Priceless

Priceless

by | Oct 6, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Do you remember the old Mastercard campaign?  The title of it was “Priceless” and the impact of the campaign was “priceless”.  “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.” This “idea” turned this struggling company around and saved the brand. 

Here is a link to one of the memorable ads: https://www.marketingweek.com/mastercard-priceless-campaign/ 

As they say in baseball, we are heading into the 9th inning of 2020, or as we call it in business, Q4.

Faster than you can say, “Trick or Treat”, or know who the World Series Champion will be, the all-important holiday shopping season will begin.

Do you have an idea that is “Priceless”?

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the businesses with the best promotions typically have the strongest sales, but how do they come up with these brilliant ideas?  First of all, to get more than your fair share, the idea doesn’t have to be brilliant or “priceless”. A good idea is better than no idea at all.

Ideas sell.  If you are simply opening your door, hanging mistletoe, and decorating with garland or a wreath, and playing Christmas music, don’t expect a big uptick in your sales.

I’m not talking about creating a “priceless” ad campaign for the holidays, although that wouldn’t hurt. I’m talking about building an event, a promotion, something designed to energize your current customers and attract new customers.  

The trick is coming up with the idea.  Don’t try to do it on your own.  The old rule, “One of us is never as smart as all of us”, holds true when coming up with and creating successful promotions.  The first step is to create a theme. Gather your valued and trusted employees and come up with something unique. Use Google to help, she has hundreds of ideas.

If you would like additional help with creating a holiday promotion event, click here for 12 Tips to Creating and Executing a Holiday Promotion or reach out to your media rep that provides these weekly tips to you. They will gladly help you come up with ideas.

We hope the idea you come up with is “Priceless”!

What you just read is from this weeks Sound ADvice newsletter that can be yours if you subscribe using the box below.

Would you like professional advice from my team of marketers at WOWO radio?  Drop me a note Scott@WOWO.com

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Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising (Part One)

Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising (Part One)

by | Aug 18, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Today I’m kicking off an occasional series of Why WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana is the Best Choice for Advertising Your Business. I am calling it an occasional series because, every few weeks I’ll add another article interspersed with the other articles I share each week on this website and the Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast.

While just this year I was named the General Sales Manager for WOWO radio, and this is my 7th year working for WOWO, I’ve been writing and publishing these stories and insights for over 15 years.  Pretty soon, I’ll have my 20th anniversary of returning to the media and marketing world in Fort Wayne after having worked in radio in Detroit and other places too.

Recently Marketing Charts.com published a story on the “Graying of America” that caught my attention. I’m a young Baby Boomer and for most of my life, I was part of the most sought after demographic for advertisers.  I was part of the Pepsi Generation.  Until I turned 55 that is.

See, in my work in advertising, the desired demographic was either the 18 to 34 year olds when the Baby Boomers were that age, and then more recently 25 to 54 year olds were the hot target market.

When the advertising guru’s followed the Boomers in to middle life with that initial switch, many of them forgot what they were chasing.  As the Boomers got older, the advertising people stayed with the 25-54 year olds which was foolish.

Why?

Because the age 55 and older people in America are not the same as their grandparents were when they were in their 60’s.  We didn’t turn into a bunch of grumpy old men and women sitting around playing checkers and reminiscing about the good old days.  We blew that stereotype sky-high.

Boomers have more money, more free time, more overall freedom and they’re not sitting around waiting to die.

Coupled with the misconception of what Boomer are doing, the advertising people ignored the fact that the younger generations are smaller.  That’s what this story from Marketing Charts dot com points out.

Over the past 10 years, since 2010 the number of pre-teens has been going down, so has the teenage population and college crowd.  There has been 11 percent growth in the 25 to 34 year olds, but less than 2% growth in the 35 to 44 age group.  45 to 54 year old population had a big loss of over 9% in the past decade. So if you are targeting your advertising to 25 to 54 year olds today, there are statistically fewer of them.  That mean less people to buy your stuff than a decade or two ago.

