Learn From The Best

Learn From The Best

by | Apr 7, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo Sales Tips, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

It’s a weird and wacky world out there right now.

We are hearing stories about the record number of people who are filing for unemployment, the devastating stories of people dying from this mystery virus that we have yet to get a handle on because it is new to the medical and scientific community.

Some of us are working from home, other are at home trying to figure out how to occupy their time.

As business owners and managers, I understand you want some answers, but the answers to the questions you really want aren’t available yet.

We don’t know what the final tally will be healthwise or financially. We are living in the middle of a movie and this is not your typical romantic comedy or action flick where we know the good guys always win.  This is real life, your life, my life and the lives of the people we work with and live with.

You want answers, you want solutions, and while I wish I could give you a road map to follow exactly…

I can’t because each of you have different circumstances and variables that will determine the steps to take.

Instead I am going to take a moment and share with you some resources that I shared with my team.

Near the end of February, I was offered and accepted a promotion to become the General Sales Manager of WOWO Radio. WOWO is one of a dozen stations owned by Federated Media in Indiana  and the past few years the WOWO Local Sales Team has been the largest producer of revenue for our company.  I’ve been part of that team for nearly 7 years.

Less than 4 weeks after the promotion to lead, manage and coach our team, Black Friday hit.  It was my wife’s birthday March 13th and the orders to stay at home were causing businesses to scramble and try and figure out what to do next. 

One of the things I prepared for my team was a list of some resources that have helped me over the years. With the extra time you have and your desire to find some answers, this list of resources could spur your thinking and creativity.

In 1986 I made the switch from having fun and being creative as a radio personality in the programming side of the business, to needing to learn how to apply that creativity and fun to the money making side of the business, the advertising, marketing and sales side.

Roy H. Williams:  https://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/  I subscribe to this and have fun digging into the “rabbit hole” in each memo.

 

https://harveymackay.com/ Has a bunch of resources and I’ve read and recommend his first two books, Swim and Naked.

 

https://www.gitomer.com/ has free stuff you can sign up for.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/0071373586  Is a book I bought when I first started in the advertising side of radio in Detroit.  Great stuff.

 

I subscribe to Art’s emails: https://businessbyphone.com/

 

And circling back to Roy Williams, some of his partners also write great stuff that you can subscribe to: https://wizardofads.org/articles/

 

I  also have over 1400 articles and over 150 podcast episodes that I’ve created at my own website: https://www.scotthoward.me/ and I update with fresh material every single week.

I have been learning for over 30 years and continue to soak up wisdom from others.

I also have a weekly newsletter called Sound ADvice that is free and delivered to your email Wednesday mornings if you sign up for it.

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The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

by | Oct 17, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

This week I have a challenge for you if you sell products that are manufactured by someone else.

All of your suppliers have a vested interest in your success, and most of them have access to extraordinary marketing funds and resources beyond traditional co-op to help you sell more of their products.

The problem is, seldom does anyone ask for these funds! If you don’t access those funds, you are literally throwing money away, or worse yet, your competitors will scoop those funds and use them against you.

In our “How to Leverage Your Suppliers” Marketing Muscle, tactic number one is “Tender your Next Ad Campaign”. Present a written proposal for submissions for marketing support from all of your suppliers outlining your proposed advertising schedule and investment, along with any special displays, promotions, demonstrations or other exposure the winning bidder will receive.

Many business owners believe their hands are tied to rigid manufacturers’ restrictions if they use manufacturers’ co-op advertising funds, but seldom is this the case.  The Squeaky Wheel, often times gets the grease!

If you are an appliance dealer, for example, and you sell GE and Whirlpool, your GE representative has a vested interest in you featuring GE versus Whirlpool in your ad.

If you make a presentation outlining the kind of campaign you propose to sell more GE without using the standard GE script or ad copy that the manufacturer supplies, it will generally be approved by their office because they don’t want your campaign to feature their competitor.

Still, other businesses opt not to leverage their suppliers’ marketing muscle because it takes time and effort. In today’s competitive environment you need to take advantage of every competitive edge you can.

These types of ideas can also work with service oriented companies.

A few years ago, I started working with a wholesaler who set up a deal to get an extra 50% co-op rebate that was above and beyond the standard co-op program.  We found three of their dealers who have jumped on this special program and spend $100,000 in advertising, half of which they get back in credit on supplies they would have bought anyway!

