthly users
- Monthly users grew 24% in 2017
- Half of users use Instagram Daily Posts tagged with a location have 79% higher engagement
- Strategy: Post highly visual, geo-targeted content to boost engagement
Pinterest
- 200 Million monthly users
- 50 million more users that October 2016
- 67% of users visit Pinterest on mobile while shopping in-store
- 1/3 of users choose Pinterest over Google search
- Strategy: Link Pinterest to your website to increase traffic and sales
Snapchat
- 375 Million active monthly users
- Growth slowed 82% after instagram stories launched
- 3 Billion snaps are created each day
- 63% use Snapchat as their primary medium for messaging friends
- Users younger that 25 visit more than 20X a day for at least 30 minutes
- Strategy: Leverage geo-filters to create interactive content
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/309125/social-media-strategy-opportunities.html
That’s the latest number’s from the Mediapost article. But what does any of this mean to you the local business person? It’s nearly useless data for deciding how to reach people and invite them to become your customer.
However here are a couple of considerations…
Facebook has officially moved to a pay model. In other words, it is nearly impossible for a company to get exposure for anything considered advertising or marketing unless you pay. I saw this first hand in 2013 when I worked full time in social media and it continues today.
Instagram is owned by Facebook and many including myself crosspost between the two.
Twitter is still better to use by the customer service department than the marketing department of a business and Snapchat, well it’s demographics are below the ages of people I target for most of my advertising, so I personally don’t care. I even deleted my own Snapchat account this year.
Social Media is still the bright shiny object that marketing people are trying to figure out and tons of businesses are dumping their advertising budgets to online stuff like the platforms mentioned here. However you and I as consumers are not fond of the ads that interrupt our newsfeed when we just want to see what’s going on with friends and family.
This is why we use social media.
One platform mentioned in that Social Media Report is different and if you are in retail, you should give it consideration.
Which one?
Pinterest. It is an online wishlist and shopping list for the heavy users. It takes time and knowledge to build Pinterest Boards that pay off financially as I immersed myself in it a few years ago and saw the largest measurable Return On Investment that was trackable for my social media activity.
Let me leave you with this. Advertising and marketing is best done by those who are professionals and that also includes social media platforms. Don’t be swept away by big numbers like I shared at the beginning of this article and think that you can have instant success. The folks behind the scenes at these social media companies are constantly tweaking and changing the rules of the game and what worked last year may not work next year so you need to be sure the person handling your social media is staying on top of the changes every week.
by Scott Howard | Oct 24, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
For most people who see, hear, or read your advertising, The Answer is No.
And that is okay.
Today we are going to talk about realistic expectations when it comes to advertising and marketing. Some of the people who sell advertising are not going to like what I am about to share, but that is okay too.
By the way, this article was inspired by a conversation I had with my friend Dennis last week and also by an article by Seth Godin, where he talks about why negative reviews are sometimes okay.
Often advertising sales people will tell you about how many people will see or hear your advertisement, which may have an element of truth to it, but you need to understand what that number represents and what it really means in relationship to your business.
First some numbers:
Those people in the outdoor advertising business that sell billboard signs that you see along the side of the road usually use the estimated traffic count of how many vehicles drive by that section of road per day. They then do some math and multiply that number of vehicles by 1.5 passengers and tell you that your ad will be seen by all these thousands of people.
Television stations, radio stations, they both get ratings numbers from an outside company that estimates how many listeners or viewers a station has. Again, there are hundreds, even thousands of people that are watching or listening, right?
Some media and advertising companies use a different kind of method, like the phone book companies would say that they reach the entire population of your city. These days we know from our own behavior, that the percentage of people who take that phone book and immediately toss it in the trash grows every year.
Digital advertising has some track-ability to it but it’s a flawed system too.
But I’m not here to discourage you from advertising, so I better return to the topic, the headline of this piece which is The Answer is No.
What in the world am I talking about?
I’ll tell you.
For the majority of the people that your advertising message is exposed to, the answer right then and there is no. They are not going to buy your stuff at that moment. Just because I see or hear an advertisement or marketing message for you and your company, I am not going to immediately react and spend money with you right then and there.
And that’s okay.
Your business is not capable of handling all the potential customers that your advertising reaches at the moment your advertising message is seen or heard.
Can your restaurant handle 30,000 customers at lunch today?
Can your auto repair shop take care of 100 new customers tomorrow?
