The Advertising Secret You Don’t Know About

The Advertising Secret You Don’t Know About

by | Feb 12, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

The advertising secret that you don’t know about is…

Well, should I tell you or should I keep it a secret?

If I tell you, it could disrupt your entire marketing strategy.

It might initially cause panic attacks, but pretty soon it will help you sleep better at night.

It’s not really a secret, but in this digital age of measuring impressions and clicks, it’s been pushed to the back burner.

And I can’t really lay all the blame of internet marketers, it’s simply a perverted way of thinking about the way advertising works and how you determine that it’s working.

Instead of measuring the results of each ad impression, measure something else.

Instead of measuring the success of your radio commercial by waiting for the phone to ring 30 seconds after your ad played, measure something else.

Instead of counting the number of coupons that were redeemed with you 10% off offer, measure something else.

Instead of measuring the immediate Return On Investment of each individual marketing piece and advertisement that you spend money on, measure ….

Listen carefully because here’s the Advertising Secret You Don’t Know About:

You want to know:

The Lifetime Value of a Customer.

This secret is only a secret because you haven’t embraced this concept.  Perhaps you haven’t even heard anyone talk about the Lifetime Value of a Customer until today.

Marketing Insider shared this concept using the example of DSW, Inc. (Designer Show Warehouse). The article says:

DSW Inc. has been having a pretty good year, with second-quarter earnings growth of 65 percent year-over-year and a flaming-hot stock performance. The reason, according to the footwear retailer’s CEO, is a perfect combination of marketing and merchandising strategy that has activated its customers and increased its customer lifetime value. 

Customer Lifetime Value.  The Lifetime Value of a Customer.

This is long term thinking instead of the short term thinking too many businesses try and measure.

Let me tell you a couple of stories from advertising partners I work with.

The first is a non-profit organization that relies on volunteer drivers to deliver meals to homebound residents weekdays at lunch time.  Hundreds of hot meals are delivered every week and their business model relies of having a small and efficient part time paid staff who run the office and coordinate the volunteers and everything else behind the scenes.  For over 40 years, they have run this way.

Last year we kicked off an advertising campaign, something that they have never done before. Sure they did some marketing here and there, but not a full fledged advertising campaign spending thousands of dollars.  The purpose was to invite people to become a volunteer driver.  That was the one need that they would always have.

The first month they started getting phone calls and visits to the website, they were actually getting exactly what they needed when we put together their advertising campaign.  Did they get phone calls on the very first day their ads ran on WOWO radio? No. 

Did their first month of advertising pay for itself?  Kind of hard to tell because the results they were looking for is not measured strictly in dollars.  Here’s what we do know.  Every week now, they are getting people contacting them to learn how to be a volunteer driver.  This was not happening before.

The other example is of an RV Dealer.  For years they used an advertising agency that would occasionally promote a sale a couple times a year.  The rest of the year, they relied on, well accidental foot traffic and luck.

Last summer they came to me for advice on how to create a better marketing plan that would produce better than the occasional advertising blitz and luck strategy they were using.  I created a long term plan that was based on the lifetime value of a customer.  They decided to let their ad agency try one more time with an open house sale. Sorry to say, it didn’t work.

The money they spent promoting a two day sale I could have used for two months work of advertising.   This story has a happy ending.

In January, we launched my plan, with goals of what we need to do over the next six months, not just a weekend.  I know the Lifetime Value of a Customer and they do too.  With this knowledge, they understand how important each customer is and they also realize that the old way of measuring foot traffic each day is futile. 

So how about you?  Are you ready to see if this Advertising Secret You Didn’t Know About, (until now), is appropriate for you?  Are you ready to sleep better at night with the knowledge that your business is on the right track?  Let’s talk.

Also I invite you to get a free subscription to my Sound ADvice marketing newsletter. Fill out the form below and sign up today.

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Seconds Matter

Seconds Matter

by | Jan 29, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Since the beginning of time, it’s been known that you only have one opportunity to make a good first impression. The debate is …. how long do you have to make that impression? 

