by Scott Howard | May 18, 2017 | 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
About 18 months ago I wrote a list of some of the advertising options I offered as a member of the WOWO Radio Advertising Sales Team.
Time for a fresh spin and update and if you want to listen to the podcast version instead, click here or scroll down to the end of this article.
Today let’s cut to the chase of what I do and why we should talk…
How Scott Howard Can Help You Invite People To Give You Money would be the title, but I prefer not talking about myself in the third person.
How I Can Help You Invite People To Give You Money is more my style.
On the surface, I sell radio advertising on WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana which is pretty cool.
Some people I sell ads to just want that. I want to buy some radio commercials, they say. That’s it, nothing more, just tell me how much it will cost and let’s get to work.
I can do that and I will do that if that is really what they want. It all depends on the person at the other end.
If they are a media buyer or marketing director for a big company and they know what they are doing with advertising and marketing, then I’ll give them what they want with some insider knowledge about the characteristics of the WOWO audience.
However 90% of the time, the real issue is not that simple.
Business owners want customers and they are willing to do almost anything, including having a guy dress up in a dirty chicken costume, standing at the side of the road, waving at passing cars just to attract attention in the hopes that some of those people will pull over and buy something. If you missed that story, here’s a link.
Radio advertising on WOWO is a different animal than radio advertising on most other stations. Why?
WOWO is a news/talk formatted radio station and most of the others are music formatted radio stations. Listeners to news/talk are less irritated by commercials than music station listeners for one. I also have more options and opportunities to create a bond between the listeners and the local personalities on WOWO and I can leverage that bond to include the businesses that advertise on WOWO.
One day I’ll dig further into how that works, but after 3 1/2 years as a WOWO insider, I have seen and heard some amazing things pertaining to the effectiveness of WOWO radio ads that blows me away.
Remember, the topic today is: How I Can Help You Invite People To Give You Money.
We’re not limited to just the people who listen to the radio commercials on WOWO because our parent company, Federated Media has also invested in the digital world of advertising and marketing too with our Federated Digital Solutions division.
Honestly, I took a skeptic stance at our digital division when I joined a few years ago because I have experience in the online world, both in website design and development and the social media side too.
I wanted to make sure that anything I offered was the best for the investment spent for the companies I was talking with. And I have discovered some more pretty cool things we offer in the digital world that allow me to Help You Invite People To Give You Money.
On the digital side, I am running campaigns that reach across the country and some are pinpointed to specific cities that are beyond the reach of WOWO Radio, but are targeted to the right people in the location that my advertising partners wants to invite to give him money.
I have the success stories to back this up too whether it’s radio or digital or a combination.
One thing I offer that is unique among my WOWO Radio sales team coworkers is the connections to others that can help with your business marketing outside of what you can buy from me. My connections seem to go pretty deep and wide and beyond just marketing services but into other aspects of running your company.
Oh and there is another category of marketing tools I have at my finger tips that can actually create a list of Hot Leads, people who have given us their contact information because they have Opted In to be contacted and yes, they want to give you money.
By the way the whole premise of people giving you money in this article is not necessarily money for nothing, it’s people who want to buy what you have to sell.
Ready to see how this could work for you?
Want to see specifically How I Can Help You Invite People To Give You Money?
Let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Apr 27, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Today I am going to talk to you about my friend Nancy and her husband Bill. You can read or listen to this on the Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast:
Bill and Nancy are real people, not a made up couple. I’ve known Nancy since we went to high school together and yet back then I wasn’t aware of what the family business was that her Mom and Dad ran.
Turns out Nancy’s Dad was the second owner of Doc Dancer Heating and Cooling. There really was a guy who went by the name Doc Dancer that started the company over 70 years ago and to quote from the website,
Robert L. Dancer founded his heating and air conditioning company in 1946. In 1967, Willis Bulmahn bought the business and worked diligently to make “Doc” Dancer, Inc. a household name in the Fort Wayne heating & air conditioning market. Upon Willis’ death in 1998, Bill & Nancy Berning (Willis’ son-in-law & daughter) became the new owners and they continue to operate the business today.
That’s the short version. Nancy was 6 or 7 when her parents took over Doc Dancer. She became actively involved sometime after she and Bill took over. Nancy’s background is accounting and she loves taking a look at numbers and making sure everything adds up.
