The Trust Factor

The Trust Factor

by | Feb 15, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

A couple of Thursday mornings ago, a couple things happened before 8am.

An email from Insider Radio that included the headline:

Americans May Love Social Media, But Survey Finds It’s Radio That They Trust.

Also it was the beginning of day 2 of a weather-induced work from home day as our area was getting non-stop snow with predictions of well over 15 inches which becomes much more severe when the winds kick in and “drifts up to 4 feet” were predicted by the national weather service.

(I heard that prediction listening to my local news/talk radio station WOWO.)  We ended up with a little less and by Friday, I was back at the office and by Monday most of the rest of the city was back to normal.

Social Media has been the darling media that normal Joe’s and Jill’s turned to for communication to the masses.  What began with MySpace and then Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and numerous others became the bright and shiny new place for advertisers to run ads.  Promises of “hundreds of people for mere pennies” and “trackable results” along with “targeted ads that produce less waste” were all made and continue to be made.

To which I can say, not really.

Look,  I am speaking from a multitude of perspectives.  Yes, I’ve spent the majority of my career in radio.  However a couple of times I worked full-time in the online world.  First time was 2011 when I anticipated never returning to radio and instead I was highly immersed in the digital world where we crafted websites that were built to convert traffic into sales.  We looked at, what appeared to be heat-map technology and a deep dive into analytics to design websites that improved the UX or User Experience and so I know how that is done and not just the technology but psychology behind it all.

I also worked full-time for a multi-million dollar world-wide company that transitioned from a print catalog sales model to an e-commerce based outfit.  I was one of a half dozen specialists in the Internet Marketing Department and my chief role was Social Media for our multiple brands.

Then there is my own personal success story of creating an online following and connections with the ScLoHo brand identity, so I am a believer in the power of online and if you and your business can’t be found online… well you simply don’t exist.  Get your company a website now.  Claim your social media profiles for you and your company.  LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram at the bare minimum.

However, if that is all you do, the online stuff, you are being short sighted and leaving yourself very vulnerable.

It was just announced that Facebook actually lost members recently.  That’s right the biggest Social Media company in the universe, saw a decline.

But that’s not the real reason you are vulnerable.  It has to do with the Trust factor.

A dozen years ago I was giving a presentation to students at Huntington University and part of the discussion demonstrated the good stuff that was happening on Facebook.  I used the example of my friend Heather who was looking for a new dentist for her family and so she asked for recommendations.  Dozens of friends responded with both recommended dentists and a few to avoid. This was modern day word-of-mouth and crowd-sourcing done on a personal level.

However when companies tried to tap into the social networks by running ads, it just wasn’t the same. It was an advertisement, not a personal recommendation.  Like so many other forms of advertising, except it started to become annoying because all we wanted to do was see what was going on with our friends and family and instead we were being served ads every few posts on our newsfeeds. I just took a look at my Facebook newsfeed and of the first dozen posts, numbers 2, 7 and 11 were ads.

Another factor creating distrust in Social Media is the political climate for the past several years.  I think it has intensified online when we were limited in our ability to gather in-person due to pandemic restrictions.

Here are some quotes from the story I referred to at the beginning of our talk today:

A new MRI-Simmons survey finds that nearly two-thirds of Americans say radio is either “very trustworthy” or “trustworthy” with radio topping every other media type other than newspaper – trailing by a mere one percent difference.

Also:

More than twice as many adults consider radio trustworthy compared to social media. When it comes to fake news, it seems Americans have concluded it is not traditional media outlets that are the source, but rather online media options.

And finally:

In its analysis, Katz says the MRI-Simmons research shows why radio is an “ideal platform” for advertisers looking to make their voice heard and their message count. “Radio is a trusted environment with vested local connections to consumers across demographics, and all types of media users,” it says, adding, “Radio provides the best chance for messaging to break through, resonate, and not be mistrusted by consumers.”

Contact me for more information and insight.

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast

by | Feb 1, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

This year marks the completion of 5 years of creating, hosting, recording and producing a weekly podcast and it seems like an appropriate time to introduce myself or reintroduce if we’ve been friends for awhile.  By the way, don’t worry when I say completion, I decided to use that word and not conclusion.  I’m not planning on stopping my weekly articles and podcast episodes, it’s just that we are entering year number 6 of the podcast.

First off, my background.  I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and as a kid dreamed of doing all kinds of professions.  Astronaut and race car driver, gave way to television production by the time I was in middle school and then high school set the stage for radio.  When I was growing up, I listened to Bob Sievers in the morning on WOWO Radio to see if we had school delays.  Back in the 70’s over 70% of people in Northeast Indiana listened to WOWO in the morning.  Some to hear about the weather and school closings, others for farm news delivered by Bob and farm director Jay Gould on the Little Red Barn radio show on WOWO.  I also listened to Chris Roberts in the afternoon after school and Ron Gregory at night on WOWO as a young teenager and that was what planted the seed to be a radio personality.

