radio advertising | The Genuine ScLoHo aka Scott Howard

Brand Building in Dollars and Sense

by Scott Howard | Jun 30, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Did you notice the title of this article has a play on words?

Or did you think it was just a typo?

Brand Building in Dollars and Sense with the word Sense spelled not like the cents we use to refer to money but as sense, as it makes sense or common sense which people say isn’t common anymore. I wonder if my grandparents said that too back in their day.

Anyway, I was reading a couple of different online articles, one from Roy H. Williams, the self proclaimed Wizard of Ads. Roy is a couple years older than me, and has created quite a reputation for media and marketing over the past few decades. He has a free weekly email called the Monday Morning Memo that I subscribe to and if you click on the picture in the email, you travel thru the rabbit hole created for that week. It’s an interesting journey most weeks.

On Monday June 21st, as I traveled thru the rabbit hole of the Monday Morning Memo, Roy shares the story of a client of his. I’m quoting Roy here:

One of my clients asked me to explain our marketing strategy to a guy from a private equity firm that is hoping to buy a chunk of my client’s company for a few hundred million dollars.

When we were retained 7 years ago, the company was bringing in barely $9m a year. Using radio as our primary driver of new business, we did nearly $250m in 2020 and are tracking to surpass $300m in 2021.

Did you catch that? In 7 years this company grew from 9 million in sales to over 300 million dollars this year and advertising on the radio is the primary driver of new business.

Here’s more of Roy’s story:

The private equity guy suggested that we should redirect our radio budget to online advertising because, “no one listens to the radio anymore.”

Now Roy goes into a lengthy and detailed explanation of how radio ratings work and how they know from the ratings service that the private equity dude is wrong. Then he decides to use not just statistics, but the real life example of this particular company.

“The objective of a radio campaign is to become the name the listener thinks of immediately and feels the best about whenever they need what we sell. Today’s ads aren’t meant to sell customers today. Today’s ads are just one more tap of the hammer as we drive our message into their minds. We want to achieve automatic, involuntary recall. Scientists call it ‘procedural memory.’”

And here’s where it gets really good. Roy asks the companies online marketing manager about the traffic they get to their website and she tells them there are just 10 search strings that make up most of the traffic to their website. The top 9 all include the name of the business. That is what the radio ads are doing… Branding the name of the business so when a potential customer needs the product or service, they Google the name of the company to get their contact information.

That last search string that drives people to their website amounts to just 5% of their website clicks. It uses a more generic search string that doesn’t include the company name.

Roy Williams continues:

So without the name recognition and goodwill built through radio, we would have done only 12-and-a-half million dollars last year instead of 250 million dollars.

That’s some real dollars there and it makes a lot of sense, right?

Don’t just take my word or the words of Roy H. Williams, the Wizard of Ads. I also read about the benefits of branding from an article published in June from Nielsen that uses the classic buying funnel example.

WHEN IT COMES TO BRAND BUILDING, AWARENESS IS CRITICAL

The title of the article and the information point out why what Roy was saying works. Targeted online ads may be one of the ways that companies get traffic to their website, but unless their is familiarity of the company or product, we are not likely going to click on it. This familiarity is what brand building does and it’s at the top of the buying funnel.

This Upper Funnel Marketing is actually the foundation that will drive future sales because the future buyer is aware of the company before they have a need. 60% to 80% or more of your radio ads in most cases should focus on Upper Funnel Marketing. You may never need to spend money on the Lower Funnel Marketing which is the conversion stage because if we as marketers do our jobs building the brand reputations, the consumers will actually convert themselves when they have the need or want.

Want to know more about building your brand and growing your business for the future, not just this months sale? Contact me, Scott Howard. Drop me a note to Scott@WOWO.com.

State of The Station for WOWO Summertime 2021

by Scott Howard | Jun 16, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Here we are in the middle of June 2021 and this weeks article and podcast is a little different from my usual weekly updates.

Today an update on what is going on at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana, from an insiders perspective as we peak behind the curtain and give you some insights.

