Brand Building For 2022

Brand Building For 2022

by | Jan 4, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

When you own and operate a business and you live and breathe it, often, it’s difficult to see when things change.  As they say, sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

When is the last time you had a Brand Health Check-Up?

Only politicians can succeed without delivering on their promises, and only weather forecasters can make mistakes every day and still keep their jobs.

Unfortunately, you are neither, so you have to build your business and your brand by delivering on every promise and accurately forecasting how your customers prefer to be served and sold.

Some business owners mistakenly think that a brand is built simply around their business name, location, industry, employees, and their marketing. But your brand is the sum of everything your customers and prospects hear, see, feel, and experience when they do business with you.

Your brand is who you are, what you do, and how you do it!  Reputation management is an ongoing, continual task, and regular check-ups are necessary.

Brands are the sum of the impressions you create at every customer touchpoint; from your advertising to the way you answer your phone, the cleanliness of your buildings, vehicles, and bathrooms, your warranty and return policies, to the way you empower your staff to resolve customer conflicts.

Does your business need a health check? Do you have a clearly defined mission and is it evident at every customer touchpoint?

Click here for our free Brand Health Check to ensure that you are walking the talk.

Wrap Up and Step Up

Wrap Up and Step Up

by | Dec 21, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Twas the end of December and all through the land,

Lots of creatures were stirring, children, woman and man.

The hustle and bustle of the holidays are here,

And nearly everyone is attempting to be of good cheer.

The retailers are hoping to rake in more bucks,

While they alternate between taking care of customers and unloading trucks.

The advertising salespeople are doing their best,

to reach their customers, sell a few more ads, meet their budgets and then finally get some rest.

I could continue to write and talk in verse,

but honestly I’m not that talented, as a lyricist, I’m cursed.

So like many of you who are taking a break, this is my last column and podcast until 2022.

For those of you who are in the broadcasting business, I have an invitation for you to join me on Thursday, January 13th at 2pm eastern time for a live event called the 2022 Radio Sales Lift Off.

This event will be on the Clubhouse App, so you’ll need your smartphone, Radio consultant Loyd Ford reached out to me earlier this year to contribute to his Encourager series for people in the broadcasting business and I’ve been writing a monthly article.

This event on January 13th is the creation of Loyd and will be co-hosted by another radio veteran, Alec Drake.  They asked me along with broadcaster Chuck Wood, I wonder if that’s his real name or an on-air name, to be their panelists.

Here’s what Alec said about it recently on LinkedIN and his own website:

We are all deep into thinking about next year’s sales strategies, so add this appointment to your calendar, “The 2022 Sales Lift-Off”. Join Loyd Ford from Rainmaker Pathway Consulting Works and me on Clubhouse for a panel discussion by frontline managers to discuss Q1, sales team recruiting, and actionable revenue ideas for 2022!

and…

Join us live on the Clubhouse app Thursday, January 13, 2022, @ 2 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. Pacific for a revenue-focused event that will take place quarterly for sales managers, market managers, and local sellers.

Loyd Ford from Rainmaker PathwayConsulting Works along with Alec Drake will open up a panel of sales partners to discuss a strong finish to Q1, recruiting sales staff, and a closing roundtable with actionable items to help you and your team grow revenues. ​ The Revenue Partners for this Q12022 Live Event:

 Chuck Wood – VP/GM of Delta Media Corp., a multi-media media company comprised of seven television and nine radio stations in Broussard, Louisiana 

Scott Howard – General Sales Manager at WOWO Radio/Federated Media, Ft. Wayne, Indiana ​

– Actionable sales ideas – Recruiting Strategies – Get Your 22 Momentum – Share and Learn

Have a safe, relaxing and prosperous end of 2021, my friends.
 
Your Supplier Wants To Help Pay For Your Advertising

Your Supplier Wants To Help Pay For Your Advertising

by | Nov 30, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

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.

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, it’s your chance to make a “Last Dash for Cash”.  Don’t think it’s too late. Millions of co-op dollars go unused every year. The main reason is that 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” oftentimes 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 to GE outlining the kind of campaign you propose to use to sell more GE products 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.

It may be too late in the year to go through the process of preparing and presenting a full-blown marketing campaign, but it’s not too late to simply ASK.

The old saying, “Ask and ye shall receive” still works, especially at the end of the year when manufacturers have unspent funds.

Make a Last Dash for your Cash and Good Luck!

Click here to retrieve our FREE How to Leverage Your Suppliers’ Marketing Muscle.
 
 
For the past several years, I have been working with a wholesaler that has created additional coop funding with their largest supplier and it pays for 50% of the advertising they do on my radio station in the form of product credits.  It’s really a no-brainer for the dealers to do this.
 
Another company that I work with has me submit scripts and get a approval number which takes just a couple of days and they also get free money for their advertising on WOWO.
 
Contact me and we’ll help you see what you qualify for in coop funds for the year ahead.!
Can You Stop For A Moment?

Can You Stop For A Moment?

by | Nov 22, 2021 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

As the General Sales Manager of WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I lead a team of advertising sales people and marketing consultants and on Thursdays we gather for an hour for a Local Sales Team Meeting.

Naturally we will skip this week because Thursday is Thanksgiving and our company has added Black Friday as an additional paid holiday, giving everyone a nice long 4 day weekend.