Studies vary, but if you are applying for a job, a story in Psychological Science suggests it’s as little as 1/10 of a second.  Other studies indicate that you have up to 7 seconds.  Regardless of whose opinion you trust, the answer is still …not very long! 

Your advertising message faces the same challenge. What your ads say and how they are delivered in the first few seconds dictates whether your potential customers will tune-in or tune-out to your message. I’m not saying physically change the channel, although that can happen too, but mentally pay attention, or mentally listen to your message 

Reporters and authors have long known that the headline and the first sentence is what dictates whether the reader tunes-in and continues on with the rest of the story, or tunes-out. In an effort to develop the all-important “creative hook” at the top of your ads on websites, many headlines end up with more “creative” than “hook”.  

I recommend you carefully consider the first few seconds of every ad, blog, text, email or post that you create.

Here is a bonus tip.  Often times, you will find the best line of an ad or letter, or the best words/sentence are in the middle.  When you find it, move it to the first line, or use it as the headline. 

And this goes well beyond your advertising messages.  These days I see an increase in complaints about customer service issues.  There are a few reasons behind this. 

First off, we have a shortage of available employees.  Unemployment numbers in the United States statistically say we are at full employment.  In other words, all the good employable people have jobs and in order for a company to get employees, they have to lower their standards.  Maybe.  In some cases they simply need to examine their hiring policies.  

It used to be that being convicted of a felony, any felony, prevented you from employment.  Now companies are amending that restriction to exclude non-violent offenders from being banned for consideration. Most banks will still not hire a convicted bank robber however.

But the other reason for businesses getting low marks on customer service has to do with focus and attention of those in the customer service industry.  Technology has invaded every aspect of our lives that it is common place for everyone under the age of 40 to continually check their phones for messages, even when they are working.  This creates tension when you are having a face to face conversation and they interrupt to reply to a text.

I’m not limiting this to the under 40 crowd either.  I saw it happening when I got my hair cut the other day, and I admit that I’ve been guilty of it too.

Seconds Matter not just in the first impression, but every opportunity to make an impression.  It’s part of your overall marketing. 

By the way, the first part of today’s article on first impressions was included in a new free marketing newsletter that you can subscribe to, Sound ADvice. Just follow the link below or send me a note to Scott@WOWO.com.

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How Realistic Are Your Expectations?

How Realistic Are Your Expectations?

by | Jan 22, 2019 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Today I am am going to challenge your thinking about advertising and marketing.

We are going to talk about the expectations you have for your advertising and marketing.

It comes in different forms, depending on the lingo and verbage you use, but it comes down to one thing:

How Realistic Are Your Expectations?

Sometimes we look at the Return On Investment of advertising and come up with a formula.

Other times we look at the Gross Profit Margin as a way to calculate the success of an advertising campaign.

Some businesses use a % of last years sales as the amount of dollars that they will spend this year and think that is the magic formula.

Others go by the seat of their pants and will buy the bright shiny object that someone is selling that promises to make them rich.

Do you fall into any of these categories?

I admit that I have fallen into all of those categories both personally and professionally at times.

Several years ago, I was caught up in being a first adopter when it came to tech.  It came to a screeching halt after I spent $800 bucks on a new phone that I really didn’t need, but it was the newest and the best for at least 30 days.

I returned that phone when reality hit and changed my ways back to my usual research based approach way of buying stuff and adopting stuff into my life.  I do the same for my clients too.

There’s an old saying in the advertising business:

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

That quote is credited to John Wanamaker. He was a very successful United States merchant, religious leader and political figure, considered by some to be a “pioneer in marketing”. He opened one of the first and most successful department stores in the United States, which grew to 16 stores and eventually became part of Macy’s.  He’s been dead for nearly 100 years but that quote lives on.

During the 50 years that I’ve been living, businesses and marketers have been wrestling with figuring out which half of their advertising is wasted.  We have come up with various schemes to track the results or formulas like I mentioned to make us feel better but I’m going to challenge the entire notion that half of your advertising is wasted.

