Online Advertising Costs and Traditional Marketing.

When you see other businesses advertising online, do you ever wonder how much time and money goes into that strategy? What is really stopping you from promoting your company on the World Wide Web? Specifically for automobile dealerships, they have spent years testing different forms of marketing to help determine which tools create the most monetary return as well as building brand awareness. Return on Investment (ROI) is a juice that is worth the squeeze for many companies large and small alike.

To Print or Not to Print?

Print ads have proven in the past to be a great tool to promote companies and tracking the return. For example, by putting in a discount on services ad in the Sunday paper is track able since the customer is required to bring in the ad, therefore your service department can count how many customers came into your business because of the Sunday paper; by doing so, you can count to the penny the return of that campaign.

 Get a Sponsor that Doesn’t Need Your Money.

Sponsorships have also proven to help build brand awareness. By sponsoring a professional athlete or team or even a local little league team can assure that the audience will notice that company’s name on their uniform. This also helps those parents and guardians to look at your logo each time they have to do laundry, a constant reminder that your company exists.

New Age Marketing.

Now let’s take a look at today’s marketing strategy and how they can help you track your return and build brand awareness:

MicroSites and Landing Pages.

Microsites, a small website within the main website, can keep track of how many customers it sends to the dealership’s main site to the number of customers who submit leads to the number of those leads who actually buy a vehicle. This is just as simple putting in a specials ad in the Sunday paper and just as track able. In more detail, a microsite is like a miniature website that serves more as a specific target than a main site that is more general. Microsite help businesses increase exposure on search engines, create more leads, and shares information that may not be included in a general main site. By having a microsite, it boosts your company’s presence much more than if you did not have one at all.

Social Media and Anti-Social Companies.

Social media networks, such as Facebook and twitter are also helpful in terms of building brand awareness like sponsoring a sports team and much more cost efficient. By creating and maintaining social media profiles, it helps allow you stay in touch with your clientele and is also a reminder to your customers that you are always available to them because they will be able to directly contact you or include you in one of their posts for all of their friends and their friends’ friends to see you.

Go Green, Save Money and Go Digital!

The beauty of Digital Marketing  is that you can have both of the best worlds of lead generation and promoting awareness. There are many online services that offers coupons and similar deals on sites like Groupon  and Yelp such as “$50 for $70 deal” and “$49 for a four-wheel digital alignment and road test (a $110 value)” This allows the customer to discover your business, try out your business, and keep them coming back if they like your business. They can also share good experiences with their friends or the world allowing your business unlimited exposure while tracking how many people actually purchase your deal and use it at your business. Groupon can be helpful because they will send an email to all their subscribers in their network of when you are ready to launch your deal. Subscribers of Groupon will also have a limited amount of time to purchase your deal which encourages them to buy it while it is offered as opposed to waiting and then forgetting about it.

With Social Media, like Twitter have become a great tool for digital marketers, a study by Edison Research and Arbitron fielded in January of 2011 revealed that 51 percent of Americans 12 and older are on Facebook and 8 percent of Americans 12 and older are on Twitter. but they require a lot of maintenance and management which can be time consuming, so hiring a professional and knowledgeable digital marketer can save a lot of time and money for you. However, companies should not expect a lot of return from social media sites since they serve more as a builder of brand awareness as opposed to generating leads.

Your customers are what makes your business and gives you the profits. The number one priority of all marketing, traditional and digital, is to bring awareness and customers into your business. Since reducing paper-waste has become a communities’ concern and having the world in the palm of your hands with smartphones and tablets, people are turning to the internet more and more every day – making digital marketing a necessity for today’s business to survive.