On The Road Again

On The Road Again

by | Dec 4, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

‘Commutes Are Back’ As Time Spent With AM/FM In Cars Hits Eight-Year High.

That was the headline of an InsideRadio.com story last month and that’s great news for those of us in the radio broadcasting industry.

It’s also fantastic news for businesses that want to reach a regular and consistent audience and invite them to become their customers.

Naysayers have been predicting the end of radio relevancy for decades, and when something like a pandemic happens that disrupts our daily lives including our time spent driving, those negative voices get louder.  However as a radio insider, I have the facts that say differently.

Here’s some more from that story:

Compared to results from earlier surveys by MARU/Matchbox and Nielsen since April 2020, the height of the pandemic – when more than half (52%) of pre-COVID commuters were working at home – that share gradually fell to just 6% in the recent survey, meaning 94% of average Americans are now commuting to work.

Here in Fort Wayne, Indiana the average commute time is around 20 to 30 minutes.  Longer in the afternoon than morning for some reason. Radio continues to live in the car, or whatever you drive.  The radio station I’ve been working for the past decade, WOWO in Fort Wayne Indiana did something this year that we’ve been talking about for a few years, we added an FM signal to the WOWO listening choices.

The backstory is that with the growth of EV’s many car companies were not including AM radio in the dashboards, only FM.  While the broadcasting organizations having been lobbying Congress to force AM radio to be included in all new cars, at WOWO we decided to be proactive and rebrand with a focus on our full strength FM signal 92.3 along with our 1190 AM radio signal.  And not to get all techy, but before May, you could listen to WOWO on the FM band at 107.5, but that was a low-power FM signal.  If you had an HD FM radio, WOWO could also be heard at 97.3 HD2, but those were not as popular as a traditional full strength FM signal like we have now at 92.3 FM.

Going back to talking about people driving, last month I noticed that our two major malls were getting busier and busier as the holidays approached. Which means even more time spent in cars, listening to the radio on the way to buy from traditional brick and mortar stores, similar to what we had 4 or 5 years ago.

It’s a good sign for the local economy to see people buying locally and for radio stations like mine that are providing news and local information.  This trend will continue after the new year too and if you want help driving our listeners to your business, contact me.

 

Top 10 Holiday Shopping Days of 2023

Top 10 Holiday Shopping Days of 2023

by | Nov 27, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

If the experts are correct, retailers should get set for a very Merry 2023 shopping season.

According to the 2023 Deloitte holiday survey, the holiday spirit and spending will rebound and consumers expect to spend $1,652, surpassing pre-pandemic levels for the first time. As givers grapple with inflation expectations, they still plan to spend nearly 14% more than last year.

Are you ready for the rush?

While some gifts have already been purchased and wrapped, on average, the top 10 busiest shopping days in the U.S. account for approximately 40% of all holiday retail traffic.

Businesses that are well-planned and run well-executed events and promotions during and around these ten days will help garner more than their fair share of the holiday shopping pie. Knowing when the shoppers are ready to shop and being prepared for them is paramount to getting that fair share.

Stores that plan in-store special events and then promote them will see more significant store traffic and greater sales than those that simply sit back and “hope” people stop in. Inviting holiday shoppers into the store at key buying times can and will make all the difference.

The busiest shopping days will see some slight changes in 2023, due to Christmas falling on a Monday. With that said,  2 of the top 10 have already passed as Black Friday will hold its title as the busiest shopping day.

Are you ready?

According to an analysis from the retail traffic consulting and analytics group of Sensormatic Solutions, a Johnson Controls company, here are what are expected to be the 10 busiest shopping days of 2023:

1. Friday, Nov. 24 – Black Friday

2. Saturday, Dec. 23 – Super Saturday

3. Saturday, Dec. 16 – Third Saturday in December

4. Friday, Dec. 22 – Friday before Christmas

5. Saturday, Nov. 25 – Saturday after Black Friday

6. Tuesday, Dec. 26 – Boxing Day

7. Saturday, Dec. 9 – Second Saturday in December

8. Saturday, Dec. 2 – First Saturday in December

9. Saturday, Dec. 30 – Saturday after Christmas

10. Sunday, Dec. 17 – Sunday before Christmas Eve

While this article focuses on retail, there is major money being spent in and around the holiday season in many other business categories. For example, life insurance and investments, HVAC, and many end-of-year health care procedures are being completed.  The age-old saying, “making hay while the sun shines” is appropriate in these and other categories as well.

Most, but not all of the companies I work with are not dependent on the end of year sales that most retailers count on.  We build long term, year round marketing campaigns however we will also kick it into high gear when there is a reason like the holidays we are in right now.

If you would like help in planning any of your marketing and/or advertising events for this holiday season, it’s not too late. Or if you want to start planning for 2024, this is the time. Contact me Scott @ ScLoHo.net.

Readers of my Sound ADvice weekly newsletter got that list a few weeks ago and I’ve been working with them to make sure we have everything in place.  If you would like my free Sound ADvice newsletter too, send an email to Scott@ScLoHo.net.

