Tom Anthony Personal Blog

I read an interesting take on the current economic situation in an automobile dealer’s vendor newsletter I subscribe to. It had the message right up to the point it started selling a particular product the publisher offers, then went off the tracks – anyway – here is the top part with my commentary below…

 Now’s Not the Time to Slow Down 

 

According to a recent J.D. Power and Associates forecast, new-vehicle sales in 2008 are expected to reach their lowest levels since 1994, dropping to 14.95 million cars and light trucks. This obviously isn’t good news for our industry, and your first instinct may be to cut back on spending (including marketing and advertising), ride out the rough times and wait for sunnier weather. But if you do that, you’d be missing a huge opportunity. 

 

First things first… if you’re experiencing a slow-down in sales, the last thing you’ll want to do is to cut back on the only thing that can drive sales – namely advertising and marketing. 

 

Second, slowdowns like this are an opportunity for the marketing savvy among us to capture market and mind share so that when things rebound, as they most certainly will, you’re in the driver’s seat.  

Here is where the author went off the tracks in my opinion:

One way to accomplish this is to ramp up your traditional media spending during this lull. Chances are you’ll even probably see some favorable media rates…

O.K. first, traditional media like what? Newspapers? A bad investment for most businesses – readership is in a deep decline especially among folks under 40. (I can defend that stat with facts)

Traditional media like local radio? National statistics show overall use of radio declining, and with the rise in Satellite radio listenership the only logical deduction is that the audience for live local radio is also in decline. (And I can defend that stat with facts)

I could go on, and you could probably argue both sides of the media penetration issue. That being said the Internet is the 900 pound gorilla in the room.  I would consider placing shrinking budgets into growing media, not declining media.  But how?

O.K. – that’s another blog for another time – better yet – a Web Strategies Podcast J

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I just read a report in a feed from Web Site Magazine about an incredible announcement made by Google this week.

Google Maps has a section for business owners allowing them to update and enhance their listing. Before this week you could use Google AdWords to advertise when someone looks up your business category in your geographic vicinity. That cost is determined by a budget you determine in advance and on a per click basis.

For no cost you could correct your listing or add information – like store hours, or what category your business belongs in. You could also upload up to 10 photos showing off your business. For example if you go to local.google.com and type in gym 23454 you should see Face the Pain Gym near or at the top – with a picture. You can click on more info and see an overview of the business – reviews and photos. And starting this week you can view videos if they are there.

What an unbelievable opportunity to feature customer testimonials, product demonstrations or how about a personal invitation from you the business owner to visit your store?! I have not actually tried it yet, but it is described as being similar to the process of adding photos, businesses are allowed to display up to five videos in their Maps record and pull videos directly from YouTube. I like where this is going.

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