The visit showcased Auto Meter’s new department for producing battery-testing products. The department employs six new workers, and Rep. Hultgren was pleased to witness the company’s growth.

“Having the opportunity to visit Auto Meter served as a fantastic reminder of the need for us to have strong local businesses at the forefront of our economic recovery,” said Rep. Hultgren. “While success stories like Auto Meter’s are proof that things are starting to move in the right direction, we must continue to work to ensure that we create an environment that supports the role local businesses play in growing jobs and the economy.”

The visit included a roundtable discussion with Auto Meter President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff King, Chief Financial Officer Kent Alcott, Vice President of Operations Dean Panettieri and Vice President of Sales and Marketing and SEMA Board of Directors member Jeep Worthan.

Rep. Hultgren provided a legislative update from Washington. He spoke about the need to restore fiscal discipline, balance the budget and adopt pro-growth policies to support American manufacturing. He also stressed the need for a permanent research and development tax credit to spur job creation and innovation.

“Rising gas prices are also a concern for our company,” said King. “It makes it difficult for consumers to pay their bills, and it removes discretionary dollars from their pockets. Our company thrives on sales to enthusiasts who spend discretionary money to go racing.”

Corporate taxes were also a topic of conversation. In addition to federal tax burdens, Alcott noted that the corporate income tax rate in Illinois is high and growing. Rep. Hultgren agreed and observed that the brunt of the burden was falling on the shoulders of small- and medium-size companies.

	Auto Meter Chief Financial Officer Kent Alcott (right) describes Auto Meter’s product line.

Rep. Hultgren recently joined the Congressional Automotive Performance and Motorsports Caucus as a direct result of outreach efforts by Worthan. Formed in 1996, the bipartisan caucus serves to raise the industry’s profile on Capitol Hill by recognizing the contributions that the automotive performance and motorsports industry have made to the U.S. economy.

Congressman Hultgren is serving his first term representing Illinois’ 14th Congressional District, which includes Kane and Kendall Counties as well as parts of Bureau, DeKalb, DuPage, Henry, Lee and Whiteside Counties.

Rep. Hultgren graduated from Bethel College in 1977 and later attended Chicago-Kent College of Law. After graduating from law school in 1993, Hultgren was elected to the DuPage County Board and County Forest Preserve Board in 1994. He was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1999 and to the Illinois State Senate in 2007.

Auto Meter manufactures performance and specialty vehicle instrumentation, data acquisition systems, ruggedized video recording systems, tire-pressure monitoring systems, integrated displays, drag-racing launch and speed control systems, next-generation professional electrical system analyzers and battery testing and maintenance products. Auto Meter’s brands include Auto Meter, Dedenbear Products, Stack, GaugeWorks and Autogage.

The Congressional District Site Visit Program is overseen by SEMA’s government affairs office in Washington, D.C. Given that members of Congress will be in their home districts more often this year, companies interested in hosting an event with their elected officials are encouraged to contact SEMA Congressional Affairs Manager Dan Sadowski via e-mail or by phone at 202/783-6007 x19.

The visit showcased Auto Meter’s new department for producing battery-testing products. The department employs six new workers, and Rep. Hultgren was pleased to witness the company’s growth.

“Having the opportunity to visit Auto Meter served as a fantastic reminder of the need for us to have strong local businesses at the forefront of our economic recovery,” said Rep. Hultgren. “While success stories like Auto Meter’s are proof that things are starting to move in the right direction, we must continue to work to ensure that we create an environment that supports the role local businesses play in growing jobs and the economy.”

The visit included a roundtable discussion with Auto Meter President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff King, Chief Financial Officer Kent Alcott, Vice President of Operations Dean Panettieri and Vice President of Sales and Marketing and SEMA Board of Directors member Jeep Worthan.

Rep. Hultgren provided a legislative update from Washington. He spoke about the need to restore fiscal discipline, balance the budget and adopt pro-growth policies to support American manufacturing. He also stressed the need for a permanent research and development tax credit to spur job creation and innovation.

“Rising gas prices are also a concern for our company,” said King. “It makes it difficult for consumers to pay their bills, and it removes discretionary dollars from their pockets. Our company thrives on sales to enthusiasts who spend discretionary money to go racing.”

Corporate taxes were also a topic of conversation. In addition to federal tax burdens, Alcott noted that the corporate income tax rate in Illinois is high and growing. Rep. Hultgren agreed and observed that the brunt of the burden was falling on the shoulders of small- and medium-size companies.

	Auto Meter Chief Financial Officer Kent Alcott (right) describes Auto Meter’s product line.

Rep. Hultgren recently joined the Congressional Automotive Performance and Motorsports Caucus as a direct result of outreach efforts by Worthan. Formed in 1996, the bipartisan caucus serves to raise the industry’s profile on Capitol Hill by recognizing the contributions that the automotive performance and motorsports industry have made to the U.S. economy.

Congressman Hultgren is serving his first term representing Illinois’ 14th Congressional District, which includes Kane and Kendall Counties as well as parts of Bureau, DeKalb, DuPage, Henry, Lee and Whiteside Counties.

Rep. Hultgren graduated from Bethel College in 1977 and later attended Chicago-Kent College of Law. After graduating from law school in 1993, Hultgren was elected to the DuPage County Board and County Forest Preserve Board in 1994. He was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1999 and to the Illinois State Senate in 2007.

Auto Meter manufactures performance and specialty vehicle instrumentation, data acquisition systems, ruggedized video recording systems, tire-pressure monitoring systems, integrated displays, drag-racing launch and speed control systems, next-generation professional electrical system analyzers and battery testing and maintenance products. Auto Meter’s brands include Auto Meter, Dedenbear Products, Stack, GaugeWorks and Autogage.

The Congressional District Site Visit Program is overseen by SEMA’s government affairs office in Washington, D.C. Given that members of Congress will be in their home districts more often this year, companies interested in hosting an event with their elected officials are encouraged to contact SEMA Congressional Affairs Manager Dan Sadowski via e-mail or by phone at 202/783-6007 x19.

The visit showcased Auto Meter’s new department for producing battery-testing products. The department employs six new workers, and Rep. Hultgren was pleased to witness the company’s growth.

“Having the opportunity to visit Auto Meter served as a fantastic reminder of the need for us to have strong local businesses at the forefront of our economic recovery,” said Rep. Hultgren. “While success stories like Auto Meter’s are proof that things are starting to move in the right direction, we must continue to work to ensure that we create an environment that supports the role local businesses play in growing jobs and the economy.”

The visit included a roundtable discussion with Auto Meter President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff King, Chief Financial Officer Kent Alcott, Vice President of Operations Dean Panettieri and Vice President of Sales and Marketing and SEMA Board of Directors member Jeep Worthan.