 

Digital Discrepancies

Digital Discrepancies

by | Nov 20, 2023 | 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

I was born in the 1900’s.

I heard that line last month when comedian Nate Bargatze was hosting Saturday Night Live. Of course I didn’t watch it live on Saturday night, I saw it a few days later because we have YouTubeTV as our streaming service and my wife was catching up on some of her favorite shows.

Back in the 1900’s, (I’m talking about the century, not the decade) we saw a change in advertising targeting options mostly with the growth of cable TV that happened in the 1980’s and 1990’s and what that brought us as consumers was hundreds of TV viewing channel options instead of just the local broadcast TV signals.

Baby Boomers like my wife and I, Gen X and even Millennials like my kids are different from the current Gen Z in terms of media and entertainment experiences and choices.  Social Media giant Facebook is on the cusp of being 20 years old, and that was a game changer.  Media was not just one way from them to us.  With Social Media, we all got the opportunity to have a voice online and share our thoughts and media beyond what the traditional media companies were offering.

A dozen years ago, I took a break from radio and worked for a couple of web based companies.  Targeting to the “right people” was the sales pitch for these new digital advertising options which was pretty cool we thought.  I mean if you could only send your ads to the people who are most likely to respond… that was a game changer too.

However, there are a few flaws with that kind of thinking because it ignores Human Behavior.   I’ll dig more into that in the future but the basics are that we don’t just respond to targeted ads when they are presented to us, there has to be a need on our part to spend our money, or something stronger than a targeted ad that has created the desire within us.

There is a real problem with highly targeted ad placement, in that the controls for the systems that spit out those ads are not very reliable. Some of us are overserved ads for things we might want to buy is one flaw.  Another is getting served ads AFTER we made the purchase because the algorithms haven’t been created to address that flaw.

MarketingCharts.com released a report that says:

Only 15% of US advertisers are very confident in their ability to see all creative running across all channels, and even fewer (13%) are very confident in their ability to tie creative performance back to campaign ROI, according to a survey  commissioned by Claravine and conducted by Advertiser Perceptions.

In total, the advertisers surveyed – all of whom spend at least $50 million on digital advertising each year – estimate that the wrong creative is served to the wrong consumer about one-quarter (25%) of the time. That includes a majority (56%) who believe the wrong ad creative is served at least 20% of the time, and about one-sixth (17%) who estimate that it’s served to the wrong consumer at least 40% of the time.

Advertisers believe that their ROI would increase by an average of 29% if they were able to serve ad creative to the right consumer every time.

Now, I’m not at all against digital advertising, I just believe it’s not as complicated as some will have you believe.

Instead of targeting individuals, you need to go back to targeting known audience groups.  You can do this with social media and other digital advertising but it’s what really what advertising was all about back in the 1900’s.

When mass media like radio, print, TV, heck even Cable TV were the choices business had, they used the characteristics of the media channels audience as the determining factor for where to spend their advertising money.

Going back to my knowledge and expertise in tracking digital targeted ads, I know that when you dig deep enough, all the data becomes less and less reliable.

I challenge you to think like a person, a consumer, a person that could be your customer and the habits and characteristics they have, and then create ad campaigns that speak to them with a relevant message on a form of media that they are likely to use.

If you’re in the Fort Wayne Indiana area, I can help you walk thru this process in person.  Contact me, Scott@ScLoHo.net and we can set up a time to help you avoid all of these Digital Dispensaries and actually grow for the future.

 

Duty Calls

Duty Calls

by | Sep 25, 2023 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

When you are good at something and recognized as being good at it, but you’ve stepped away from it and now the challenge to return to it comes up, what’s your response?

That’s the position I found myself in earlier this month and it’s a position that I’ve been in before.

For nearly 10 years, I’ve worked for Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  I began as the 5th person on a 5 person sales team for radio station WOWO.

That was going to be my final job, however at the tail end of 2019, our company underwent some changes in upper management and my boss, Ben Saurer who had served as the General Sales Manager for WOWO radio was promoted to Vice President/General Manager of all of the Fort Wayne Federated Media radio stations.  This created a very important opening, actually a couple of openings that needed to be filled as Ben had been the General Sales Manager for both of our talk radio stations; News Talk WOWO & Sports Talk WKJG AND he was filling in as the General Sales Manager for WBYR, our rock station.

Even though I didn’t have ambitions to return to a management role, after careful consideration, prayer and encouragement from my sales teammates, I applied.  After a nationwide search was conducted, Ben offered me the position which I accepted to lead WOWO.

WOWO has been the “big dog”.  We brought in more revenue than any of the dozen stations in our company and we knew that we were also the leader of all the 25 or so local radio stations.

Honestly, as I was interviewing with Ben for his old job, I told him it was going to be a tough decision for him to make.