However last week’s WOWO Sales Team Meeting had a focus on the Final 40 days of the year and what we needed to do.

40 days on the calendar in reality is more like around 20 business days this time of year.

Now if you work in retail, every day counts because it’s that traditional make-it or break-it time of the year. The origin of the term Black Friday was that was the day of the year that retailers finally stopped operating in the red financially and started making real money or being in the black.

Regarding the title of this piece, Can You Stop For A Moment?, for some of us that moment is now, for others it will be in a few weeks after Christmas, others may need to wait until the beginning of 2022.

What and why do I even ask that question?

Because we seem to be running at an incredible pace these days.  Even if things do slow down in business right now, your lives will be filled with other events like family gatherings and parties, and well, somehow we manage to fill all 24 hours of every day, don’t we?

How long is a moment?

Depends, of course.

I know that there are some parents who would long to have an hour each week that is entirely theirs with no expectations.  Some even long for 15 minutes a day.

Same is true with so many people.

As you and I wind down this year and prepare for the new year, I urge you to add something else to your schedule.

Call it what you want, but it’s basically time for YOU.  It’s a time that you give the very highest priority and spend it on YOU.

It could be daily, it could be weekly, it needs to be something that you can negotiate with your family, partners, whomever you need to, to set up for you and you alone.

Here’s a couple of examples of how I’ve seen this work.

I have a friend that is very busy trying to get things done at work and at home with a new baby coming and both parents working and, well you get the picture.  They are struggling a bit at work and what I see is a lack of focus.  I encouraged them to take a step back and stop for a moment.  Last week instead of the running around we had planned for the day, we took a few hours and started the process of planning for the new year.   A story about Abe Lincoln came to mind, that if you have say 5 hours to chop down a tree, it’s better to spend the first 4 sharpening the axe than to wack away for 5 hours with a dull blade.

My wife takes time daily for prayer in the morning and evening, and she also taught me the value of taking breaks.

I have found that by spending some time in the morning observing nature a few times every week, it keeps me centered.

The answer to the question, Can You Stop For A Moment really is Yes.  How you implement this is up to you.

The Power of Planning Ahead

The Power of Planning Ahead

by | Sep 15, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

How far ahead do you plan?

Recently I was having coffee with a friend who was planning on a trip to Novi, Michigan to spend time with his wife’s family.  It was a day trip and he was noticeably stressed about it.

It was a spur of the moment thing that sounded like fun to his wife but he’s the kind of person who doesn’t like surprises and especially ones like this.

His in-laws moved to a new house recently and he had never been there.  He was going to be relying on GPS to be his navigator and get him and his family to their destination a few hours away.  He also didn’t know how long they would be staying.  He wanted it to be a day-trip but his wife was open to making it an overnighter if she was having fun.

This lack of planning was driving the husband nuts while his wife was clearly excited for a little adventure.

I’ve seen this type of thing play out in the business world too.  Some business owners love to fly by the seat of their pants and see what happens.  Others won’t make a move until every detail is thought out and prepared for.

Do you fall into one or the other of those two mindsets with your business?

There are problems with both.

The person that has to have everything planned out before they take any action can be so consumed with the planning that they never take action.  All they end up with is hours and hours and hours of planning that by the time they are ready to launch, their idea is outdated.

And the person who just goes out there and does stuff, can waste a lot of energy and effort going around in circles or chasing dreams and ideas that are simply not financially feasible or long term sustainable.

You really need a combination of the two extremes.  Planning and Launching go hand in hand.  Once you launch your business, then you make adjustments as you learn.

I call it tweaking.  Not twerking, that was a bad idea from a few years ago.

Tweaking is the adjustments to your original plan to make it better.

In the marketing world, I urge businesses to not use their phone number or street address in their radio ads.  That’s different from a few years ago, but now with the advances in our phone technology, I can ask my phone for directions or I can ask my phone to call any business I hear advertised on the radio.  

We may give a location like at the corner of Coliseum and Coldwater, but not the exact street address.  

One of the issues I saw occur in the past year is many business owners felt like they should do more short term planning and abandon long term planning because what if the economy takes a dump?  My answer is to create a couple of plans.

You need to have a long term strategic plan and also short term tactical plans.  They need to be in harmony with each other.  

Some of you are planning for 4th quarter which is just a few weeks away.  Some of you think you are being adventurous by starting your plans for the entire next year.

I’m in the middle of developing a two year plan with goals focused on what we want to achieve in 2022 and 2023.  It’s something I don’t think our company has done before, thinking two years down the road instead of just one.  At the end of 2020, I had a plan for 2021. 6 months later, I discovered a couple of things.

First off, we were on track to grow and reach the goals we wanted to achieve.

However I also discovered that we had only implemented half of what I planned.  

Those observations are being taken into consideration as I plan for the years ahead, because I already have the ideas to get us where we want to be at the end of 2023 since I still have ideas from this year to put into action.

What if you hate planning, or you’re just not very good at it?

Perhaps you need to bring in someone that can help with planning for your business future.  Sometimes it’s an outsider, sometimes it’s someone you already have working with you.

By the way, when it comes to planning your advertising and marketing, I have a team of professionals who know how to ask the right questions to help partner with you to create both a strategic plan and the tactics to make it happen.

Reach out to me, Scott@WOWO.com and we’ll help.