In some circles they divide the type of advertising you can do as direct advertising and brand building advertising.

The direct advertising people have used multiple methods to track their results including:

  1. A coupon that has a discount that consumers use and the business can track
  2. A special phone number that is only used in one form of advertising so any calls coming to that phone line is attributed to that ad
  3. A secret phrase that a customer says to get a special offer or special savings

These methods of direct advertising were being used in the John Wanamaker days in newspaper ads, and later phone book and direct mail ads.  Broadcast ads on radio and television have used them.  They were being used before the World Wide Web and internet advertising options came about 25 years ago.

Our lives are now connected with the smartphones that even the homeless population have.

The area of advertising and marketing that has continued to attract more and more businesses each year is still the bright and shiny world of online ads.

Radio, TV, and Print ad sales have either seen declines or remained steady in the past dozen years while those trying the digital marketing world continue to see double digit percentage growth.

Promises of, “we can target your ads to the right people and prove to you that your dollars are making you rich” and “we can track it all with pixels and our analytic dashboards”…  Sadly those are empty promises.

I know.

I have spent considerable time in this advertising and marketing world working from the inside out.  I know that the intentions of the digital marketers is good, but I also know that it falls short.  Way short of the promises.  Those promises were made to eliminate the wasted advertising and only spend money on the advertising that works.

Theoretically, it should work.  But in the real human world it falls short.

In my current position with WOWO radio, I have access to a whole host of online marketing options.  Our company, Federated Media, has invested a considerable amount of resources in time, people and money to create the division we call Federated Digital Solutions.

My first year with WOWO, I took a cautious approach and let my co-workers sell our Digital Solutions to their clients before I offered them to my advertising partners.  I wanted to see the success stories of what I could offer before I recommend them to my trusted ad partners. By year two, I started offering them and in years 3 and 4, more and more of my radio advertising clients were also using our online digital marketing solutions.  Some use our digital marketing without using WOWO radio.

Now that I’ve completed 5 full years at WOWO, I have several success stories in the digital ad world that I can share with you.

I must caution you: The value of Direct Marketing is overblown as it is not as easy to measure as the sellers claim and Branding by itself without giving a buyer an easy path to follow to make a purchase can be a waste.  It takes a combination of these two schools of thought to create a long term success.

Why?

Two reasons:

First off the measurement of Direct Marketing is actually flawed, sometimes given more credit that it deserves.  I have a WOWO Radio client that switched to a nationally known digital marketing company.  This national company broke their own rules regarding consistency for Name, Address, Phone number listing that is actually a common rule of thumb according to Google itself.  The rule of consistency is that you want your Name, Address and Phone Number to be the same, consistently all over the web including your own website.  This national company has hijacked my clients website to place a tracking phone number on the website and all other listings online that it can get its hands on.

What this means is that no matter what drove a customer to find my client, the phone number that they will find online is not the true business phone number, but the special tracking number.  And the national digital marketing company is claiming credit for any and all calls that come in on that special tracking number.

Also, if you do a deep dive into Google Analytics, which most people don’t, you will find all kinds of weird website traffic coming from spammers and bots.

Finally, and this is something I learned a couple years ago, there are limitations in the ability to track connections between secure and insecure websites and all those apps that we have on our phones that have paid ads on them? Google can’t track those either.

What was once the almighty gold standard in tracking your direct marketing online, is not really doing that great of a job.

That’s just the first reason.

Here’s the second.

We are human and direct marketing usually ignores the Human Relationship Marketing Principles that are impossible to accurately track.

Honestly, we don’t know consciously why we buy one brand over another.  When we go to the store and are faced with a dozens of choices of cookies to buy, we already have narrowed it down in our minds to a small handful.

Certain brands of cookies are superior to me and that list could be totally different from your list of favorite cookies.  You make like peanut butter, I may like soft chocolate chips, and even with those two distinctly different options, each of us have a favorite in the category that we want.

