The struggling economy may force companies to reduce investments in local advertising through 2013, but more ad dollars will go toward digital rather than traditional media, according to the U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast (2008-2013) by BIA Advisory Services and division Kelsey Group.

U.S. local advertising revenue will decline from $155.3 billion in 2008 to $144.4 billion in 2013, representing a negative 1.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

Companies will continue to increase the amount spent on interactive ads, from online to mobile to digital out-of-home that relies on IP platforms to transmit targeted messages. The Kelsey Group estimates the amount spent on interactive ads will more than double from 9% in 2008 to 22.2% in 2013.

Mobile, Internet Yellow Pages and online classifieds, local search, voice search and e-mail marketing are included in the interactive revenue that the research firm said will grow from $14 billion in 2008 to $32.1 billion in 2013.

In contrast, ad media investment in newspapers, direct mail, television, radio, print Yellow Pages, out of home (non-digital), cable television and magazines will decrease from $141.3 billion in 2008 to $112.4 billion in 2013, at a CAGR of -4.5%.

“If this would have been a modest recession, the trend lines would have been softer, but we believe the softness in the economy will accelerate the transition,” said Neal Polachek, CEO, Kelsey Group. “If you go back and look at post-recession growth numbers for all traditional media, you’ll see they bounced back well ahead of inflation and GDP.”

Polachek said this forecast recognizes the importance the Internet plays, and that this time traditional media will not bounce back as it did after prior recessions.

Television aimed to create awareness; radio, sales through promotions; newspapers, geared toward retail; and Yellow Pages helped consumers find things to buy. “The Internet can do all those things, and that’s the fundamental shift,” Polachek said. “It’s not just another media. It’s all media rolled into one. That’s very confusing for many people. You can’t say newspapers will be fine because it can do something no other media does. Not true.”

Polachek finds the acceleration of the shift from traditional to digital media surprising, rather than the shift. Experts expected the change, but the economic meltdown is driving it faster.

While Internet television doesn’t put brands in front of 300 million consumers watching the Academy Awards or the Super Bowl on PCs or smartphones today, many of them could in three to five years, Polachek said. Some won’t have a television hook-up either. “While we have been watching the industry make that profound and remarkable shift, the economy will force that change much faster,” he said.

Source

The majority of automotive websites are optimized for the most popular version of Internet Explorer and rarely take into consideration Safari, a browser that represents less than 10% of the web browser market and 71% of mobile browsing.

With aggressively growing iPhone sales in the Smart Phone market, you have an entire audience of potential customers on the go and connected to the Internet. All you need to do to bring your dealership’s website to them is to make sure your website functions in Safari. As mentioned above, most companies who build web applications and websites build for the masses, which means Internet Explorer. The iPhone uses Safari as the default browser (and only browser at the time of this writing) to display your dealership’s website. If your site looks good and functions correctly in Safari for the desktop, you’re on your way to iPhone ready.

If you’re a DHD customer, grab an iPhone and look at your Dealer HD website, you’ll notice that everything functions as it normally would in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Mobile visitors from iPhones can access every page of your website, zoom into into content areas, submit forms, view vehicle photos, specials and coupons. I’ve taken a few screen shots from my iPhone to illustrate some of the points above. As you can see, everything is highly visible, clean and organized. iPhone users can double tap, pinch zoom and scroll to the information areas easily.

While there are many other mobile devices that connect to the Internet it’s important to recognize Safari as a major player in the mobile space and making sure that your website functions in an iPhone is critical to your mobile marketing strategy.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

In newspaper’s glory days it was hard to find the funnies under all the auto ads.  Today, the paper at the curb is feather light and autos has dwindled significantly. Where are the cars?

Online Specials pick up where your print ads leave off. Since nearly everyone that spent their Sundays scouring the autos section has moved to online shopping, keeping your Internet specials current is essential. I say current because putting them up just isn’t enough.

The Internet holds a great advantage over print advertising – it’s instant.  You can replace specials as soon as a car sells or add and take away at will, no deadlines apply.  Regularly updating your online specials keeps frequent visitors interested and new visitors likely to return. Why? Because honestly, no one likes reading the same page in a book over and over again and stale specials have the same effect.  With a competitor’s inventory a few clicks away its important not to let the Internet’s advantage over print become its downfall.

If you’re a Dealer HD customer and you need a quick tutorial on Inventory or other specials, please contact us.  We’re more than happy to help!

We’ve heard this saying before.  In today’s tough economic climate it rings more true than ever.  Now it seems there’s no free breakfast or dinner either.  I got wind today that Cobalt is now charging dealers for their FREE web sites.  They had been promised that these sites would remain free at least until April when further negotiations would take place.  Some dealers have expressed frustration HERE.  Looks like they were billed starting in December of 2008.  I really can’t blame GM for doing this.  They have no money left and are giving close to 7K dealers a free service.  Assuming they got a great rate at $300 per month…it equates to $2,100,000 per month in savings.

Now where do GM dealers go from here?  Most already barely use their cobalt site and just keep it because its free and they are promised a few manufacturer leads here and there.  My advice is to get rid of the Cobalt site and use that $300 to add products to your current web provider.  Things like Live Chat or New Car Video Reviews are very cost effective ways to increase leads and customer time spent on your web site. You could also increase your spend on Paid Search to reach a few extra HUNDRED customers a month.