If everyone that sees or hears your advertising this week wanted to become your customer would that be a blessing or a nightmare?
Fortunately only a fraction of the people will become your customer at any given time.
Each have their own reason too.
I went thru this exercise with my friend Dennis who owns a service business. Dennis has a goal of how many customers he wants to add to his business this year and he’s a little short. And he also has a couple of slow months coming up where his main goal is to stay in business. He’s pretty smart about it and knows the up and down months so he plans for them. That’s part of his success.
I presented him with an idea using my radio station, WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that can help him fill up the rest of his year and also transform those slow months into busier months. I wrote three words on a paper and asked him where he was right now with my idea.
Those words were:
Yes
Maybe
No
Yes meant we would take the next step to implement my idea.
Maybe meant there were still questions and things to consider.
No meant no way.
Then I added a few letters to the word no on the paper and changed the No to
Not Yet
That’s where Dennis really is right now.
There are a couple of items that need to be taken care of first, like adding to his team and training his new employees. Then we will look at the timing and see if my idea can be implemented.
Consumers go through this all the time.
Just because someone who sees or hears your ad doesn’t say Yes right now, you might think they are saying No.
Some of them are really saying Maybe or Not Yet.
And that’s okay.
The reason you need to advertise long term or more than once is to continue to reach those who are saying Maybe, and Not Yet, because they will often say Yes one day.
Want help with your marketing plans and advertising? Let’s connect.
by Scott Howard | Oct 17, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
The concept of How To Conquer The World is pretty vast and could apply to a multitude of applications, so I’m going to limit this article to the stuff that I’ve learned for 50 years, since I was a 7 year old kid.
I’m also going to talk about the world of business and relationships.
I’ll even narrow it further and limit this to marketing and advertising.
So if you want to know how to conquer the world with military power, this article isn’t for you. Or is it?
First off, you need to pace yourself.
The overnight success stories of others are not what they appear to be. Before the so called overnight successes we see in the world around us, there were plenty of days and nights that did not look like success. 
Set your expectations in proportion to the work you put in. There are 168 hours in this week. You need balance between the things your human body needs and your business passions. Simple things like sleep, food and non-work related activities will help you become stronger, or if you ignore them, that can destroy you.
Would you rather be a big flash in the pan and get 10 minutes of fame or build a long term success? Depending on your age and experience you may answer differently. It’s taken me some time to realize that it’s the long term that is more meaningful.
As I share my story, feel free to picture your own life story too.
When I was a 7 year old I was starting 2nd grade at a new school where I knew no one. Most of my classmates had known each other from kindergarten and 1st grade and I was one of the new kids. Over the next 5 years, I became friends with many of my classmates, but not all. I gained a few close friends out of that initial class of 25 and some of those I still have friendships with due to the connectivity of social media.
7 years later, I went through nearly the same experience as an awkward 14 year old starting at a new high school filled with hundreds of students. I knew 2 of them when I walked in and not that well. Over the course of 4 years, I developed relationships with several, but again most of my classmates had friendships that were 8 years strong before we met.
After my formal education ended, my career path took me to new towns and radio stations where I worked on the air. Some relationships developed and some remain to this day, mostly thru reconnecting online because we all went our own separate ways career wise. Back then, my idea of conquering the world might have been to be a top 40 disc jockey in Chicago or New York. Turns out one of my co-workers got that gig in New York and yet he often recalls his days of working on the air in Fort Wayne Indiana as some of his favorite times.
You really don’t need to conquer the world. Instead you need to build relationships.
In the business world, it’s a matter of connecting with the people who want to either buy what you have to sell; can sell you what you need to buy; or who can connect you to those you need to connect with.
I’m in the advertising and marketing business. Primarily with WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The same city I was in when I was starting 2nd grade and my freshman years as the new kid in school. I left and returned. Not on purpose, at least the returning part, but here I am 19 years straight as a citizen of Fort Wayne, longer than I have ever lived anywhere.
The long term relationships that you can develop in your life are also the relationships that will help you in business if you treat people with respect and honor. Be true to your word and when you screw up, admit it and apologize.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Learn from them. Learn from others too. Find a mentor and mentor others. Read, talk and most important… listen.
Ask, explore, make changes as needed but remember the only way to conquer the world is one relationship at a time.
The world of advertising and marketing is continuing to evolve.
