If you are doing advertising for a dealership, your poorest choice would be to run an ad in a newspaper (ROI roughly equals $0). A slightly less poor choice would be traditional radio, but the ROI isn’t much better. And the 3rd pillar of poor choices would be advertising on cable television, the ROI of which equates to slightly better than slightly better than nothing.
There is exaggeration in the introductory paragraph of course – yes, people still read newspapers, listen to old radio and watch cable. But if you are looking to the future – trying to be on the cutting edge – why would you invest time and resources in dying ad channels? Think about cable TV – if you aren’t streaming commercial-free Office reruns or the hottest original content on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime, then maybe you are scrolling through the hundreds of useless channels on cable. But even if you are, it is very unlikely you wait around during commercial breaks to view the latest ad. If you’re not clicking around, you are probably checking your phone. No one watches television ads anymore.
Advertising on cable is easy – your local rep comes in and sells you zones, promising you eyeballs for your local ad. And just like we used to run weekend newspaper ads by rote – get your copy in by Friday afternoon – so it is with monthly cable ads. Just get your ad in and people will see it. Except that they won’t (ROI = roughly $0).
Be smart and spend your precious ad dollars online.