by Scott Howard | Aug 1, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
In my continuing informal series of information about advertising with the radio station I work for, WOWO, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I am going to share more research info that attempts to address the question some local business owners face:
Should I buy radio ads or television ads?
More specifically:
Should I use WOWO Radio or one of the Local TV stations?
I have access to local radio station ratings but not local TV station ratings, so I keep an eye out for research that fills in the gap of what I know.
Let’s start with WOWO Radio.
Overall, based on the population figures and the listenership numbers, I know that between 25 percent and 40 percent of the total Metro Fort Wayne population listens to WOWO every week. In the spring ratings report that was released, WOWO has the largest audience of all the Fort Wayne radio stations again.
As a news and talk radio station, WOWO’s audience is adults, or grown-ups as I like to say.
I also know that 80% of our 100,000 weekly listeners are age 45 and older.
Compare that to TV viewing.
Overall, screen-viewing has increased, but the way we watch and what we watch has changed dramatically in the past decade.
Cutting the cord, or not having a TV at all was the trend of Gen Z and it has been moving to older generations too.
My millennial kids don’t watch local TV. They get their news, weather, information and entertainment from a different kind of screen. Netflix is huge. So is YouTube. But local news? Nope.
Recently my wife and I were spending the evening with some older friends in their 60’s and they confessed the same thing. They watch more on their iPhones (including full length movies!) each week than they do live local television.
I don’t have the figures for local TV viewership like I do for local radio listenership, but I saw a report that shows that my antidotal observations are part of a trend that is not going away.
MarketingCharts.com reports that “Roughly Half of Households Headed by People Ages 55+ Stream Video”
Nearly 80% of 18 to 44 year olds watch streaming video, and while that is not surprising, the fact that older adults have moved to what I call “on-demand programming” has to be alarming to those in the television business. At least the local TV broadcasters.
So here’s what my assessment for businesses that are considering television advertising to invite Fort Wayne area consumers to do business with them….
Be very, very careful and cautious.
Local Newscasts and a few sporting events are about the only television programming that is exclusive to the TV stations. Everything else, we can time shift and watch on our own schedule. When I watch a show like NCIS after it originally was broadcast by my local CBS station, I don’t see your local TV ads.
Ask your television sales person, “How many people will see my TV ad?” Go deeper and ask them how they came up with that number.
If you want more help on deciding if an advertising campaign on TV is a good idea, contact me and I’ll gladly help you sort out the offer and teach you what to ask and look for.
Or better yet, let’s talk about inviting WOWO radio listeners to become your customers. We have 100,000 local listeners. How many do you want as your customers?
by Scott Howard | Jul 25, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
A study released this summer of over 500 consumers in the United States points out a reason why most advertising campaigns under perform.
There are over a million advertising and marketing messages that we are exposed to each year and most of them are missing something.
What is that something that is missing?
Trust is the Missing Link.
According to the ExpertVoice Consumer Trust Panel, only 4% of consumers trust celebrity endorsements, while over 80% trust the recommendations from friends and family. In today’s overcrowded marketplace, consumers are searching for trusted recommendations before making a purchase, says the report. Those so called social media influencers, they only earn the trust of 6% of consumers. Yet the influencer marketing industry expected to reach $10 billion by the year 2020.
Those are huge numbers. I’m going to bring it down to earth and tell you what I discovered a few years ago when I joined the advertising sales team at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
WOWO is a news talk radio station with live, local newscasts starting at 5 in the morning, all the way up to 6 at night. Two local newscast every hour, except the first four hours, when the news team does 4 local newscasts in the morning. As a local news and talk radio station, WOWO also has two local radio personalities, Charly Butcher and Pat Miller who host mornings and afternoons. They are our version of celebrity, but not really.
Let me explain.