Rep. Hultgren provided a legislative update from Washington. He spoke about the need to restore fiscal discipline, balance the budget and adopt pro-growth policies to support American manufacturing. He also stressed the need for a permanent research and development tax credit to spur job creation and innovation.

“Rising gas prices are also a concern for our company,” said King. “It makes it difficult for consumers to pay their bills, and it removes discretionary dollars from their pockets. Our company thrives on sales to enthusiasts who spend discretionary money to go racing.”

Corporate taxes were also a topic of conversation. In addition to federal tax burdens, Alcott noted that the corporate income tax rate in Illinois is high and growing. Rep. Hultgren agreed and observed that the brunt of the burden was falling on the shoulders of small- and medium-size companies.

	Auto Meter Chief Financial Officer Kent Alcott (right) describes Auto Meter’s product line.

Rep. Hultgren recently joined the Congressional Automotive Performance and Motorsports Caucus as a direct result of outreach efforts by Worthan. Formed in 1996, the bipartisan caucus serves to raise the industry’s profile on Capitol Hill by recognizing the contributions that the automotive performance and motorsports industry have made to the U.S. economy.

Congressman Hultgren is serving his first term representing Illinois’ 14th Congressional District, which includes Kane and Kendall Counties as well as parts of Bureau, DeKalb, DuPage, Henry, Lee and Whiteside Counties.

Rep. Hultgren graduated from Bethel College in 1977 and later attended Chicago-Kent College of Law. After graduating from law school in 1993, Hultgren was elected to the DuPage County Board and County Forest Preserve Board in 1994. He was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1999 and to the Illinois State Senate in 2007.

Auto Meter manufactures performance and specialty vehicle instrumentation, data acquisition systems, ruggedized video recording systems, tire-pressure monitoring systems, integrated displays, drag-racing launch and speed control systems, next-generation professional electrical system analyzers and battery testing and maintenance products. Auto Meter’s brands include Auto Meter, Dedenbear Products, Stack, GaugeWorks and Autogage.

The Congressional District Site Visit Program is overseen by SEMA’s government affairs office in Washington, D.C. Given that members of Congress will be in their home districts more often this year, companies interested in hosting an event with their elected officials are encouraged to contact SEMA Congressional Affairs Manager Dan Sadowski via e-mail or by phone at 202/783-6007 x19.

Personalization and Protection for an Evolving Market

By Steve Campbell

Whether at the dealerships or through independent specialty-equipment installers, car and truck personalization allows consumers to tailor their vehicles to their unique requirements. While market forces—both intrinsic and external—have wrought changes over the past few years, consumers have never ceased to customize and care for their vehicles.

As with other market segments, restyling customers have increasingly turned to the Internet to research available products and the companies that provide installation services. This surge in electronic communications provides unprecedented opportunities, so restylers have joined other specialty-equipment businesses in educating themselves about website design and tracking, social media, smartphone technology and other emergent marketing channels.

In the pages that follow, we present a comprehensive sampling of the car care and restyling products that were introduced at the 2010 SEMA Show. The breadth of these innovative offerings showcases the strength of the industry.

We’ve also included comments about where the market has been and where it is going from some of the leading voices in the restyling segment. While they touch on myriad industry trends and opportunities, the thread that unites them is their passion for commerce and their optimism about what lies ahead.

View More than 100 Restyling & Care Care New Products and Expert Comments from the 2010 SEMA Show on PDF.

AAC Car Cover Inc. 3D Covers 877/258-2975 www.aaccarcover.com Our protective custom car covers are for any type of vehicle, including cars, motorcycles, RVs, buses, boats and small aircraft. We also offer custom car cover designs that display a fun variety of animal shapes or other distinctive features and 3-D accessories.		ACS Composite-Advanced Composite Specialties ACS SS9 Camaro Hood 514/828-1000 www.acscomposite.com PN: 33-4-003 The ACS SS9 modular hood, manufactured in ACS’s validated RTM process, features a domed cowl higher than the original and available with a choice of three interchangeable hood inserts to change the look of your SS9 hood in minutes. Includes a window, an extractor and a carbon insert.
3M 3M Accuspray System 877/666-2277 www.3m.com/automotive PN: 16570 The 3M Accuspray system combines a high-performance TTVLP primer spray gun with an innovative replaceable atomizing head. It delivers a flatter, smoother finish; reduces overspray; cuts masking, sanding and cleaning time; improves productivity; and lowers primer and solvent consumption		Stainless Showworks Inc. ’05–’09 Mustang V6, GT and Shelby Full-Piece Hood-Prop Rod Elimination 541/621-8411 www.mustangstainless.com PN: 2005-9 BFG This kit is a brushed stainless dress up kit that will eliminate the use of the hood prop rod and will include a gas shock hood lift kit for holding the hood up in place.
3M 3M Perfect-It Denibbing System 877/666-2277 www.3m.com/denib PN: 7653 Removes dirt nibs faster and easier, reducing the  denibbing time and improving your productivity. The micro-sanding technology allows users to work where the car is.		Auto Tecknic Mercedes Benz W204 C Class Grille 626/275-4155 www.autotecknic.com PN: MB-0168 AutoTecknic matte black grille. Aggressive design and precise fitment for the Mercedes-Benz W204 C Class.

The restyling industry is facing a rapidly changing marketplace due to powerful factors: globalization, eCommerce, rising fuel costs, inflation and general unpredictability in today’s world. The new economic paradigm requires that business owners adapt quickly to change and be open to opportunities. Function over fashion is the most significant trend in the restyling segment. Products with true functionality have vastly outpaced counterparts that are only visual in nature. Quite simply, consumer discretionary income is tighter than ever, and products that combine function and fashion are doing best. Consumers are looking for items that provide comfort, safety and performance along with style. Products with these key attributes coupled with continual innovation and improvement will drive increased demand. That being said, the cost of fuel is the throttle on the entire economy and affects everything from tomatoes to tonneau covers. Price any item in the local grocery, and you’ll see the uptick; the increases are small but will be painful over time. Without a real focus on U.S. energy policy, fuel costs will have a major impact on the entire economy. Our industry will be no exception. —Jason Braun Executive Vice President, Meyer Distributing Inc.