You can click on this and visit their website!
Over the years, Bill and Nancy would divide and conquer the multiple tasks and duties of running the family business and it turns out advertising decisions ended up in Nancy’s pile every year. She would consult with Bill when needed but for the most part, she was making these decisions solo.
Nancy is a wonderful person. She has a very kind and gentle heart that radiates from her Christian faith.
But here’s why I’m using Nancy as an example for this story and lesson.
Nancy didn’t really know when to say yes and when to say no when advertising people came calling on her. I offered to help her and after convincing her that this was really a “free service” I was offering, we began the process.
The process began by reviewing the spreadsheets she kept for the last several years that listed where they spent their money for advertising and marketing.
Then we dug deeper. And what I did with Nancy and Doc Dancer will not apply directly to you and your business. However the “why” I dug deeper applies to every business.
For Nancy, I asked her to add another column to her spread sheet. We called it Trust and Branding. As we looked at all of the ways she and Bill were promoting their business, we asked if the expenditure promoted Trust and their Brand. Doc Dancer was a 70 year old company but the name recognition in recent years was lacking and I could see why as we evaluated how they were spending their advertising and marketing dollars.
I’m not going to give away any secrets here and divulge any inside information, but the lesson learned was that Nancy and Bill didn’t have a way to determine When To Say Yes and When To Say No when advertising sales people contacted them until we went through this process.
I ended up being their “unpaid marketing coach and adviser”. I went with Nancy to a meeting with a local television station that wanted her to sign up for an advertising package they were pushing. (Nancy said no, because the T.V. station never offered her what we wanted.)
I also helped Nancy negotiate with a couple of Christian radio stations to get a schedule that made more sense, even though it cost a little more each month.
Yes, Doc Dancer did also agree to spend money with me and WOWO but only after we came up with something that made sense and fit the criteria for Doc Dancer.
I continue to work every month with Nancy and Bill, not just on the advertising and marketing they do through me, but we also look at additional marketing beyond what I can offer them.
Do you need help deciding When To Say Yes and When To Say No? Let’s connect and take a look at your unique situation.
by Scott Howard | Apr 5, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Listen to the Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast, same great content, just in an audio form!
My favorite kind of marketing is relationship marketing. That may surprise some of you because of my years in the radio business and on the web. But believe me, they actually work hand in hand.
When I am meeting with a business owner, and they have been around awhile, I want them to honestly say that their best new customers are coming from Referrals or Word Of Mouth.
That means that they are doing a good job and what they do is share-worthy. This is an organic form of marketing, one that you as a business owner have very little direct control over. You create the share-worthy experience for your customer but it is up to your customer to recommend you to their friends.
Every month I meet with people who have an idea for a business that are getting ready to launch. They contact me because they want to advertise their grand opening. But too often I cringe at what they are telling me.
See, I have the ability and option to sell advertising to anyone who has the money to pay for it. But that’s not the way I operate.
I want the people who buy advertising from me to be successful. That means I wear a different hat than the advertising sales guy who simple looks at his job as selling ads to meet his monthly budget. Unfortunately, I know too many people in the advertising sales world whose only focus is on themselves and not really on their clients.
Let me repeat that statement again: I want the people who buy advertising from me to be successful. That is my first priority.
When I am meeting with start-ups, I am a critic. Yes, I appreciate their excitement and enthusiasm for the new venture they are preparing. But I also look for holes in their plan that could damage the first impression new customers have when they open for business.
The best way to create a successful business is to also be aware of the worst possibilities and have a plan in case those worst possibilities become a reality.
There’s a story about the very first Panera Bread store that open in Fort Wayne years ago. The place was a hit. Opening day they had a line of customers out the door waiting to try their goodies.
But there was a problem with all of this success. The Panera bakery was unable to keep up with the demand. They were going to be a victim of their own success and annoy a lot of potential customers.
Now I don’t know if the back up plan was preplanned or not, but they had one. I think it was created as soon as they noticed they were falling behind and going to run out of bread.
