Advertising, past and future

Shopping patterns have changed. You need to change with them

By: Mike Bruce

Online tire marketing offers your greatest return on investment. More than 16 million consumers used Google to research tires this past February alone.

There are consumers out there who are “in market” for a set of tires today, and there are consumers out there who are “out of market” with no interest in what you have to offer. I remember reading a report from one of the “Big Three” tire manufacturers a few years back that stated the following:
      
“For every 100 consumers you advertise to concerning the purchase of tires, two to five consumers will be ‘in market’ consumers, depending on the time of year.”
      
So, which group do you want to target and talk to? Would it be an extreme thought just to display your products to consumers who are looking to purchase today?

There was a time when the Thursday and Sunday newspaper ads in the sports pages were king. It was relatively inexpensive, and you could afford to display your advertising to a very large segment regardless of whether consumers were “in market” or not.

The Yellow Pages was advertising royalty back in those days as well. That form of advertising was somewhat affordable, and the book just sat there every day, in the consumer’s home or office, waiting patiently until they became an “in market” consumer.

Those days are gone. Newspapers have lost readership. The world changed, and the Internet came along and gave consumers almost unlimited selection on where to get their news.
That audience, easily reached in the past, has fragmented. I live in Phoenix, but read the “New York Times” online. One of my favorite radio stations broadcasts from London, England. I watched three TV shows the other night in the time it takes to watch two by eliminating all those commercials with my DVR.

Yellow Pages books grew in number, which drove up costs and reduced return on investment.

Last summer, in my neighborhood of 100 homes, someone got lazy and stacked the Yellow Pages books down by the mail box area rather than deliver to each household. After a week, more than half were still there and ended up in the dumpster. It is just too easy and more complete to do these things online.

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Related Topics: Business insight, Internet, Mike Bruce, Selling online

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