ACS Composite-Advanced Composite Specialties T2 T3 2010 Camaro Bumper 514/828-1000 www.acscomposite.com PN: 33-4-037 ACS’s T3 Bumper is a replacement front fascia for ’10–’11 Camaros. It features dual cooling ports and a functional splitter. Individual components can also be purchased individually to be installed on any SS fascia.		ACS Composite-Advanced Composite Specialties Specter GTZ Camaro Hood 248/583-9559 www.spectergtr.com PN: SWS10501001 Specter’s GTZ Camaro Hood is a replacement heat extractor hood that not only has an aggressive look, but also releases high-pressure air and heat from the engine bay while negating front-end lift.
Stainless Showworks Inc. ’05–’09 Mustang V6, GT and Shelby Hood Prop Rod Elimination Dress-Up Kit 541/621-8411 www.mustangstainless.com PN: 05 RADCVR-GT PSN This mirrored polished dress-up kit requires the radiator cover extensions and requires the gas shock hood lift.		Autoglym Leather Cleaner 305/266-3887 www.autoglym.com PN: LC500US A premium formulation with specialized cleaning and deodorizing agents that safely cleans and freshens automotive leather upholstery and prepares the hide for nourishing preservative treatments.

View More than 100 Restyling & Care Care New Products and Expert Comments from the 2010 SEMA Show on PDF.

Altec Products Inc. C6 Corvette Leather Door Sill Enhancer 800/797-9035 www.altecproducts.com PN: 626 C6 Leather Door Sill Enhancer is constructed of quality genuine leather. Official GM licensed embroidered logo. Installation with 3M VHB tape. Accents leather interior.		Autoglym Interior Shampoo 305/266-3887 www.autoglym.com PN: CIS500US Contains a complex blend of surface-active ingredients to quickly and safely deep clean synthetic fabric seat upholstery, trim, carpets and roof linings.
Lethal Threat Designs Fully Embroidered Work Shirt 914/207-0343 www.lethalthreat.com PN: FE50101 Fully embroidered back design. Embroidered Lethal Threat Motor Gear pocket logo. Lethal Threat sticker hang tag. Made in the U.S.A. We can customize it.		Autoglym Autoglym Bumper Care 305/266-3887 www.autoglym.com PN: BC500US Cleanses and revives unpainted molded bumpers, fenders, grilles, mirror casings, door handles, tire walls and mud flaps. It will completely restore the blackest of blacks.
Coast to Coast International CCI Grille Overlay 800/999-8987 www.coast2coastinternational.com PN: IWCGI/90 The IWCGI/90 is a brand-new CCI Grille Overlay for the ’11 GMC Sierra HD. CCI Grille Overlays are known for their quick-fit installation and quality finish. All CCI Grille Overlays come with a limited lifetime warranty.		Auto Mats Accessories Inc. Collegiate Logo All Weather Mat 800/570-0704 automatsandaccessories.com PN: 5400 Licensed collegiate logos on universal all-weather mat made from recycled products. Manufactured in the U.S.A. Other logo art available. Artwork on driver’s and passenger’s sides.

Our world is becoming more complicated, and emerging technologies are playing an increasing role. Restylers should embrace technology. What you’ve been doing for the past 25 years won’t guarantee you a future, so be willing to learn technology integration. When the banks did their correction to lending policies in 2008–2009, it left consumers hungry for amenities, such as electronics and leather. After the realignment, some car buyers couldn’t get approved for higher-priced vehicles. Nicer amenities became a natural addition for these types of buyers. Leather continues to be at the top of the most-requested products for interiors. Consumers hunger for color selections other than what the factory offers. They’re also interested in navigation, backup-assist products and hands-free management systems. The most significant products for our company continue to be sunroofs, but we’ve also added graphics and a clear bra product to our lines. Retro-looking cars lend themselves to racing stripes more now than ever before. The vehicle mix has also changed. In past years, dealerships sold five new cars for every one used car; now the ratio has changed to one used for every one new. For that reason, restylers selling to car dealerships should target the pre-owned lots. —Diana Braschler Owner, Dealer Source Ltd.

Five Tips for Seeing (and Properly Evaluating) Return on Investment

When marketing pros speak of “tracking media,” they’re really referring to tracking promotion, which—along with product, price and place—is one of the four P’s of marketing. Promotion’s goal is to inform consumers about the other three P’s through various tactics, including advertising, personal selling, public relations, events, sponsorships and print, broadcast and online media. Obviously, promotional strategies will vary according to brand, product, targeted consumer demographics and other factors within the overall marketing mix.

Complex? Yes. But there are some tried-and-true principles for seeing and properly measuring ROI.

1. View the Big Picture

According to Eric Morley, president of Blue C Advertising in Costa Mesa, California, too many marketing departments operate as a collection of “silos” competing for internal funds. For true ROI, media campaigns must create an “interlocking web of ongoing message development, media execution, lead generation, customer relations and strategic creative.”

“If I just drop an ad in the newspaper or article on the web and expect it to do something for me, that’s never going to happen. It’s like throwing money in the wind,” said Morley. “Marketing is about building relationships month after month.”

In other words, when evaluating ROI, think beyond the balance sheet to weigh a promotion’s intangible benefits.

“We feel advertising is for the long term, and immediate ROI isn’t as important to us as a long-term branding strategy,” agreed Robin Gialanella, marketing manager for wholesale-distributor CWR Electronics in Bayville, New Jersey. “We strive to create ads and banners that grab attention. Readers might not directly buy something at first glance, but eventually, if we continue to be seen and intrigue them enough, they will hopefully become a customer.”

William Reminder, CEO for truck accessory manufacturer THI-Extang in Ann Arbor, Michigan, added: “When we have a medium which is not highly trackable, we often still use the medium for image/brand building and when we launch new products. You have to have a good sense of what is an appropriate expenditure, even when you can’t specifically quantify the direct impact of that advertising campaign.”

2. Mix It Up

Morley said that successful marketers tie multiple media vehicles together for an effective, synergistic marketing mix. “The trick is looking for media offering integrated formats, such as a print ad with an online mechanism plus some sort of promotional tie,” he explained. A well-integrated mix can achieve what he called the ideal 80/20 standard: 20% of media advertising generating 80% of a company’s business. Each company will define that mix differently.

“We use trade magazines, which are not highly trackable, for building our brand equity and product launches,” Reminder said. “Consumer magazines are used to expand and develop the different channels and build demand in the market.” Although broadcast ads have proven excessively costly, “we spend millions of dollars on free displays to our jobber base, which is critical when consumers are choosing a product for their vehicles.”

Gialanella believes print media and web news blogs offer the best ROI: “We have a new blog on our own website, and this seems to create a lot of buzz [and] an increase in sales.” E-mails, on the other hand, “have proven less effective.”

Whatever the mix, tying special offers, coupons and other promotions to specific media vehicles will help track results.

3. Allocate Resources Wisely

Eliminating silos and mixing media doesn’t mean ill-defined budgeting. Segmenting the marketing budget into appropriate buckets can help demarcate goals and measure ROI.