Because of the nature of our talk format at WOWO, Charly and Pat share their personalities with listeners. People don’t tune in to WOWO in the afternoon to hear the latest news, they tune in to hear what their friend Pat Miller is talking about with regards to what’s going on in the news. Pat and Charly become friends to their listeners. This is critically important to know, because remember the trust factor of family and friends tops 80% compared to anyone else when you are looking for advice on what to buy or whom to buy it from? Pat and Charly have credibility with their listeners.
There’s another statistic from this national trust survey I want to address. A significant reason why celebrity endorsements aren’t trusted by us everyday consumers is because we know that those movie, music and TV stars are paid big bucks to slap their name on those celebrity endorsed products. Here’s the quote from the report:
…the greatest concern for consumers regarding celebrity, athlete and influencer recommendations is the monetary compensation given to the individual from the brands they’re promoting. Additionally…many consumers expressed concern over what knowledge a celebrity possesses regarding the product they’re being paid to endorse.
Here’s how the live endorsements work with Charly and Pat at WOWO. When they do a full blown, live 60 second endorsement for an advertising partner, Pat or Charly do get paid a fee. The radio station gets paid for the 60 seconds of advertising time and Pat or Charly are paid an additional endorsement fee. These are the highest priced ads you will hear on WOWO. I call them the Platinum Option.
If you and your business wanted this live endorsement 60 second advertisement program from Charly or Pat, you have to qualify. You must be a person of your word. We understand that mistakes can happen but we want to make sure you are honest. When Charly Butcher was promoting Collins Flags as an Indiana company selling American Made Flags, you bet he checked them out before he agreed to endorse them. Same thing with Pat Miller’s endorsement of Doc Dancer heating and cooling. Pat has gotten to know the owners and has used them for his own home. Pat and Charly have veto power too. If they are asked to do live ads for a business that has a questionable reputation, they can and will say no. They have their trusted reputation to protect.
And speaking of protection, when you hire Pat to be your spokesperson for your business with these live 60 second endorsement ads, you are protected from Pat also endorsing your competition. Same thing with Charly. Ask me about this if you want to know more.
by Scott Howard | Jul 11, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
As a member of the WOWO radio advertising sales team, I have some insider information to share with you.
As a member of the Fort Wayne, Indiana community for the past 20 years, I have some insight to share with you.
As a marketing professional who has worked for other media companies, including those that competed with WOWO, I have some perspective to share with you.
As a Baby Boomer who grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where WOWO radio is located, I also have some history to share with you.
At the conclusion of this article, you will have a greater understanding of WOWO, Fort Wayne, and if we should talk about your business using WOWO to invite people to become your customers.
Twice a year, Fort Wayne radio stations receive the results of an independent ratings survey that tells us who listens and when they listen. Not in any scary, meta-data manner, but in demographic and geographic terms. June 29th, I received the results of the Spring 2018 rating survey.
I was not surprised by the data. I look for a couple of things such as the total number of listeners each week. When a business advertises with a radio station, there is a finite number of people that will hear their ads. Same is true with any advertising medium.
So I want to know how many total listeners WOWO has and once again, WOWO is listed as the radio station heard in Fort Wayne that has the largest number of listeners. Over 99,000 every week just in the 6 counties that include Allen County, where Fort Wayne is, and the 5 Indiana counties that are adjacent to Allen. That includes, Adams, Wells, Huntington, Whitley and Dekalb Counties in Indiana.
WOWO has listeners beyond those counties including the Indiana counties of Grant, Wabash, Kosciusko, Noble, Lagrange, Steuben, and several Ohio counties. The listeners in those counties are not included in the survey, but they are there. We know this because of the advertisers and listeners tell us.
The rating survey also tells me that 95% of WOWO’s radio listeners are grown-ups, age 25 and older.
Again WOWO leads the pack, we have nearly 30,000 more grown-ups listening every week compared to the next most popular station that has less than 70,000 listeners aged 25 and older.
Charly Butcher and the Fort Wayne Morning News Team have nearly 50,000 weekly grown-ups listening to WOWO.
So does Glenn Beck, whose 3 hour national talk show comes on at 9am.
