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From Dealer Marketing Magazine's recent issue...

Quality and value...two words that many people are focused on right now, no matter what their position on the business food chain, whether they're a consumer or a business owner. As we forge ahead through 2010, quality and value are two key messages you will want to convey in your marketing and advertising campaigns: not only from a product standpoint, but also from a service standpoint.

Think of all the business services you use to make your operation run smoothly--communications, customer management tools, the phone system, and so many others. Are they the best?

Do they deliver the quality and value that you expect?

Do they allow you to effectively talk to your audience?

Let's take your marketing and advertising communications as an example and look at the business services you deploy to deliver quality and value to your customers.

Quality leads to credibility:

A quality ad campaign is one that is appealing to, and resonates with, consumers. It should leave them with a favorable opinion of your business and a perception of credibility--a dealer they would want to buy a vehicle from. Quality advertising always includes an easy way for customers to get in touch with you. If you offer a local or toll-free numeric phone number, like 866-432-6897, it is going to be hard for people to remember. If you advertise with a vanity number, like 1-800-NEW-HYBRID, however, you make it easier for people to remember you when they want to call.

Make sure you work with a phone service and number provider that best fits your needs: a quality provider that offers flexibility with their services and delivers value.

Value drives response:

Value-added (along with quality) advertising campaigns generate a surge of consumer response and deliver leads. When a campaign brings customers into your dealership (with phone calls, web leads, or walk-ins) your ROI for the campaign improves, the cost-per-lead goes down, and the value of your advertising campaign, in relation to the business strategy goes up!

Also, the call data that your telecommunications provider delivers should be easy to access, understand, and manipulate for various reporting needs. Robust call data is valuable because it can show trends, including your busiest business hours and what campaigns are driving the most inquiries. Armed with this important data, you can plan staffing and marketing resources according to when you'll be busiest, where your leads are coming from and which marketing sources deliver the best ROI.

As part of your team, your service partners should help you deliver these key emotional and financial aspects--quality and value to your customers.

We realize it's not a new concept - tracking ad response rates, but we wanted to reiterate the power and level of knowledge that ad tracking, and specifically phone call tracking, brings to you and your business.

Imagine spending thousands on your ad campaigns with no way of measuring the results.  (Yes, a closed sale is a measurement, but you also need to measure in terms of leads generated.)  Knowing how many leads a campaign generates empowers you to make decisions on future ad campaigns and media buys.

Real-time tracking and recording features provide you with the knowledge you need to make strategic decisions when it comes to advertising campaigns; whether it be decisions on creative elements, your offer, the call to action, and the media outlets you advertise with.

With a call tracking service you can hone in on the fine details of who is calling your business, what their average household income is, their average home value, as well as when they are most likely to call your business.  How?  With detailed tracking reports that capture data on each incoming call.  Call tracking reports like:

• Addresses & Demographics will build your lead database.
• Zip Code Summary shows you the hot spots, where your callers are calling from; home, work.
• Repeat Callers Detail reveals who is calling you often, or more than once for information or to hire you.
• Missed Calls is a huge eye-opener for many businesses, they can monitor how many leads they are losing with a report like this.
• Hourly and Daily Call Summary reports show when your business lines are most active so you can determine the necessary staffing levels and monitor response to radio campaigns, TV ads, etc.
• Top Cities and Top Area Codes reports also drill down on where your callers are located.

With all of this data at your fingertips, you'll be able to more accurately plan out marketing and advertising campaigns, and get more return for your advertising investment.

Find more information about call tracking, call recording, and vanity toll-free numbers here.

MYTH: Good Vanity 800 Numbers Must be Expensive

If you (or your client) think they cannot afford a vanity 800 number - think again! No matter what the size, if your clients are not including a vanity 800 in their ad campaigns, then they're losing a significant portion of incoming leads - like 25-50%!

FACT: Custom 800 number costs are minimal compared to your clients' overall advertising budgets. In fact, a quality vanity 800 number is typically just 1% of a broadcast ad budget.

A vanity 800 number will increase the leads and sales from ad campaigns, providing a healthy advertising ROI.

Your clients can't afford NOT to have a Custom 800 (a.k.a. vanity 800) number. Don't take our word for it though. We work with businesses in many industries that experience more incoming calls and sales after they add one of our Custom 800 numbers to their ad campaign.