“We separate out the marketing/advertising into two areas,” Reminder said. “Existing product lineup—I commit to a core budget and evaluate the blend of media. Trade publications, consumer publications, our own website, customer websites, other web/electronic media, trade shows—we balance the advertising spent on each but, most importantly, we assess the quality and content of the media. New-product launches have a greater emphasis to ‘blitz’ the core media avenues, and then we branch out into other areas to get consumers to pull demand through our distribution channels—consumer, jobber, distributor.”

4. Track Online

Tracking methods for print media and collateral have traditionally taken the form of reader-response cards and dedicated toll-free phone numbers. Thanks to the Internet, companies can now add specially designated URLs, web landing pages and e-mail addresses to these efforts for increased immediacy and demographic analysis.

“Insert web addresses that are unique to the ad, event or broadcast,” advised Roll-N-Lock Director of Sales and Marketing Dan Beaulaurier. “Forward them to your primary domain name, and then review your monthly Google Analytics report to see how many unique new visitors each address is attracting.”

Of course, social media, YouTube videos and other online initiatives are instantly trackable, along with traffic to affiliated websites.

“Many of our customers are experts with their websites in reaching consumers,” Reminder said. “We partner with all of our customers with strong support to their advertising and marketing efforts. It helps them, and it helps us.”

Meanwhile, Morley noted that today’s marketing pros are especially excited by quick-response (QR) codes—those funny black-and-white jigsaw-like squares popping up everywhere (see “Deciphering QR Codes” on p. 75). Easily generated and affixed to practically anything (display and print ads, packaging, websites, editorial, buildings and even billboards), QR codes are packed with trackable data.

When a smartphone camera scans the code, it immediately launches a target weblink in the device browser. Consumers get to learn about (or even order) products or services, while the company gets on-the-spot marketing data, including which promotion generated the visit.

5. Set Regular Review Points

“Evaluate your marketing and advertising programs quarterly,” suggested Beaulaurier. “Even though early information will be minimal, it will still likely prove approximately relative to greater volumes of data gathered over the long haul.”

While marketing experts generally hold that advertising should be given ample time to sink in, completely lackluster response over a single quarter is a sure warning that a campaign is falling flat. “You won’t need to run lots more times with bad results before you can begin to believe those results,” explained Beaulaurier.

Reminder similarly advised reviewing results at fixed intervals throughout the year. “We assess response impact for web and electronic media quarterly,” he said, “and we evaluate the greater program one to two times per year.”

Still, recognize the tracking limitations of differing media. “At CWR, we’ve found that people get a lot of spam e-mails daily,” Gialanella said. “Most e-mails unfortunately go unread; therefore, it’s hard to get users to react.”

And don’t simply blame the medium if a campaign fails. Too many companies develop advertising internally without pretesting it among target demographics. Even the best of media can’t breathe life into bad creative.

Above all, clearly define your media and evaluation tactics. As Beaulaurier summed up: “Any attempt to monitor your advertising and marketing efforts is better than none. You can’t rely on potential customers to tell you where they saw your ad because they don’t care about your ad program. You must find a way to monitor their activities yourself [using tools] that are unique to each ad source.”

Five Tips for Seeing (and Properly Evaluating) Return on Investment

When marketing pros speak of “tracking media,” they’re really referring to tracking promotion, which—along with product, price and place—is one of the four P’s of marketing. Promotion’s goal is to inform consumers about the other three P’s through various tactics, including advertising, personal selling, public relations, events, sponsorships and print, broadcast and online media. Obviously, promotional strategies will vary according to brand, product, targeted consumer demographics and other factors within the overall marketing mix.

Complex? Yes. But there are some tried-and-true principles for seeing and properly measuring ROI.

1. View the Big Picture

According to Eric Morley, president of Blue C Advertising in Costa Mesa, California, too many marketing departments operate as a collection of “silos” competing for internal funds. For true ROI, media campaigns must create an “interlocking web of ongoing message development, media execution, lead generation, customer relations and strategic creative.”

“If I just drop an ad in the newspaper or article on the web and expect it to do something for me, that’s never going to happen. It’s like throwing money in the wind,” said Morley. “Marketing is about building relationships month after month.”

In other words, when evaluating ROI, think beyond the balance sheet to weigh a promotion’s intangible benefits.

“We feel advertising is for the long term, and immediate ROI isn’t as important to us as a long-term branding strategy,” agreed Robin Gialanella, marketing manager for wholesale-distributor CWR Electronics in Bayville, New Jersey. “We strive to create ads and banners that grab attention. Readers might not directly buy something at first glance, but eventually, if we continue to be seen and intrigue them enough, they will hopefully become a customer.”

William Reminder, CEO for truck accessory manufacturer THI-Extang in Ann Arbor, Michigan, added: “When we have a medium which is not highly trackable, we often still use the medium for image/brand building and when we launch new products. You have to have a good sense of what is an appropriate expenditure, even when you can’t specifically quantify the direct impact of that advertising campaign.”

2. Mix It Up

Morley said that successful marketers tie multiple media vehicles together for an effective, synergistic marketing mix. “The trick is looking for media offering integrated formats, such as a print ad with an online mechanism plus some sort of promotional tie,” he explained. A well-integrated mix can achieve what he called the ideal 80/20 standard: 20% of media advertising generating 80% of a company’s business. Each company will define that mix differently.

“We use trade magazines, which are not highly trackable, for building our brand equity and product launches,” Reminder said. “Consumer magazines are used to expand and develop the different channels and build demand in the market.” Although broadcast ads have proven excessively costly, “we spend millions of dollars on free displays to our jobber base, which is critical when consumers are choosing a product for their vehicles.”

Gialanella believes print media and web news blogs offer the best ROI: “We have a new blog on our own website, and this seems to create a lot of buzz [and] an increase in sales.” E-mails, on the other hand, “have proven less effective.”

Whatever the mix, tying special offers, coupons and other promotions to specific media vehicles will help track results.

3. Allocate Resources Wisely

Eliminating silos and mixing media doesn’t mean ill-defined budgeting. Segmenting the marketing budget into appropriate buckets can help demarcate goals and measure ROI.

“We separate out the marketing/advertising into two areas,” Reminder said. “Existing product lineup—I commit to a core budget and evaluate the blend of media. Trade publications, consumer publications, our own website, customer websites, other web/electronic media, trade shows—we balance the advertising spent on each but, most importantly, we assess the quality and content of the media. New-product launches have a greater emphasis to ‘blitz’ the core media avenues, and then we branch out into other areas to get consumers to pull demand through our distribution channels—consumer, jobber, distributor.”

4. Track Online

Tracking methods for print media and collateral have traditionally taken the form of reader-response cards and dedicated toll-free phone numbers. Thanks to the Internet, companies can now add specially designated URLs, web landing pages and e-mail addresses to these efforts for increased immediacy and demographic analysis.