Rush Limbaugh’s 3 hour national talk show has over 60,000 weekly listeners on WOWO between noon and 3pm and local WOWO Talk Show host Pat Miller has nearly 55,000 listeners every week between 3 and 6 in the afternoon.
There is no other radio station in Fort Wayne that has this massive number of listeners week after week, of grown-ups. Remember it’s the grown-ups that have the money, not the 13 year olds.
Why is WOWO so popular?
WOWO is a legacy radio station in Fort Wayne. When I was a kid, WOWO played music and the disc jockeys were allowed to be personalities. Bob Sievers, the legendary morning show host would tell me if school was delayed, but hundreds of farmers all across Indiana, Ohio and Michigan also listened to hear the farm reports.
In the evening, I listened to Ron Gregory when I was supposed to be doing my homework and enjoyed his wry sense of humor and puns.
But the WOWO of today is different. Now over 90 years on the air, mostly on 1190am, WOWO has been broadcasting a news and talk format for a couple of decades.
Politically, Northeast Indiana, or “WOWO-Land” as it is called to include the entire tri-state area leans conservative. With the line-up of conservative talk show hosts like our own Pat Miller along with national radio personalities, Glenn, Rush and Sean Hannity and Buck Sexton at night, WOWO has a strong format that attracts grown-up listeners.
We are not totally a conservative part of the country. Our mayor is serving his 3rd term as a member of the Democratic Party and his predecessor also from the Democratic Party served as mayor for two terms. The City and County Councils however lean Republican.
Our Fort Wayne Morning News with Charly Butcher, isn’t really a talk show, more of a news program with interview segments lasting 3 minutes or less, because it’s jam packed with 4 newscasts, 6 traffic and weather reports, 2 sports updates and 2 farm reports every hour! Interview segments with our Mayor and other city and county officials, state government leaders including the Governor and our Congressmen and Senators are featured live each week along with what ever else is timely and appropriate. And yes, just like when I was listening as a kid, WOWO still has school delays and closings in the morning when the weather is bad.
95% of WOWO listener tune in weekdays between 5 in the morning and 6 at night. I call in WOWO Primetime. 70% listen on the weekends.
There are other stations in Fort Wayne that are targeting the same age demographic as WOWO, but they have half as many or even a third as many weekly listeners.
There are also other stations that have a news or talk format, but again their total number of listeners is a tiny fraction of the weekly listeners that WOWO has according to the latest radio survey I’m looking at.
By the way, this dominance of WOWO is not new, it’s been consistent during the 15 plus years I have worked for WOWO and before when I worked for the other radio station companies in Fort Wayne.
All this information is good and great and wonderful, but how does WOWO perform for business that advertise with us?
I’m impressed and that’s not a bunch of hype. Because of all that I have already mentioned, there are certain characteristics and options that I have with WOWO that are not available anywhere else in Fort Wayne that have created phenomenal results for advertisers that partner with us. Nothing is 100%, but compared to other stations I have worked for since 1986, I don’t have to cross my fingers and hope for the best when I have a true advertising partner who takes my guidance, coaching and follows that plan we create together.
Not every business that I talk to however qualifies to work with me. Want to know if you qualify? Hit me up, and let’s connect.
by Scott Howard | Jul 5, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
To be perfectly honest with you, I was in the middle of writing a 3 part series on the 3 R Formula for Advertising Success and I’ve decided to switch things up a bit.
First off, the 3 parter was turning into a 4, 5 or 6 part series and while the information is important, I have other important information and stories to share.
So today, I’m going to dig in and give you the 2nd and 3rd R’s in the formula which goes like this:
Right Message + Right Audience x Right Number of Times = Success
Once you know what the Right Message needs to be, you need to deliver it to the Right Audience.
Now, more than ever in human history, there are more options to deliver your message, but unless you deliver it to the Right Audience, you are wasting your time and money.
I work in both the digital media and traditional media worlds and have seen marketers flock to digital online advertising as they reduce their involvement with the traditional. The thinking is:
With digital media marketing, I can pinpoint the delivery of my ads to precisely the Right Audience and track everything!
