ADVERTISING SMARTER: A Dealer’s Guide to Maximising Every Marketing Dollar.

Whether a small business, big business or major corporation, fundamental advertising principles must always be adhered too when determining where to spend your advertising dollars and this is no different for your dealership.

In marketing, we often refer to advertising types as ‘channels’ or ‘mediums’, with every one of those playing a different role, which is why it is very important to ensure the correct channel is being used for the task that you are trying to perform.

To help you identify what channel or medium is right for your business, there’s a few basic fundamental principles you can apply to get the most out of your advertising dollar for your dealership.

ADVERTISING CHANNELS

Firstly, you must always choose an advertising channel based on your objectives, not necessarily where or what you perceive your audience to be. If you’re objectives are to increase sales, then you must consider channels and mediums where you are reaching people who are actively in the market for your products – regardless of who you think your audience is. If you’re objectives are awareness, then you could choose a channel that will provide strong awareness – but understand that awareness is less effective at driving immediate action.

So if your objective is sales, you would in almost every sense, choose digital as your channel as it allows you to target users who are already searching online for your products. If you wanted to test this theory on a basic level, ask yourself how many potential customers do you think are listening to the radio or reading the newspaper etc. compared to a heavily targeted digital campaign. Digital simply makes more sense for both targeting and conversion.

As an example, within this digital channel, you could then choose what medium would be best suited to your objectives such as Google Ad Words or Facebook or other as digital advertising can also play the role of awareness too - not just sales, and more affordable and effective than traditional forms of media such as radio and tv etc.

COST VS. WASTAGE

Another reason why we choose channels per objective, is because of cost vs. wastage.

This is because, the issue we face with more traditional awareness channels such as tv, radio and billboards – especially for small business, is that whist they are good at the job of broad awareness, they are also very wasteful, meaning you are paying to reach people you don’t actually want to reach and also due to the broad nature of the way these channels behave in market – largely in the form they take.

Meaning the format of your advertising in awareness channels, is not conducive to someone taking action, such as clicking on an ad and going to your website or picking up the phone to call you - which let’s face it, is what you want your advertising to be doing for you.

As an example you can’t click on a television or radio ad. But you can with digital advertising. But not only that, both the demographical and geographical targeting of awareness mediums is very broad and wasteful compared to that of digital advertising.

BRANDTAIL

As we've discussed, the challenge with some of the awareness channels available outside of digital advertising, is that, at their core, they rely heavily on broad branding strategies - targeting wide audiences with minimal precision. And in today’s landscape, traditional branding alone just doesn’t cut it.

The new approach is “brandtail” — a blend of branding and retail. It’s about increasing brand awareness whilst also driving sales, making your advertising dollars work much harder.

For dealerships looking to grow revenue, the focus must be on reaching people who are actively researching products — and no channel does this better than digital advertising. Digital advertising is the ultimate brandtail tool, it offers unmatched flexibility across a wide range of objectives: awareness, reach, engagement, traffic, lead generation, and more.

DIGITAL ADVERTISING

Platforms like Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Google offer a suite of products designed to deliver results across every marketing goal — whether that’s increasing foot traffic, generating phone calls, or driving sales or generating awareness. They deliver performance at scale and at a cost traditional media just can’t match.

This is why we say that OPE dealerships especially should be allocating at least 70–80% of their advertising budgets to digital. For businesses with smaller budgets, 100% should go to digital.

Consider this: the average Australian spends two and half to five hours a day on their phone — and around 80% of digital ads appear on mobile devices. That’s where your customers are, on top of this, the first place that anyone goes too when looking for something is on-line. And that is where you need to be advertising.

Some business owners believe having a Facebook or Instagram page is enough. It’s not. Organic content has limited reach and won’t drive consistent results. You need strategic, targeted advertising.

Another thing that makes digital marketing so effective, is what we call ‘re-marketing’ also know as ‘re-targeting’ This method allows your dealership to consistently talk to your audience again and again, driving strong frequency for very little cost. Only digital advertising can do this. Re-marketing is absolutely essential to every business big and small.

Here’s how re-marketing can work to your advantage.

Let’s say someone visits your website whilst researching mowers, but isn’t ready to buy just yet. A few months later, a new model is released—an upgrade from the one they previously viewed or you may have a sale on or a limited offer.

So you launch a re-marketing campaign targeting people who looked at that mower on your website in say the last 60 days. That same user sees your ad, is reminded of their interest, and decides to call or visit your dealership. The ad may have cost you just 50 cents— but it brought in a serious buyer. That’s the power of re-marketing.

