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.

 

Tell The Truth

Tell The Truth

by | May 24, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

This week I have a message to those people who are in the advertising and marketing world and I am going to also apply it to those of you who are simply in the business world.

The message is one your parents, pastor and teachers told you repeatedly from the time you could talk.

Tell The Truth.

I know, there are people who will say that what they are saying is their version on The Truth, but some things are simply untrue.  They are often buried in fine print, or fast talking disclaimers, or sometimes just claims that are bogus and outright lies.  You might get away with these because the person you are telling them to, doesn’t know any better.

Here’s what got me on this little rant today.

Along with being the General Sales Manager of WOWO radio in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I also serve on the Board of Directors at a local Non-Profit organization.  As the only board member with a background in media and marketing, our board and Executive Director asks me for guidance in those areas.

A few years ago, a local TV station approached our Executive Director with a proposal to buy commercials on their television station and I offered to review it before our Executive Director signed anything.

What I did first however was go through an exercise we call a Marketing Strategy Model.

The Marketing Strategy Model is a template from the radio stations sales consultants that is one of the best ways to determine what to buy because it gives you a measuring stick to use when evaluating advertising proposals that ad salespeople try and get you to buy.

Creating a Marketing Strategy Model for the Non-Profit took a couple of meetings and some really in-depth questioning and research, but it was well worth it.

When I did this a few years ago, and then we looked at the TV station advertising proposal, we saw that their advertising sales rep was way off base and the proposal did not meet the real needs for our Non-Profit.  Our Executive Director asked me if there were any media recommendations I would make.

Now I knew ahead of time that WOWO radio was likely the best choice for them to reach the people for their need but that was because of my media background and insider access to rating and demographic data.  If I was working for another radio station, I would still recommend WOWO because it was the best fit for the needs we uncovered while creating the Marketing Strategy Model for this Non-Profit that I serve as a Member of their Board of Directors.

The need that this Non-Profit has is for volunteer drivers. They have all the other bases covered, but the work they do relies on volunteer drivers.

One of the other Board Members suggested earlier this year that we look at diversifying our marketing outreach.  WOWO is a conservative news talk radio station which is highly popular because this part of the state of Indiana has a conservative leaning population, politically speaking.

This other Board Member suggested we look at getting the word out about needing volunteers by using the more liberal leaning public radio station which also broadcasts a mostly news and talk format during the day.  I think it’s a good radio station too and I often listen to it on weekends for some of the Public Radio shows that are both entertaining and informative.

As the media advisor on our board, I was sent a copy of the proposal for the Non-Profit by the public radio station and as I read through the 2 page document, red lights started going off in my brain.

I knew that one line on the first page was a lie.  That one lie cast doubt on everything else in the document.  It was mentioned as a simple fact that could not be fact-checked unless you had access to the rating database that I have because of working in the local radio business.

It was also an un-necessary lie.

Here’s what it said:

W— Listeners (90,000 in NE IN) are highly engaged in the community.

I am not calling them out by name, but there is only one local Public Radio station, you can look it up.

They don’t have 90,000 listeners in Northeast Indiana. They have less than half that many.

I did my research and looked at monthly rating data that goes back 16 months, to 2020, and none of the months showed they had close to 90,000 weekly listeners.

If their underwriting director had been truthful and said “we have over 40,000 weekly listeners” that would have been a credible statement.

And honestly, for the needs of this Non-Profit, the total number of listeners is not as important as the actions those listeners take when hearing the message about needing volunteer drivers.

That’s another challenge when using Public Radio or Public TV stations.  They are prohibited from selling commercials that have distinct call to action in the message or a comparative statement.  They position themselves as commercial-free because their broadcast licences don’t allow them to sell regular ads.  They are underwriting messages, which are pretty bland.

If our Non-Profit was looking at creating community awareness with a branding message, this could have been an option to consider. However there is a current urgent and on-going need that needs to be filled and that is recruiting volunteer drivers.  That was determined a few years ago when I helped them create a Marketing Strategy Model.

There were other disadvantages of using the Public Radio Station versus WOWO along with the limitations of the message.

The audience size, no matter how I sliced it, was half of the WOWO audience and for the money, the Public Station offered only 6 or 7 ads per week compared to 30 per week with WOWO.

When I shared this insider information with the Executive Director of the Non-Profit, she also told me about how she had to make multiple calls and emails inquiring about advertising before the Public Station returned her calls and then he was incomplete in answering questions.

No matter what business you are in, always be truthful, if you lose your credibility, you have nothing.

And if you want information on using WOWO, I won’t make you beg for it.  My pledge to you is no less than 1 or two business days is the longest you’ll have to wait.  Most likely, it will take minutes, or hours, not days or weeks.   Scott@WOWO.com is your direct line to me.

 

Adjusting To New Realities In The Workforce

Adjusting To New Realities In The Workforce

by | Jan 11, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights

The saying that we are in a new reality was one that many of us didn’t want to hear last year.

But it’s true and the quicker we see what is happening, the sooner we can adjust.

