by Scott Howard | Mar 28, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Today, instead of telling you about the actual results, (which I will do one day), I will show you why there is unmatched power of a live endorsement ad on WOWO radio with Fort Wayne area listeners.
Radio stations have a unique ability to connect with their listeners in ways that no other advertising medium can do. Because listening to the radio is a solo activity, the station that has radio personalities that talk in first person to the listener are able to connect emotionally with each listener. This is different than the rock star who goes on stage and says, “Hello Fort Wayne!” Instead, that radio personality is saying, “Hello Cindy” or “Hello Bill” to each person tuned in.
The radio personality has the ability to become a friend to the listener. This connection is not made with all radio stations. Those that are basically a music jukebox (or mp3 player) don’t allow their announcers to show their personality are not the same as radio stations that are personality driven.
Talk radio stations like WOWO make personal connections with listeners with our personalities like Pat Miller in the afternoon, Charly Butcher and his team in the morning. Even the other personalities like Farm Director Rob Winters, Sports Director Jim Shovlin, House Calls host Rick Wolf and our news people including Ryan, Tom, Kylie and Darrin have developed relationships with listeners that translate into trusted friend status.
As a side note, WOWO listeners are conditioned to pay attention to the spoken words by the personalities because they tune in to hear the news, talk and information, not music. This enhances the attention paid by our listeners to everything, including ads on WOWO radio.
Earlier this month, I was reading an article from Mediapost.com that talks about this power:
Nothing has more impact on buying decisions than the recommendation of a trusted friend or colleague. This is true for B2B and B2C and across all age groups.
Take a look at the chart that accompanied the article:
One more quote from the article:
…People with strong followings on the appropriate subjects…find people with a passion for interacting with your product or service, If you can persuade them to talk about your brand and start conversations, you are almost there. It takes time to build and cultivate a network for you, but the payback will be worth it.
Now, with WOWO radio we offer a limited number of endorsement ads that for all the reasons I’ve mentioned are the most powerful form of advertising now just offered on WOWO radio, but the most powerful ads you can invest in for your business with any advertising medium in Fort Wayne.
Want to see if your business qualifies? Contact me and let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Mar 25, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Wrapping up a three-parter on mass media and advertising with a smarter way to spend your marketing budget.
First we looked at the changes in mass media and then we explored the idea of mass media marketing today.
Today, I’ll show you how to pick the advertising mediums that make sense for you.
It’s all about targeting. 
If I am selling funeral insurance, I don’t want to spend my advertising money delivering my message to teenagers.
If I am selling orthodontics, I don’t want to spend my advertising money delivering my message to people with dentures.
Mass media has specific information about their individual audiences. I can tell you the age range of all of the Fort Wayne radio station audiences and the number of listeners to each station according to the latest data that I get twice a year. Mix that information with the other sources and I can give you recommendations for what stations to consider based on who you want to reach with your message.
There is one other way to target that is possible due to the advances in technology. I’m talking about online digital ads. Imagine if you could pinpoint your advertising to only be seen by people who are interested in what you have to sell? Would that be of value?
I see you’re nodding your head in agreement.
There are multiple ways I can do this that is independent of what I do with my radio stations, however, it may make sense to do both and have me handle the coordination of everything.
After all, you have a business to run. You have your area of expertise that people are paying you money to provide. I have mine too. My area of expertise is to help you target your advertising messages to invite people to spend their money with you. Contact me for help.
by Scott Howard | Mar 23, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
Continuing the conversation about Mass Media from the other day…
50 years ago it was easy to decide where to advertise. There were fewer options and each option had a significant audience. Today there is no one media that reaches everyone and each media outlet reaches less than any one did 50 years ago. 
Sure, “radio” reaches 93% of all Americans age 12 and older each week, but there are hundreds of radio stations. That’s a useless statistic for advertisers.
(By the way, my examples today are going to be using the two medias I work in and can help you with… radio and digital.)
The question is Should You Market to the Masses?
90% of the businesses should not.
9% could.
1% does.
The most recognized businesses in the United States include:
McDonald’s
Walmart
Amazon
Apple
Google
Microsoft
and a few more.
Each of those businesses can serve massive amounts of people each week and they fit that 10% category.
