Navigating The Economy & Making Money

Navigating The Economy & Making Money

by | Jun 28, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

If you are listening to, watching, or reading all the doom and gloom stories in the news right now…

Stop It.

My friends, instead of getting swallowed up in the bad news of rising prices, staffing and supply chain shortages and whatever else we have going on in the political world, take a look around.

People are still buying stuff.  It’s one of the reasons prices are going up. Not the only reason, but it’s the universal law of supply and demand.

I work in the media. Specifically as the General Sales Manager of the leading conservative talk radio station, I know our conservative talk show hosts point out how bad the liberals are and on TV at home I see the liberals talking about how bad the conservatives are.  It’s the nature of what political commentators do… point out the bad stuff the other side is doing and ignore the good anyone is doing.

However people are still spending money and your job is to adapt your business model to help them buy from you.

We did it a couple years ago in 2020 when we were told to shelter in place and stay home to stop the spread of Covid. Our country has lived thru other challenging times and come out stronger on the other side.  Wars, inflation, recessions, you name it, we’ve been thru it and those that adapt usually make it.

Here’s what I’m telling my advertising sales team to tell the businesses they work with…

You need to invite people to your business to spend money with you instead of pulling back and letting your competition scoop up all the customers.

Let’s put together an ad campaign and invite our listeners to spend with you.

It’s that simple.

 

No Short-Cuts

No Short-Cuts

by | Jun 21, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

There is a simple formula in advertising that seems to be accepted by nearly anyone that hears it:

The Right Message, presented to the Right People, the Right Number of Times = Results.

Yep, it take into consideration three “right” things and promises to work if you get those three “rights” right.

However, most businesses fail at at least one of those “right” things, and that diminishes the outcome.

Let’s say you are a financial planner and you want to grow your business.  The way most financial planners do this is by contacting all the friends and family they know and try and convince them to become their client.  Then as time passes, they get referrals from those clients and over time, they grow.

If there was only a short-cut to grow faster…

There is, and that is to expand the number of people you are inviting to do business with you at a faster pace than the organic model I just mentioned.

This is where some paid advertising and marketing come in.

I know of one financial planner that will buy a list of potential clients from a service that gathers this information and then mails them invitations to a lunch or dinner where the meal is free but you have to sit through some form of sales pitch presentation.  This used to work for some when it was introduced a couple of decades ago, but over time, the return on investment has been getting smaller.

The cost for one of these events is usually a few thousand dollars.  Between buying the list of prospects, doing the mailing, the cost for the dinner and all the assorted costs of the presentation, it ads up.  Then there is the follow up.  A small percent sign up at the meal, some might become your customer after a few follow ups, but financial planners are given a formula that tells them when to quit pursuing a potential client and move on.

This so-called short-cut has plenty of short-comings, let’s look at some of them.

The messaging in the invite is a thinly veiled “bait and switch” tactic.  The only reason it is legal is that the invite you recieve has plenty of disclosures printed on it and they do say you will learn about something financially related.

I wonder if this tactic is reaching the Right People?  Years ago, I worked for a couple of radio stations that did live remote broadcasts at car dealers and gave away free pizza or hot dogs to listeners that came by.  Most of those listeners were not able to afford the higher priced cars the dealers were trying to sell.

When you are giving away a steak dinner as an incentive for financial planning advice, who are you really going to attract?  My guess is people without a lot to invest, or those who are looking for free stuff instead of value.

At the very beginning of a financial planners career, they invite people who know them to become their clients and those that do are doing it because they TRUST the financial planner.

Trust is the missing ingredient at these financial planner dinner schemes.

Trust has to be earned.  There are no short-cuts.

How do you earn trust?

Let’s look at that formula again and this time the focus is on the Right Number of Times.

Assume you’ve got an appropriate message and a way to target it to the Right People that are your ideal clients and customers.

The Right Number of Times an individual person is exposed to your offer is essentially the number of times it takes for that individual to Trust you and your business enough to spend with you.

This month, we had a Financial Planner come to us at WOWO radio and he wants to grow a become as well known and successful as our most well-known Financial Planners.  We were upfront and told him that it could cost him well over $100,000 per year, maybe double that to rise to the ranks of those he mentioned.

Why so much money? To big in the big leagues, you need to compete with enough right messages to reach and those numbers are what is working.  We did offer another option which is closer to $25,000 per year to get started that is very specifically targeted.  

However, when we met again and he gave us a starting budget of under $5000 per year, we almost told him no.  

I can’t offer him what he wants for that small of an investment.  His proposal to us was to spread out his messages each month and try and reach different people all month long.  I’m not sure how he got that idea, but it is the exact opposite of what he needs to do.  I asked him if he is willing to wait a year for his first potential client to contact him. (Yes, he might get it sooner than 12 months, but that’s just being hopeful and I prefer a plan over hope.)

When we meet again, we will offer him the opportunity to spend the budget he has given us to work with, but to do it wisely with a plan that will help him establish name recognition and trust with a group of our WOWO listeners that listen “when it’s dark outside”.  If he accepts, his ads will air late at night and overnight where the price for ads is low enough for him to get the right number of messages every month, not just over a year or longer.

