How Are Your Reviews?

by Scott Howard | Feb 16, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

People are talking about you.

You probably don’t know half the things they are saying.

Unless you are diligently monitoring online social media, review sites and chat rooms, you don’t know unless someone tells you what they saw.

How important are these reviews?

According to a consumer survey made public by MarketingCharts.com, 19 out of 20 people read reviews.

But, it’s not just reviews that consumers read — close to three-quarters also read the businesses’ responses to these reviews.

Nearly 80% of consumers trust online reviews, it’s the new Word-Of-Mouth that can make or break a business. The study also says over 90% of the readers of the reviews use them to make a buying decision. A review often determines the likelihood of a consumer using a local business. This can be seen with 94% of consumers agreeing that positive reviews make them more likely to use a business. Even more telling, 92% also said that negative reviews make them less likely to use a business.

What can you do as a business owner with this information?

Be proactive.

Ask your customers to review you on Google, Yelp and the other online review sites including Facebook which is still the king of social media.

Respond appropriately to the reviews online.

You can even use these online reviews in your advertising. I have a client that has been doing this for years, it’s the heart of their radio campaign on WOWO Radio.

Contact me for more ideas by dropping me a line to Scott@WOWO.com

Caring About Your Customers

by Scott Howard | Feb 10, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

If you want to earn a consumers business this year, you have to appeal to what matters most to them.

That statement is true if you are selling Land Rovers or if you are running a dollar store.

It’s also been a truth that has been around forever, but now I have a fresh set of data to help you navigate 2021.

It comes from a survey just released last month on MarketingCharts.com.

Do you know what tops the list?

Convenience and Safety. I’m willing to bet that before our pandemic, those two items wouldn’t be linked together and be a the top of the list. Sure, we’ve been steadily looking for ways to make our lives easier forever, so convenience would be pretty high on the list anytime, but coupled with the repeated and continuous warnings about our health and safety due to the virus, this is a new category of consideration that we need to keep in mind for many more months to come.

The idea of getting your groceries delivered to your doorstep was an option very few people were willing to spend the money on. Even curbside pickup was a concept that was still in its infancy a year ago for grocery shopping.

Sure we’ve been having pizza’s delivered to our door for decades. That concept was expanded awhile ago locally by a company called Waiter on the Way that would take your order over the phone from dozens of restaurants and deliver to you for a small charge. Of course this concept has since expanded with national companies now providing this service.

Ordering online with delivery of nearly anything has become the mainstay of Amazon’s retail operations for years. As consumers we knew that we could order online and buy stuff that would be delivered to our homes, or our cars, but the pandemic created the increased need perceived by consumers who were previously not even considering these conveniences, but now do it for safety’s sake.

My question to you, is what have you done this past year and what will you be doing in the months and years ahead to adapt to this trend?

Also on the list is the word Empathy. How do consumers feel about your company and the way you care about them? How do you manage this internally and externally? If you have a customer that leaves a less than 5 star review online, how do you respond? Are your marketing and branding messages conveying empathy and do you live up to those expectations? Time to clean this area of your business up because this relates to another item on the list.

Losing loyal customers. With all the changes in buying habits and the disruptions caused by the pandemic, this has also accelerated in the past year and will continue in 2021.

Two more items on the list go hand in hand.

The acceleration of e-commerce and providing the best customer experience. The best way for a local company to compete with an online, out of town company is the customer experience angle. We want to shop local, make it easy for us to do that because there is an alternative. Better yet, have you added an e-commerce option for you local customers?

Looking for ideas on how to implement some of these ideas and concepts? Contact me and we can explore some options. Send an email to Scott@WOWO.com .

The Significance of 200 Episodes

by Scott Howard | Feb 3, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast turns 200 this week.

To me, that’s a little bit of a bragging right. For you, perhaps it will give you a little bit of confidence or trust in what you are reading or listening to.

Indulge me for a moment as I talk about the significance of this and I’ll be sure to wrap up with a couple of questions that can help you with your business or branding.

First of all, what’s a ScLoHo?

Nearly 17 years ago I registered the ScLoHo.com & ScLoHo.net domains, and even before that I had email accounts on Hotmail and Yahoo! that used ScLoHo. I may have even had a MySpace account under the ScLoHo moniker.

ScLoHo is a made up word. I took the first two letters of my first name (Scott), middle name (Louis), and last name (Howard) and created a unique word. There is a Wikipedia user page that has more of my history. The name Scott Howard I discovered is not unique. The most famous Scott Howard is the fictional character in the Michael J Fox Teenwolf movie. So ScLoHo became a unique way to identify myself online and it eventually spilled offline too. My wife and some coworkers call me ScLoHo and every once in awhile.

