by Scott Howard | Sep 20, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
It’s a question that some people ask out loud and others may not ask me directly but they are thinking, “Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?”
Excellent question.
Here’s the answer.
My background is in radio. From the time I was 16 until I was 26, I loved being on the air. Then I moved over to the business side creating ad campaigns in Detroit for my radio clients. I became a student and teacher of marketing, advertising, sales, persuasion, and something I call human relationship marketing.
Jump ahead to 2005 and I started using digital (the web) to market myself using the same concepts I had learned 15+ years earlier.
With me, Scott Howard aka ScLoHo, you get to work with an individual who understands both the traditional broadcast world and the newer digital world. I walked away from my paying jobs in radio twice in recent history to work full time in the digital world. The first time was in 2011, when I joined a website development firm. A couple years later, I joined a multi-million dollar e-commerce biz as their Social Media director.
Now I work for WOWO radio which is one of the stations owned by Federated Media. Federated Media also has a digital division, Federated Digital Solutions. 
Federated Media created Federated Digital Solutions because many of their radio advertising clients were also looking for ways to market themselves online. Federated Media decided to invest in creating another division of the company. During my three years, I have seen our digital division grow and we now have 20+ people working for Federated Digital Solutions.
Those 20+ people at Federated Digital Solutions (FDS) have a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. The goal was to find the best available talent in the country and create the FDS team.
But there’s more.
Several of the digital solutions use outside vendors that we have access to that you simply can’t buy on your own. We also have two layers of expertise working on all of these digital marketing campaigns. There’s the expertise of our vendors and the expertise of the FDS team.
With me, you actually get a 3rd layer of expertise. Me. Scott Howard aka ScLoHo.
Because of my background, experience and knowledge, I really do know more than most of my radio co-workers. No, I’m not a know-it-all, but I do know how to Google to get the answers on stuff that I don’t know.
Here’s something else that’s important.
I care more about my reputation than what I sell.
I care more about your success than what I sell.
When I started at WOWO, I sold next to nothing from the digital solutions offered by FDS. I wanted to see the results and I wasn’t willing to use my advertising partners as test subjects. But as I watched, observed and questioned, I saw that the performance of the Federated Digital Solutions team was top notch. I also got the opportunity to see what other companies were selling and through that comparison, I saw how we were superior to others.
I’ve seen what Nexstar Broadcast Group was trying to sell as digital solutions and it was crap.
I’ve seen the actual results of Dex Media and what they sold to come of my advertising clients and did digging and found a huge pile of manure.
There are a couple of local companies that are selling digital marketing solutions that are worthless. My friend Kevin, called it marketing malpractice when we were discussing what I was seeing, and Kevin is one smart dude when it comes to doing digital marketing correctly.
Advertising agencies, both local and national are understaffed and under-qualified to be doing the digital work they are selling.
This summer I found out one of my advertising partners bought a website for $27,000 from one of these advertising agencies and it’s really messed up. Sure it looks okay to the naked eye, but it is impossible to optimize for the search engines (SEO) due to the platform they built it on. We can rebuild it for less that 1/3 that cost.
One last item in answering the question, “Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?”
There actually is a study that shows how broadcasting works best in driving people to your website. A couple lines from the article that caught my eye:
Here’s why radio and TV have the advantage: While print media requires hands, broadcast media leaves them free to do other things . . . like type in a URL, tweet something, or click “like.”
Want to talk? Let’s connect
by Scott Howard | Aug 30, 2016 | ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
The website you are currently viewing is going to undergo a few design changes.
I’ve done this before and will do it again I’m sure.
I just wanted to alert you that over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be trying out a few different custom themes and tweaking them. My goal is to have the big changes done no later than the week after Labor Day.
Most likely before.
I mention this because I “broke my website” the other day and while it only took 15 minutes for my host to fix, that may not always be the case.
This is another reason why I don’t do the heavy lifting of creating websites, I have others who do that through the company I work for, the digital division we call Federated Digital Solutions.
But this website is solely mine and mine alone.
Drop me a line if you see something weird at Scott@ScLoHo.net
Otherwise….
by Scott Howard | Jun 30, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
Our previous article talked about making sure you put together a marketing strategy plan by asking and answering the right questions in the right order. But hand-in-hand with that, I also need you to consider, What Happens When I Google You?