No short-cuts to success is a lesson we all need to learn for all areas of our lives.  Also, if your Plan A is impossible, look for a Plan B, or C. And finally, 

The Right Message, presented to the Right People, the Right Number of Times = Results is a good rule to start with.

 

You Can Only Coast Downhill

You Can Only Coast Downhill

by | Jun 14, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

What are you doing to build your business right now?

It’s a question I ask when I am in front of a business owner.

Sadly, many don’t have a plan.

Or some are afraid of what the future might hold and they are behaving very cautiously.

Too cautious I dare to say.

“Oh, we’re going to take a few months off from advertising and see what happens”, is something I hear by many. 

Good luck with that I say.  Sometimes I say it to their face.  Sometimes I say it to myself and write them off.

We are going thru a time of uncertainty that some of you are experiencing for the very first time.  However there is plenty of history in the recent past that points to a positive outcome for those who are willing to step out instead of retreat.

About 14 years ago, in 2008 our economy was seeing economic collapse that created panic and downturns that were just as scary to the casual observer.  For years, lenders were taking us down a path that was going to create a crash, and basically in 2008, it all came crumbling down.  In a nutshell, lenders had been told to make it easier for people to buy a house.  Sub-prime loans were a part of this along with no-doc mortgages.

I saw first hand how the no-doc mortgage loan was abused.  I had a client that was running a mortgage company and we were supposed to meet about 1 o’clock one afternoon in 2008.  I got to his office before he returned from lunch and overheard one of his mortgage guys reviewing an application with a client over the phone.  As their customer told them their monthly income, the mortgage guy said, we’re going to bump that up so we can get you a lower interest rate. 

Afterward, I spoke to the owner of the mortgage company about what I heard and he told me that was common practice now since they didn’t need to provide any documentation to back up the figures they were putting on the loan applications.  Also they could get people into bigger, more expensive homes this way and the mortgage lender would make more money without risk because they were just a broker and these questionable loans were sold off and he had no liability as the mortgage broker.

I decided not to renew his advertising contract when it expired a few weeks later because I had a gut feeling that this was not right and I didn’t want my radio listeners to be taken advantage off by this company that was putting people’s finances in jeopardy in this manner.

When things took a crash in 2009, this guy’s mortgage company went out of business. That was a good thing.

There were other companies that went under back then but it wasn’t because they were crooked.  Many of them did what I see going on right now and they decided to be conservative and act like a scared turtle and hide in their shell, waiting for things to get better.

They decided to coast for awhile.

Problem is, you can only coast downhill.

Sure if you have enough momentum you will continue to be fine for a bit.

But if you stop inviting people to do business with you, eventually they will stop doing business with you.

And that’s all that advertising really is… a paid invitation from you and your company to potential customers to consider you when they are going to buy.

Some of your best customers will eventually decrease their spending or stop.  It may have nothing to do with you, just circumstances in their life.  For this reason alone, the average business will need to replace 20% of last years customers with brand new customers just to stay even.

That 20% number fluctuates greatly depending on the type of business you are in.

We have roofers advertising on my radio station that offer lifetime warranties.  That means they will never be able to sell that customer another roof until the customer moves to a new house.  Roofers like that have to replace nearly 100% of their customers every year!

Besides the business owners that say they are going to coast for awhile, there are others that are in the start-up or growth phase of their business plan and those are going to advertise.  They are going to earn the trust of your potential customers now and once a consumer buys from someone else, they are out of the market to buy from you.

I actually don’t mind the fact that some businesses are going to coast for now because it makes room for those that want to grow and those are the ones me and my team enjoy working with.

I’ll boil it down to this:

If you want to grow, contact me.

If you are considering coasting, contact me and we’ll continue this discussion.

If you have already made up your mind to pull back and coast, thank you for making it easier for your competition that I’ll be working with to take your place.

 

Referrals Rule

Referrals Rule

by | May 3, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

When you hear the words “so-and-so referred me/or suggested I see you”, it’s almost like money in the bank!

You’ve probably heard that it can cost five to ten times as much to attract a new customer as it costs to maintain and keep an existing customer.  And, that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers.  While finding new customers is important, finding more new customers and keeping them is the true secret to success!

Bain & Company and Harvard Business School reports that 80% of businesses believe they deliver a superior customer experience to capture repeat and referral business, while only 8% of their customers agree that these companies provide superior service.  They also suggest that a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to an increase in profits of between 25 and 95 percent.  Both sets of numbers should grab your attention!

While your customers are bombarded with messages from your competition, it makes sense to craft your advertising to attract new customers, but also keep you front and center with current customers.

Many businesses use internet tools like email or social media to pursue customer loyalty and use intrusive broadcast media to attract new customers. While that strategy is certainly valid, they often under-estimate what intrusive media, like radio, can do to serve as a reminder to their current customer base.

What do you do, or can you do, to provide “over the top” customer service?  And, do you tell people what you do?  Customers expect good service, but it’s when you go over and above that they start to tell their family and friends.