This takes extra effort, extra planning and extra time to set up, but for these 3 local dealers and their wholesaler, it has paid off handsomely for the past 3 years.

Want help exploring this idea for your business? Contact me and also Click here to retrieve our FREE “How to Leverage Your Suppliers’ Marketing Muscle”.

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Where Are All The TV Viewers?

Where Are All The TV Viewers?

by | Oct 10, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

My wife and I are Baby Boomers and we have been the generation that most advertisers targeted their marketing to over most of my lifetime.

That is until we “aged-out” of the 25-54 age demographic.

That started happening in 2001 when the oldest Boomers who were born in 1946 turned 55.

This is the year, 2019 when the youngest Boomers who were born in 1964 hit double nickels.

About 10 years ago however is when the marketing people started to wake up and realize that the Baby Boomers still were a valuable demographic for a lot of products and services.  That was when the first Boomers were preparing to hit that magic age of 65, the age of retirement in the United States.

Except Baby Boomers were not like the previous generations that were in the 60’s.  They were not in the last couple years of life, they were living a full and rewarding life.

The kids were finally out on their own, yes even out of the basement and grandkids were coming.  Some Baby Boomers still have parents alive too.

The wealth was and still is in the hands of the Baby Boomers.

Baby Boomers grew up with the mass media of radio and TV.  We remembered AM Radio and Black & White TV and saw the transformation to Color TV and growth of FM Radio.

Radio has been our portable entertainment with every vehicle on the road being a virtual sound machine while TV was our home entertainment with news and prime time shows dominating our evenings.

So it is no surprise that even with the advent and growth of the internet and all the advances from dial-up AOL to always connected smart homes, traditional TV and Radio stations were still relevant to the Baby Boomer generation.

I have seen plenty of studies that have shown the shifting audience demographics for TV especially that is top heavy with older people.

More than half of all traditional TV viewers are age 55 and older.

Traditional TV encompasses both the traditional broadcast and traditional cable TV networks.

However in 2019, for the first time ever, traditional TV viewership in the age 55+ is now declining.

Here’s what Mediapost said about this:

It’s no secret that linear TV viewing has been declining as American consumers — especially younger ones — shift to digital alternatives, but a new analysis from the equities research team at UBS shows that even older TV viewers have begun eroding for the first time.

While total viewers (two years or older) have been eroding for some time, the fact that TV’s most diehard and heaviest viewers also are abandoning the medium should come as a wakeup call for many in the TV and advertising industry.

The article also shows data that over the past ten years TV has lost 50 to 60% of their younger viewers and the only age group that grew was the Baby Boomers  but now they are watching less TV.

I can tell you why, from personal experience.

We have access to 100 channels and there’s “nothing on”. At least that’s the way it seems.

A lot of the shows are targeted to younger viewers and are simply stupid or overly sexually juvenile. The jokes would have made the teenager in me snicker, but that was over 30 years ago.

Here are the actual shows that I will watch with my wife either live or on demand almost every week, now that the fall TV season is back:

NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, Jeopardy, Bull, The Good Doctor, Chicago Med.  The first four are without fail, the last two are likely to watch.

My wife will watch Dancing with the Stars and the Bachelor series, but I won’t. I may watch The Voice.

That’s it. Each year the number of shows we watch declines.  Not because there are less programs available, but the networks are trying to reach the younger audiences they have already lost which is stupid.

My kids are all in their 30’s and none of them watch traditional TV.  There is nothing that will change that so the networks need to wake up and do what they can to keep the viewers they have from abandoning them.

Now we do watch other things on TV.  The network news channels get a healthy amount of evening viewing along with some occasional HGTV, and we also stream stuff like Amazon Prime Movies. Netflix is a must have for my kids and their families.

As a side note, since I work in the radio business, there is also an undercurrent among the youngest, I’m talking teens and 20 year olds to listen to less traditional radio than people of that age group did decades ago, for many of the same reasons they don’t watch traditional TV. However for grown-ups age 35+ radio listening is still as healthy as ever.  I have specifics for the Fort Wayne, Indiana market if you ever want to see who listens to what, contact me. Scott@WOWO.com

Last week I read the results from the first week of the new Fall 2019 Fall TV Season and it’s not pretty.

