2008 has proven to be a year of many things, but not a year of distressed inventory in the media community. From top 10 markets to markets that are ranked below 100, 4th quarter (October and November air time) remains available.
Think about it for a second, we are close to a recession and will be lucky to hit 12 million retail automotive vehicle sales for the year and every industry from banking to landscaping is taking a hit. Don’t be fooled by the old adage or your mentality that “you can’t buy media effectively during an election year,” because this isn’t the typical election year.
Buy more media if you have the new car or used car inventory to support it. This will set you up to surpass your competition in the race to the year-end finish.
Most dealers and general managers don’t know the “terms” or what the “techno geeks” in the dealership refer to whenever they start talking about Internet marketing and just how great they are at getting the dealership traffic. Knowledge in the fast growing arena of Internet advertising is priceless. READ UP!
“Click-Through”- The process of clicking through an online advertisement to the advertiser’s destination.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/clickthrough/
“Click-Through Rate” (CTR) - The average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/clickthrough_rate/
“Conversion Rate” - the percentage of visitors who take a desired action.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/conversion_rate/
“Cost-Per-Action” (CPA) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/cost_per_action/
“Cost-Per-Click” (CPC) – the cost or cost-equivalent paid per click-through.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/cost_per_click/
“CPM” - cost per thousand impressions.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/cpm/
“Customer Acquisition Cost”- the cost associated with acquiring a new customer.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/customer_acquisition_cost/
“Hit” - request of a file from a Web server.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/hit/
“Hybrid Model” - a combination of two or more online marketing payment models.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/hybrid_model/
“Impression” - a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/impression/
“Page View” - request to load a single HTML page.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/page_view/
“Pay Per Click” (PPC) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying click-throughs.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/pay_per_click/
“Pay Per Lead” (PPL) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying leads.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/pay_per_lead/
“Pay Per Sale” (PPS) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying sales.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/pay_per_sale/
“Site Stickiness” - the amount of time spent at a site over a given time period.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/stickiness/
“Unique visitors” - individuals who have visited a Web site (or network) at least once in a fixed time frame, typically a 30-day period.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/unique_visitors/
“Web Site Traffic” - the amount of visitors and visits a Web site receives.
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/web_site_traffic/
When researching pros and cons of 15-second spots versus 30-second spots, media researchers and advertisers have found the following:
CONS of :15 Units
- Research proves recall for a :15 spot is LOWER than that of a :30 spot. The difference is over 30% for product categories and 20% for brand recall/specific brands. Other research shows the recall of a :15 commercial spot to be up to 77% lower than that of a :30 commercial spot. (Source: MidAtlantic Journal of Business Research Study)
- The number of :15 spots in a commercial pod did NOT affect recall. (Source: MidAtlantic Journal of Business Research Study)
- Standard unit length on television is 30 seconds. This means there is an increased chance of preemptions when running other duration units such as 15-second spots.
- If a station is sold out, the advertiser would be required to pay the “bump” rate for a :30 unit, regardless of unit length being ony 15 seconds.
- :15 units are priced at a premium
PROS of :15 Units
- :15 units may be used as bookends and to increase frequency. Research does not indicate increased frequency increases recall.
- :15 units are affective for branding and imaging.
At the end of the day, there are both pros and cons to running :15’s instead of :30’s. Be sure if you make this step that you have read the information carefully and know what message you are trying to communicate.
In the markets where Hispanics have a higher percentage of the total population, many dealers are not seeing business as far off as other markets. Hispanics have always been a healthy source to go after, but with the rest of the automotive market place shrinking, many dealers are using the Hispanic market as one to target with their advertising dollars.
For direct marketing, mail pieces and lists can be purchased to target Hispanic households that fit primary demographics for core products.Your offer does not need to be any different then what you would serve to your general market audience; it just needs to be advertised in Spanish along with a team of Hispanic sales people ready to handle the traffic.
For mass media, Hispanic radio stations offer the most targetable form of media based on the format of the station and the group it speaks to. You can measure the numbers in the same way that you measure the general market radio stations, you just need to be sure that the station pulls an audience in relation to the percent of the population that is Hispanic.
