Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Personally I find that radio ads from auto dealerships irritating. Your main goal is to drive traffic to your dealership. Most people now shop online before they go to look at an automobile. I would focus on your website in winning your geographic keywords/phrases for your area. So when people do search for Cars, SUV or any other type of vehical your dealership comes up first. There are companies in the auto industry that offer automotive websites such as Cobalt and Reynolds and Reynolds. Or if you already have a website you should look into optimizing for the right keywords. If that is the case try looking at www.seomanagement.com. They offer bundled services for PPC and SEO.

I would also work with the station to see if they can work in any 'remotes' at your dealership or other listener incentives.

Here in NH we have Merchantsautomotive.com stadium - where the Triple A affiliate for the Toronto Blue Jays play - you can truly sponsor anything. If you have a local baseball affiliate or other such summer pasttime, it may be worth investigating. We have 9,000+ captive fans at most games so it's advertising well targeted and well spent. They even drive Merchant's vehicles onto the field for various 'events' during the games.

I agree, the 160 mentions is a good deal - reinforcement with some other ad placements or special offers on the station's web site would be a great way to support the effort. Make sure your print advertising, direct mail and any other online efforts also support what you're doing on the radio.

Also remember that in radio, frequency is very important. You said that you would get 160 mentions for $640...but what is important is how those 160 mentions are spaced. If it's only a few times a day, then you're not going to see results as fast as you would if you were the sponsor for, say, a traffic program that ran multiple times per daypart. The longer apart your messages, the longer it will take to see results.

I also agree with a cpappas in that what you're being tied to is important. A traffic program is perfect because the listener is already in a car mindset. Being the sponsor for something like the evening's Top 10 at 10 for example might not be as effective.

Thank you very much for all of your comments. I have decided to take the offer and also beef up my website a little more. I got a lot from the comments you posted. Thanks to all that participated.