First a bit about me, just so you know who I am and how I know what I’m going to tell you. I joined WOWO Radio in December, 2013 as the 5th person on a five person advertising sales team. WOWO is one of 6 radio stations owned by Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I not only survived, but thrived. I won my first Feddy Award in 2014 for Supergoal. Feddy’s are the Federated Media achievement awards, like Grammy’s or Emmy’s.

As the years went by, I continued to grow and I won my second Feddy Supergoal Award in 2019 for Federated Media’s Fort Wayne division. These Supergoal awards are only given to one person each year in Fort Wayne and they do the same at our Federated Media South Bend division. I also won my third Feddy in 2019, but this was company wide, not just our division. This Feddy Award is Account Manager of the Year for our company.

The past nearly 8 years is just a portion of my background in radio, advertising and marketing. I started while I was in high school on the radio and worked for a few other stations on the air and on the advertising business side for a few decades. Finally, I will mention that right after I won my second and third Feddy Awards, I was promoted to become the General Sales Manager for WOWO Radio and now lead the team to help businesses connect with our listeners and convert them into customers.

Now let’s move on to what I really wanted to share with you.

WOWO radio is nearly 100 years old. 2025 will mark a century of WOWO radio. The past 20 or so years, WOWO has been a news and talk formatted radio station. Since I joined in 2013 we’ve had a couple of changes in our programming line-up:

Fort Wayne’s Morning News with Charly Butcher was on until August 2018 from 5am to 9am. Charly unexpectedly passed away while on vacation and our company had to scramble and plan at the same time. Charly was a beloved radio icon who I worked with when I was on the air at our sister station WMEE and when the opportunity arose for a new morning anchor on WOWO, Charly was given the opportunity which he handled marvelously. He was in his early 60’s when he died and Federated Media had a couple of guest hosts as they did a local and national search for his replacement. Turns out our news director, Kayla Blakeslee was selected and Kayla has been doing an outstanding job these past 3 years. Looking forward, Kayla has decades ahead of her as the host of WOWO’s fast paced morning news show. Her advertisers are getting results and her personal endorsement clients are thrilled.

National talk show host Glenn Beck kicks off the WOWO Mid-Day Double Play at 9am as he has for years. Glenn also will endorse local businesses, ask me about it.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh anchored the noon to 3pm portion of the Mid-Day Double Play on WOWO until February this year. He passed away a little over a year after announcing he had lung cancer. Rush was able to continue his radio show with a rotating cast of fill-in hosts in 2020 when he was off for treatment. After the announcement of his passing this year, the program continued with hosts playing clips from the Rush radio archives that were woven into the events of the day.

The Rush Limbaugh program was syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks and while we at WOWO waited to see what Premiere was going to do to replace Rush, we looked around to see what our options were. Should we wait and see or pick someone local? Is there someone that we should consider that another network was offering? A lot of activity was going on behind the scenes even before Rush died because we knew we would need a plan.

We needed a plan to satisfy two groups. The WOWO listeners who were loyal to conservative talk radio in the style of Rush Limbaugh for decades, was one group. We also wanted to give our advertising partners a radio show that they would want to continue to support. Now let me share with you something about that.

Not all of our advertisers would be called supporters of the conservative talk programming WOWO offers. But they see the value in inviting the WOWO listeners to their business. Advertising on WOWO is a great investment and I’ll have more on that in a moment.

Around the country over 1000 radio stations carried Rush and as we contemplated our options, we also knew the timing would need to be right. Rush listeners grieved and by continuing with the legacy Rush shows on WOWO, it helped them, I’m sure. We also did a poll to our database of listeners to see who they wanted and it turns out the listeners top choice was also ours.

Dan Bongino debuted on WOWO and hundreds of other radio stations on Monday May 24th and the response has been excellent. Dan’s show is not from the Premiere Radio Network so it created a bit of confusion when about three days after Dan debuted, the Premiere network announced they were going to pair Buck Sexton with a guy from the Fox Sports network to co-host from noon to 3pm. Dan did an excellent job of explaining that they were a different network and he wasn’t going anywhere.

I am very happy with Federated Media’s decision to add Dan Bongino from noon to 3pm and I think you will be too if you listen.

