Advertising your business - What methods are the most effective?

I'm in the used car industry and I'm looking to reach a bigger audience and thinking about placing a few ads.

What ads do you find the most attractive?
Which ones catch your attention the most?

Radio? Public transport signs/posters? Google?

Leaning towards the King and Queen bus ads as well as standard interior posters and possibly a shelter poster or two.

If you're a business advertising on any platform, share your successes and failures, thanks!

How bout targeted YouTube insertions? Not sure of cost. Other than that, if you have some cool cars maybe get started on some social media presence, do some cool stuff on Instagram etc

Radio and public signage would be my suggestions, with maybe targeted Facebook casually.

- I subconsciously and automatically ignore any and all ads in Google searches.

- Ditto for the most part for Facebook, but I do notice them slightly more

- Youtube adds are decent if you pay for the premium and super fast unskippable 5 or 8 second ones, but the 30 second ones...well, "Skip this ad". Everyone does it. Unless you can get any sort of engagement in the first few seconds before people just click to skip, well, it's probably a waste of money.

- Instagram? Personally I don't follow ANYONE who's sole goal is advertising, and if I follow someone with an interesting feed (in an effort to actually attract interested followers) who slowly starts to post (IMHO) spam, I immediately unfollow.

Ok, may be on the extreme side but will be effective and lots of media coverage.

Hire a daredevil, pay them $10k to climb up CN Tower with your company flag---really long flag...then when they get to the top the daredevil attracts all the media and they will film him jumping off with your large flag in full view.

Hmmm, maybe hire home drone pilot guys to create similar effect at night.

Fun and jokes aside.

Who is your market? Why not focus and target them based on their interest e.g. forums etc...build your brand for them to get to know you.
TV and radio will burn through your cash.
Bus ads seem good idea...but do them in the target market area.

you could try different out of the box ideas...e.g. pay the cycling team or running groups to wear your shirt or fly your banner.
provide a word of mouth incentive e.g. you pay me $100 if I refer someone to you and they buy a car...give out or email special cards for them to give out to people they know or work with...something in it for them to help you.

get a bunch of cheap Frisbees from China or those fidget things with your company info...target large parks and gatherings/outings/parades and hand out your items to the kids...frisbees never seem to die, lol

You have a limited budget, I would be focusing like a lazer on people likely to buy my cars vs. a shotgun approach.
City is busy and your bus ads might get lost in the shuffle.

Vinyl wrap your company car/cars...Addy has a nice S2000 that you know who he is and what he does.
Vinyl wrap or sticker fellow bikers since they are all over the place and get eyeballs on the bikes.
Details to measure can be based on km's they travel e.g. you pay them x per km or pay for their gas if they do x km's...you can expense all of this as marketing...therefore they are delivering the message BUT you are not paying until they achieved X (5000kms).

That's just off the top of my head.
* any use of my ideas are subject to free use of a car for a year or $1000

good luck with growing your business

do one of those hold on to this item and the winner gets the item...ebikes or nice bicycles seem to get attention unless you are willing to use a car.
Winner is the person last standing with 1 hand on the car...could last a few days and nights. Media coverage should be good.
Add some SHOW to the event...paint balling and or water ballooning the competitors to get them to let go. Let the visitors come by and throw water balloons at them.
Serve up the hotdogs and hamburger deals...free food and water...partner with some burger place.
If you do donate a car or the USE of a car for 1 year then part of the deal is to vinyl wrap the car for 1 year.

Be Bold, Be Different, it generates attention and in this world of social media...you just provided a stage for people to show up and take pics and tweet about you.


Just some ideas!

Have a good web site and look into what it takes to put your site within the top three links to click.

Personally, there are a handful of used vehicle places I peruse.

They have decent inventory, decent prices and locations that I don't mind going to. (Outside the gta).


They all have mixed reviews because you can't satisfy everyone with the best price, 100% reliable and people always expect any problem that comes up means immediate replacement with something better or repaired at no cost etc.

If you have a good business. With good staff.

The reputation will speak for itself.

I've been out of the used car market for a while now but, I still have a habit of checking out a small number of websites that are easy to navigate and provide good quality pictures and accurate descriptions.

Vague details or call for details turn me off.

That's about it from my perspective.


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I'm a contest guy. How about a social media contest? Need to come into the dealership to get a keyword.
Make the prize not too expensive, buy something thay your target market wants.....like a rare pair of kicks maybe?
Wonder where you could get some though??

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app

Sponsoring sports teams, race/trail ride events etc all serve well to get your name out there.
I do know that many of the businesses which support and sponsor the OFTR and it's events are well supported in return for there efforts.

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Mina said:

I'm in the used car industry and I'm looking to reach a bigger audience and thinking about placing a few ads.

What ads do you find the most attractive?
Which ones catch your attention the most?

Radio? Public transport signs/posters? Google?

Leaning towards the King and Queen bus ads as well as standard interior posters and possibly a shelter poster or two.

If you're a business advertising on any platform, share your successes and failures, thanks!

Click to expand...

Personally I'm not a fan of Youtube ads (they generally don't get a mental write transaction), general Google ads ??? It has to be a shitzillion dollay industry for some reason. Bus ads are something though, when you have nothing to do you ****ing study those damn ads like they are Monet paintings so you don't make eye contact with the guy sitting across for the fifth time.