See in 2019, I lead not just the WOWO Sales Team of 5, but I was selected as the Account Manager of the year for the entire company.  1 out of 40 or so sales people.  Not bad for starting out at zero when 2014 began.

The decision Ben had to make was to take his top salesperson out of sales and put me in management, or keep me where I was.

The skill sets are similar but the application is very different between sales person and sales manager.  If you are considering a sales management role, or are in that position right now, I recommend you buy a copy of my friend Mike Weinberg’s new book The First Time Manager: Sales.  I was on his launch team and got a preview copy and it’s excellent. I bought a copy too which I am giving to Ben.

So Ben makes the tough decision and I took over as the General Sales Manager 1 month before the pandemic shut down our country in early 2020.  We are working remotely for 3 months and scrambling to figure out what adjustments to make because it wasn’t what they originally promised… a two week shut-down to flatten the curve.

Low and behold, when 2020 was over, WOWO and our other stations survived, better than had been expected. As I continued my position as the General Sales Manager of WOWO in 2021 and 2022 we faced what a lot of companies faced.  Shortages, but ours was the people kind.

About a year ago, one of our other sales managers moved to a sales person position because their talents were better than any of the candidates we’d been interviewing.

That manager was overseeing three stations and about a month after they joined my WOWO Sales Team, I took over as the interim General Sales Manager for those stations too in addition to WOWO.

This summer I went on a hiring spree to add two more salespeople to the stations I was temporarily overseeing.  Last month and this month those two salespeople began and will be selling for our rock station.

In the meantime, we also hired a new General Sales Manager for those stations I was overseeing for the past year and he begins in October.  He’ll do fine, he spent most of his 25+ years working in management and with Federated Media.

Another change, and this is the reason for the title of this today, Duty Calls, I am switching gears and returning as a Senior Sales Person for WOWO.  Try as we might, we have been challenged with having a full team of sales people on WOWO the past 18 months and it’s time for me to step in and fill that role again.  As far as I know, Ben is going to be doing both jobs of V-P/General Manager for Federated Media Fort Wayne; AND overseeing the WOWO sales team.

As Duty Calls me to help in a sales role again, I look forward to helping more businesses invite our listeners to become their customers and you’re likely to see me out of the office a lot more than I’ve been since 2020 and I look forward to it.

No longer will I refer you to someone else on the WOWO sales team, I’ll get to work with you personally just like before.

The Long Game

The Long Game

by | May 30, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

When I say the word “Future”, how far off in the future does your mind think?

Is the Future 5 years away?

Is the Future 20 years away?

Is the Future next week or even next month?

Does it hurt your brain to think beyond today?

Here in the United States we live in short time spans, relatively speaking compared to some other countries around the world.

We elect a President every four years which for many countries is very unstable.  And the election cycle has become shorter and shorter.  If you like your President then, you want them to last not just 4 years, but 8 years.  However if you don’t like your President, you start talking about the next election as soon as possible, sometimes within 6 months.

I find it interesting that we elect government representatives who then create laws that outlast their term in office or in some cases, the laws don’t come into effect until after those that wrote them are out of office.

But enough about government and the Future, let’s talk about business and the Future.  In my world of radio broadcasting, I work for a radio station that is now 98 years old. WOWO radio began broadcasting in 1925 and was one of the first AM radio stations.  This year there was big news about the death of AM radio because certain automakers announced that they were not including AM radios in their new vehicles.  Ford was the big one that caught peoples attention.

The National Association of Broadcasters rallied their members and lobbyists to save AM radio and due to the bad press or pressure either publicly or privately, Ford reversed course and their CEO announced: “For any owners of Ford’s EVs without AM broadcast capability, we’ll offer a software update”.  As a broadcaster who knows how radio broadcasting works, the “software update” made me suspicious.  If all it takes is a software update, that means the hardware was built-in all this time.

Anyway, the future of AM radio accessibility in Ford manufactured vehicles is safe for now.

On the other hand, there has been a lot of noise in government regarding the social media app TikTok.  The concern is that users information is being given to the Chinese Communist Party for evil and it endangers all of us.  The app has been banned by one state and the Federal Government is prohibiting it from being downloaded on devices that are connected to government sites.

Changes are coming as the Future continues to move closer and closer.  How prepared are you for the changes that could occur next year?  Forget about 5 years down the road or 20 years into the future… I bet there are changes that are taking place in your industry that are going to impact your business in the next 18 months or sooner and you have not prepared for them yet.

The idea of The Long Game which is what I titled this piece is not that you need to stick with doing everything the same way forever and ever, but to look to the Future and plan for what is coming or could be coming.

As I announced in May, WOWO radio prepared for the future by adding a strong FM signal, 92.3 to our options for listeners to tune in while they are driving in case their vehicle doesn’t have AM radio.  We were prepared and you need to be prepared too in your business.

When it comes to inviting people to spend their money with you and your business, I have tons of options and ideas that you should consider.  Some are nearly 100 years old, while others are in their infancy.  Contact me and let’s play the Long Game together for today and the Future.