WMEE was another Fort Wayne radio station that was influential as they played the Top 40 hits of the day.  WMEE was AM radio station at 1380 in the 70’s and WOWO was also on AM at 1190.  At the end of the 70’s WMEE moved to 97.3 FM where they have been ever since.

My high school, Concordia started an FM station when I was there and that was my first on-air experience.  After graduating I began a full time on-air career at WBAT in Marion, Indiana, followed by WIOU in Kokomo and then I ended up on WMEE for 3 years.  I returned to Kokomo, Indiana for about 3 years on the air and as Program Director at WZWZ until the station was sold.  I worked briefly on the air at WXIR in Indianapolis before moving my family to Detroit and WMUZ where I first ventured into the advertising and marketing side of the business.

I did some additional on-air work both part-time and full time at stations WMUZ, WBTU, WGL, WFWI and WAJI. In 2003 I entered the ad world in Fort Wayne, working for a group of 6 radio stations for more than 8 years and it was during that time I began blogging using the online name ScLoHo.

ScLoHo is a mashup of my first, middle and last names. Take the first two letters on Scott Louis Howard and it spells ScLoHo.  Many people have attempted to pronounce it without success.  Often they leave out some letters or add extra letters.  Not even Alexa knows how to pronounce ScLoHo.  

I had multiple ScLoHo blogs on the Google Blogger platform and my friend Kevin challenged me to create an online reputation under my birth name of Scott Howard so in 2011, when I was working fulltime in the webworld, I launched the first version of the Scott Howard dot me website using over 10,000 articles I had already published as the foundation.

Ever since around 2004 or 2005, I have published a minimum of one new article per week.  I used to do it daily and multiple times per day, that is how I ended up with over 10,000 articles in just 6 years.

15,000 articles and counting was what I was continuing to work on when I was approached in 2016 with a request to do a podcast.

More on the podcast in a moment, but first back to me and radio.  In 2013,  I was hired to join WOWO radio, not on the air, but as one of the Local Advertising Sales People.  Official job title was Account Executive and I added Marketing Consultant too it because that was what I did besides selling advertising schedules.  By 2019,  I grew to be the top local advertising account executive not just at WOWO but in our entire company at Federated Media which included a dozen radio stations and nearly 40 A.E.’s.

At the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, before the pandemic hit, Federated Media had a couple of management changes.  My boss, Ben took over as the Federated Media Fort Wayne Vice-President and General Manager and I became to General Sales Manager for WOWO.  These were not “automatic” promotions due to longevity.  Both Ben and myself were promoted from within after our company conducted extensive nation wide searches to find the best leaders for management. Both Ben and myself are now in our 3rd year in our current positions with Federated Media.

Let’s go back to 2016.  Ben and another manager, Suzee were given the task of starting an advertising oriented podcast for Federated Media.  Podcasts were still an early adopter thing 6 years ago and Federated Media wanted to get in on the ground floor.

Ben and Suzee, were aware of my weekly articles I was writing about advertising and marketing on my website at Scott Howard dot me and they might have been aware that I had experience talking behind a microphone too, so they approached me to consider being the one to launch this podcast.  After a little bit of thought, prayer and negotiation, I said yes and by March of 2017 The Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast was launched as a weekly audio version of the articles I was writing and publishing.

While the written form of this is article 15,000 and something.  This is also episode 250 of the podcast.

Who chose the name of the podcast and why?  I did.  Because of my online identity as ScLoHo and the subject matter dealing with media and marketing, that’s why those words were selected.

Why is it the “Genuine” ScLoHo podcast?  As a way to clearly claim my work.  Several years ago when I was just publishing online under ScLoHo, I discovered someone was stealing my articles and republishing them on another website site without my permission.  I also voice my own podcast and identify myself as Scott Howard in each podcast episode. 

One change was made a few years ago with the advent of smart speakers.  I discovered that Alexa doesn’t know how to pronounce ScLoHo so I amended the name to Scott Howard’s Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast.  Now if you ask Alexa to play the Scott Howard Genuine Podcast, she usually knows where to find it.

Unlike the audio version of this article, nearly every weekly episode is less than 10 minutes.  Just long enough to give you an update without eating up too much of your time.

As we move forward this year, I’m going to revisit and update some of the topics I have covered in the past along with keeping you current on the latest trends and thinking to help you with your advertising and marketing as you run your businesses.