Afternoons on WOWO continue to be the Pat Miller Program. Pat marked a 20 year milestone on WOWO this year. He started out hosting a Saturday morning show on WOWO and then took over afternoons from 3pm to 6pm when that daily show became available.

Nights on WOWO continue with a tape delay (by three hours) of Sean Hannity’s radio show from 6pm to 9pm. We have one more change occuring starting next Monday night at 9pm. Mark Levin returns to WOWO. Mark is another national conservative talk show host that was on from 9pm to midnight when I started at WOWO and his return is welcomed by all.

Now that you know the line-up, what about our ratings?

Ratings are done by an independent company that surveys people in the Metro Fort Wayne area and provides us with monthly updates. During my time at WOWO, we have been either number one, two or three out of nearly 30 radio stations in the number that matters most, total number of listeners. It’s been at least 5 years since we were third and usually we were number two behind our sister station WMEE in total listeners ages 12 and older. We’ve always been the most listened to station for grown ups. Well the last rating update has WOWO as the most listened to radio station with over 100,000 listeners every week. Hat’s off to all of my co-workers in the programming department and news department for that outstanding accomplishment.

I was asked this week by the manager of one of the largest retailers based in Fort Wayne, how we are doing financially? Did we take a hit during 2020 and have we started to recover?

Here’s the answer: March 2020 was when the state of Indiana was told to stay at home to prevent the spread of Covid. Federated Media made some adjustments and also worked with our advertising partners to help them survive. Numerous times I have been thanked by our clients for our being sensative to their situations and it has paid off for both them and us.

WOWO’s goals are to not just beat 2020, but to grow beyond our 2019 pre-pandemic levels. We are doing it. I have some of the very best advertising and marketing people in our city working for me at WOWO. We hear it from our advertisers that we really listen, care and respond to what our clients need.

As you look forward to the rest of 2021 and the years ahead, my pledge to you is to continue that level of service and earn your trust month after month after month.

Email me if you would like more information, Scott@WOWO.com and one more item…

I am looking for just the right person to join our WOWO Advertising Sales Team. Email me Scott@WOWO.com and I can give you more details on what can be one of the most rewarding careers available in Fort Wayne, Indiana at WOWO Radio.

Why Your TV Ads Are Not Working

by Scott Howard | Jun 9, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

It’s not nice to bad mouth others and I try to avoid it.

I also want to be truthful.

Over the next few weeks, I am sharing some information that might sound like I’m bad mouthing others, however I am more interested in providing you with the truth about advertising mediums so you can be smart with your advertising and marketing plans.

Today we look at what has happened to the world of television and why you probably need to rethink your ad plan if you have been a fan of using TV to invite viewers to become your customers.

Trade publication Radio Ink shared some highlights from an article written by Pierre Bouvard of Westwood One. I have no connection to any of them but for your information some of the programming on our radio stations come from the Westwood One radio syndication service including the recently launched Dan Bongino show on my station WOWO from noon to 3pm in the same timeslot that Rush Limbaugh used to occupy.

Anyway, after reading the Radio Ink story, I also read what Pierre wrote and have some quotes and highlights to share with you.

Why Advertisers Need Radio? A big reason is the fragmentation and decline in Television viewership. According to Bouvard the TV landscape is undergoing massive change and that all works to radio’s advantage.

The details:

One out of four persons 25-54 cannot be reached on linear TV. AM/FM radio’s 89% weekly reach among persons 25-54 is much stronger than television’s 77%.

In just two years, comparing 2018 to 2020, there has been a huge decline in people watching traditional TV. Why?

“Worst year ever” for cord cutting: Pay TV lost 5.5 million subscribers in 2020. COVID-19 caused Americans to stay home and look to media outlets for information and entertainment. The ever-increasing number of video streaming services meant a step back from traditional TV for many American households.

It’s not that we have stopped watching content on screens, it’s that the way we get that programming content has shifted.

Cable buys miss 40% of America as pay TV penetration collapses.

2009 was the best year for cable TV with nearly 9 out of 10 homes hooked up to a cable service. Now only 61% of America subscribes to cable TV. And the major broadcast networks are suffering too.

Broadcast TV’s reach is down an average of -22% across FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC affiliates. Since 2016, broadcast TV has reached fewer persons 18+ across the four major broadcast network affiliates.