Here's what just one of our career college customers has to say about advertising with a Custom 800 number...

"I could not be happier with the response we get from our advertising. Using the vanity 800 number is an inexpensive way to increase the number of applications we process.  I would not give up 1-800-NEW-CAREER for anything."

Reflecting growing signs that the U.S. economy is back, radio delivers its best results in quarter-to-quarter revenue comps since Q1 2007 with a +6% overall increase to $3.687B. This gain represents the highest posted in nearly a decade, according to the recent study by the accounting firm of Miller, Kaplan, Arase & Co. reported by the The Radio Advertising Bureau with more than 6,000 member Radio stations in the U.S. and over 1,000 member networks, representative firms, broadcast vendors, and international organizations.

According to the report, the Eastern Region outpaced the rest of the nation in ad spending gains for Q1, up 12.7% - followed by the Southwest and Central Regions, up 9.7% and 6.7%, respectively. Spending is up but trails nationwide growth in the West (4.5%) and South (3.5%).

RAB President and CEO, Jeff Haley, says "Our growth in this recovery is showing signs that Radio's momentum is outpacing that of other traditional media... underscoring Radio's inherent strength with advertisers demonstrating renewed enthusiasm for spending in our medium... advertisers have found and, in many instances, rediscovered Radio. With ever-expanding Digital and Off-Air vehicles adding to Radio's appeal... this growth trend will continue to gain momentum," Haley concludes. 

Not as many change channels as some may think

By Michael Malone -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/10/2010 5:14:44 PM

Some 86% of viewers stick with a given channel during the commercials, according to a study from the Council for Research Excellence (CRE), which tracked the live TV-consumption habits of 376 adults across over 750,000 minutes.

The Video Consumer Mapping study showed little change in viewer behavior before, during and after commercials. The study showed that 11% of viewers change channels during the four minutes before the commercial break, and 13% change channels in the four minutes of programming after a commercial break.  Only 14% change channels during the actual commercial break.

"In short, when the commercials come on, people stay with the TV," said RJC Advertising VP/Media Director and CRE Media Consumption & Engagement Committee Chairperson Laura Cowan. "They only go the kitchen if they're hungry, and they don't fight over the remote."

The study only followed live television, so DVR viewing--and the practice of viewers fast-forwarding through ads--did not figure into the research.

The study was conducted throughout 2008 by Ball State University and Sequent Partners. More general findings were shared in March 2009; those included the fact that adults are exposed to, on average, 73 minutes of real-time TV commercials or promos each day.

Furthermore, TV advertising and promotions reach 85% of adults each day.

The finding may be seen as affirmation for those in television that ad messages don't fall on deaf ears.

"Until now, we did not have any solid data on viewers' behavior during commercials," said NBC Universal Senior VP of Strategic Insights & Innovation/MC&E Committee member Horst Stipp.  "This study fills that gap and shows that viewers pay more attention to commercials than most people assumed."

The CRE describes itself as an independent research group that was created and is funded by The Nielsen Company. It's "dedicated to advancing the knowledge and practice of audience measurement methodology," according to its own description.

4 in 10 See Nation of 'Haves' and 'Have-nots'

And more than one-third in a Pew survey classify themselves as 'have-nots'

April 29, 2010

- Mark Dolliver

Some say the economic downturn has been a unifying experience for the nation, in the sense that it has hurt most people to one degree or another. But it's hard to feel we're all in the same boat if some people still seem more the yachting type than others. And that's the way many Americans see things, to judge by the findings of a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Conducted last week and this week, the survey asked respondents whether they think American society is "divided into haves and have-nots." Forty-two percent said it is, 53 percent said it isn't, and the rest declined to pick or volunteered some other answer.

The number who say the country is divided into haves and have-nots is higher than it was last April, when it stood at 35 percent. But it's squarely on the average found in Pew polling on this topic in the past 10 years. Whatever else it has done, the recession has not extinguished the belief by a large minority of Americans than the nation is divided in this way.

As you might guess, the belief that America is divided into haves and have-nots grows more widespread as one goes down the income scale. Among respondents with household income above $75,000, 35 percent said they believe American society is so divided. The figure rose to 40 percent among those in the $30,000-74,999 bracket and to 52 percent among those in the under-$30,000 cohort. Race was also a sharp dividing line: 66 percent of non-Hispanic blacks said the country is split into haves and have-nots, vs. 37 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

Another question in the same survey asked people which class they'd say is the one to which they belong ("if you had to choose"). Forty-five percent classified themselves as "haves" and 36 percent as "have-nots." Nine percent volunteered that they're "neither," and 10 percent declined to choose.

