Borrell and Associates has come out with another report indicating that small and medium-sized business (your dealers) are going to be spending more money online in the coming years, “SMBs are collectively poised to plow billions of dollars into their own websites,” according to the report.
The definition of non-ad marketing is spending on a website. While technically speaking spending on a website isn’t advertising, most dealers in this study indicated that they did consider it advertising, so Borrell added the numbers to their report.
Dealers are reporting that they are currently spending 11% of their advertising budget online now, up from only 4% three years ago and the trend will continue upward.
Other takeaways from the report include the shift from banner ads to spending more on local search advertising, online directories and streaming videos.
This is all good news in that we know consumers are online so the dealers should be there, too. They get it!
Now, the challenge of brand marketers is to give the dealers the tools they need to advertise online so that you can protect your brand and deliver a better consumer experience while saving money.
It all starts with a good advertising portal that is loaded with traditional ad material and then add online material including the ability to build dealer microsites , stream video and buy local ad word campaigns on Google.
Local advertising is changing dramatically and you have to change with it or risk losing control of your brand, your dealers and your consumers.