Remember this was the very first Panera Bread in town. The closest Panera was a nearly two hour drive to Indianapolis. So that was their back up plan. Bread from the next closest Panera Bread was brought in to serve to these excited and hungry new Panera Bread customers in Fort Wayne by getting it from another Panera 2 hours away on Interstate 69.
The result was fantastic. The Fort Wayne Panera Bread launch was a success in the eyes of the customers. Word of mouth spread and the place was booming. Customers had no idea how fortunate they were to get food that opening week instead of being told, “sorry, we’re all out.”
In these days of instant communication via social media, your customers are going to talk about you and how you made them feel. That’s the human relationship marketing I’m talking about that you DO have control over.
By the way, Panera now has 3 locations in Fort Wayne and that original store had to expand due to their success.
If you and I ever talk about promoting your business, I’m going to ask you questions most ad salespeople won’t even think to ask. I want to be sure you are creating positive share worthy experiences for the customers I send you.
It’s not just brand new businesses that need to be prepared, but established ones too. I’m working with a family owned business that has been around forever and teaching them how to better serve the potential customers we are sending them so they can also create positive share worthy customer experiences.
Are you ready to try this human relationship approach to your marketing and advertising? Let’s talk.
by Scott Howard | Mar 19, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
I have been reading a series from Mediapost, What We’ve Learned About Marketing To Baby Boomers and this month they published part 3.
Why do I care?
First off, I’ve been studying marketing and advertising for 3 decades.
2nd, the radio station I work for WOWO, has a huge Baby Boomer audience and I want to make sure my advertising partners are doing their best to get a return on their investment with me and other advertising they are doing.
And my wife and I are Baby Boomers too.
Me & the Mrs. I’m the taller one!
Why should you care?
Unless you are in the generation that you are marketing your business to, you may not be tuned in to the most effective methods that resonate with the people you want to invite to do business with you.
My kids are adults, which I find kinda weird because I remember when I was their age and it doesn’t seem that long ago.
Anyway, I work with people who are half my age, I have friends who are nearly 20 years older than me and others that are 30 years younger. It is important to have an understanding of the differences and how you not only interact but market your business to these different groups of people.
The article from Mediapost has 7 observations. This one has direct application to what I do on the radio:
Gender tends to predispose responses to voice-overs in broadcast advertising
For example, research tells us that male voices are more knowledgeable when describing technical attributes of a product, while female voices are more knowledgeable when describing a product with references to love, relationships, and caring.
Take a moment and read the other 6 and see how you can apply them to your business.
by Scott Howard | Mar 14, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
At the end of 2016, I was preparing to launch a podcast version of the weekly articles I have been writing and publishing on The Genuine ScLoHo website and this is the very first episode that you can also listen to. Here’s the link to this episode. Now that we have all the details taken care of, here we go:
Kicking off a brand new year and a new dimension to this website, I thought it would be a good time to give you a bit of background information on What’s a ScLoHo? and who is this character…
This article (or podcast if you’re listening to this) is longer than they will be in the future.
First, some history. My name is Scott Howard and in the 1960’s my family moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana. In the 70’s my high school launched a radio station and that led me to working on the radio at the age of 16 part time. After graduating, I was working full time in radio, on the radio in Marion and Kokomo, Indiana before returning to Fort Wayne where I was on the air at WMEE, owned by Federated Media.
While at WMEE I married a listener and we ended up having 3 kids, moving back to Kokomo and eventually Detroit when I was 26. In Detroit I spent nearly 8 years at WMUZ, a 50,000 watt FM commercial Christian radio station. This move to Detroit was my entry into the advertising and marketing world. We would create advertising campaigns for our advertising partners and my primary job was to create these campaigns including writing and producing the ads.
I also trained others in our production department and we had a full staff of 5 commercial producers. Eventually I returned to the air on WMUZ in Detroit, initially doing vacation fill-in and then took over the morning show for about a year. I also spent about a year full time in sales at WMUZ before deciding to return to Indiana for family reasons.
Back in the Fort Wayne area, (actually Warsaw, Indiana at first) I worked part time on the air at country music WBTU before accepting a full time on air position at WFWI. This was the early 90’s now and when WFWI decided to switch music formats, they asked me to move from afternoons to mornings on the new 92.3 The Fort. I did this 6 months before I decided to walk away from radio and took a job in Warsaw where my wife and kids and I lived.