“Insert web addresses that are unique to the ad, event or broadcast,” advised Roll-N-Lock Director of Sales and Marketing Dan Beaulaurier. “Forward them to your primary domain name, and then review your monthly Google Analytics report to see how many unique new visitors each address is attracting.”

Of course, social media, YouTube videos and other online initiatives are instantly trackable, along with traffic to affiliated websites.

“Many of our customers are experts with their websites in reaching consumers,” Reminder said. “We partner with all of our customers with strong support to their advertising and marketing efforts. It helps them, and it helps us.”

Meanwhile, Morley noted that today’s marketing pros are especially excited by quick-response (QR) codes—those funny black-and-white jigsaw-like squares popping up everywhere (see “Deciphering QR Codes” on p. 75). Easily generated and affixed to practically anything (display and print ads, packaging, websites, editorial, buildings and even billboards), QR codes are packed with trackable data.

When a smartphone camera scans the code, it immediately launches a target weblink in the device browser. Consumers get to learn about (or even order) products or services, while the company gets on-the-spot marketing data, including which promotion generated the visit.

5. Set Regular Review Points

“Evaluate your marketing and advertising programs quarterly,” suggested Beaulaurier. “Even though early information will be minimal, it will still likely prove approximately relative to greater volumes of data gathered over the long haul.”

While marketing experts generally hold that advertising should be given ample time to sink in, completely lackluster response over a single quarter is a sure warning that a campaign is falling flat. “You won’t need to run lots more times with bad results before you can begin to believe those results,” explained Beaulaurier.

Reminder similarly advised reviewing results at fixed intervals throughout the year. “We assess response impact for web and electronic media quarterly,” he said, “and we evaluate the greater program one to two times per year.”

Still, recognize the tracking limitations of differing media. “At CWR, we’ve found that people get a lot of spam e-mails daily,” Gialanella said. “Most e-mails unfortunately go unread; therefore, it’s hard to get users to react.”

And don’t simply blame the medium if a campaign fails. Too many companies develop advertising internally without pretesting it among target demographics. Even the best of media can’t breathe life into bad creative.

Above all, clearly define your media and evaluation tactics. As Beaulaurier summed up: “Any attempt to monitor your advertising and marketing efforts is better than none. You can’t rely on potential customers to tell you where they saw your ad because they don’t care about your ad program. You must find a way to monitor their activities yourself [using tools] that are unique to each ad source.”

Five Tips for Seeing (and Properly Evaluating) Return on Investment

When marketing pros speak of “tracking media,” they’re really referring to tracking promotion, which—along with product, price and place—is one of the four P’s of marketing. Promotion’s goal is to inform consumers about the other three P’s through various tactics, including advertising, personal selling, public relations, events, sponsorships and print, broadcast and online media. Obviously, promotional strategies will vary according to brand, product, targeted consumer demographics and other factors within the overall marketing mix.

Complex? Yes. But there are some tried-and-true principles for seeing and properly measuring ROI.

1. View the Big Picture

According to Eric Morley, president of Blue C Advertising in Costa Mesa, California, too many marketing departments operate as a collection of “silos” competing for internal funds. For true ROI, media campaigns must create an “interlocking web of ongoing message development, media execution, lead generation, customer relations and strategic creative.”

“If I just drop an ad in the newspaper or article on the web and expect it to do something for me, that’s never going to happen. It’s like throwing money in the wind,” said Morley. “Marketing is about building relationships month after month.”

In other words, when evaluating ROI, think beyond the balance sheet to weigh a promotion’s intangible benefits.

“We feel advertising is for the long term, and immediate ROI isn’t as important to us as a long-term branding strategy,” agreed Robin Gialanella, marketing manager for wholesale-distributor CWR Electronics in Bayville, New Jersey. “We strive to create ads and banners that grab attention. Readers might not directly buy something at first glance, but eventually, if we continue to be seen and intrigue them enough, they will hopefully become a customer.”

William Reminder, CEO for truck accessory manufacturer THI-Extang in Ann Arbor, Michigan, added: “When we have a medium which is not highly trackable, we often still use the medium for image/brand building and when we launch new products. You have to have a good sense of what is an appropriate expenditure, even when you can’t specifically quantify the direct impact of that advertising campaign.”

2. Mix It Up

Morley said that successful marketers tie multiple media vehicles together for an effective, synergistic marketing mix. “The trick is looking for media offering integrated formats, such as a print ad with an online mechanism plus some sort of promotional tie,” he explained. A well-integrated mix can achieve what he called the ideal 80/20 standard: 20% of media advertising generating 80% of a company’s business. Each company will define that mix differently.

“We use trade magazines, which are not highly trackable, for building our brand equity and product launches,” Reminder said. “Consumer magazines are used to expand and develop the different channels and build demand in the market.” Although broadcast ads have proven excessively costly, “we spend millions of dollars on free displays to our jobber base, which is critical when consumers are choosing a product for their vehicles.”

Gialanella believes print media and web news blogs offer the best ROI: “We have a new blog on our own website, and this seems to create a lot of buzz [and] an increase in sales.” E-mails, on the other hand, “have proven less effective.”

Whatever the mix, tying special offers, coupons and other promotions to specific media vehicles will help track results.

3. Allocate Resources Wisely

Eliminating silos and mixing media doesn’t mean ill-defined budgeting. Segmenting the marketing budget into appropriate buckets can help demarcate goals and measure ROI.

“We separate out the marketing/advertising into two areas,” Reminder said. “Existing product lineup—I commit to a core budget and evaluate the blend of media. Trade publications, consumer publications, our own website, customer websites, other web/electronic media, trade shows—we balance the advertising spent on each but, most importantly, we assess the quality and content of the media. New-product launches have a greater emphasis to ‘blitz’ the core media avenues, and then we branch out into other areas to get consumers to pull demand through our distribution channels—consumer, jobber, distributor.”

4. Track Online

Tracking methods for print media and collateral have traditionally taken the form of reader-response cards and dedicated toll-free phone numbers. Thanks to the Internet, companies can now add specially designated URLs, web landing pages and e-mail addresses to these efforts for increased immediacy and demographic analysis.

“Insert web addresses that are unique to the ad, event or broadcast,” advised Roll-N-Lock Director of Sales and Marketing Dan Beaulaurier. “Forward them to your primary domain name, and then review your monthly Google Analytics report to see how many unique new visitors each address is attracting.”

Of course, social media, YouTube videos and other online initiatives are instantly trackable, along with traffic to affiliated websites.

“Many of our customers are experts with their websites in reaching consumers,” Reminder said. “We partner with all of our customers with strong support to their advertising and marketing efforts. It helps them, and it helps us.”