Reaching the right audience however isn’t always enough. In almost every instance it’s a good idea to have a compelling reason for them to choose your dealership, brand or model and this is exactly what brandtail is all about. Don’t just advertise “we’re here” — clearly communicate your unique selling points, product benefits, and value and give the consumer a reason to choose you.

Not only is digital marketing the ultimate in targeting and messaging, it also incredibly efficient in targeting the right geographical areas. Almost every digital marketing campaign can target down to the post code. It can also target by age, gender and on-line behaviour, – something traditional forms of media just cannot do and another reason why digital marketing is so incredibly effective when stacked against traditional forms of media.

If you are not running simple strategies like this - you need to be.

TRADITIONAL MEDIA

This is not to say that more traditional forms of advertising are irrelevant for advertising your dealership, it’s just that they should instead only be used sparingly and purely for the role of awareness – not to generate sales, because that's what digital advertising does. And you should only be using traditional forms of media to build awareness when you have exhausted your digital presence first.

If your objective is to build broad awareness outside of digital advertising – not so much direct sales, then you could consider awareness channels such as television, radio or their digital equivalents (e.g. catch-up television, streaming audio, or podcasts) as these channels are great at delivering broad awareness BUT expectations must be tempered here, as these channels rarely deliver sales results.

It can be useful in certain regional or niche situations, like introducing a new business, promoting a store location, reminding locals of a sale, or launching a new product range.

These are all valid use cases for awareness — provided the cost is manageable. It can be different if you’re a metro dealer, as there can be high levels of wastage in this scenario.

Radio is an interesting channel for dealerships - especially in regional areas. We call radio an ‘action channel or frequency medium’. Meaning it is rarely used for awareness as brand recall from audio isn’t as strong as it is from visual representation such as television and video etc. but it can be used to build frequency to allow your audience to take action.

However – it’s rarely effective due to the large wastage that comes with this vs the cost. If you really want radio to work for you, in almost every sense, need a compelling offer that pushes listeners into the market, as it’s highly likely that a large portion of your target audience are not listening. However, compelling offers often require some sort of discount or added value, which can eat into your margins and damage your return on investment. And this is margin off your bottom line and then your ROI goes out the door.

PLACEMENT

The term “advertising channel or medium” can be somewhat vague, so for the sake of this explanation, let’s use the word “placement” instead. This term helps clarify how, when, and where you position your advertising within a given channel or medium.

For example, when using awareness channels like television or radio, your placement may depend on factors such as which network to choose, the time of day in which you appear, or even specific programs, and of-course audience demographic.

Television is especially effective for reaching a broader and slightly older audience, such as those aged 55+ and more generally than not, live sport or niche peak programming is the best at reaching males on television, but this can also come at a hefty cost, which can make such advertising cost prohibitive.

You may also want to place your ads on certain days of the week — avoiding low-impact periods like early in the week. This is what we call “targeting the retail end of the week.” Instead of spending on Monday or Tuesday — when people are often distracted — you could focus your budget on Wednesday to Saturday, when consumers are planning for the weekend and more likely to take action.

Here’s a scenario:

Imagine a couple working on their backyard over the weekend. They run out of supplies on Sunday afternoon, wrap up for the day, and get caught up with dinner, kids, and preparing for the week ahead. By Monday, the garden is forgotten. But on Wednesday night, while watching television (hint, hint) , one might say, “We still need to grab those garden loppers to finish the garden off this weekend.” 

The next day, they hear your radio ad or see your television commercial and suddenly, your business is top of mind.

Had you advertised earlier in the week, your message likely would’ve been lost or forgotten. Strategic placement is what makes the difference between wasted spend and real results.

So if you have big budgets and your only goal is to let everyone in your area know you exist — including people who may never buy from you — then yes, television, radio and billboards can help with that. But if your goal is sales and return on investment, those channels are inefficient, expensive, and wasteful.

But as we have already said, awareness channels can have a place — but only after you’ve fully utilised digital options. In tightly defined markets (like where your dealership is most likely situated), it’s possible to exhaust your digital reach over time. At that point, a carefully selected traditional placement may support ongoing awareness.

But until then, if you’re not using digital channels to connect with in-market customers actively searching for your products — you’re missing the mark.

Of course, advertising is just one piece of growing a business. But if you think traditional media is more effective than digital, you’re not just behind — you’re losing ground.

Author - Trent Collett

Company Director - SHOVE Communications