About 4 years later, my first wife and I are no longer married and my Dad had passed away so I moved back to Fort Wayne to help my Mom downsize and move forward with her life. It’s the summer of 1998 and I returned to radio full time for a few months as the program director of talk radio station WGL in Fort Wayne. Due to unstable ownership I left full time radio again but never completely as I start doing weekends on WAJI ushering in the year 2000.
For the next 3 years I worked in a couple of different industries and to summarize, I know how to drive a forklift, manage a tool crib work in quality control and run a thermometer. I also met and married my wife Kathy who introduced me to local coffee shops.
It was during one of those coffee shop visits that I noticed we were the only customers and outside was a guy dressed in a dirty pink chicken costume waving at passing cars. I asked the owner what the chicken had to do with coffee and his response was, “I gotta do something”. Clearly he was desperate to get customers. We had a conversation about advertising and marketing and later as my wife and I were driving home, she said you ought to go back into advertising and marketing. Apparently she and the coffee shop owner were both impressed with the common sense advise I offered.
Kathy and I talked about the pros and cons of my returning to radio. She did not know me when I previously worked in radio and I told her about the challenges and opportunities and we prayerfully agreed to give it a go. A few months later, in April 2003 I was hired by a group of radio stations in Fort Wayne that was known mostly as Summit City Radio as one of their advertising sales persons.
The ScLoHo name and identity was born during my 8 and a half years working at those radio stations. It began as an email address and later when I began my online activity, it became my twitter handle and I even formed a marketing consulting practice with the ScLoHo name.
What does ScLoHo mean? It’s pretty simple. Even though I had never met another person with my name, Scott Howard until a few years ago, there are over 800 Scott Howard’s in the United States according to the website, HowManyOfMe.com.
If you were to Google Scott Howard, one of the top results was the character named Scott Howard, played by Michael J. Fox in the original Teenwolf movie. While I’ve had a beard most of my adult life, I’m not a werewolf. So I created a mashup of my first, middle and last names… If you take the first two letters of Scott, the first two letters of Louis and the first two letters of Howard, you have six letters, ScLoHo. And it’s easy to pronounce too as a two syllable word, Sc-low, Hoe.
I jumped on the blogging bandwagon while I was still working for those other radio stations and was writing, editing and publishing articles every day on multiple blogs online. Some of the articles were picked up nationally by the Wall Street Journal and other publications. I was doing speaking and teaching engagements around town and around elsewhere too. The subjects varied but the main topics were Media, Marketing, Branding and Advertising along with some on the personal side and about my city, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
2011, I was lured away from the radio stations I was working for which included WGL, Rock 104 and Wild 96 and started a full time position working for a website development firm. It was a great learning experience and my friend and co-worker, Kevin challenged me to tie the ScLoHo identity with my own name, Scott Howard. See, for several years there were people who knew me as either Scott Howard or ScLoHo, but not both. By October 2011 I was ready to consolidate all my online blogs and websites to a new domain. Since the dot com and dot net versions of my name were taken, I bought the Scott Howard dot me domain and have been writing and publishing every single week.
By the way, after leaving the website development company I joined another radio station in town, then went to work full time for a national e-commerce company headquartered near Fort Wayne. I managed the social media for all 5 of their brands.
In 2013, I accepted the position I have now with Federated Media. I am a member of the WOWO radio sales team and also have all of the marketing resources available from our Federated Digital Services division. For me it’s like a marriage of the best of both worlds that I have enjoyed… radio and online.
It was also a homecoming of sorts. The building that houses WOWO and Federated Media also is home to other stations including WMEE where I worked on the air when I was 21 years old in 1981. Two of my co-workers from those old days are still here too.
Over the weeks ahead, I’ll share some marketing and media insights, dip into some personal stories on occasion and pass along what I’ve learned from hundreds of others and continue to learn nearly every day.
Questions? Answers? Thoughts of nearly any kind are welcome. You can find me online ScottHoward.me; on Twitter @ScLoHo; on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and a few other places online. Just Google ScLoHo, that’s S-C-L-O-H-O and you’ll probably find more of me. Drop me a note via email too, Scott@ScLoHo.net.
More details can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scloho
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