Nice theory, but it’s really just a hyped sales pitch. And it’s one part of the 3 R’s Formula for Advertising Success.
Digital Media can deliver ads to highly targeted audiences. But there are plenty of flaws. Sometimes the targeting is too narrow. Sometimes the targeting is too broad. Sometimes people click on an ad by accident. Sometimes the people running the campaigns are amateurs or they don’t understand the differences in “boosted posts”, “dark posts” and well, you get the idea.
A couple years ago, I noticed a company that specialized in Social Media Marketing was doing a terrible job but they were getting paid big bucks by their clients who didn’t know any better. This stuff happens.
I’m not against digital media marketing, I just want to warn you that it’s not the only way to reach your Right Audience with your Right Message. So let’s define what the Right Audience is and then you can decide which advertising mediums to consider.
When I am working with a business owner and I ask them, who they want to reach, too many will say “Everyone!”
So I dig deeper.
Think about the big, mass appeal companies. Walmart, McDonald’s, Google, Amazon to name a few.
While Walmart and McDonald’s have become leaders in their respective businesses, there are plenty of people who will never go to Walmart and plenty who won’t go to McDonald’s. Google and Amazon seem to be taking over the world, but there are still plenty of people who avoid them at all costs.
Reaching the Right Audience with your Right Message is a two part exercise.
Part one begins with you. Who is going to buy what You are selling? Teenagers don’t buy adult diapers. Vegan’s don’t buy hamburgers. You get what I’m saying…
Part two of reaching the Right Audience is finding the advertising vehicle that matches part one. In other words, first determine who your best customers are and then get your Right Message on the advertising medium that will effectively reach your best customers.
Last week I had a conversation with an organization that is looking for volunteers to deliver meals at lunch time to home bound residents. I asked, “Who are your best driver’s now?” and the answer was people between the ages of 50 and 70. While they have some volunteer drivers in their 20’s and 30’s, they are not as stable as the older ones. It’s nothing against them, but in reality, we are going to be more successful recruiting older drivers for this organization.
There are a few advertising options available for reaching this age group and it happens that the most cost effective is going to be my radio station, WOWO radio.
The last part of this 3 R Formula for Advertising Success is the Right Number of times. Remember:
Right Message + Right Audience x Right Number of Times = Success
In this changing media world, I see the Right Number part of this formula being abused.
The Right Number should apply to each individual advertising medium you are using. Don’t add up the total number of TV ads, and Radio ads, count each broadcast channel separately.
In the radio business we often operate with the idea of getting a “3 frequency”. The theory is that it takes 3 times for a person to hear a message before it sinks in. Using insider ratings data, advertising sales people can tell you how many ads it will take to achieve this, but I have a simpler method that I’ll share one day.
Buying one radio ad or one TV ad, or one newspaper ad or one Facebook ad is never recommended. The highest frequency of one ad is always one.
However, I’ve also seen the opposite. Too many ads delivered too frequently. That’s because of not understanding the process or using an automated system that over-delivers to not enough people.
I see this over-delivery on screens, for example watching a TV show on demand that has limited commercials but the same commercials every time. Or another offender is digital display ads that have three or four or more ads on the same page for the same product, company or service.
Determining the Right Number of Times your Right Message needs to be delivered to the Right Audience is the difference between building a positive relationship with your customers or annoying them to the point where they avoid you.
When you are considering inviting people to spend money with you, you need to talk to marketing professionals who understand this entire advertising formula and how to apply it to you and your business.
If you are in Northeast Indiana and want that kind of help, reach out to me.
Here’s links to the other two articles in this series:
The First R in Advertising Success – Part One
The First R in Advertising Success – Part Two
by Scott Howard | Jun 28, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Over the next few weeks, I’m sharing with you a formula for advertising success that I was reminded of recently. Last week it was The First R in Advertising Success (part one), and today The First R in Advertising Success (part two).