When you compare that with the growth of the older population…

55 to 64 year olds grew in size by over 15%; 65 to 74 year old grew by  almost 45%; and even the 75 and older crowd grew by more than 20% in the past decade.

Clearly the Baby Boomer population is still alive and kicking, and not just dying off.  Some Boomers parents are very active in their 80’s and 90’s.

WOWO Radio has been the most listened to radio station for adults age 25 and older for years and admittedly the biggest chunk of our listenership was age 50 and older.  But we’re not our grandparents.  We’re upgrading our lifestyles, socking it away for retirement one day and living longer, healthier lives than previous 50, 60, and 70 year olds were.

One more statistic I noticed this summer from our most recent ratings survey was that the WOWO Radio audience is becoming more diverse.  We are also getting younger listeners, those between the age of 25 and 50 have grown in the past year.  Another trend is the ratio of men and women listening to WOWO Radio.  We used to be 60% guys and 40% women 10 years ago.  Today it’s nearly 50/50.

Let’s wrap this up with a few more facts and figures from the Marketing Charts report.  Baby Boomers have more than 54% of the nations wealth, and if you add it the money from the next older generation, that’s where 75% of the buying power is in America.  These people are also the least affected by the fall out of COVID-19.   And these are the WOWO Radio listeners.

There you have it, Part One of Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising.  Contact me to get started with a campaign to marketing your business.

 

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Unlocking The Marketing Mystery

Unlocking The Marketing Mystery

by | Jul 21, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Have you ever thought about why your customers do the things they do and why they buy what they buy? 

How did they come to that conclusion?

When did they first hear of your business and when did they decide to consider doing business with you?

Subconsciously all of these questions are important and fall into what is known as the “Buying Cycle“ or the “Marketing Funnel”.  Buying decisions are influenced by two seemingly opposing forces: emotion, and logic.

The human brain is divided into two hemispheres, known as the right and left brain.  The right brain (emotional side) is the creative and exciting side; it focuses on feelings and imagination while the left brain (logical side) uses logic, statistics, and rules and is more practical and boring.

For your marketing strategies to be effective, you must understand why people do what they do and why they think the way they think.  Effecting and influencing both parts of your prospects’ brains through what is known as the “Marketing Funnel” will increase your chances of turning prospects into customers.

The purpose of the Marketing Funnel is to move your prospect from unawareness of you to awareness, then on to preference, need, search, and purchase.

All buying influences begin at the top of the Marketing Funnel with the right side of the brain, the subconscious and emotional side of the thought process.  This is the time when they start to create an emotional connection with you. It’s long before they want or need your product or service.

When actual purchases occur at the bottom of the Marketing Funnel, your prospect’s thought process has moved from the subconscious and emotional right side of the brain to the more analytical and logical left side of the brain.  This is when they do their research. Typically, they only research those that they already have a positive emotional connection with.

Emotions are the powerful, even though often unrecognized, beginning to your customers’ perception of you. Once a prospect has certain feelings or emotions about you or your competitor, it is difficult to logically change their preferences or prejudices.

The perfect marketing strategy reaches and influences your customers’ and prospects’ emotional right brains before they are in the market and before they have entrenched opinions about you and your competitors.  Getting people to think of you and feel good about you is what advertising is intended to do.

But this “perfect plan” also needs to appeal to the logical and analytical left brain to help your prospects rationalize and justify their heartfelt purchase from you.

Strategically targeting emotions at the beginning of the Marketing Funnel, and logic at the purchase end of the funnel is the perfect dual approach to reaching and influencing your customers.

To learn more about why and how consumers make purchasing decisions and to see a  Marketing Funnel, click here. To discuss how to create and implement the perfect media mix, contact me and I’ll connect you with a member of my team.  Drop me a an email to Scott@WOWO.com 

And to get more marketing tips and insights like this delivered to you inbox every week, sign up for my Sound ADvice newsletter in the box below.

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Reboot Your Business

Reboot Your Business

by | Jun 23, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Do you remember at the end of 2019 how we thought it would be really cool to hear Barbara Walters welcome in the new year by saying,
“This is 2020”, the way she did for 25 years.

