We are currently living in a day of age where advertising is virtually EVERYWHERE.  When you go to a movie, drive down the street, or even when receiving bills in the mail, someone is always trying to sell something.  As for the automotive industry it is important to get your dealership’s name out there in the most effective way(s) you can. Because if you don’t – someone else will grab that market share right from under your nose!

When people think advertising they think newspapers, magazines, direct mail, radio, television, etc.  Which are all excellent outlets, but are unfortunately becoming more and more out dated everyday.  Now don’t get me wrong, I still read magazines and books that are actually made out of paper, and listen to the actual radio instead of going straight to my iPod, but as time goes on, these methods are fading out.

Print advertising is disposable.  When men and women are on their daily commute each morning, they may read the newspaper while on the train, but most individuals toss that paper in the garbage as they leave the station.  This leaves no chance for the potential customer to go back to look at your ad. Once it is gone, it is gone. The only way to re-market these consumers is to re-run those ads day after day, which can make quite a dent in your budget.

Where some may argue that a newspaper is a lot easier to come by during your daily commute or while sitting in your Lazyboy on Sunday morning, as technology advances, so does the accessibility to search the web. There are now laptops available that weigh just a few pounds, and phones such as Blackberrys and iPhones that you can check email, surf the web, and message your friends!  Shopping and researching vehicles is convenient and painless.  While consumers are searching on the web for products, especially vehicles, they are either looking for you, or looking for the product.  If you can pull the latter in with an effective online campaign, you can almost always expect a for-sure sell.

“eMarketer projects that the online share of ad dollars will continue to grow, rising from neatly 10% this year to slightly more that 15% in 2013.”  It seems to be that this so called ‘less traditional’ form of media may just as well eventually rise about and be the most traditional of them all.  This is an on-the-go form of media that keeps up with the advancing technology, and cannot be disposed of as easily as your more ‘traditional’ forms.

The way I tend to look at it is that to run your basic search or display campaign for an entire month, can basically be the same cost to you as running a full page ad in Sunday’s paper.  Throughout the month these online campaigns are constantly re-marketing themselves, where as the Sunday paper is thrown into the recycling bin on Monday morning.

The advertising dollars that are spent to run an affective online campaign can be the best way to spend your budget.  Mixed with other forms of broadcast and print, having a well-rounded monthly advertising campaign will be a sure way to make sure that market share isn’t being pulled from under you.

Thanks to Jeff Kershner for sending me this.

As TechCrunch reported back in December, Oodle is taking over Facebook classifieds. The new service launches Wednesday and will be rolled out to Facebook users over the next sixty days. I’ve been bearish overall on companies that require local network affects, and usually classifieds fits in that bucket. As good a job as Craigslist has done it only monetizes about 1% of its users, and that’s probably one reason it has spread as far and as fast as it has. But- by design- it’s not the next great billion dollar Web powerhouse.

Oodle, too, has been a long slog. As founder and CEO Craig Donato told me last week, had he known how hard of a slog classifieds would be, he might have chosen a different startup idea four years ago. I’m sure he was (partially) joking, but Oodle has long been the question mark in David Sze’s otherwise stellar Web 2.0 portfolio that includes Digg, LinkedIn and Facebook. (Now, some see Digg as the question mark, but that’s a different post.)

Oodle has done two things well to combat the local trap. One is deals with huge properties like MySpace, Facebook and AOL that really juice distribution and listings. As a result, before it even goes live with Facebook or AOL, the site has 40 million listings with 500,000 new ones added each day. Second smart move: Making classifieds social, not local.

Increasingly, the social Web has created more meaningful communities than just geographical proximity. Sure, we are more likely to know and regularly interact with people near us, so you can’t ignore geography. But think about how many times you’d rather sell something or buy something from someone you know or someone who knows someone you know, than someone whose only commonality is living in your city.

The Oodle app is coming about just at the right time for Facebook. Not only is the site huge, but it’s so focused on the Wall that distributions of listings and conversations around items for sale will be natural and organic. And unlike eBay or Craigslist, it’s just a few clicks to post something. You fill in what it is, why you’re getting rid of it, how much you want and designate whether you’re giving it away, selling it, or want the money to go to charity. Can you imagine if posting something on eBay was that easy? My dining room of boxes would be empty.

That’s not to say Oodle replaces Craigslist or eBay. You can reach a wider audience, and hence conceivably make more money on both of those. And Facebook could be too tied into your social graph for some transactions. Do you want your boss to see your old Playboys are for sale? Lastly, if you’re setting up a small ecommerce business, I doubt Facebook marketplace is the right fit. But if you’re just a regular person who has something they want to buy or sell for a fair price from a reputable dealer whose reputation they can trust– it’s going to be a stiff competitor.

And come to think of it, wasn’t that the original eBay community?

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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.

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