Meanwhile, Morley noted that today’s marketing pros are especially excited by quick-response (QR) codes—those funny black-and-white jigsaw-like squares popping up everywhere (see “Deciphering QR Codes” on p. 75). Easily generated and affixed to practically anything (display and print ads, packaging, websites, editorial, buildings and even billboards), QR codes are packed with trackable data.

When a smartphone camera scans the code, it immediately launches a target weblink in the device browser. Consumers get to learn about (or even order) products or services, while the company gets on-the-spot marketing data, including which promotion generated the visit.

5. Set Regular Review Points

“Evaluate your marketing and advertising programs quarterly,” suggested Beaulaurier. “Even though early information will be minimal, it will still likely prove approximately relative to greater volumes of data gathered over the long haul.”

While marketing experts generally hold that advertising should be given ample time to sink in, completely lackluster response over a single quarter is a sure warning that a campaign is falling flat. “You won’t need to run lots more times with bad results before you can begin to believe those results,” explained Beaulaurier.

Reminder similarly advised reviewing results at fixed intervals throughout the year. “We assess response impact for web and electronic media quarterly,” he said, “and we evaluate the greater program one to two times per year.”

Still, recognize the tracking limitations of differing media. “At CWR, we’ve found that people get a lot of spam e-mails daily,” Gialanella said. “Most e-mails unfortunately go unread; therefore, it’s hard to get users to react.”

And don’t simply blame the medium if a campaign fails. Too many companies develop advertising internally without pretesting it among target demographics. Even the best of media can’t breathe life into bad creative.

Above all, clearly define your media and evaluation tactics. As Beaulaurier summed up: “Any attempt to monitor your advertising and marketing efforts is better than none. You can’t rely on potential customers to tell you where they saw your ad because they don’t care about your ad program. You must find a way to monitor their activities yourself [using tools] that are unique to each ad source.”

Five Tips for Seeing (and Properly Evaluating) Return on Investment

When marketing pros speak of “tracking media,” they’re really referring to tracking promotion, which—along with product, price and place—is one of the four P’s of marketing. Promotion’s goal is to inform consumers about the other three P’s through various tactics, including advertising, personal selling, public relations, events, sponsorships and print, broadcast and online media. Obviously, promotional strategies will vary according to brand, product, targeted consumer demographics and other factors within the overall marketing mix.

Complex? Yes. But there are some tried-and-true principles for seeing and properly measuring ROI.

1. View the Big Picture

According to Eric Morley, president of Blue C Advertising in Costa Mesa, California, too many marketing departments operate as a collection of “silos” competing for internal funds. For true ROI, media campaigns must create an “interlocking web of ongoing message development, media execution, lead generation, customer relations and strategic creative.”

“If I just drop an ad in the newspaper or article on the web and expect it to do something for me, that’s never going to happen. It’s like throwing money in the wind,” said Morley. “Marketing is about building relationships month after month.”

In other words, when evaluating ROI, think beyond the balance sheet to weigh a promotion’s intangible benefits.

“We feel advertising is for the long term, and immediate ROI isn’t as important to us as a long-term branding strategy,” agreed Robin Gialanella, marketing manager for wholesale-distributor CWR Electronics in Bayville, New Jersey. “We strive to create ads and banners that grab attention. Readers might not directly buy something at first glance, but eventually, if we continue to be seen and intrigue them enough, they will hopefully become a customer.”

William Reminder, CEO for truck accessory manufacturer THI-Extang in Ann Arbor, Michigan, added: “When we have a medium which is not highly trackable, we often still use the medium for image/brand building and when we launch new products. You have to have a good sense of what is an appropriate expenditure, even when you can’t specifically quantify the direct impact of that advertising campaign.”

2. Mix It Up

Morley said that successful marketers tie multiple media vehicles together for an effective, synergistic marketing mix. “The trick is looking for media offering integrated formats, such as a print ad with an online mechanism plus some sort of promotional tie,” he explained. A well-integrated mix can achieve what he called the ideal 80/20 standard: 20% of media advertising generating 80% of a company’s business. Each company will define that mix differently.

“We use trade magazines, which are not highly trackable, for building our brand equity and product launches,” Reminder said. “Consumer magazines are used to expand and develop the different channels and build demand in the market.” Although broadcast ads have proven excessively costly, “we spend millions of dollars on free displays to our jobber base, which is critical when consumers are choosing a product for their vehicles.”

Gialanella believes print media and web news blogs offer the best ROI: “We have a new blog on our own website, and this seems to create a lot of buzz [and] an increase in sales.” E-mails, on the other hand, “have proven less effective.”

Whatever the mix, tying special offers, coupons and other promotions to specific media vehicles will help track results.

3. Allocate Resources Wisely

Eliminating silos and mixing media doesn’t mean ill-defined budgeting. Segmenting the marketing budget into appropriate buckets can help demarcate goals and measure ROI.

“We separate out the marketing/advertising into two areas,” Reminder said. “Existing product lineup—I commit to a core budget and evaluate the blend of media. Trade publications, consumer publications, our own website, customer websites, other web/electronic media, trade shows—we balance the advertising spent on each but, most importantly, we assess the quality and content of the media. New-product launches have a greater emphasis to ‘blitz’ the core media avenues, and then we branch out into other areas to get consumers to pull demand through our distribution channels—consumer, jobber, distributor.”

4. Track Online

Tracking methods for print media and collateral have traditionally taken the form of reader-response cards and dedicated toll-free phone numbers. Thanks to the Internet, companies can now add specially designated URLs, web landing pages and e-mail addresses to these efforts for increased immediacy and demographic analysis.

“Insert web addresses that are unique to the ad, event or broadcast,” advised Roll-N-Lock Director of Sales and Marketing Dan Beaulaurier. “Forward them to your primary domain name, and then review your monthly Google Analytics report to see how many unique new visitors each address is attracting.”

Of course, social media, YouTube videos and other online initiatives are instantly trackable, along with traffic to affiliated websites.

“Many of our customers are experts with their websites in reaching consumers,” Reminder said. “We partner with all of our customers with strong support to their advertising and marketing efforts. It helps them, and it helps us.”

Meanwhile, Morley noted that today’s marketing pros are especially excited by quick-response (QR) codes—those funny black-and-white jigsaw-like squares popping up everywhere (see “Deciphering QR Codes” on p. 75). Easily generated and affixed to practically anything (display and print ads, packaging, websites, editorial, buildings and even billboards), QR codes are packed with trackable data.

When a smartphone camera scans the code, it immediately launches a target weblink in the device browser. Consumers get to learn about (or even order) products or services, while the company gets on-the-spot marketing data, including which promotion generated the visit.

5. Set Regular Review Points

“Evaluate your marketing and advertising programs quarterly,” suggested Beaulaurier. “Even though early information will be minimal, it will still likely prove approximately relative to greater volumes of data gathered over the long haul.”