At the end of the year, I read the Monday Morning Memo from Roy H. Williams that talked about 3 realities we are facing today:

  1. Inflation
  2. Covid
  3. Employee Shortages

I’m not an expert on any of these, but I deal with them just like you do.

The first two are out of our individual hands, we are powerless as individuals to solve the increase in prices of goods and services because many of us we are needing to also raise the prices to pass along the costs that inflation has had on our goods and services.  Covid, well that has turned into a political football that I’m not about to address, and like you, we have limited power to fix.

What Roy mentioned in his Monday Morning Memo was a concept that I’m going to pass along to you to solve the Employee Shortage reality of 2022.

The staffing shortage was entirely predictable.  In the United States of America, the birthrate has been declining for decades.

“For years many demographers have been warning of a permanent worker shortage in the coming decades. It may just be that the pandemic brought the shortage earlier.”

“An important concept in demographics is the ‘replacement birth rate’. This is the birth rate needed to replace deaths and keep the population unchanged. If the actual birth rate is higher than the replacement rate, then the population increases. Demographers estimate the replacement birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. If the birth rate is lower than this replacement rate, then the population decreases. In the case of the latter, a declining population will eventually result in a declining labor force.”

“Statistics show the US birth rate has been steadily declining and is below the replacement rate. The latest birth rate for 2020 is 1.6, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. This means that, based on domestic births alone, the nation’s population would be declining. So far, immigration has prevented this, but there’s no assurance this will continue in the future…”

The specific idea that Roy Williams shares is for a company to offer free private daycare to employees on-site (or close to) the companies location where parents can drop off their young ones with the assurance that they will be taken care of while Mom and Dad are taking care of business.

That idea might actually work for some companies, but it’s not a universal solution right now.

So what is a universal solution?

I have a two part answer:

1st off, you need to become a company that people want to work for. In the past few years, the company I am with has undergone a specific plan to access our company culture and then improve it.  The ideas come from those who are already here.  We looked at those ideas, and found a few that could be implemented and then measured again and asked again.  It’s an ongoing process at Federated Media.

We realize that not everyone who works for us is going to stay forever. Many will leave for many different reasons, but what we want to do is keep the best and hire others that will contribute both to our mission and also our company culture. As a result, I have coworkers who have been here for years, even decades, not because they have to work here, but because they want to.

Personally the real reason I left most of the jobs I had were due to something in the culture.  The real people problem was not that we couldn’t hire enough, but we hired the wrong people at other places I worked. The answer to this for you and your company is to take that same evaluation and find out why people work for you and what can make it even better.  That is what you need to promote in your recruitment messages and ads.

Here’s the 2nd part of my solution to the labor shortage: Change the number of employees you need to run your business.

The reality is there are less people available to be hired as I mentioned at the beginning and so your business model needs to change.

Business models have been evolving and the side effects of the pandemic shut-down just accelerated some of what was going on already.  Several fast food restaurants closed their dining rooms and some are not planning on opening them up.  Instead they have become drive-thru only establishments.  I’ve seen this in my area for nearly two decades as multiple Pizza Huts created this style of restaurant. I’m sure there are others in your area that are undergoing a similar transformation.  Plus ordering online has really taken off.  Last year I went inside to place an order for chicken and was told that I had to either use the app or drive thru.

Grocery stores and other retailers are relying on self serve check out lanes more than ever.  Now instead of a cashier ringing up one customer at a time, it’s common to see one employee overseeing 6 to 10 self serve checkouts.

I’ve got a third bonus tip for you that I almost forgot because I’ve been doing it for so long and our company has been doing it even longer, at least in the Fort Wayne division of Federated Media.  Flexible work life is what we call it, but here’s how it really works…

The advertising salespeople do not have a dedicated workspace at our office.  Instead, there are a couple of hours each week that they come to the office for meetings with their manager.  Where are they the rest of the time?  Working from home, client meetings, working from their favorite internet cafe a.k.a. coffee shop, who knows?  They might be running their kid to the dentist during the middle of the day, or grabbing lunch with a friend.

This sounds like the Covid inspired Work From Home business model, but we’ve been doing it this way for many, many years.  As a General Sales Manager, I have my own office at our Fort Wayne office that I work from nearly every day.  But those on my sales team are given the freedom to do what works best for them.  We have particular items that need done daily, weekly or monthly but the ultimate measure of their success is the revenue they are responsible for with their individual budgets.  Their success is not measured with punches on a time clock.

Yes we have guidelines and Key Performance Indicators that when followed will create individual successes, but reporting to the office just because it’s always been that way, 5 days a week… We abandoned that years ago to focus on productivity.  In other departments, there are similar flexible work arrangements too.  This has become an important part of our culture.

By the way, I am always looking for qualified candidates to join my advertising sales team at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  We just hired a new team member and I have at least one more opening to fill.  However, I’m going to keep that position open until I find the person that fits us best.  Perhaps that is something you should do with your company too, be picky with who you hire to protect the culture you have in place.

And one last note, if you would like to learn more about the opening I have, here’s a link to the job posting. https://www.wowo.com/wanted-sales-hunter/