Before there were mobile phones, pagers, and satellite TV on tour buses, a Roadog could escape from society for a while. While you were riding down the highway you knew that the outside world didn't exist until the bus stopped.
This also had downfalls when it came to emergencies or finding out important show details. Not only that, a Roadog also missed many job opportunities.
Once mobile phones that didn't cost a years wages came along, it opened this industry wide open. All of a sudden it became a way to save time as well as being a leading edge for an individual to get the gig before anyone else.
In the mid to late nineties laptops entered the touring market, again saving time and money for the Roadog. Now handheld computers also have wireless email & internet service.
With the advent of the technology and growth that this industry has seen, touring has now become a fully established profession.
This is wonderful on a one to one basis, but now that thousands of people are on the road, there is one thing that is commonly overlooked. Marketing to the individual. Even the post office isn't advanced enough to deliver to a hotel room or tour bus door with trade magazines.

The Digital Highway

Most production office riders now specify 2 phone lines, plus fax and modem lines. It's also very unusual for a Roadog to be without a laptop these days. The technology that this industry uses is virtually all digital.
A number of Production and tour managers make decisions every day about products to use and buy on the road. It's common to think that once a manager has a relationship with a company that the or she will never go to anyone else. Not so. Due to difficulty in reaching the tour staff, a number of these people just haven't been made aware of other products on the market

One way around this is to hit the web. The internet recently took a big hit with a number of dot coms crashing - which is ironic since a few years ago we all believed that the hard copy magazines were going to be non-existent. This brings us back the getting magazines to the tour buses. Since that doesn't work, once again we return to the internet.

World Of The Ad Banner

There is a myth that Ad banners (Rectangular boxes flashing on the top of many websites) aren't effective. This is true to a certain extent. But the thing is, these pesky banners are placed on a random basis to an audience that have nothing to do with your industry, so it's no wonder they don't provide results.
An ad banner runs in a rotation cycle. Every time a page is requested by a user a banner is chosen from random. There are 2 ways you can pay to run your ad banner: On a monthly basis or CPM (cost per thousand times it's shown on a webpage). Some people don't like the CPM idea, especially if there are many other advertisers in the rotation cycle. Also the CPM won't work if you are trying to advertise a new product or limited time offer. 5000 viewings could take months depending on the amount of other advertisers in the cycle. A monthly basis would be better, especially if they guarantee a maximum number of banners in a cycle.

Advertising on the web is under rated because it's judged by the amount of people who click on the advertisement. The question is, can you click through to a website in a magazine? Definitely not. People are still reading and seeing the ad banner which is what exposure is all about.

There is Always A Way

There are other ways to advertise on line as well, Sponsoring events like chats or giveaways, posting on message boards, or even sponsoring a website's newsletter that is sent out to subscribers. As with everything else it depends how much you want to spend.