This also made me think of Annoying Suit Guy from Jazz FM that gets in a live spiel about suits every morning. Effective? Questionable, but it does seem to show that it can't be that expensive.

I like the ideas above for targeted ads. I wouldn't pay any attention to random car dealer ads. If I saw they were supporting something that I was interested in, I would be more inclined to care. Alternatively a contest or bbq will draw could draw in a lot of people to visit you that you can try to convince that your dealership is different and better than the others. The personal relationships/trust is what is going to sell cars as I suspect competing purely on price is a fools game. How much do radio stations charge to broadcast from your parking lot? I would think it would be reasonably affordable and you get awesome coverage for a day to see if it works.

As nakkers said, a lot of it will come down to your website, I wouldn't drive to visit you before checking out your website. If your site was full of the typical call for details, mint condition crap, I would never come visit. Give me info that keeps me from wasting a trip (eg. well maintained, body shows some wear) and I am inclined to give you a shot.

Another way to differentiate yourself is cars to order. I tell my car guy what I am looking for in general (eg. medium size SUV ~ 3 years old awd) and he finds it for me and tells me how much I owe him. The price is good because he doesn't have to stock or carry inventory. I am happy because he uses his connections to catch off lease cars that would be hard to get as a consumer for a decent price. If you ran an ad campaign getting people to call in their orders, you might get some action from people too busy/lazy/fed up to do the searching themselves. If you are going this route, obviously start with a small campaign because filling a ton of requests wouldn't be easy.

TwistedKestrel said:

This also made me think of Annoying Suit Guy from Jazz FM that gets in a live spiel about suits every morning. Effective? Questionable, but it does seem to show that it can't be that expensive.

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Saul Korman, from Koreys Clothiers? (Or something like that?)

They're on a bunch of stations in the AM. I guess the fact I recall their ads and their name right now means their ads are working.

Agree with radio. Make it a clever ad.

If you are going to do an email list limit it to ~ every 6 weeks. Quick easy links to what is going on with your inventory. I may not be in the market at that time but I can easily share it.

word of mouth is the best advertising......

Our company doesn't advertise.

Make sure every car that leaves your lot, leaves with a license plate frame that has your dealer's name on it.

Brian P said:

Our company doesn't advertise.

Make sure every car that leaves your lot, leaves with a license plate frame that has your dealer's name on it.

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I take that **** off before I leave the lot and give it back to them.

Robp said:

I take that **** off before I leave the lot and give it back to them.

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As do most car/ bike people.
But I know a $#!+load of people that have no clue that our mechanic put his on their cars. They were on for months and they didn't notice until I pointed it out.
Cheap an effective imo.
Korry's has been around forever and they've always done the radio thing so....the proof is in the pudding?
Also obviously the bigger the station's market the more expensive. Ie Chum FM will be very expensive whereas Indie88 won't(shouldn't) be. But then you have to weigh the pros and cons of expense. And you will want the morning and afternoon time slots. Again more $$$ but you wanna sell cars when they realize that their car is a pos/ needs to be replaced etc.
Bus ads? Are there that many people taking transit that are looking for a car?(not sure)
Sorry. Rambling.


sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app

Oh
And if you go tv/ radio: find something that is just annoying enough (for lack of a better term) to stand out..a certain voice, catch phrase, jingle) think:
Hurt in a car? (you know the rest!)
"It's gonna be HUGE"
Diamond and Diamond ?
Oooooh yeah! Etc.

I might know a guy that has a voice (and a face) for radio. #JustSayin

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app

Robp said:

I take that **** off before I leave the lot and give it back to them.

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Sure, but lots of people can't be bothered. (I'm one of them - the plate frame doesn't do anything that could be considered damage, so I don't care.) But don't put a sticker on the car ... that will get a lot of people riled up.

Actually you could get a ticket for obstructed plate with the frame. Someone even on this forum last year.

I take the frame off when I get home. Either leave it off or reverse it and use it behind the plate as a buffer to protect the body.

Brian P said:

Our company doesn't advertise.

Make sure every car that leaves your lot, leaves with a license plate frame that has your dealer's name on it.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I take those off too. The first thing I did with our new Volt the second I got it in the driveway was remove the fugly one that the dealership put on ours - sorry, I don't believe in my vehicle being an advertisement for someone else's business, not to mention that it pretty much completely covered the "Green Vehicle" portion of her special green licence plate.

As for email, well...slippery slope. A lot of people will not give you their email address come hell or high water, but if they DO voluntarily give it to you, for the love of God do NOT abuse it. I can think of a few companies that I subscribed to willingly who then bombarded me with 50 emails a week to the point of not only pissing me off and causing me to unsubscribe, but swear off doing business with them again.

PrivatePilot said:

As for email, well...slippery slope. A lot of people will not give you their email address come hell or high water, but if they DO voluntarily give it to you, for the love of God do NOT abuse it. I can think of a few companies that I subscribed to willingly who then bombarded me with 50 emails a week to the point of not only pissing me off and causing me to unsubscribe, but swear off doing business with them again.

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I don't have the memory retention to connect an annoying email campaign to some place that I will do or have done business with, but for the very, very few times I give out my email I still end up unsubscribing about a third of the time. Abusing it is mind boggling - you have people who are voluntarily opening their doors to your marketing, and then you permanently spend that opportunity in a week by annoying them enough to shut the door again.