While marketing experts generally hold that advertising should be given ample time to sink in, completely lackluster response over a single quarter is a sure warning that a campaign is falling flat. “You won’t need to run lots more times with bad results before you can begin to believe those results,” explained Beaulaurier.

Reminder similarly advised reviewing results at fixed intervals throughout the year. “We assess response impact for web and electronic media quarterly,” he said, “and we evaluate the greater program one to two times per year.”

Still, recognize the tracking limitations of differing media. “At CWR, we’ve found that people get a lot of spam e-mails daily,” Gialanella said. “Most e-mails unfortunately go unread; therefore, it’s hard to get users to react.”

And don’t simply blame the medium if a campaign fails. Too many companies develop advertising internally without pretesting it among target demographics. Even the best of media can’t breathe life into bad creative.

Above all, clearly define your media and evaluation tactics. As Beaulaurier summed up: “Any attempt to monitor your advertising and marketing efforts is better than none. You can’t rely on potential customers to tell you where they saw your ad because they don’t care about your ad program. You must find a way to monitor their activities yourself [using tools] that are unique to each ad source.”

Five Tips for Seeing (and Properly Evaluating) Return on Investment

When marketing pros speak of “tracking media,” they’re really referring to tracking promotion, which—along with product, price and place—is one of the four P’s of marketing. Promotion’s goal is to inform consumers about the other three P’s through various tactics, including advertising, personal selling, public relations, events, sponsorships and print, broadcast and online media. Obviously, promotional strategies will vary according to brand, product, targeted consumer demographics and other factors within the overall marketing mix.

Complex? Yes. But there are some tried-and-true principles for seeing and properly measuring ROI.

1. View the Big Picture

According to Eric Morley, president of Blue C Advertising in Costa Mesa, California, too many marketing departments operate as a collection of “silos” competing for internal funds. For true ROI, media campaigns must create an “interlocking web of ongoing message development, media execution, lead generation, customer relations and strategic creative.”

“If I just drop an ad in the newspaper or article on the web and expect it to do something for me, that’s never going to happen. It’s like throwing money in the wind,” said Morley. “Marketing is about building relationships month after month.”

In other words, when evaluating ROI, think beyond the balance sheet to weigh a promotion’s intangible benefits.

“We feel advertising is for the long term, and immediate ROI isn’t as important to us as a long-term branding strategy,” agreed Robin Gialanella, marketing manager for wholesale-distributor CWR Electronics in Bayville, New Jersey. “We strive to create ads and banners that grab attention. Readers might not directly buy something at first glance, but eventually, if we continue to be seen and intrigue them enough, they will hopefully become a customer.”

William Reminder, CEO for truck accessory manufacturer THI-Extang in Ann Arbor, Michigan, added: “When we have a medium which is not highly trackable, we often still use the medium for image/brand building and when we launch new products. You have to have a good sense of what is an appropriate expenditure, even when you can’t specifically quantify the direct impact of that advertising campaign.”

2. Mix It Up

Morley said that successful marketers tie multiple media vehicles together for an effective, synergistic marketing mix. “The trick is looking for media offering integrated formats, such as a print ad with an online mechanism plus some sort of promotional tie,” he explained. A well-integrated mix can achieve what he called the ideal 80/20 standard: 20% of media advertising generating 80% of a company’s business. Each company will define that mix differently.

“We use trade magazines, which are not highly trackable, for building our brand equity and product launches,” Reminder said. “Consumer magazines are used to expand and develop the different channels and build demand in the market.” Although broadcast ads have proven excessively costly, “we spend millions of dollars on free displays to our jobber base, which is critical when consumers are choosing a product for their vehicles.”

Gialanella believes print media and web news blogs offer the best ROI: “We have a new blog on our own website, and this seems to create a lot of buzz [and] an increase in sales.” E-mails, on the other hand, “have proven less effective.”

Whatever the mix, tying special offers, coupons and other promotions to specific media vehicles will help track results.

3. Allocate Resources Wisely

Eliminating silos and mixing media doesn’t mean ill-defined budgeting. Segmenting the marketing budget into appropriate buckets can help demarcate goals and measure ROI.

“We separate out the marketing/advertising into two areas,” Reminder said. “Existing product lineup—I commit to a core budget and evaluate the blend of media. Trade publications, consumer publications, our own website, customer websites, other web/electronic media, trade shows—we balance the advertising spent on each but, most importantly, we assess the quality and content of the media. New-product launches have a greater emphasis to ‘blitz’ the core media avenues, and then we branch out into other areas to get consumers to pull demand through our distribution channels—consumer, jobber, distributor.”

4. Track Online

Tracking methods for print media and collateral have traditionally taken the form of reader-response cards and dedicated toll-free phone numbers. Thanks to the Internet, companies can now add specially designated URLs, web landing pages and e-mail addresses to these efforts for increased immediacy and demographic analysis.

“Insert web addresses that are unique to the ad, event or broadcast,” advised Roll-N-Lock Director of Sales and Marketing Dan Beaulaurier. “Forward them to your primary domain name, and then review your monthly Google Analytics report to see how many unique new visitors each address is attracting.”

Of course, social media, YouTube videos and other online initiatives are instantly trackable, along with traffic to affiliated websites.

“Many of our customers are experts with their websites in reaching consumers,” Reminder said. “We partner with all of our customers with strong support to their advertising and marketing efforts. It helps them, and it helps us.”

Meanwhile, Morley noted that today’s marketing pros are especially excited by quick-response (QR) codes—those funny black-and-white jigsaw-like squares popping up everywhere (see “Deciphering QR Codes” on p. 75). Easily generated and affixed to practically anything (display and print ads, packaging, websites, editorial, buildings and even billboards), QR codes are packed with trackable data.

When a smartphone camera scans the code, it immediately launches a target weblink in the device browser. Consumers get to learn about (or even order) products or services, while the company gets on-the-spot marketing data, including which promotion generated the visit.

5. Set Regular Review Points

“Evaluate your marketing and advertising programs quarterly,” suggested Beaulaurier. “Even though early information will be minimal, it will still likely prove approximately relative to greater volumes of data gathered over the long haul.”

While marketing experts generally hold that advertising should be given ample time to sink in, completely lackluster response over a single quarter is a sure warning that a campaign is falling flat. “You won’t need to run lots more times with bad results before you can begin to believe those results,” explained Beaulaurier.

Reminder similarly advised reviewing results at fixed intervals throughout the year. “We assess response impact for web and electronic media quarterly,” he said, “and we evaluate the greater program one to two times per year.”

