What constitutes a well-rounded budget?

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.