Stop Marketing like a Dinosaur and get with the Future. By Chris Justice

Do you remember the scene from Titanic where the band played as the ship sank?

Some Dealers continue to repeat the same mistakes in marketing and advertising over and over again, which haven't worked in years. Sales decline or stagnate yet they continue to play the music as their ship begins to take on water.

Let's look at traditional advertising and ask ourselves.
1. Do you use the yellow pages?
2. Do you read newspaper and magazine advertisements?
3. Do you listen to advertisements on the radio?
4. Do you watch television commercials?
5. Do you read "junk mail" advertisements?

Here's the numbers.
1. Fewer people are using yellow pages each year. According to Autobytel 90% of car buyers use to internet to shop for a vehicle.
2. News paper sales are declining according to newspaperdeathwatch.com.
3. Customers are not responding to radio causing revenue to decline. Source,reuters.com/article/idUSTRE4B287U20081203
4. According to the NYTimes.com September 28,2009 addition, people record top shows then skip commercials.
5. Did junk mail ever work?

Ok, so where are your potential customers?

Online.

70% of Americans are online daily, checking emails, facebook, google,etc. Google alone gets over 91 million searches daily. According to QVC.com, QVC expects that 50% of its sales will come from the internet by 2014. Facebook has over 320 million users.

Understand that 70% of Americans online includes 70% of your previous customer, 70% of your future or potential customers and 70% of your service customers. Also,your sales force, your family, everyone and this number is growing.

Go to where your customers are.

I see no downside to branding yourself online. It's cheaper than traditional advertising and it's 100% trackable. Marketing ideas can be implemented instantly, measured and changed with a click of the mouse.

What are your thoughts? Feel free to comment.

By Chris Justice with No comments