There are some Timeless Human Relationship Principles that should be applied to your marketing and advertising and that is where we will start again in some upcoming articles and episodes. 

Brick & Mortar vs E-Commerce

Brick & Mortar vs E-Commerce

by | Jan 18, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, Sound ADvice

“Extra – Extra, Read All About It!!! Brick-and-Mortar stores are dead! E-commerce is the way everyone will shop in the future. Extra – Extra, Read All About It!!!”

If you read the retail industry trades or e-commerce newsletters and blogs at all, that chant has been thrown around for the past decade and the COVID era has made it even louder!

But is it true? To paraphrase Mark Twain, “Rumors of the death of brick-and-mortar retail are greatly exaggerated”

Although e-commerce shopping continues to grow rapidly, brick-and-mortar stores are still holding up well versus online retail sites, as many people still prefer the in-store shopping experience where they can see and try out products before committing to a purchase.

Here are some facts:

In 2020, e-commerce made up 14% of all retail sales.

Brick-and-mortar makes up the other 86%.

Total e-commerce sales in the US in 2020:  $759.47 Billion

Total Brink-and-Mortar retail sales in the US in 2020: $5.6 Trillion (that’s Trillion as in 12-zeros, 000,000,000,000).  Source: Forbes.com

Further proof that brick-and-mortar is here to stay is that Amazon has announced it is opening brick-and-mortar stores. These large department-like stores will be roughly 30,000 sq ft.

It’s not Amazon’s first venture into retail. Amazon, which dominates the online shopping space, made its biggest bet in brick-and-mortar with the acquisition of upscale grocer, Whole Foods, in 2017.

What does this all mean? There is good news and bad news. The good news is.. despite what the e-commerce trade magazines would like you to believe, brick-and-mortar is going to be around for a while. The bad news is.. competition is going to get even tougher for existing retail businesses. Amazon is no slouch!

While there is no denying that e-commerce is and will continue to grow, there will always be local brick-and-mortar retail stores lining our main streets. However, as competition continues to increase from all fronts, the key to survival and continued growth will be your ability to evolve!

In the Six Ways to Compete with E-commerce, tip #2 is: Offer Online Services. They say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. The six most popular reasons consumers shop via e-commerce are lower pricing, free delivery, wider selections/variety of options, comparison shopping, no sales pressure, and convenience. With the exception of Amazon, most products found on e-commerce sights are not less expensive. It’s simple, the “convenience” of shopping online is having products delivered to your door. Keep in mind, the word FREE is key in delivery. Companies that offer free delivery (Amazon Prime) tend to be much more popular than those that add a fee.  

If free delivery is not an option, BOPUS (Buy Online Pick Up at Store) may be a viable option. 

The game’s not over and if you are keeping score, as of the end of third quarter 2021 (latest statistic via Statista Dec 3rd, 2021), the score is brick-and-mortar 87% vs e-commerce 13%. Yes, e-commerce grew from 13.5% in 2020 to 13.8% in the second quarter of 2021, but then fell slightly to 13% in the third quarter of 2021.  

The more the world changes, the more consumers demand. To stay ahead of the ever-changing competition, as business owners we need to continue to evolve. To see Six Ways to Complete with E-commerce,  click here.

Note: The statistics provide are from sites via the internet and are from non-e-commerce companies. If you visit enough e-commerce sites, you will find conflicting data which provides more favorable results for their subscribers.

I have one more important fact for you to consider and that is the reliability factor of measuring your advertising R.O.I. attribution. 

Those in the web world like to push the falsehood that online is 100% trackable.  Having spent significant time working in the e-commerce world, I understand what they are saying, because it is common practice to put tracking codes on the links that we see in email or online.  But there are other significant factors that influenced us to click on those links such as brand awareness, reputation, word of mouth and other things that aren’t trackable.  If anyone tells you that digital marketing is better than other forms for those reasons, please be skeptical and you can even reach out to me for an unbiased but informed opinion and insight. 

Are You Missing?

Are You Missing?

by | Oct 6, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

A decade ago, I took a break from working in radio to work full-time for a website development firm that had some cutting edge technology back in 2011.

My job was to find companies that needed website upgrades and introduce them to our platform so we could bring them into what was then the current version of the internet age.

A new website could cost $20,000 for a simple landing page up to well over 100 grand for an eCommerce site.

These days, you can hire a professional to build you nearly anything you need for under $50,000.  I have a few connections that I trust to do the work for a tenth of that, depending on what your needs are.

Yet, I am amazed at the number of businesses that are missing online.

What do I mean by missing?

Well first off, I should be able to find you with a simple Google Search for your business name.