The mass media outlets like broadcast television networks, ABC, NBC and CBS attract less of the masses as other forms of entertainment and news on different platforms have become available. Similar patterns have occurred in other traditional mass media vehicles. Fort Wayne had two newspapers for decades and now we have just one due to declines in circulation. The number of local radio stations tripled in Fort Wayne from my youth to today and there are plenty of other options to get what radio stations used to offer exclusively.
Fortunately, my radio station, WOWO continues to attract a healthy sized audience with listeners who develop a “relationship” with our on-air personalities, and ours is a good business model for the listeners, the businesses that advertise with us and for the station itself. WOWO is not always the answer, but it might be.
You as a business person, need to determine how to find those individuals that will help you and your business succeed. The advertising and marketing options are nearly infinite compared to a few decades ago, however there are some guiding principles that you should follow that involve relationships that will never go out of style.
Contact me for help to conquer the world, or at least your corner of it.
by Scott Howard | Oct 10, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Let’s talk about your brand and reputation because Marketing Perceptions are Messy.
I am currently working with a local branch of an international organization that understands the importance of being accurate in their marketing messaging. So much so, that they have a compliance department that reviews all of their marketing and advertising outreach including what we, WOWO Radio are going to be doing with them this month.
I usually don’t need to jump through as many hoops as I have with this company to put together an advertising campaign for most of the people I work with, but this is fine. They understand the power of bad publicity and in this social media world how bad stuff can go viral.
I sometimes wish my local business owners were as aware of this and so that’s what we are going to talk about today.
You can control the content of your paid advertising messages because you approve those ads ahead of time.
But what about the other marketing messages that are out there?
The way your drivers behave when they are driving your company vehicles for example?
The words and actions of your staff when they are at a customers home or business?
The words and actions when your people are enjoying lunch at their favorite restaurant?
Here’s one that I take into consideration every week:
The words that are spoken that are not necessarily the words and policies of your company, but are said by a representative of your company?
Do you have a policy in place for any of this?
When I began the podcast version of my weekly website articles, I decided to play it safe and every recorded version includes the following disclaimer:
THERE IS A ROUGH TRANSCRIPTION OF THIS PODCAST ONLINE AT THE WEBSITE SCOTT HOWARD DOT ME. IF YOU WANT TO GO BACK AND READ OR CHECK OUT THE LINKS I MAY MENTION, YOU’LL FIND THEM THERE. SCOTT HOWARD DOT ME.
I WILL BE UPDATING THIS PODCAST EVERY WEEK HOWEVER IS ADDITIONAL MATERIAL THAT I WRITE THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT IN THE PODCAST VERSION BUT WILL BE ON THE SCOTT HOWARD DOT ME WEBSITE.
AND EVEN THOUGH I AM RECORDING THIS AT THE FEDERATED MEDIA STUDIOS IN FORT WAYNE, INDIANA AND I WORK FOR WOWO RADIO AND THIS IS BEING PROMOTED BY MY EMPLOYER. EVERYTHING I SAY OR WRITE IS STRICTLY MY OWN THOUGHTS AND NOT NECESSARILY THE OPINIONS OF FEDERATED MEDIA OR ANY OF THEIR AFFILIATIONS AND OR ADVERTISERS.
Click above for the link to the podcast
I wasn’t asked to include that disclaimer, but I did it as a “just in case” preventative move. I’ve been writing and publishing these stories and articles every week for years, over 6 years now at the ScottHoward.me website and other sites before that.
When I joined the WOWO advertising sales team 4 years ago, I asked and received permission from my management team to share the stuff that I write and talk about publicly. I don’t have a compliance department overseeing this before it’s published and my radio bosses don’t ask for preview copies either. They simply trust me to have the common sense to do what is right and appropriate.
Last year they came to me and asked if I would consider doing a podcast version of my website, and that’s how the Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast came about. There are links to it on the WOWO.com website. It’s a win win situation for them and for me because of the trust factor.
That trust factor is what I want you to consider as a take away from this article and podcast. You really need to let your staff know what is expected of them when they are representing your company. Put it in a company handbook, make it part of their employment contract, or what ever is most appropriate. Don’t bury it the fine print either.
You need to trust your staff to be responsible and that starts with letting them know what that means. Your customers and potential customers are watching and this is even more powerful than your paid advertising messages. Marketing Perceptions are Messy. Your job is to do your best to keep it clean.
Want help? Let’s talk.
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