I do this all the time. Before I meet with someone, I ask Google to find out whatever it can about that person or business. 
I’m not the only one who does this. With the advances in our mobile tech to be able to search simply by talking, this is quickly becoming the norm. So it doesn’t matter if you Google others, others are Googling you.
Back to the question, What Happens When I Google You?
The worst that could happen is a bunch of negative results on page one.
But right behind that is no results on page one.
According to the internet, you do not exist.
I find this too often with business people that are wanting to promote their business.
In the olden days, before the internet, you needed a physical location and a phone number to be legit.
Now you need to be found online. That’s more important than a street address and phone number.
And if you are on the first page with a link to what you want people to find when they Google you, excellent!
You need to invest in more than a Facebook page, you really need to pony up the cash and buy your own domain and create at least a landing page that you control and is about you.
Let’s review:
- People will Google you to learn about you
- Negative results about you are bad
- Not being found at all is also bad.
- You have the power to be found by creating your own spot online
Need help? Talk to me.
by Scott Howard | May 11, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
If someone is looking for your business because they want want to spend money with you, or at least consider spending money with you, can they find you?
This is a problem with lots of businesses, big and small.
I have a friend who has a successful painting business that he’s been operating for over 30 years. But you can’t find him unless you know exactly how to connect with him. There are a couple ways to spell his last name and he doesn’t have a website, his Facebook page has less than 100 likes, etc.
I also have friends who have had a successful business for nearly 16 years that does pretty good. They are local owners of a world-wide franchise, so they can be found online. But they also launched a related side business and due to limited name recognition, they are not being found by people who want to hire them. I know this because I got an email from someone who was looking for them, but didn’t remember the exact name of the company. He tried to no avail but it was impossible.
Another friend who had decent exposure online, if you knew her name, but there was a Google Map listing that showed up with all the wrong contact information because she moved. I learned this old listing was over 5 years old and who knows how many thousands of dollars she has lost because she was “hiding in plain sight”?
This is just 3 examples of a dozen I could mention off the top of my head that I’ve seen this year. None of these people or businesses are out of business, yet…
I say yet, because the danger is there. If people don’t know how to find you, how to connect with you or simply can’t because your online presence is missing, wrong or inaccurate, You need to fix it.
Too busy? That’s a terrible excuse. Don’t know how to fix it? Hire a professional team that specialize in this. I’ve got one at Federated Digital Solutions and we can help. Contact me now with a text or phone call to 260-255-4357 or email Scott@WOWO.com.
by Scott Howard | Apr 4, 2016 | ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
I’m going to take a second and talk to you about websites and your business marketing.
A dozen years ago, the rage was for your business to hop on the website bandwagon. A marketing friend of mine and I were talking about how having a website was fine and dandy, but how are consumers going to find you online? 
Since my friend and I worked in radio, we began urging our radio advertisers to include their website address in their ads.
Similar things were done in all mass media marketing including print and television ads. Eventually people thought that the key was to be found by Google.
I even left the radio world for awhile a few years ago and worked for a website development company that talked about the reasons for and methods to use to be found online organically with something you’ve probably heard about: S.E.O.
S.E.O. stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s basically the stuff you do to your website to Optimize it so the Search Engine’s (Google, Yahoo & Bing) can find you. The concept is that if your site is optimized then when people are looking for what you have to sell, your website will show up when people are searching online.
This is not a job for amateurs, and not all professionals are equally skilled at S.E.O.
But before I lose you in all this tech talk, let me use some terminology that you as a business owner understand.
Think of your website as a storefront. It is a capital expense of doing business. You can’t really measure the direct return on investment in your website alone, just like you can’t measure the direct R.O.I. of having buying a truck for your business.
Just because you now have a “storefront online” (website), your business is not going to automatically be found by potential customers. All you have done so far is open your store.
Next you need to do what every business needs to do: Invite People.
There are multiple ways of doing this, and part of my job at WOWO Radio is to offer all kinds of appropriate online marketing solutions through our Federated Digital Solutions division.
I am amazed at the results I have seen several of my advertising partners receive, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The first step in working with me is to determine what the end result is that needs to be accomplished and that usually takes a meeting or two. Contact me and we can set that up.
But I want you to remember today that just because you now have a website, you still need a strategic marketing plan to invite people to spend money with you. I can help.
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