I recently was with an employee  talking about a very well known brand. One we would like to do business with. It is a highly recognized brand with dealers in almost every city in North America. The brand does not sell online and have thousands of dealers nationwide. A perfect fit for Dealer Ignition’s solutions!

We went to The List to get some additional information about their marketing budget.

We discovered that they spend $45 million a year in advertising. They are supporting their dealers with national advertising. But upon deeper analysis, we realized that nearly $34 million was in national magazine advertising. So 77% of the total budget is being spent in National Magazine ads.

The web was $501,000, or roughly 1.1% of the total marketing budget!

So it really surprised me to see this graph today:

I hear brands say we advertise in magazines nationally to uphold the brand and for our dealers. I understand that. Supporting them with the visibility and presence. But that presence and visibility is now online.

Ignoring a 117% increase in your customers attention to the web is not supporting dealers. The dealers’s customers, the brand’s customers are online and the customer will be online more then they read a magazine. Spending 1.1% of your advertising budget online and 77% in magazines is missing the customers.

Plus with many new online advertising targeting features customers can learn about the brand, its products and dealers all in the same interaction.

So if you want to support dealers get online, include them and target customers together.

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