Here’s how ScLoHo became more than an email address. I started a blog on the old Google Blogger platform which grew into multiple blogs. It was a way for me to share stuff online about media and marketing along with personal stuff. It was nothing I got paid for, it was simply a passion of mine to capture and share some wisdom from others and myself.

In 2011, I left the radio stations I was with and took a position working with my friend Kevin Mullett in the web-world and Kevin encouraged me to spend money and buy my own spot on the internet. Not just a domain name like I had been doing, but a real hosted website. It took a few months to design but I launched ScottHoward.me in October 2011 and moved over 10,000 article that I had written to the new website. Also I want to emphasize that the dot me is only because the dot com version of my name is taken by a realtor in California.

The blogging articles never stopped on this website, although I slowed down to about 50 articles a year. I used to do 50 per month, that’s how I got up to 10,000 in a short period of time. Later this year, I will be writing my 15,000 article which is another accomplishment that not many people have done.

And before I tell you about the significance of 15,000 articles or 200 podcasts, here’s how the podcast even came about.

Our company, Federated Media, decided that it would be a great idea for someone to create an advertising or marketing podcast about 5 1/2 years ago. I wasn’t in management at the time, but was writing these weekly articles on the subject so a couple of the managers asked me if I would consider switching to a podcast instead.

I told them I could do both. With my on-air background, I knew how to do all the recording and production. With my desire to continue writing, I created an audio version of what I was already doing. Sort of like books on tape, read by the author. It took a few weeks of planning including picking out theme music, and creating a logo after deciding on a name for the podcast and then it debuted 200 weekly episodes ago.

Here’s a few lessons that you may be able to apply.

Do What You Are Passionate About. There is no way, that I would still be writing weekly and then creating 200 podcast episodes if I didn’t care about this stuff.
Do It When You Don’t Feel Like It. There are times when I really don’t feel like writing or recording, or producing this material. But I have found a way to push through those times, because they don’t last forever. Here’s my secret… I usually have a few articles ready to go in advance. That way when I don’t feel inspired, I can pull something I wrote from a day when I was feeling inspired and turn it into a podcast and publish it.
Don’t Do It Only For The Money. Here’s another secret… Nobody pays me to write the articles or produce the podcast. Which leads to my next lesson:
Invest In Yourself. In real dollars, I have spent a few thousand bucks over the years making purchases for this website and the podcast. I have no real tangible way to measure the Return On Investment, dollar for dollar, but that’s okay.
Invest In Others. That was the primary reason for starting my own website and blog and now 200 episodes of the Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast. It’s not about me, it’s about sharing with others lessons and observations about Media, Marketing, and Life from this dude who just turned 61 years old on his last birthday.

There are plenty of others that I know that started a blog and after a few months, they quit. Plenty of others who attempted to do a podcast but after awhile, they quit too.

The significance of sticking with it, that’s important.

Sticking with it doesn’t mean that you don’t make adjustments. You have to adjust because the world is changing and you and I are changing too.

Quit smoking, quit drinking if you want, but don’t quit on yourself. You can give up on many things, but don’t give up on your dreams and don’t give up on those around you.

Do the right thing and do it well.

Is It Time To Fall Out Of Love With Digital Ads?

by Scott Howard | Jan 27, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

The whole magical world of digital advertising online.

For the past decade plus, I’ve seen study after study after study that talked about the shift in advertising from traditional ads to digital ads.

As a point of reference, traditional ads refer to radio and television broadcast ads, newspaper and any form of print including direct mail and phone books, also outdoor ads like roadside billboards and even in-store signage, etc. Digital ads are delivered digitally via the internet someway on webpages, apps, search engine marketing, you can even throw in search engine optimization.

Most of the predictions of double digit percentage increases in digital ad expenditures year over year have come true, just like the decrease in money spent on traditional ads have come true too.

But, has this shift in where companies advertise paid off?

According to a recent article in Forbes, the answer is either no, or not anymore, or no one knows.

There’s a lot of no’s in that last sentence. And that should concern you.

When Big Brands Stopped Spending On Digital Ads, Nothing Happened. Why?

That’s the tile and here are some of the details from Forbes:

Proctor and Gamble was spending $200 million on digital advertising and turned it off. Result = no change in business outcome.

Chase Bank was serving their ads on 400,000 sites and cut it 99% to just 5,000 and saw no negative impact.

Uber was spending $120 million and stopped and saw no change too.

The Forbes article lists other examples big and small of businesses that either stopped their paid digital ads completely or shrunk the budget significantly and actually improved their business. They mention Facebook ads and Google Adwords along with other digital marketing activity and I believe I know the reason for this.

There’s a phrase called the “Zero Moment of Truth”. It’s the time when a consumer decides to make the purchase. The digital world likes to say they deliver buyers at that Zero Moment. Maybe or maybe not.