In business, customer perceptions become their realities. If 92% of customers don’t perceive you deliver superior service, they are vulnerable to the aggressive appeals in your competitors’ advertising.

There is a reason that successful businesses like McDonald’s, Home Depot, and GEICO continue to invest more in broadcast advertising…. they understand that to GROW their business they not only need to keep their current clients, but they also need new customers.  New customers come from one of three ways: referrals, advertising, or luck!

Want to get luckier by getting more repeat and referral business?  Click here to read 12 Ways to Generate More Repeat and Referral Business.

Is Generational Relatability An Issue?

Is Generational Relatability An Issue?

by | Apr 19, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

We’re going to talk about generational differences today and how they impact our relationships with others that are older or younger than us.

Last month, Mediapost shared a Quick Refresher on Demographics and that was part of the inspiration for this along with some stuff going on in my own life.

First, I’ll reveal me:

Baby Boomer, graduated from high school in the late 70’s.  I was alive when JFK was shot but have no memory of it because I was a toddler.  During most of the 60’s, I was not aware of the political turmoil or cultural revolutions that were going on.  I was just a kid.

Watergate was the first time I really noticed much about political stuff.  When Nixon resigned, I was becoming a teen and was more into teen stuff like girls and music than adult stuff.  Musically I was into Top 40 and those songs from the mid 70’s to mid 80’s were the foundation for a couple of reasons.  1st, was listening to the radio as a kid and then I was a teenage disc-jockey from age 16 to 25 on the radio for a decade before moving to the advertising side of broadcasting in Detroit in the late 80’s.

My wife is 8 years older than me and most of her friends are around her age, not mine.  We’ve been married for a couple of decades and I would tease her about stuff that happened “before I was born”.  Yet as we get older, we’ve realized that those 8 years are not as significant compared to other generations.

Our 5 kids (from our first marriages) were all born in the 80’s and most of them have kids so there’s another generation in our family now.

I recall 20 years ago when I took a break from media and marketing and learned how to run a thermoformer in a plastics plant that the people working for me were closer to my kids age than mine and that was one of the motivating factors to return to radio and get out of the very physically demanding factory world.

Now at the broadcasting company I work for, we are hiring people that are 10 years younger than my kids.  While it kind of makes me feel old at times, I’ve also enjoyed the role I play as a leader, mentor, and coach.  Plus I can still out perform many of the advertising account executives in our company, but that is not my focus.

So as you and I move forward in 2022 and the years ahead, it’s important to understand some of the differences in generational relatability that I’m about to share.  A dozen years ago I was a guest speaker on personal branding to a group of Huntington University students and realized that an example I used of TV personality Larry King was unrelatable, so the following year I updated my presentation to fix that.

Here’s the Mediapost story:

In 2018, the Pew Research Center determined that 1997 was the starting date for Generation Z. Anyone born from 1981 to 1996 is deemed a millennial, and anyone born since 1997 is a Gen-Zer.

At this point, the oldest Gen-Zers are turning 25 this year and the rest are teens or younger. (The cutoff for Gen Z births appears to be 2012.)

Among the differences between Gen Z and millennials (also called Gen Y) are:

–       Most Gen-Zers have little or no memory of 9/11. Instead, they grew up with lines clearly drawn between the political parties after the event.

–       Generation Z is the most ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history. The next most-diverse generation is millennials. Some 52% of Gen Z is white, 25% is Hispanic, and 4% is Asian, again according to Pew.

–       The iPhone launched in 2007, when the oldest Gen-Zers were 10. They came of age as social media, mobile computing and constant connectivity were part of the landscape.

–       According to a 2021 survey, the top brands for Gen Z were Google, Apple and Amazon. Netflix, Chick-Fil-A and Vans came in after that. But that survey is far from definitive. Others have put Nike at No.1, Netflix at No. 2 and YouTube at No. 3.

For millennials, the top brands were Apple, Nike and Amazon, according to marketing firm Moosylvania. Google was No. 8.

In other words, there doesn’t yet appear to be a deep divide between Gen Y and Gen Z.  That contrasts with the divide between Gen X and Baby Boomers, which was driven by some big differences. Baby boomers currently comprise 70 million people, versus 65.2 million for Gen X, according to Insider Intelligence. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but Gen X was marked by a “baby bust” mentality that sported attitudes of cynicism and skepticism after the euphoria of boomers.

Baby boomers also had a clear starting point (the end of World War II) and ending (1964, when the birth rate began falling). Since then, the delineations between generations seems somewhat arbitrary. As a result, those expecting a huge chasm between Gen Y and Gen Z may come up short.

Some additional insight as you consider all of this is to not make broad assumptions about someone because of the generation they were born into.  I am much more active than my son when it comes to online behavior.  I was also an early adopter compared to folks 10 to 20 years younger than me.  I had to push and pull some of my former co-workers to move forward with certain things that they thought were just a fad, but clearly were much bigger and longer lasting.  Twitter is the example that comes to mind.

Want to know more or do you have some insights to share?  Contact me.