Brand advertising is generally associated with television, radio, sometimes newspaper. The big ones, those that have been around a long time. Somewhat expensive ones associated with mass marketing. Billboards fit often into brand advertising and mass marketing, but it’s difficult to measure the response.
Most people would like to get a measure of their advertising and marketing so that they can determine whether it works. However, advertising reps rarely bring that up. There are a few reasons for this.
One, the advertising rep does not know how to measure or track ads or their success. Number two, the advertising rep does not want you to track ads because their specific advertising may not work very well. Or, it may take a long time to work, which is also why they usually want you to sign up first for a 12-month period because it takes a while to realize a return when you do brand advertising.
What these advertising reps fail to understand is that if they did just a little bit of tracking or they were able to help you more in your own advertising marketing versus only focusing on how to sell the ad to you, then they can actually get more money because the ads are working.
One tactic used to measure mass marketing is “Mention this ad and get 5% off.” If this strategy is being used simply to get people in the door, that’s one thing. If the strategy is being used only so that it allows you to track whether the ad is working then you should add that 5% into the cost of the advertising to determine how much the ad really costs. If it works, it costs more money. This needs to be considered as part of the advertising cost if the only purpose is to measure it.
Another and somewhat primitive way to track is to ask on the phone or in person, “How do you hear about us?” Now this is not a perfect solution, but should always be asked because it will also help you determine what the customer remembers. But the truth is, the customer may have watched the television advertisement and then a week later, find you on the internet. They remembered your ad, then they learned about your business in your website, then read online reviews. So when they come down to the dealership and someone asks, “How did you hear about us?” They may answer, “I visited your website.” So you might attribute that to successful online advertising when the truth is, they saw the television ad as well. So sometimes it can be a challenge.
Bounce-back offers are also used. These are offers where someone has to bring the ad with them, mention the ad, or something else that ties the offer, the discount, the coupon, the gift certificate that can be attributed to the bounce-back offer. The challenges with this, “How did you hear about us?” is that it costs more money in addition to the cost of advertising because you are giving a discount just for the sake of tracking.
There are other ways to do better at tracking; your mass marketing is usually difficult to track and measure. One idea is to track phone numbers. If you want to run a billboard ad, then offer something special that is not costly and purchase a phone number that simply forwards to your main line. But every time it rings, it is logged in a system so that you can see how many phone calls come in each month from that billboard. And yes, you should have a tracking phone number for every single one.
If you have six billboards in town, then you should have a different tracking number for each billboard. They can all forward to a main business, and you can own all the numbers, but it should be tracked. However many times that phone rings, you can say, that’s how many phone calls you got.
Everywhere you run advertising, you could use tracking phone numbers — with one exception. It’s difficult and not advised to use a tracking number if you are running local Google marketing. You want to use your main phone number because that affects your SEO.Ranking high in search engines is more important than tracking. However, you can and should put phone numbers in all of your print advertising and mass marketing.
You can even do the same thing on television. You could run a special ad because you are doing something for the military this week because your dealership is located next to a military base. You could use a special phone number. The ad says, “Call this number right now and get a dicount,” or, “Call this number now to hear about our special offer.” However many times that phone rings, you’ll know whether or not the advertising worked.
Now if you use the same tracking number because you’re being cheap and want to use it in several different places, you may know overall how your advertising is doing, but don’t you want to know whether one advertising method works 10 times better than another? Of course you do.
Another way to track — even in mass marketing situations — is to get a special URL, a domain name that simply forwards to your website and that works just like a tracking phone number. You don’t necessarily have to have a whole new website built, but you can get a different domain name and forward it. If you have a mechanism that will track that, then you will know if someone went to the URL that takes them to your website. And you just have to key the domain name for a period of time, because you don’t want people to type in that domain name later on and not go to your website. They’re not expensive. Just like tracking numbers, they’re very inexpensive and can save a lot of money in the short – and long-term by enabling you with power and knowledge to cut certain advertising and marketing that may not be working.
You can also take a step further and send people to a different website as long as you keep that website up for a period of time for as long as the advertising is running. You can have a special offer that is associated with that website so that you can determine how the advertising is working. You can put a specific advertisement on a billboard or somewhere else that directs people to a hidden special page of your website and they can only get there if they saw that ad already. Otherwise, they can’t find it when they go to your website.
Now if you use this one often for special offers or events we know they just arrived on the website via something else and then sign up for the event or special offer they used or saw your media — you can track it back to that. Notice I’m avoiding discounts and things like that because that costs you money, and that’s not always necessary. Most dealers use discounts in sales simply because they don’t have anything else to attract customers.
Using zram throughout this whole process can help because the simple question, “How did you hear about us?” should be logged in the zram. It’s not perfect but it does help. The zram will help track these customers over time because one specific media might bring in customers faster than another but the second media may work just as well. It just does not bring them as fast. If you don’t have a zram, it’s going to be difficult to track that.
An example is that your general television ad may build your brand but doesn’t lead to media sales because some people who saw the ad did not need a vehicle right now. Whereas if they go to Google and typed in “used cars” because theirs just broke down today and they need to buy one tomorrow, that’s a different person. That does not mean the ad is not working. It just means they are targeting a different person at a different point in the buying cycle. Zram can help with that as well.