What if you need to buy a new hot water heater? That’s a purchase most people don’t plan for but when you wake up and need one, you don’t wait for days or weeks to decide to buy. You are suddenly at the Zero Moment of Truth when you are in the ice cold shower.

Your brain is going to immediately start by telling you the names of companies that you already know that could be your problem solver. Then your heart will kick in and screen out the companies you know but don’t trust.

How does your heart and brain know these things? Ideally it’s because you have been exposed to advertising and marketing way before your hot water heater died. And this is where certain forms of traditional media shine.

I call it intrusive media. Over 90% of the American population still listen to the radio every week. For my wife and I, we listen to the radio every time we are in the car which is at least 5 to 7 days a week. The radio stations we listen to have ads. Our brains hear those ads thru our ears and that reputation of hearing about a local business builds trust so our hearts are also impacted.

My parents never picked up the phone book as part of their casual reading routine, it was the Zero Moment of Truth when they grabbed the phone book if they didn’t know who to call, they’d flip open the Yellow Pages to search by business classification and see the ads for water heaters. Or if they already knew who they wanted to call, they would open the White Pages which was the alphabetical listing of people and businesses and get the number that way.

The digital revolution has replaced the phone book in multiple ways, hasn’t it…

So why are the digital ads that I mentioned at the beginning of this article not needed anymore? It’s because the impact has diminished. The brands that are using digital to get the sale at the Zero Moment of Truth already have Top of Mind Awareness and consumers would buy from them anyway.

That Top of Mind Awareness came from traditional media over the years, and has continued as those brands keep showing up on TV and radio.

I’ve got one more quote from the Forbes piece:

Digital marketing works; but the vast majority of impressions and clicks are from bot activity currently.

I’ve worked in the digital world and I’ve done some deep dives into the Google Analytics and unfortunately, it’s true. I can make you a promise that when you are listening to my radio station, WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana and we share with you the number of weekly listeners, those are real live people, like you and me, not bots.

Contact me for more info. Scott@WOWO.com.

Creating Success with WOWO Radio in 2021

by Scott Howard | Jan 5, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

As much as we want to kiss the year 2020 good-bye and move forward as if it never happened, we can’t. And we shouldn’t.

12 months ago all of us were planning on a very different year than what unfolded in 2020. The economy seemed to be moving forward after a market correction at the end of 2019, but unemployment was at record low numbers and it seemed like we were going to have a boom of a year.

It boomed alright, just not with confetti. More like a nuclear explosion.

Here in Fort Wayne Indiana, that boom hit around Friday March 13th, 2020. The Governor of Indiana was mandating restrictions on businesses that would take place the next week and suddenly we all had to determine what was essential and why. Many of my clients and advertising partners on WOWO radio were essential but some had to shut down for awhile. It didn’t seem fair that the small local business retailers were not allowed to stay open while the bigger national big box stores were still able to allow customers inside.

At WOWO radio and our parent company, Federated Media, we instituted a Work From Home Policy that was designed to keep everyone safe and healthy. In Fort Wayne, we operate out of two separate buildings. The south building is where the studios for WOWO, WMEE, K-105, The Bear, Big and the Fan are located. Our engineer was able to modify studios and set up equipment so our on-air talent was able to minimize the risk including broadcasting from home in several instances.

On the north side of town, Federated Media Fort Wayne Sales and Executive offices were also affected but differently. Our usual weekly in-person sales team meetings for WOWO were suspended. Federated Media had already instituted a work from home policy for their local sales teams over a decade ago, which meant instead of having an office or cubicle at the Fed Med office to report to everyday, if you were on the sales team for one of our local stations, you only had to come to the office occasionally.

When people asked me about my job, I would tell them most weeks I have two hours that I show up to the office, the rest of the week is mine to use as I see fit to do what I needed to accomplish. As a result, I spent between 10 and 25 hours a week in coffee shops.

Something else that was new in 2020 were some management changes at Federated Media in Fort Wayne.

At the end of 2019, our former market manager Jim Allgeier left Federated Media. After a nationwide search was conducted, they promoted from within. Ben Saurer, General Sales Manager for WOWO, WKJG & WBYR took over to lead Federated Media in Fort Wayne as our Vice-President and General Manager. For those of us who had been working directly under Ben at WOWO, it was a mixed blessing. We had a tremendous amount of respect for Ben and believed that he was the right person to step up and lead all of Fort Wayne. Yet we also knew that if he was promoted, someone else would take over the General Sales Manager position for the 3 stations he was taking care of.