For television… There are some things that are too valuable to give away on a blog; for more information about how to reach Hispanics on TV, you will need to contact Strong. We have the latest information on creating a targetable plan for your Hispanic buyer. The “Hispanic Edge” is a program that will allow a dealership or dealership ad association to know what the latest media and automotive marketing trends are for their Hispanic buyers.
For all dealerships, regardless of the franchise and size of the Internet department, you all share one thing in common: Your success in selling vehicles over the Internet will be affected by the person you have managing this department.
Just like a new car department that thrives because of an aggressive new car sales manager, who knows how to sell for volume and generate gross while doing it, your success of your internet department will depend in large part to the person you have handling and managing this area.
If you are not in the business of counting the total traffic to your website on a weekly and monthly basis and if your internet sales person or manager does not know how to create a report that shows this to you – you may want to think about finding someone who can, or investing in proper training for your internet sales team.
The virtual dealership is outpacing the physical dealership as high as 10:1 for daily traffic counts. You need to be counting this daily to make sure your dealership is making the most of the opportunities they have been given.
The television industry is moving to HD technology (HDTV) in February of 2009.
Strong Advertising made the switch in March of 2008 to shooting all dealerships and on-camera spokespeople with an
HD camera.
“Does this really make a difference?”, is the question most dealers and general managers typically ask.
The answer… YES!
Using HD equipment to shoot dealership lots and on-camera people give your spots depth that almost all automotive ads lack. Strong is not changing its formula for success or belief that the greatest car ad ever created was the one that drove in the most traffic, but we creating our spots to dominate the mental shelf space of the import or domestic intender with the use of better technology in our equipment.
One of the critical elements in Automotive Advertising is dealership identity. People continually ask about items they should do to maintain a good, clean and positive image of their dealership. A positive image is important – but name awareness and recognition is at the root of any marketing plan.
The other day a dealer asked me what I thought about the logo his dealership had been using.
We all know there are only two reasons someone would ask this question…
Reason #1: Looking for someone to say how great it looked, or
Reason #2: Looking for someone to say it needed some work.
After asking how many years and millions of advertising dollars had been spent using this logo, without question, I said it was time to make a change. The logo a dealership uses becomes the most recognized symbol for the dealership. Regardless of the brand – Toyota, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Nissan, etc. your name next to one of these symbols is very profound and important. If you don’t have a logo that looks great – and can be read at 55 miles per hour from 4 car lengths away, then you need to consider a change. It is never too late to adjust your logo to better show your identity.
We saw a September that was definitely’not a ‘September to Remember’. Toyota, Ford, Chrysler were all reporting that they are down between 30-40%.
But there are two points of good news:
1. It will not stay down forever.
2. If you remain focused on your marketing efforts, even though your traffic counts may be “off”, now is the best time in your career to gain market share.
When the pie shrinks, you have to get a bigger piece of it – that goes without question. To quote a great car guy, “All I want is my fair share and a little bit of everyone else’s”. If try something drastic at times like these – you can risk the opportunity to gain market share. If you are fearless and will not accept “backing up” in the market place and will sacrifice the glimmer of profit – you will come out of this market a lot stronger than you went into it.
If you reduce your budget – then expect to sell less. That is a fact. If you cut, you will sell less than you did the month before. If you add or maintain, you should plan, expect and demand that you are selling more.
Whether you learned it in high school economics or Harvard Business School,
there is one universal principle that is the building block of any business:
“THE NUMBER ONE SOURCE OF NEW BUSINESS
IS THE PERSON YOU ARE CURRENTLY DOING BUSINESS WITH.”
If you are a good enough marketer, then you will be able to come up with different ways to attract your current customer base back to the dealership. If you want to listen the people in your
20 Group that tell you
“you only need to mail your owner body once a month” – then listen to them and invite them to your office every month when you review your financial statement to re-explain why you don’t follow one of the most basic and fundamental rules in business.
Many dealerships and their marketing partners fail because they try to tackle too many types of customers with too limited of a budget. Trying to market your dealership to every member of the public of is recipe for disaster. Now more than ever, you have to focus in geographically and then demographically on which group of customers can actually increase your business. Trying to be all things to all people will only achieve one thing for you… wasted money.