Google tries to be your friend by providing businesses with free listings so that when I am looking for you, I can find you.

And by find, I mean find your website, your location including directions, your phone number and whatever else would be appropriate.

Yet there are still too many businesses that seem to be ignoring the internet because they don’t show up when I Google them.

Similar circumstances with Facebook.  Too many of you don’t exist.

Now I’m not a tech wizard nor am I a web designer, or even an expert in Search Engine Optimization anymore.  Consider me your average potential customer who is just looking to connect with you or one of your competitors because I have a question that requires your expertise.   Or maybe I have money to spend right now and I just need to connect with you and give you my money in exchange for the product or service you provide.

But you are missing when I ask my phone to find you, or my laptop to send me to your website.

To me, I find this shocking, that a business is still invisible online.

This violates one of the very basics of marketing.  You need to be able to be found.

Stop ignoring this and either pay someone or do it yourself, but create a way for people like me to find you online.

Also, if you have not updated your website, or updated your social media this year, (or longer)… do it.  Our whole world has gone through numerous changes since the pandemic began over 18 months ago and I’m sure your business has too.  Update your hours, and other policies we need to know and want to know.  Even if it’s back to business as usual, tell us that too.

One more tip and this is for you as an individual:

Don’t be missing online personally.  You don’t have to create your own website like I did years ago, but you might want to.  At the very least, get on social media.  Create a LinkedIn profile, Go ahead and  get on Facebook.  Those two are the most important for adults who want to be found.

Sure, you can also use Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and others but don’t ignore Facebook and LinkedIn because those are the two primary social media channels still for grown-ups.

Are you missing?

If you are, what are you missing?

And are you going to do something about it?

P.S.

Everything you just read I wrote on Sunday 10/3/21 and used as the script for this weeks podcast.

Then the next day, Monday 10/4/21 Facebook.com goes down.  I mean for several hours, you cannot connect to Facebook and some of their other holdings like Instagram.  Does this mean that you should NOT use Facebook?

No, it just means you should not use Facebook exclusively.  As I am writing this on Monday afternoon and Facebook is still down, I have full confidence in Facebook coming back online.  This is just an unfortunate hiccup that will cost them some money in lost revenue.  However, for the businesses that only rely on Facebook or Instagram to be found online, this will have a much more serious impact.

Go back and read what I wrote in its entirety and then do it.

Follow The Leader Off The Cliff

Follow The Leader Off The Cliff

by | Jul 7, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom

Are you a Follower?

Or are you a Leader?

A couple weeks ago I read a statistic about advertising spending that didn’t surprise me but kind of made me sad.

It’s estimated that this year, digital advertising will account for nearly 67% of all media spending.

That was the opening line in a story from Mediapost that actually advices that going all digital is dangerous to the health of your brand and company.  Their headline reads: 5 Reasons To Keep Traditional Media In The Mix.

Radio, TV, newspapers, they are considered traditional media compared to digital media when has been around for nearly two decades.

All media can have some value for advertisers but you have to understand the way people use them and have the right expectations for what you are wanting to do.

Coupled with the rise of digital, the media landscape is increasingly complicated. The best approach is an integrated one — utilizing both digital and traditional tactics.

The reason I titled this Follow The Leader Off The Cliff is I have seen too many business people abandon traditional and go all digital, only to suffer the consequences or wake up and return to radio, print and tv.  National companies like Proctor and Gamble did it, and I have a friend that was nearly put out of business when Facebook shut down his Facebook page.

Let’s dig in with the 5 reasons from Mediapost:

More real estate. Smart traditional media placements can complement your digital campaign, in many cases offering additional real estate for comprehensive storytelling. 

Added value. Traditional media offers far more opportunity for added value than digital. 

 

Content alignment. Traditional broadcast and print media offer more content alignment opportunities, allowing the message to complement what audiences are already seeing. Negotiating fixed positions adjacent to this content through sponsorships and specific placement can help brands avoid getting lost in the clutter.

 

Endorsement opportunities. Endorsements promote credibility, particularly for campaigns meant for diverse audiences. By leveraging endorsements with “original influencers,” from DJs to on-air broadcast personalities, messaging is delivered by people whom audiences already trust, allowing paid content to come across naturally.

 

Internal alignment. It’s normal to want to see a campaign in-market once it launches. However, clients and their internal teams may not always be the target audience for a digital campaign, therefore not ever seeing it. 

 

While digital media is a critical component of paid campaign strategies, traditional media tactics still have unique strengths. Depending on location, demographics and other key qualifiers, there can be an argument made to focus on one over the other. Integrating both digital and traditional together can expand reach and engagement, while also increasing impact.