So with the announcement of Ben’s promotion, came another nationwide search that Ben conducted to hire his General Sales Manager replacements. Initially Kassie Taksey was hired to become the Sales Manger of two of our smaller stations, WFWI & WKJG and shortly afterwards also became the General Sales Manger of the Bear. All three of these stations had great potential and Kassie was brought in to create a local sales team that would live up to that potential and she has done an excellent job with that in her first year especially with Covid and the ramifications. She took over our sports station when live sports were being cancelled and two of our music stations when concerts and events were being postponed or eliminated in 2020. Hat’s off to Kassie on her teams accomplishments!

The WOWO General Sales Manager position was (in Ben’s words) “The Most Important Hire I Make”. Here’s why:

Back in 2013, when I joined Federated Media, WOWO was one of the top 3 or 4 stations out of a dozen in Federated Media which operates stations in South Bend/Elkhart and Fort Wayne Indiana. The past few years, WOWO (under Ben’s leadership) became the top station in the company with a local sales budget that is nearly double (or more) than any of the other stations in our company.

The new WOWO General Sales Manager would be tasked with… Don’t Screw It Up.

Federated Media General Sales Managers have many roles but carrying their own list of accounts is not one of them. Only during certain circumstances does that happen and usually for a short period of time.

Coaching is the most important role I believe because if the GSM isn’t selling, then his/her team is and they need a coach to help them be their best.

Let’s look at the 2020 calendar again.

Right before Christmas 2019, Ben is told by the Chief Operating Officer of Federated Media that he will be promoted to VP/GM of Federated Media in Fort Wayne, leading the entire management team in the sales, programming, engineering, and special teams support staff effective in January 2020 which is when the announcement is made company wide.

In January 2020 Ben begins his nationwide search for his General Sales Manager replacements and brings back Kassie to take over three of the four stations that need a leader.

It takes 6 weeks and multiple interviews with candidates across the country before Ben pulls the trigger and promotes from within his WOWO local sales team and I am offered the WOWO General Sales Manager position the week after Valentines Day 2020.

Earlier in 2020, Federated Media had our annual awards ceremony called the “Feddy’s” and I had won a couple of awards for being the top salesperson in our entire company in 2019. Which presented a dilemma… does Ben take his companies top salesperson out of a sales role since that would not be my job anymore?

Throw in a couple more circumstances that I was not initially aware of in January 2020.

WOWO’s legendary salesperson and former air personality, Art Saltsberg was going to go into full retirement. A few years ago, Art scaled back his work load and was now only taking care of about 6 or 7 of his favorite clients. Art was now going to walk away completely in the first quarter of 2020. I remember listening to Art on WOWO when I was a kid in the 1970’s.

At the end of 2019 one of WOWO’s other top sellers decided to leave to take care of some personal matters. This lead to Ben recruiting two brand new salespeople to the WOWO Local Sales Team, a process that takes a couple of months before the decision is made.

The same week I was offered and accepted the General Sales Manager position for WOWO was the same week Ben added Andrew and Blake to the team to join the rest of us on WOWO.

A month later COVID hit and we all had to scramble to figure out what to do for the best interests of our advertising partners, our company and everyone involved. As weeks became months, most of us learned new ways of doing things. One member of the WOWO sales team who didn’t, left after 4 years. Meanwhile the WOWO sales person who has been with us the longest, had her best year ever due to learning how to adapt to circumstances.

As all of us reflect on 2020 and put together lessons to implement in 2021 there are a few items I want to share with you pertaining to working with WOWO radio to create success for you this year.

We want to help your business be successful. Every member of my WOWO local sales team will focus on your success.
We don’t just sell advertising schedules. This relates to #1. We want to partner with you and learn & understand your marketing, advertising and overall business needs and goals to craft a plan that we all agree on for the long run.
You are experts in your business. We are the experts in ours. It’s how we became the number one radio station in not just Federated Media, but in all of Fort Wayne with over two dozen radio stations.
We work as a team. This is one of the things I am most proud of regarding the WOWO local sales team. Tracy, Rob and myself have made ourselves available and are lending ideas, experience and expertise to Andrew and Blake who are completing their freshman year with WOWO. Now that Chris is back, he too is contributing to the collaboration that goes into the planning process for our advertising partners. We also have learned some ideas from Blake and Andrew too!
We will be honest with you and only make recommendations we believe are in the best interest for you. Want to sell Jordon’s on WOWO? We’ll connect you with one of our other stations unless you are a vintage collectors store that sells stuff our listeners would buy.
Advertising Partnerships. That is our goal. We want to create a bond between you and our listeners and it takes a commitment from you and us to make that work. If you want to “test the WOWO waters” with just a short term advertising schedule, you are not likely our ideal advertising client.
Flexibility. Or as I said last year, Pivot. Doing business in 2021 requires that we all do things differently than we were at the beginning of 2020. Yes, we can do Zoom meetings. Yes, we can change your message when circumstances change. Yes, we can… was our motto last year and it still is.

Ready for our help? Contact me: Scott@WOWO.com

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