Dealers and Internet Marketing + Archives
Gartner Survey Sees Hi Tech Cos. Increasing Marketing Spend
by Frank Reed on April 29th, 2010
Nearly half of the hi tech and telecommunications respondents to a study conducted by Gartner will be increasing their marketing budgets this year. The study was reported by B to B Online.
So why is this important? Well, it’s not so much the fact that the budgets are going up. Quite honestly whether your budget stays flat or even decreases isn’t the important thing. The real important issue is where are you putting your marketing dollars, regardless of the amount. Back to the increases first.
Among those companies planning marketing budget increases this year:
30% expect to boost budgets between 1% and 15%
13% of respondents plan budget increases of...
Read More »Google Places Replaces Local Business Center
by Frank Reed on April 21st, 2010
We talk often at the Dealer Ignition blog about just how important it is to be presenting the strongest local online presence one can present. There are many elements to cementing the Internet presence of a retailer or a brand that is represented by a local retailer. E-mail campaigns, search engine optimization, proper banner advertising and well executed paid search campaigns are the foundational pieces. 
Each one of these elements are incredibly important in ensuring that a local retailer is found online.
Another increasingly important aspect of the local side of search marketing is the Google Place page. If you don’t know what that you should check out this video...
Read More »Google Continues to Dominate Paid Search Spend
by Frank Reed on April 19th, 2010
Part of what we intend to help retailers and brand marketers alike do through this blog is to see the market trends that impact bottom line sales. At the end of most quarters in business there are a slew of reports and surveys showing any variety of data points. Most people don’t have the time to sift through these mountains of numbers so one of our jobs is to help you do that. Having said that, we always urge caution when reading statistics and studies because whoever put the study together is likely to be doing so to promote something of their own rather as well to enlighten you. In other words, use caution when approaching numbers about marketing activities.
We...
Read More »Forrester Finds Significant Paid Search Flaws
by Frank Reed on April 12th, 2010
Oftentimes SMB’s feel like they can’t compete against the larger players in search marketing. While that can be a very real concern because of budgets it’s not the case in actual execution of paid search campaigns. Paid search is more than just deep pockets always winning the game.
In fact, many of those companies dumping large sums of marketing budgets into paid search are in effect wasting their money.
Forrester Group has done some research in this area showing just how ineffective many paid search campaigns are in many verticals including business services, financial services and travel.
So what does this mean for independent dealers of larger brands? Opportunity. It’s...
Read More »Clicks to Bricks – How walk-in traffic was determined online first.
by Steven Wagner on April 8th, 2010
Would you allow your stores to have a dreadful showroom window?
Probably not, but how many websites offer little current information, are hard to use and cannot be found by search engines? More than we would all like to admit.
Your dealer websites are their second primary location! The key to retail is location, location and location. The web is a location.
In working with many dealers we see two groups. The first truly embrace the interent as a major investment. The second still take a skeptical look at the internet. More research is proving that customers see retailer websites as the primary source for considering doing business with them.
Our promotional network came from a field sales survey that found:
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