The article I read says: TV’s broadcast network premiere week for the 2019-2020 season showed more double-digit percentage declines. 

If you are a business that uses TV to advertise, let this be a warning to you that the audience that you are trying to reach is shrinking.  If you want to see some viable solutions and alternatives, let’s talk.

How would you like to receive my free Sound ADvice business and marketing tips email newsletter every week?  Sign up in the box below.

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The Power of Audio

The Power of Audio

by | Sep 17, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Which is more powerful…

Audio or video?

Is what you see more powerful than what you hear?

What stirs your heart, your emotions?

If you have never been asked these questions, you should take some time to contemplate the answer before we continue.

The visual  is thought to be more powerful than the audio but it’s just not true.

Earlier in my life, I was a radio disc jockey.  I was the voice between the songs that played on the radio.  This was before there was a TV channel devoted to playing music videos.

MTV was just that at the beginning. 24 hours a day on cable TV MTV played the Top 40 Contemporary Hit Music Videos with real live V-J’s (video jocks) doing the kind of stuff I did on the radio.  It was wildly successful at first.

But there’s a reason why MTV is not a 24 hour music video channel anymore.

It’s not that the music videos are not any good anymore.  Nope, there is another reason.

Video took away an important element from the music.

Music Video’s stripped away the personal imagination and personal emotion from the music.

Before music video’s became widespread, each of us had a more personal experience with the music when it came on the radio.

We created our own personal story.  A unique personal story, all ours, not shared with anyone because it was written in our imagination and our heart.

Now I’m going to jump 30+ years to today.

Pretend you were in a coma and suddenly you woke up 3 decades later.  Or perhaps you prefer a time machine, that sounds less scary.

As we prepare for the next decade of the 2020’s I have been noticing a trend to personalized experiences once again.

I’m referring to entertainment and information.  

Instead of watching a particular TV show on Tuesday nights at 8pm, we now watch on our time schedule.  A personalized schedule. 

This has contributed to the decline in traditional TV watching on broadcast and cable channels and the increase in viewership to services like Netflix and other streaming services.  Binge watching?  Yes, that’s part of it, but it has more to do with creating our own personalized schedule.

You may ask, “What’s this have to do with playing music on the radio or music videos?” , that I was talking about a few moments ago…

Personalized Audio experiences are also on the rise.  Here’s how and why:

The options of what to listen to continue to grow.  

Podcasting is not a foreign concept, it is mainstream.  

Now the content that you find in the podcast world ranges from one extreme to another, and the quality varies tremendously too.

There are a couple dozen podcast networks that you can use to listen to your favorite podcasts with the big three currently being:

  1. Apple or iTunes
  2. Google Play Podcasts
  3. and Spotify

If you are going to have a podcast, you want to make sure you are on those three platforms.

Something else that has lead to a resurgence in listening to audio is the growth of Smart Speakers.

This summer the Nielsen company released a couple reports that MarketingCharts.com shared that showed some interesting facts about all this.

A couple of key takeaways:

  • 92% of American Adults listen to the radio every week.  What I find interesting is that in reality, they could be listening to a local radio station on a traditional car radio, at home through their smart speaker, out and about listening on earbuds plugged into their phone, or streaming on their laptops… it all counts and the relevance of local radio stations continues to remain strong.
  • 2/3 of all “out of home listening” is in cars. The numbers show that the majority of our radio listening is done away from home. Also: For advertisers trying to get the attention of adults, the prime time for listening on the weekdays starts at about 7 a.m. and remains relatively steady until it reaches a peak between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. during drive time. I can verify this in the rating information I have access to for Fort Wayne, Indiana. 
  • 9 out of 10 Podcast Listeners are also Radio Listeners. Now we’re getting to the connection between radio and podcasts. My radio station, WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne Indiana is a news and talk formated station.  WOWO has the largest number of weekly listeners according to the latest independant rating survey.  

WOWO and our other local Federated Media radio stations take the content that was first heard live on the radio and we make it accessible to listeners anywhere and anytime as podcasts too.  Did you miss an interview with the Mayor this morning during Fort Wayne’s Morning News?  You can listen to it via the podcast.  Same with nearly any interview on WOWO and some of the morning show content from our music stations too.

We also have created podcast only shows that get a ton of listeners also.  Podcasting has helped make the entire radio experience a personalized experience. 