Little did we know what kind of year 2020 would be, not just in our own little worlds but the entire world.  I’ve seen friends ask if we can go back 6 months and do this over again, but the answer is no, we just need to ReBoot 2020 and your business given the circumstance we have now.

There are some big changes that have occurred in the way businesses operate and yet there are some things that haven’t really changed.

Some call it the differences between tactics and strategies. Wikipedia says:

The terms tactic and strategy are often confused: tactics are the actual means used to gain an objective, while strategy is the overall campaign plan.

In terms of rebooting your business, there are certain tactics that have changed, such as social distancing, or offering curbside pickup for your customers.  Meetings with clients now include video which was a bit on the controversial side 6 months ago or at least cutting edge.

What about the advertising and marketing?  Some of the patterns we saw 6 months ago are continuing while others are completely different.

Broadcasting, the world I work in has seen television’s model having to make some drastic changes while my radio world has been pretty stable for the listeners at least.

On the TV side, they halted production of the network shows and jumped to reruns or come up with a broadcast from home version of many shows which isn’t the same as before.  I don’t know if or when my favorite shows are returning to production.  Meanwhile at my radio station, WOWO in Fort Wayne, we implemented a couple of changes to accommodate our afternoon talk show host who has a weakened immune system due to the anti-rejection meds he is on after having kidney transplant surgery a few years ago.  Pat Miller broadcasts his show from his home every afternoon for the foreseeable future. The host of Fort Wayne’s Morning News on WOWO also did her show from home for 10 weeks since was pregnant with her firstborn.  Kayla did her show live every morning up until her water broke live while she was on the air.  We lined up 8 weeks of fill-in hosts while she is out, but everything on our station sounds normal.

As WOWO radio has experienced a big uptick in online listening as people were now listening from home on their smart speakers and looking at the stats, those numbers are still up there as the travel restrictions are being lifted.

The tactics of listening to WOWO shifted to more devices than just the traditional radio, but the strategy never changed.  We didn’t change our programming or anything like that.  Let’s see how we can apply that to your business moving forward.

Are you going to still provide the same basic services and products as you were before?  That’s the strategy.

Are you offering different or additional ways for consumers to receive your products and services?  That’s the tactics.

Also remember the timeless principles like honesty, fairness, under promise but over deliver. Keep your word and never stop inviting people to do business with you with advertising and marketing.

That’s how you can successfully ReBoot Your Business for the rest of 2020 and beyond.

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More Than Price

More Than Price

by | Jun 2, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Breaking the Tie

Being different is sometimes all that is needed to break the tie.

In a retail world that’s changing faster than the speed of sound, it continues to be more difficult to stand out among the crowd. Regardless if you own a retail store or you have a business in a service or professional category, it’s imperative that you have a clear and compelling reason for consumers to choose you over your competitors. 

At this very moment, people have a need or a want to buy the products or services you sell. Their next decision is the all-important one. Where will they choose to buy and why?

First, let’s be honest.  For a certain percentage of people, price is all that matters, and you may or may not even be in the conversation.  But when price isn’t the only criteria, that’s when you have a shot.  Will it come down to a relationship, an emotional connection created from strong advertising, or a past experience, good or bad?

If you can’t compete on price, what platform or strategy can you compete on?

The key is getting people to know you and your business and know about your business BEFORE they need the products or services you sell.

Developing your tiebreaker, a consistent business strategy you can use to differentiate your business in your advertising and marketing, can be a challenging task but well worth the effort. 

Once you’ve clearly established your competitive difference (strategy), your challenge is to develop a unique and memorable way to consistently highlight that competitive tiebreaker.

If you would like help in creating your unique difference, click here to receive Ten Tiebreaking Strategies as thought-starters for this important exercise. If you would like additional help, contact me. 

What I just shared with you is from my Sound Advice Business and Marketing Tips newsletter that you can receive free in your email in-box nearly every Wednesday.  Just fill out the Sound Advice box below.

 

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