The proportion of respondents who consider themselves "haves" is three percentage points below last year and four points below its average in 10 Pew polls dating back to 2001.

1. Create a landing page. Instead of steering surfers to your company's home page, set up a separate page that carries on the work of the ad. "If people see the ad, see that it addresses their needs, and the landing page continues where the ad left off, you're far more likely to achieve your campaign's objectives," says Dave Collins, founder of London-based SharewarePromotions.

2. Don't go with the flow. Using pattern-interrupt techniques is a great way to get your ad noticed, advises Dennis Franczak, president of the Boston-based ad agency Fuseideas. "Do the opposite of the standard branding of whatever Web site you're advertising on," he recommends. For example, go with simplicity and bright colors on a text-heavy news site. 

3. Provide a preview. Make sure you inform online searchers what they are going to see when they click through to your site, says Heather Lutze, CEO of Lutze Consulting, an Internet marketing and advertising firm in Denver. "The ad text should tell them what they're going to encounter -- a price comparison, product review, or whatever it may be," she notes. Also, consider including your 800 number in your Google ad text. A study by 800response, a provider of toll-free phone number services, found that 45 percent of consumers have a higher recall of vanity 800 numbers than of Web addresses. 

4. Test, test, and test again. Vanessa Pagan, who runs PhantomCTO.com, a Gainesville, Fla.-based consultancy, stresses the importance of testing different ads and tracking their performance. The analytic program you choose should show the source of clicks, where they land on your site, and how they align with lead generation. 

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An independent research survey of 1,000 consumers tested recall of vanity 800 numbers and URLs in advertising. Study results show that consumers of all ages have a higher recall rate of toll-free vanity 800 numbers compared to Web addresses.

Survey results suggest that advertisers will benefit from featuring a memorable toll-free number in their advertising campaigns regardless of the age groups they target.

Key Findings

• Consumers age 18 - 24 years have a 32.2% average higher recall rate for toll-free vanity 800 numbers, compared to URLs.

• Respondents age 25 - 34 years have a 31.4% average higher recall rate for toll-free vanity 800 numbers.

• People age 35 - 49 have an average of 45.2% higher recall for toll-free vanity 800 numbers.

• Consumers age 50 - 64 have an average higher recall rate of 62.5% for toll-free vanity 800 numbers.

• Survey respondents 65 years and older have a 98.2% average higher recall rate for toll-free vanity 800 numbers.

The Proof is in the Research!

Market research study shows that consumers have recall rates of vanity 800 numbers when they are used in advertising:

·         Advertisers can expect up to 84% improvement in consumer recall using a vanity 800 number in outdoor and print advertising vs. a numeric toll-free number.

·         Consumers are 9x more likely to recall vanity 800 numbers in broadcast ads vs. numeric toll-free numbers.

Television Advertising, Toll-free and Vanity Numbers:

·         82% of phone numbers in TV ads are toll-free.

·         64% of toll-free numbers used in TV advertising are vanity toll-free phone numbers.

Radio Advertising & Toll-free Numbers:

·         Radio ads featuring a vanity 800 number yield 58% more calls than an identical radio ad using a numeric toll-free.

·         Almost 60% of study subjects recall a vanity 800 number after hearing only one time.

Billboard Advertising, Toll-free and Vanity Numbers:

·         75% of the total toll-free numbers used on billboards are vanity toll-free numbers.

Remember these stats when you're developing your next advertising campaign!

Visit http://www.800response.com/vanity800numbers/studies for more research studies conducted on the effectiveness of vanity 800 numbers in advertising.

Summary:

Radio ad revenue pacings are picking up so rapidly that some forecasters are racing to keep up - while it appears others are just being left behind. Just as there were lots of downward revisions throughout 2009, we can probably expect upward revisions through 2010.

Last week's update by Barclays Capital analysts Anthony DiClemente and George Hawkey put them at the head of the pack, with a 2010 radio revenue gain of 7.4% forecast.  It was the second revision of their forecast, having gone into 2010 expecting yet another down year for the medium.