This is part of the 3 R Formula; it goes like this:
Right Message + Right Audience x Right Number of Times = Success
Last time I talked about the content of the Right Message, today, a different angle on the right message, and I’m going to call it the style and length of the Right Message.
Using Human Relationship Marketing Principles in your advertising will give you an advantage in the impact your advertising has. I’ll use examples from the radio world, since I work for WOWO radio in Fort Wayne Indiana.
Most radio ads are a minute long and recorded with a music background. The person writing the commercial has 60 seconds to fill and they sometimes use that time to throw in way too much information. TV ads are usually 30 seconds long and with the power of visual and audio, they do the same thing. We’ve all seen or heard a car commercial that has 3, 4 or 5 different cars and or trucks in one commercial, right?
Problem is, that is way too much information to cram into one commercial and it violates a rule of ONE MESSAGE PER MESSAGE. That rule is not a law, that’s why it gets violated all the time and the only consequence is response and results are less than if that rule ONE MESSAGE PER MESSAGE was followed.
Maybe you really don’t need all that time to get your message out. Copywriters are notorious for filling an ad with extra junk because they have a full minute to fill up. Or the business owner tells them to include their business hours and free parking and other stuff that takes away from the real message.
When I joined WOWO radio in 2013, I noticed that we had something that others on the WOWO advertising sales had not been using as an option for advertisers. Well, some were using it, but not very much.
It became my secret sauce recipe and within about 18 months, others started doing it. The popularity of my secret sauce led to us having to keep track of the special radio advertising format because we were getting close to selling them out!
Here’s what I’m talking about and how it became my secret sauce.
Live News, Weather, and Sports sponsorships on WOWO.
Weekdays from 5am thru the 6pm newscast, Monday thru Friday, we have a total of 188 opportunities for a business to be mentioned in an “embedded” mention by the local newscaster or program host. These mentions are 10 seconds long and it’s surprising what you can say in those 10 seconds. It has helped me to focus on the ONE MESSAGE PER MESSAGE concept.
I have some radio advertising partners that only do this type of advertising because they only need to get a very specific message out without much explanation that would require a longer message.
In 2013, when I started selling my secret sauce, these sponsorship messages were priced at $20 each because we had plenty of them available. Compared to the price of $100 for one 60 second commercial, if the message only needed 10 seconds, I could get 5 times the exposure.
Prices for my secret sauce have risen since then due to the popularity. $40 or more is the common price during weeks that we are 80% sold out of these live sponsorships. But still, that is a great price that allows me to expose your business to more people than if we used the same total dollars with 60 second commercials on WOWO.
Here’s how the Human Relationship Marketing Principle works with these ads…
Because WOWO is a news and talk formatted radio station, our listeners tune in to hear what our news and talk hosts are saying. For example:
WEATHER BROUGHT TO YOU BY A TO Z COINS AND JEWELRY, IN THE NORTHCREST SHOPPING CENTER NEXT TO FIVE GUYS. DID YOU INHERIT A COIN COLLECTION AND DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT? TAKE IT TO A TO Z COINS AND JEWELRY. OPEN THIS MORNING AT 9.
A-Z gets an implied endorsement of the radio station because it’s a trusted radio personality talking about them.
None of our other Fort Wayne Federated Media stations offer this live, embedded advertising messaging to the degree we do at WOWO radio.
Before we wrap this up today, I’ll share a little about the other form of live advertising messages I offer with WOWO that was the gold, no, make that the platinum standard.
Live Endorsement and Testimonial Ads. These are done by our WOWO personalities Charly Butcher, Pat Miller and Rick Wolf and are a full minute long. They have the endorsement power of not just WOWO, but also the hosts. These are the most expensive ads you will hear on WOWO but the Return On Investment makes them worth it. They also include a form of exclusivity that I’ll share with you in the future. Or you can contact me and I’ll fill you in on the details.
All of this talk about having the Right Message is extremely important, when you deliver it to the Right Audience. That’s our subject the next time.
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