Consumers are immune to most print advertising and revenues are declining for this media.  Other bloggers are predicting a Major Consolidation due to the declines in revenue.  The numbers are all over the board all pointing down in circulation numbers and revenue for print editions while online editions are seeing sharp rises in circulation and ad revenue.  The numbers are still lopsided though as far as the percentage of spend online revenue for online print publications is around 5.4% of their total revenue but closing the gap at an alarming rate.

With the industry pushing to be green in it’s initiatives it is still surprising to see the huge full page ads in print that only reach a very small portion of people who want what we are offering.  Online advertising allows us to prequalify our customers by reaching only those that want we have to offer.  Versus the spaghetti marketing techniques of print advertising and save trees at the same time.

Nathan Scripps offered a great way to look at media spends at Drivingsales.com in their Automotive Strategy Section on how to reach our target market at the time they are looking for us, when they are ready to buy.  Concentrating your advertising dollars that reaches the most people that want what we have to offer versus interrupting the masses that don’t.

Traditional advertising mediums still allows us to build our brand however; if every raw impression that we deliver in these mediums is an in your face pitch it may do more harm than good.  These mediums will allow us to tell our story now we just need to balance our pitch to reach those that want what we have now.

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Automotive Social Networking – Time to Catch Up
• Is your listing right?
• Transparency – Buzz Word or Way of Life – Part II
• Networking – It may not be what you think
• How many websites do you need?

Related items

• Networking – It may not be what you think
• Employee vs Business Mentality
• Web 2.0 – Are you taking advantage of it
• Sitemap
• About Us

A few points in this article really resonated with me. Specifically as it applies to using the web. Quality is much more important than quantity.

Yes everyone wants more numbers but I know that there are certain posts I do that don’t get huge numbers of visitors but the visitors that do show up are highly targeted and very responsive.

Getting a hundred visitors a day that don’t have an interest in what you are discussing will not sell anymore products. You are lucky in a case like that to get 0.5% to take the action you are looking for or maybe one action for every 200 visitors.

Consider if you get 10 targeted visitors but 30% respond to what you are offering you would now have 3 times the results with 5% of the traffic.

The other item that really stands out is about how hard networking is. It isn’t if you will listen first. Good listeners are always welcomed and considered friends.

Now how do you do this online? A blog can be a good start. You can tell me exactly what you think of this article by leaving a comment. It allows me to not only get information out but to listen to you and respond to YOUR concerns.

Think if you have a question and I supply an answer through this interactive media you are not more likely to do business with me down the line?

Are you using any of the interactive web media for conversing with your prospects. Forums, Q and A blogs, Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages – all of these allow people to interact with you online.

How many of these are you using to reach your potential customer?

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Why Buy Print Over Online Advertising?
• Automotive Social Networking – Time to Catch Up
• Employee vs Business Mentality
• Why do I want multiple web properties?

Related items

• Why do I want multiple web properties?
• Why Buy Print Over Online Advertising?
• Does your web site work for you? Do you only have one?
• How do you track your web results?
• Employee vs Business Mentality

Why is this? What do they do that the others don’t?

Now some of this may just be a better work ethic. Making the follow up calls, working leads the minute they get them rather than standing out in the smoking area complaining about how slow it is and how the dealership needs to do more advertising and lead generation.

Much more likely it is that the top sales people run their own business. After all commission sales people have their own business. Make sales – Get Paid.

Now you don’t have the overhead and have to worry about the taxes etc. but if you think of your job as a business that you control instead of a job where you put in time you may start doing the little things that will make a big difference.

What are you doing to advertise and brand you for you?

Do you have any kind of web presence?

What organizations do you network at?

Here are just a few ways you can increase others awareness of you.

If you have children are you active in any of their organizations? Having been involved in various things like Little League, Girl’s Softball and Band Boosters when my children were younger I generated and did business with those that I interacted with there and supported my children at the same time.

Anyone can get a free blog and post helpful tips about the car buying process and get exposure. A great way to start getting your name known.

There are a variety of free interactive web services like Squidoo, Hub Pages and Face Book to name a few that can increase your exposure.

And…

The best part about the exposure you generate for you is that it is portable. Yep, you change dealerships and it all points to you not the dealership.

Think about this – if you spend time discovering how to do and use things like this and they sell an extra car or two a month for 2 hours effort a month what is your return on the time work out to hourly.

Discover how to do this the right way and you can increase your sales by more than just one or two sales per month and the more you do it it grows exponentially.

So are you an employee or do you have a business?

Leave your comments and let us know.

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Why Buy Print Over Online Advertising?
• Networking – It may not be what you think
• Automotive Social Networking – Time to Catch Up
• Why do I want multiple web properties?

Related items

• Why Buy Print Over Online Advertising?
• How do you track your web results?
• Networking – It may not be what you think
• Web 2.0 – Are you taking advantage of it
• Sitemap

If you don’t allow for a conversation with your potential customer you may get left alone like the advertiser in the video.

Just food for thought.

Related items

• Why Buy Print Over Online Advertising?
• Networking – It may not be what you think
• Employee vs Business Mentality
• Sitemap
• About Us