And remember what I said at the very beginning about listening to music and not just watching the music video?  That is why our radio stations still are so popular even today.

By the way, these listeners to all this audio on the radio and podcasts are also consumers and I have ways for you to invite them to be your customers.  Contact me: Scott@WOWO.com 

Also sign up below to receive my free Sound ADvice Marketing Tips newsletter in the box below. 

 

 

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How Much Should I Spend On Marketing?

How Much Should I Spend On Marketing?

by | Sep 3, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

It’s often the question that most business owners dread:

How Much Should I Spend On Marketing?

I have a fresh take on this using the words of Roy H. Williams:

  1. One of the most common mistakes in advertising is to spread your ad budget across several different media so that you “don’t leave anyone out.” But persuasion – in most instances – requires repetition and familiarity. Would you rather reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way, or reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way? Don’t spread your money too thinly by chasing the unicorn of “media mix.”

  2. Expensive rent = cheap advertising. Intrusive visibility – a landmark location with signage that’s noticed even when people aren’t looking for it – is the cheapest advertising money can buy.  This is true for service businesses, too, not just retail. The extra cost for this kind of location should be taken from the ad budget.

Roy’s first point is one that I’ve said repeatedly and his second one, well I can give you a real life example of it in action.

When I help my advertising partners schedule their ads on my radio station, WOWO radio, I do it the same way I advise people to buy television ads.

And that is to get ownership of an audience.

For people who want to buy TV ads, I tell them to do the opposite of what most TV ad salespeople try and sell.  The TV stations here are notorious for throw ads all over their station with very little frequency. Instead I tell them to concentrate on a couple of popular shows, even if it means they get less ads for their budget.

When it comes to the radio ads on WOWO which is a news/talk station, I employ a similar tactic. Between 5am and 6pm weekdays we have 4 distinct programs.  The day starts with our local Fort Wayne Morning News with Kayla Blakeslee.  Then national talk show host Glenn Beck comes on at 9am followed by Rush Limbaugh at 12noon.  From 3pm to 6pm, it’s all local again with the Pat Miller Program.

Every one of these 4 programs has a weekly audience of 40,000 to 70,000 listeners.  None of my advertising partners can handle half that amount coming to them in a week.  So what I do is take a look at the best 3 hour radio show to place my advertising partner.

What makes a show “the best”?  I look at competitors on the air, I look a little deeper at the personalities of the show and other aspects that I have insight on and we start with about 15 hours a week which is 3 hours a day times 5 days per week to place their ads.

As they build success on one WOWO radio show, we look at expanding to a second or third show, but the idea is to build positive Top Of Mind Awareness with a select group of people first.  I have ways to tweak this too, just ask me.

Now regarding Roy Williams comment about Real Estate being apart of your Marketing…. I say yes and no.  If you can secure a location and the signage at a well known spot in town, good for you.  This was the reason shopping malls used to attract tenants who paid extra high rent.  But now, it’s probably not needed as much.  With technology and smartphones being able to give us driving instructions, as long as you have your online listings current, I tend to disagree.

However there is a drug store chain that saw tremendous growth a few decades ago by taking the location factor as part of their marketing to heart.

I’m talking about Walgreens.  When I returned to Fort Wayne, 20 years ago, all the Walgreens were in a strip mall.  The one closest to me built a free standing store across the street from their old location and shut down the previous store.

You’ll probably notice that most Walgreens are located at an intersection where there is a traffic light.  Most also have an LED electronic message sign that has specials rotating that people see while they are waiting for the light to change from red to green.

This is by design.  This is brillant, but wait, there’s more.

As Walgreens was making this change in the placement and design of their stores, they also incorporated a new advertising slogan that most consumers didn’t overtly notice, but when I tell you, you see too the clever marketing tie-in.

Walgreens, at the corner of Happy & Healthy!

And yes, they are really at a real street corner. Plus everything they sell is designed to make you either healthy of happy or both.

Most businesses don’t have the deep pockets that Walgreens has to do a complete rebrand of that proportion.  However there are plenty of opportunities to use this kind of wisdom with the marketing and advertising of your business.

Want help?

Contact me:  Scott@WOWO.com

You can also review the entire list of 20 points Roy H. Williams made in Advertising Oversimplified by going here.

And fill in your information on the form below for my free weekly newsletter, Sound ADvice.

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