Automotive online steps up a gear as traditional media struggles to find first

Yet another blow for the conventional  this month eMarketer Inc. reports, as Capgemini released its latest market research study on the highly competitive automotive sales industry.

 

As manufacturers and dealers alike continue to allocate huge budgets to ‘traditional’ channels of marketing communication, they still fail to notice the writing on the wall.

 

Capgemini reports that reliance on print advertising as a source of information when researching a vehicle purchase dropped by a further 7% to that of 2005 , while online sources of information continued to increase in their significance to  the buying process, securing  4 of the top 5 spots in the survey as a point of research.

 

Are manufacturers and dealerships really that blind, really that resistant to change, or simply stubborn in the fact that they know best?

 

Surely by now the significance of the web as a cost effective marketing tool would have been recognized, after all it’s not something that’s happened over night?

 

One would have thought so, but alas no.

 

Still the manufacturer and the dealer pump out press advertisements, direct mail pieces, radio campaigns and the like to a market whose focus now lies elsewhere.

 

And for what return? Ask any car dealer the exact response they get from a radio campaign, or how many vehicles they sold as a direct result of a newspaper advertisement and more often than not the answer will be a shrug of the shoulders and a scratch of the head.

 

But ask any car dealer supportive of the web, how many sales resulted from an EDM or specific online campaign and the answer is very different indeed.

 

The internet is fully accountable for its actions, and with that in mind why not embrace it?

 

Why not make the internet the focal point of a marketing strategy? Is it not more cost effective to run smaller and shorter ‘traditional’ campaigns inviting the reader to go online to ‘experience’ it for themselves than run a full scale press or print campaign where the only call to action is to pick up the phone and call?

 

What if I, the car buyer don’t want to call? What if I the car buyer aren’t enthused by the advertisement? The opportunity is lost.

 

But get me online, get me watching the video, get me listening to the audio, let me see it, let me hear it, give me an opportunity to drive it and you’ve hooked me! I’m submitting my test drive enquiry via your website right now!

 

Continue to embrace ‘the traditional’, and be left scratching your head, the future of Automotive marketing is plain and simple.

The future of Automotive marketing is online.