Still, recognize the tracking limitations of differing media. “At CWR, we’ve found that people get a lot of spam e-mails daily,” Gialanella said. “Most e-mails unfortunately go unread; therefore, it’s hard to get users to react.”

And don’t simply blame the medium if a campaign fails. Too many companies develop advertising internally without pretesting it among target demographics. Even the best of media can’t breathe life into bad creative.

Above all, clearly define your media and evaluation tactics. As Beaulaurier summed up: “Any attempt to monitor your advertising and marketing efforts is better than none. You can’t rely on potential customers to tell you where they saw your ad because they don’t care about your ad program. You must find a way to monitor their activities yourself [using tools] that are unique to each ad source.”

Five Tips for Seeing (and Properly Evaluating) Return on Investment

When marketing pros speak of “tracking media,” they’re really referring to tracking promotion, which—along with product, price and place—is one of the four P’s of marketing. Promotion’s goal is to inform consumers about the other three P’s through various tactics, including advertising, personal selling, public relations, events, sponsorships and print, broadcast and online media. Obviously, promotional strategies will vary according to brand, product, targeted consumer demographics and other factors within the overall marketing mix.

Complex? Yes. But there are some tried-and-true principles for seeing and properly measuring ROI.

1. View the Big Picture

According to Eric Morley, president of Blue C Advertising in Costa Mesa, California, too many marketing departments operate as a collection of “silos” competing for internal funds. For true ROI, media campaigns must create an “interlocking web of ongoing message development, media execution, lead generation, customer relations and strategic creative.”

“If I just drop an ad in the newspaper or article on the web and expect it to do something for me, that’s never going to happen. It’s like throwing money in the wind,” said Morley. “Marketing is about building relationships month after month.”

In other words, when evaluating ROI, think beyond the balance sheet to weigh a promotion’s intangible benefits.

“We feel advertising is for the long term, and immediate ROI isn’t as important to us as a long-term branding strategy,” agreed Robin Gialanella, marketing manager for wholesale-distributor CWR Electronics in Bayville, New Jersey. “We strive to create ads and banners that grab attention. Readers might not directly buy something at first glance, but eventually, if we continue to be seen and intrigue them enough, they will hopefully become a customer.”

William Reminder, CEO for truck accessory manufacturer THI-Extang in Ann Arbor, Michigan, added: “When we have a medium which is not highly trackable, we often still use the medium for image/brand building and when we launch new products. You have to have a good sense of what is an appropriate expenditure, even when you can’t specifically quantify the direct impact of that advertising campaign.”

2. Mix It Up

Morley said that successful marketers tie multiple media vehicles together for an effective, synergistic marketing mix. “The trick is looking for media offering integrated formats, such as a print ad with an online mechanism plus some sort of promotional tie,” he explained. A well-integrated mix can achieve what he called the ideal 80/20 standard: 20% of media advertising generating 80% of a company’s business. Each company will define that mix differently.

“We use trade magazines, which are not highly trackable, for building our brand equity and product launches,” Reminder said. “Consumer magazines are used to expand and develop the different channels and build demand in the market.” Although broadcast ads have proven excessively costly, “we spend millions of dollars on free displays to our jobber base, which is critical when consumers are choosing a product for their vehicles.”

Gialanella believes print media and web news blogs offer the best ROI: “We have a new blog on our own website, and this seems to create a lot of buzz [and] an increase in sales.” E-mails, on the other hand, “have proven less effective.”

Whatever the mix, tying special offers, coupons and other promotions to specific media vehicles will help track results.

3. Allocate Resources Wisely

Eliminating silos and mixing media doesn’t mean ill-defined budgeting. Segmenting the marketing budget into appropriate buckets can help demarcate goals and measure ROI.

“We separate out the marketing/advertising into two areas,” Reminder said. “Existing product lineup—I commit to a core budget and evaluate the blend of media. Trade publications, consumer publications, our own website, customer websites, other web/electronic media, trade shows—we balance the advertising spent on each but, most importantly, we assess the quality and content of the media. New-product launches have a greater emphasis to ‘blitz’ the core media avenues, and then we branch out into other areas to get consumers to pull demand through our distribution channels—consumer, jobber, distributor.”

4. Track Online

Tracking methods for print media and collateral have traditionally taken the form of reader-response cards and dedicated toll-free phone numbers. Thanks to the Internet, companies can now add specially designated URLs, web landing pages and e-mail addresses to these efforts for increased immediacy and demographic analysis.

“Insert web addresses that are unique to the ad, event or broadcast,” advised Roll-N-Lock Director of Sales and Marketing Dan Beaulaurier. “Forward them to your primary domain name, and then review your monthly Google Analytics report to see how many unique new visitors each address is attracting.”

Of course, social media, YouTube videos and other online initiatives are instantly trackable, along with traffic to affiliated websites.

“Many of our customers are experts with their websites in reaching consumers,” Reminder said. “We partner with all of our customers with strong support to their advertising and marketing efforts. It helps them, and it helps us.”

Meanwhile, Morley noted that today’s marketing pros are especially excited by quick-response (QR) codes—those funny black-and-white jigsaw-like squares popping up everywhere (see “Deciphering QR Codes” on p. 75). Easily generated and affixed to practically anything (display and print ads, packaging, websites, editorial, buildings and even billboards), QR codes are packed with trackable data.

When a smartphone camera scans the code, it immediately launches a target weblink in the device browser. Consumers get to learn about (or even order) products or services, while the company gets on-the-spot marketing data, including which promotion generated the visit.

5. Set Regular Review Points

“Evaluate your marketing and advertising programs quarterly,” suggested Beaulaurier. “Even though early information will be minimal, it will still likely prove approximately relative to greater volumes of data gathered over the long haul.”

While marketing experts generally hold that advertising should be given ample time to sink in, completely lackluster response over a single quarter is a sure warning that a campaign is falling flat. “You won’t need to run lots more times with bad results before you can begin to believe those results,” explained Beaulaurier.

Reminder similarly advised reviewing results at fixed intervals throughout the year. “We assess response impact for web and electronic media quarterly,” he said, “and we evaluate the greater program one to two times per year.”

Still, recognize the tracking limitations of differing media. “At CWR, we’ve found that people get a lot of spam e-mails daily,” Gialanella said. “Most e-mails unfortunately go unread; therefore, it’s hard to get users to react.”

And don’t simply blame the medium if a campaign fails. Too many companies develop advertising internally without pretesting it among target demographics. Even the best of media can’t breathe life into bad creative.

Above all, clearly define your media and evaluation tactics. As Beaulaurier summed up: “Any attempt to monitor your advertising and marketing efforts is better than none. You can’t rely on potential customers to tell you where they saw your ad because they don’t care about your ad program. You must find a way to monitor their activities yourself [using tools] that are unique to each ad source.”