Agreed, print is far from being dead.
When I started with autotrader/automart magazine in 97, on avg we were getting 100 phone calls a month for dealers running 1 page w/18 vehicles a page @ $300 per page and they were selling 10-15 units a month from it.
When we added the .com to the mix in '05 we experienced huge dilution in phone calls - because customers were going to the website and searching instead of calling the dealers 800# and we lost track of the lead - we couldn't track it.
Looking back that was the biggest mistake, the print needs to be separated from the internet/online leads (no urls in the mag), so you can justify your costs to the dealers with big fat 800# call reports flopped down on their desk each month.
I talk to numerous ex-automart people all the time that have started free magazines for dealers and they're not doing internet at all (due to their non-competes which are still in effect) and the calls they are delivering too dealers are as good as they were in the good old days.
It's tragic that a profitable company was decimated because of the inaccurate perception that "print is dead" - it's far from being dead.
When I started with autotrader/automart magazine in 97, on avg we were getting 100 phone calls a month for dealers running 1 page w/18 vehicles a page @ $300 per page and they were selling 10-15 units a month from it.
When we added the .com to the mix in '05 we experienced huge dilution in phone calls - because customers were going to the website and searching instead of calling the dealers 800# and we lost track of the lead - we couldn't track it.
Looking back that was the biggest mistake, the print needs to be separated from the internet/online leads (no urls in the mag), so you can justify your costs to the dealers with big fat 800# call reports flopped down on their desk each month.
I talk to numerous ex-automart people all the time that have started free magazines for dealers and they're not doing internet at all (due to their non-competes which are still in effect) and the calls they are delivering too dealers are as good as they were in the good old days.
It's tragic that a profitable company was decimated because of the inaccurate perception that "print is dead" - it's far from being dead.