When cutting costs for your dealership the internet should be the last thing you trim.  It’s the backbone of your digital marketing plan.  You need to make sure that you invest heavily in the right company with the right products that you can maximize your online potential.  The quantity of leads is definitely way down. It’s very important to make sure you can extract the ones you do have and turn prospects into buyers. Make sure your dealer web site has the right tools to do this.

With instant messaging, social networking, and blogging more popular than ever, now is the time your dealership needs to start looking to social media and start attracting customers to your online inventory with Social Bookmarking.

Social Bookmarking is a system that allows visitors to your website to save web pages they want to remember or share. This concept is very similar to using the Bookmark feature in your favorite browser except the bookmarked pages in a social system can be public and shared with an entire online community.

So why should your dealership care? Imagine this:

• Scenario One: A visitor to your website is browsing your online inventory at work and found a vehicle that they may like more information about so they save the page in their bookmarks of their default work browser. That night when they come home they have a few minutes and would like to follow up and possibly send you a lead letting you know they would like to come in to see the vehicle. They go back to your website and have to remember what search they performed, what the stock number was, etc. Because this information is saved on their work computer bookmarks they choose to start researching other dealership’s inventory and will come back to send you that lead tomorrow… maybe.

• Scenario Two: A visitor to your website is browsing your online inventory at work and found a vehicle that they may like more information about. They have a Social Bookmarking account so they save the page in their Delicious account, add a few tags about the bookmark and a note to help them remember why they bookmarked this vehicle. That night when they come home they have a few minutes and would like to follow up and possibly send you a lead letting you know they would like to come in to see the vehicle. They open their browser to their Delicious Bookmarks and click the link to the vehicle, review the information and send you a lead that they are interested. You get the lead, follow up and sell the vehicle. Everyone wins.

Some of you might may be thinking that the person illustrated in both scenario’s could have just emailed themselves the link or some other method for getting the information home. Sure they could have, but this post is about Social Bookmarking and by promoting the Social Bookmarking system on your dealership website you gain enormous value.

5 Reasons to support Social Bookmarking on your website:

1. Social Bookmarking helps your website create high quality back links. Back links are links to your website that exist on other websites on the Internet. In the world of SEO that translates to popularity.
2. Sites that are bookmarked socially can be viewed by anyone which exposes your inventory and brand to a variety of sources, including search engines
3. Social Bookmarking helps your content travel. By giving your content the ability to travel you allow your information to be distributed quicker online which makes your site available to other streams of traffic.
4. Social Bookmarking allows users to add tags and notes to their links to help them remember why they bookmarked the page. These user defined tags appear on the public listing and assist in promoting those tags as keywords. These tags are also used in search results on their respective pages.
5. Social Bookmark links promote accessibility. Links that are bookmarked can be viewed from any device (including mobile phones) that are connected to the Internet. If your inventory is bookmarked a visitor can return to their place no matter where they are and what computer they are using.

If you need extra traffic, you should focus on adding Social Bookmarking tools to your automotive website. Adding a Social Bookmarking tool set to your website allows your content to travel, assists visitor research and lets the Social Bookmarking community know that you support and understand their needs.

One of our favorite features that we wish more of our dealers would take advantage of is Popularity Search.  Our popularity search feature displays the top 5, 10, 20 or more most searched vehicles in your new and used inventory and it’s updated in real time.

Popularity Search display options include:

• Displaying the dealer’s choice of the top ___ searches
• Displaying the Popularity Search on Home, New, Used or any combination of the three
• Displaying counts on how many times each popular vehicle has been searched.

Why you should use it:  It’s something fresh and different that adds value to your site. It sparks interest with visitors keeping them on your site longer while giving them one click to a pre-defined search. Visitors can click through to a search of the popular vehicles if they’re unsure of what they’re looking for. The popularity search acts as a tool for you and your customer. They show you what they’re interested in and you give them vehicle suggestions based on the searches other customers have performed. The possibilities are endless but the result is the same, longer site time. The longer they’re on your site, the more likely they are to find the vehicle they want to buy.

To add the Popularity Search feature to your website, simply call your account manager, and they’ll put it up while you’re on the line.

The waves of change sweep across us daily.  Unfortunately you can’t see the change that’s happening to you now.  It may take weeks or months or years to physically see change.  Video is great because we have a recorded account of what took place at a given place and time. It’s much easier to compare two videos 10 years apart than what you see today to a memory from long ago.

Car Dealers have been advertising on television for decades.  They may have looked different or sounded different but they all had one purpose: SELL MORE CARS!  Dealers have been looking for unique ways to attract potential customers into their showrooms.  You’ve seen all the ways in which they attempt to do this. Promotions, rebates, incentives, low interest rates, gifts, celebrity appearances.  I thought it would be interesting to dig up an OLD commercial from a client of ours and compare it to a newer, more modern take.

Watch both of these closely and ask yourself:

• What is the message?
• What does the commercial showcase in terms of product?
• What ways can the customer inquire about more information?
• How long is the commercial?
• What is the hook?
• Would either commercial have worked in the other time period?