This is due to branding.  We recognize the brand and our human emotions move us to grab the cookies that we want based on our own personal experiences, recommendations from friends and family, and yes, advertising messages.  Branding creates Top Of Mind Awareness, or TOMA which places one company or one cookie over another in our own personal preferences.  This is the Human Relationship side of the buying that direct marketing usually ignores.

That 50% of marketing that John Wanamaker wished he knew was wasted, wasn’t wasted at all.  It was probably building the Macy’s brand which has survived to this day.  Macy’s Thanksgiving day Parade which began two years after the death of Wanamaker has been one of their most successful branding marketing campaigns for more than 90 years.

Let’s wrap this up with this caveat. I know that with a lot of companies there is a lot of wasted money spent on advertising, but it’s usually not because they are investing in branding.

My offer to you is to help you evaluate your marketing and advertising and see where the true waste is.  Afterward, we can come up with recommendations for improvement and most importantly set realistic expectations.

Contact me.

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The Talk Radio Advantage For WOWO Advertisers

The Talk Radio Advantage For WOWO Advertisers

by | Dec 12, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Not all advertising venues are created equal. The idea of an ad is an ad is an ad is like saying a cow is a cheeseburger is a filet.  Yes they are all forms of beef, but with big differences.

In Fort Wayne, I’ve worked in the radio advertising world since 2003.

I have created successful advertising campaigns for hundreds of companies using all formats of radio stations including both music and talk formats.  But this story is not about me.  It’s about what I have observed over the past 5 years that I’ve been on the WOWO Radio advertising sales team.

Quite simply, WOWO listeners pay attention to the ads on WOWO and respond to them like no other form of advertising I have ever seen in Fort Wayne.

This is a conversation I have several times each month.  It is about the mental state of people who are exposed to your advertising messages. 

We are going to look at the big picture and include many of the places you can spend money to advertise.

Start with television.  When you and I sit down to watch a show, we are paying attention to the show.  When commercials come on, most of us stop paying attention, at least not the same level of attentiveness that we have during the show.

Newspapers and magazines.  Unless it’s a fashion magazine that is chocked full of 50+ pages of ads before the articles start, we are not really interested in the ads.  We bought the paper to read the stories, get the scores, or see if someone died.

Social Media.  Facebook for example is a place to go to find out what’s happening with friends and family.  They have managed to work ads and sponsored posts into out timelines so we can’t help but seem them but we are not on Facebook to check out the ads.

Radio. Not all radio stations are created equal.  For this discussion, let’s look at the difference between music based stations and talk based stations.  The reason we tune in to a station that plays music, any music for that matter, is to hear music that we like.  In Fort Wayne we have country music stations, rock music stations, pop music stations and plenty of variations.

Every listener to a music radio station selects that particular station because they want to hear that particular style of music.  Anytime the music stops for any length of time, say 2 minutes, we pay less attention.  If the station plays 5 or 7 minutes of commercials in a row, we really tune out and pay less attention.  Some may even change stations.  The reason we listen to music radio stations is to hear music.  It’s to escape.  Anything other than music on a music station is an irritant.

Talk based radio stations are a different animal. Stations like WOWO which are a combination of News and Talk have listeners who tune in for information.  The programming on talk radio stations is brain food, not escapism like the music on a music radio station.  When the newscaster or program host is talking, listeners are paying attention to the words.  It’s the information that people want to hear.

So what happens when your commercial airs on a talk radio station like WOWO? 1st off, it’s not interrupting music, taking the place of your favorite song, so it is less of an irritant. Next, if your ad is a live endorsement from the radio personality, that is the very best kind of commercial because you have the credibility of the radio personality combined with the credibility of WOWO and a receptive audience that is listening to hear the talk, whether it is about politics or your business, it doesn’t matter.

If you air regular recorded commercials on a talk radio station like WOWO, you still get a receptive audience that is not turned off by talking on the radio and you are on WOWO which adds credibility to your business.

I discovered another way to use WOWO’s talk radio format to help your business and that is with our live 10 second sponsorship messages of news, weather, traffic and sports.  These are done live by the newscasters and program hosts and are embedded in the program and carry almost as much weight as a full endorsement.