Today I’ll focus on McDonald’s. I have studied them for years and worked with them locally for the past 10 years. McDonald’s does not market to the masses, not in the way they did 50 years ago.
Each year McDonald’s decides where to spend their advertising dollars based to which segment of the masses they want to reach. Then they buy accordingly. One year their focus was 35 to 65 year olds. This year they switched it to 18 to 50 year olds. They used traditional mass media (radio) to invite people each year, but they targeted the people listening to stations that fit the age demographic profiles of those stations.
Google is in the 1% that wants everyone and markets to everyone. But they do it with a boatload of products and services including the Google Search Engine, Gmail, and the Android smartphone platform that powers more mobile devices than any other.
But let’s bring things down to earth and the local level. The 90% of businesses that should not market to the masses.
There is a health food shop that has been around for over 40 years that uses targeted marketing. They have a limited capacity and also a niche customer base. While there is some overlap between them and the McDonald’s clientele, it’s not the same target.
That brings me to what the 90% of most businesses should do instead of old fashioned mass media marketing.
Targeted media marketing. This requires some thought and research along with planning and strategic planning. More on targeted media marketing next time.
by Scott Howard | Mar 16, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
March 17th is a special event.
While most of the world considers March 17th as a day to act like an Irish person, wear green and drink for St. Patrick’s Day, my wife and I have another reason.
My Irish Bride
It’s our wedding anniversary. My wife is a direct decedent of the Irish and so I’m Irish by marriage.
How does this apply to Special Event Advertising?
St. Patrick’s Day has multiple natural advertising and marketing tie-ins that certain businesses can do. Eating and drinking establishments are a natural. Some retail places could jump on the band wagon and give customers a gift or discount for wearing green March 17th. But that’s about it.
Retailers need to be careful about connecting their advertising to special events that really have nothing to do with why customers buy from you. A St. Patrick’s Day Car Sale is stupid. Even if you are offering a special deal on green cars… stop. Don’t do it.
Speaking of cars, I have a friend who works for a dealership and all last month she was promoting Truck Month, because that is what her dealership was telling her to push. This month another brand is telling us that March is Truck Month.
Sorry, but this is a stupid gimmicky way of advertising and it should stop. I asked Google, “When is Truck Month?” and the answer: 
Making up Special Events to advertise is dangerous because they hurt your credibility.
Instead how about advertising for the special events we as consumers care about. Everyday there is someone out there having a birthday or anniversary. Focus on them and their special event, not you. 
Want help? Ask me.
by Scott Howard | Mar 14, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Last year I wrote about the problem with bad websites that are not just ugly and dated, but hurt your business reputation and the ability to be found online by people who want to spend money with you.
I’ve updated it a bit, but the basics are the same:
There are times when I need to walk a fine line.
In the marketing worlds I work in there are times when something is just not good.
The two areas I work in these days are radio broadcasting and digital marketing with WOWO Radio and Federated Digital Solutions. This isn’t a new field for me, I’ve worked in radio for decades and the digital world for 10+ years.
Click on this picture to read the sad story about this “ugly baby”
The past couple of years, I have had to tactfully tell business owners that their baby is ugly. Not their offspring, their website.
It’s hard. I had a former advertiser show me his new website and while it was an improvement on his previous site, it was still lacking many of the elements needed to bring it up to today’s standards.
And I’m not just talking about my standards, I’m talking about industry standards.
I’m going to give you a couple of links that you can use to see if your website measures up or if it needs an overhaul. Be prepared to learn a few things.
First off, there is the mobile-friendly test. Google will now punish your website search ranking if your site is not mobile friendly. Click here and find out if your site passes. Oh, Yahoo and Bing are also penalizing you too.
Another place to check is Hubspot’s Marketing Grader. You’ll get a report with a score and suggestions on what to do.
This is a good starting place but instead of simply relying on these automated tools, you really need a professional evaluation done by a human being (ME) that can sort through these reports, do a few other checks and evaluations and tell you if you have an ugly baby or just need to give her a good cleaning.
We can also talk about the purpose of your website to determine if you need to hire a professional team and create a custom site, hire a smaller developer, or perhaps do it yourself.
Are you prepared to see if you have an ugly baby of a website? Click on those links and then let’s talk.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
TuneIn
Deezer
CastBox