Question

Topic: Strategy

Optimum Blend Of Newspaper/radio/web/direct Mail

Posted by Anonymous on 5/4/2008 at 9:23 AM ET 250 Points
I am putting together a monthly marketing campaign for a car dealer. I'm wondering if anyone has any insight into the best blend of media to achieve the best ROI?

At my disposal:
1) Direct Mail - not cheap, but targeted
2) Newspaper - a little like 'crack', quick fix but am questioning how effective it is. Also, realistically its not too cheap either. Positive is, its assumed a large number of people in the market for an auto would pick up the weekend paper to scour for deals
3) Radio - we have about 3 popular stations depending on demographics. They all say they have the best demographics and twist the BBM ratings to suit their claims
4) We have an existing site that gets a decent amount of traffic. The problem is because its through the manufacturer, difficult to do much with.

Any ideas? Are there any accepted percentages? ie: spend 30% radio, 20% paper etc.?

Anyone seen anything unique out there?

thanks tj
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Levon on 5/4/2008 at 11:45 AM Accepted
    I think advertising to your targeted region on social networking sites like myspace and facebook with banners would be an innovative avenue for you to explore. I would split test a few different banners and see what it brings in. So if you are in the Scottsdale market you would target traffic from Scottsdale based ip addresses.

    If you want a bunch of short term business -- host an event at the dealership and give away a car. Have a BBQ. You get entered to win the car with purchase of a vehicle. People can never have too many cars. So if you buy a car (any new car on the lot) you get entered to win the Yaris which gets drawn on that day. Don't have one of those lamo contests that you get entered at the end of the month. People expect to see a live result of that drawing on the day of the event.

  • Posted by saul.dobney on 5/5/2008 at 5:32 AM Accepted
    Test, test, test. Over the course of a number of weeks you mix your media. Week one might be direct mail and newspaper. Week two newspaper and radio. Week three direct mail and radio etc. As you learn which elements seem to have most effect you can focus more of the marketing budget in that direction. You can take spend it all at once but you have the risk of blowing it on something that doesn't work. If you can't afford to test you may have your own historical gut feel or experience from others (ask around). However, in general you should be looking to optimise that budget where it will have most effect.
  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 5/5/2008 at 9:39 AM Accepted
    The answer to your question depends on the brand of car you are selling. I am intrigued by the comment that the brand owns the website. Is this for convenience or required under their franchise agreement? If not required under agreement, I would immediately change to dealership owned. It is impossible to overlook the cost advantage of internet/email based advertising.

    I believe newspaper (in the weekend) are too ingrained in the American Psyche to ignore. I did an informal survey this weekend and found that nearly everyone starts their car search with a look in the Saturday/Sunday paper. It would be nice to tie the sunday paper ad to more information on the web. Maybe this could be more and detailed pictures of specific cars, links to consumer report articles, etc.

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