This relationship between the WOWO listeners and the WOWO air staff with our news and talk radio format is one of trust.

For many it’s as strong a bond of trust as a trusted friend.  

You don’t get that with a newspaper ad.  You don’t get that with a TV commercial, You don’t get that with nearly any other form of advertising you can spend your money on.

This is the Talk Radio Advantage WOWO advertisers receive.   Want more info?  Let’s talk.

Do They Like You?

Do They Like You?

by | Dec 5, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

I picked up a new book from Seth Godin recently and am reading it right now.  Or perhaps by the time I publish this and the podcast goes live, I will have finished it.

But I doubt it.  My reading style is reflective when it comes to things like marketing.  I should tell you that the name of Seth’s latest book is This Is Marketing. There are all kinds of bonus features online you can get and a community you can join once you buy the book.

But in just reading the little portion that I’ve read before I started writing today, I noticed that there are parallels to what he wrote and what I’ve been sharing over the years.

Today I want to ask you a serious question that not many business people stop and consider.

The question is:

Do They Like You

Things are different in the advertising and marketing world from when my parents and grandparents were around.  Mass marketing was common because we had mass media.  Mass media was defined by a limited number of media and entertainment options and so the masses of people they attracted were pretty large because of the limited options.

In the video world for example, there were between 3 and 5 TV stations in Fort Wayne, Indiana and they carried programming from ABC, CBS, PBS, NBC and Fox.  Want to know the big news of the day? Sit down and watch the half hour newscast with the family when it came on TV live.

The percentage of people watching one thing at the same time was huge in comparison to today.

Advertising by interruption worked because of the mass of people you would reach.  Same was true of radio, newspaper and other forms of entertainment like movie theaters that seated hundreds at a time to watch the couple of films that were released each week.

Advertising by interruption is a topic I’ll expand on in the future but for now, I want to share with you what happens after you have reached someone by advertising or word of mouth or by accident.

That person is going to form an opinion of you and your business. They are going to ask themselves that question:

Do They Like You

This will determine if they become a long term customer worth thousands of dollars in your future, or if they are never coming back and instead will be worth thousands of dollars to your competitors.

Advertising can’t fix a broken business.

If you screw up and end up chasing away the customers that your advertising brought in, you better fix that leaky boat.

And now a plug for what I do.  I make money when businesses buy advertising solutions from me that air on my radio station, WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana and/or pair it up with some of the digital advertising solutions I offer.

But my heart is in looking at the big picture of your business and the entire customer experience.  I want to help you figure out ways to be sure the answer is:

Yes, they like us

Contact me and let’s start a conversation about your marketing, advertising and how to be better in ways that your customers care about.

I’m going to wrap this up with a story of a local restaurant that my wife and I really were rooting for.

After several years of being our Saturday night date night destination, the owner of the building decided that they would not renew the lease of this highly popular restaurant and bar.  The owner decided that they were going to reinvent the place and after being shut down for a couple of weeks, they slowly opened with a limited menu and then a full menu.

Instead of visiting every week, my wife and I visited every other week.  Then we skipped a few weeks.  After our last visit, I said we are only going to visit once a month or less.

Things had changed under the new management.  The last straw for me was the food was inconsistent.  When I finally found a dish I loved and came back two weeks later, it was not the same.  It was such a disappointment.

The service had been slow under new management due to a lack of staff, but we were willing to wait.  A longer wait time for our food was acceptable since it was undergoing this transformation.  The staff was also great, the ones we saw behind the bar and the wait staff that stayed under the new management were like friends.

But when the new place lost it’s appeal with the food and when you are in the food business, that’s deadly.

Sadly, I don’t like them anymore.  They are no longer getting my date night money every week, or my occasional lunch money, or my recommendations to friends and business people.  I won’t write a bad review online, because I want them to get it together, but not on my dime.  I will check back every 4 to 6 weeks and see if they are improving.  If they don’t, they will have to shut down.

My lesson for them and for you is to ask the question:

Do They Like You?

and find out ways to get better, fast.

As always, I’m here to help.