The article continue with a solution but it uses a bunch of advertising agency lingo that I’ll interpret for you.

Pierre points to a study that uses consumer products giant Proctor and Gamble. Adding Radio ads to the TV ads increased the reach of their advertising messages 3 times more than if they simply bought more TV ads.

Weather Tech is another company that is using both TV and radio and the addition of radio ads increased their reach over 60%.

AM/FM radio makes your TV better by reaching light TV viewers. Light and non-TV viewers are a challenge for marketers. Advertisers can’t solve the light TV problem by buying more TV. AM/FM radio reaches 83%+ of the light TV viewer audience across all demographics.

So if you are a fan of using TV advertising, and you aren’t seeing the same results you used to, know you know why. And you also have a way to overcome this problem that I can help you with. Email me, Scott@WOWO.com

Measuring the Unmeasurable

by Scott Howard | Jun 2, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

If you are in charge of the advertising for your business, you want to make sure it is effective right?

Of course you do.

But the challenge has always been how to measure the effectiveness of your advertising.

One way that has been around forever is coupons. A few decades ago one of my jobs as a kid was to clip the coupons from the newspaper and sort them for my parents so they could save a nickel on a can of corn or whatever. When I wanted them to buy something that wasn’t on the grocery list, but I wanted it, they would ask me if I had a coupon for it. If I did, I often got it!

As a typical middle class family in the midwest, I imagine this was typical pattern and one of the reasons we still get coupons delivered to our house today. Usually it’s direct mail or as one grocery store chain has been doing, personalized coupons for my wife and I based on what we’ve bought in the past.

The evolution of couponing has changed over the past few years and one change was accelerated with the changes in shopping habits due to the pandemic. Digital coupons are now outpacing traditional paper coupons in redemption rates according to SupermarketNews.com.

Digital coupons saw an increase of 27% last year as a result in large part to the shift to curb-side or parking lot delivery that replaced the shopping in store experience many of us did. As a result, digital couponing now is more widely used than the old fashioned paper coupons.

What is the reason for using coupons anyway? For consumers, it’s free money. For the companies that offer coupons, it’s an investment in getting a person to make a purchase.

There is another way too many businesses use coupons that is wrong. As an accurate tracking devise of your advertising outreach.

Here’s why:

It’s not really accurate. You are trying to Measure The Unmeasurable.

I visited the online version of one of the local direct mail coupon advertisers and here’s what I discovered.

88 pages of ad, or maybe it was 88 ads. It wasn’t clear to me.

There are some categories that are hot right now and have multiple ads from different companies competing with each other in one handy place.

At least 10 ads for Landscaping.

9 for Roofing.

8 for Concrete Coating.

7 for Windows.

And some of those above ads for home improvement could be in other categories because they do both windows and roofs.

Others I noticed were:

HVAC with 6 ads.

Carpet Cleaning or Replacement had 5 ads.

Because these ads are offering discounts, the people likely to respond are people who are looking for a deal. I’m not against looking for a good price or a great deal, but if that is the only reason someone buys from you, your business model is weak at the best.

Coupons do not create loyalty to you or your brand. Coupon shoppers are loyal to coupons, not you. If your competition offers a better deal in their coupon, coupon shoppers will buy from them.

Smart consumers don’t use price as the only criteria for deciding who to do business with.

Smart consumers are looking for value.

We want to trust that when we buy something, it is worth the price we pay for it, that is has the value that we are willing to spend our money on.

Earlier this year, my wife needed a tire for her car, but I knew we were going to trade her car in this year, so the value I was looking for was a tire that was priced low and took care of our immediate, short term needs. We bought the cheap tire and replaced her car a month later.

Last month, I replaced the battery on my car. I am planning on keeping this car for several years so I bought the higher quality battery because that was the value I was looking for.

There are so many additional factors besides redemption rates that you can use to determine if your advertising is working. If you want to attract coupon shoppers, you can continue to use them, just understand that is only one segment of the consumers that are looking to buy what you have to sell.

I worked in the digital world, and still do as a consultant. I can talk to you about click-thru rates as well as any of them. I know how digital marketers pitch the trackability of their advertising tools, but what they can’t measure is what goes in our individual heads and hearts that lead us to buy from you.

If you really want to know if your advertising is working, use antidotal evidence. Some of my favorite clients do that and they know that each month, they’ve got business from their advertising on WOWO radio because of the stories they hear from our listeners that do business with them. They don’t know all the WOWO listeners who spend money with them, but they know that there are enough for them to keep spending thousands of dollars month after month, year after year.

Want to know more? Contact me and I’ll put you in touch with someone from my team. Email Scott@WOWO.com.

The Right Way to Use Radio Advertising

by Scott Howard | May 12, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Most businesses don’t know how to use radio advertising to increase their business.

I know, that’s a pretty “out there” declaration coming from the guy who has spent a few decades in radio advertising and currently leads the most successful local advertising sales team in our city.

But it’s because of my background that I have the experience to know that Most businesses don’t know how to use radio advertising to increase their business.

It’s not just my experience but because of my background, training and research, because I know others who have been involved in radio longer than me that don’t understand what I’m going to tell you today.

Most advertising sales people are taught how to sell advertising.

That’s important but do you know what’s more important?

Knowing how to use advertising to help a business market themselves to reach their goals.

This month I reviewed with my sales team the difference between Brand Building Advertising Campaigns versus Event Oriented Advertising Campaigns. I’ve discovered that at least 80% of the people who are wanting to sell you advertising, are clueless about this so you are about to become smarter than them.

Too many advertising campaigns wrongly focus on short term sales when they really should building brands.

For example, how often do you buy a car? A quick Google search told me that the average person keeps a car for 6 years. My wife and I each have a car so on average, you could say we are likely to buy a car every three years.

Most car dealerships advertise sales. They are usually annoying ads, stereotypical sleazy used car guys come to mind when I think of most of the ads I’ve seen or heard.

Since 2013 my wife and I have bought 4 cars, which puts us above average. Three of those 4 cars were to replace a car we’d worn out. Only one was because I wanted to upgrade my transportation. But no matter what the reason for buying another car, it never was because of a sale that I heard in an advertisement.

I used to buy all my cars from a friend who had an impeccable reputation. The two cars my wife and I had in 2013 were from him. Then he retired from the business and it was time to do some true car shopping the way most people do.

We did our research online to see which used vehicles would fit our needs. All four cars I bought passed three criteria:

The car was recommended on all the review sites we researched.
The price was appropriate, not too low or too high
I either trusted the dealership and/or the salesperson.

I passed on some that cost less because of the lack of trust. Even the last car I bought this year was from a dealership that I was unsure of, but I trusted the salesperson, a friend that I’ve known for more than a dozen years and his “brand” is excellent.

Most radio advertising campaigns, heck probably most advertising campaigns on any media, should be brand building, not event oriented sales campaigns.

When I was talking with my sales team about this in a recent meeting, I shared with them a five minute video featuring this guy with a funny accent. He had the research that showed over time businesses that focused on Brand Building instead of the short term sales event advertising messages multiplied their investment. Those that did it the other way never built a trusted reputation and the sad part is that when they had competition that was trusted, they usually lost.

In reality, you need both. The last line in the video says, “Aim for Fame”. The very best ad campaigns use a formula that I learned when I first went from the being on the radio to developing advertising campaigns and it was a four step process that I learned in Detroit at WMUZ and Crawford Broadcasting.

Image Building
General Benefits
Specific Benefits
ReCreation Benefits

I’ll do another article and podcast focused on this formula but the basics is before you make a sales push with your advertising, you need to spend time introducing the company or product.

I’ll wrap this up with a quote from Jeff Schmidt, Senior VP with RAB:

Radio works to create awareness of a brand BEFORE people need it. That is the very purpose of advertising:To help a business become known before they are needed. People don’t respond to ads; they respond to needs. When the guests at a restaurant discover they are hungry and want to go out, that’s when they search their minds for brands they already know. They know them because of the strength of the long-term advertising that is and has been done.

These are the concepts my Local Advertising Sales Team at WOWO Radio have been trained on and we continue to review and tweak our skills. Want our help? Contact me. Scott@WOWO.com

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