RTM strives towards maximum media coverage for the Top 10 Awards and its sponsors and winners before, during, and after the event, as well as all year.

Marx Layne Public Relations, the second largest PR agency in Michigan, is enlisted to accomplish that mission. All levels of media are contacted by media alerts, press releases, phone, fax, email, and invitations (in print and online) to the event.

Yahoo! Autos, a diamond sponsor and media partner of the awards, places a text link to RTM on the top of every page throughout its site for one week in January and February. This text link is linked directly to RTM's awards sponsor page with sponsor logos, each of which is linked for one year to each respective sponsor's site.

Traffic to RTM from the Yahoo! Autos text link increases significantly in January and February. In fact, 28.17% of all traffic driven to RTM during January is a direct result of Yahoo! Autos.

As a result, the RTM awards section home page with sponsor logos is the highest hit page during the month of January with a total 45,793 page impressions.

Scripps Howard News Service, RTM's syndication partner, distributes a full-page feature on the awards to its 400-newspaper network. RTM provides this feature, which includes mention of all sponsors and winners. The RTM URL is placed at the bottom of this article to further drive traffic to the RTM awards section.

Not only do these media partnerships increase RTM traffic to the sponsor section, they also introduce RTM to a larger consumer audience who continue to visit RTM throughout the year.

The Top 10 Awards are heavily promoted throughout December and January in RTM's magazine and newsletter. Two issues and two newsletters are distributed with mention of sponsors and upcoming event details on the cover. In January, a special awards issue features winners and sponsors again. This issue garners above average media attention for interviews on the awards and RTM.

RTM traffic increases 15-25% each month, which is the direct result of new content, numerous promotions, resources and partnerships throughout the year. Click Site Promotions.

Based on RTM's continued growth RTM projects 2.8 million page impressions by year-end 2003 for overall site. The sections that receive the most traffic throughout the year are new car reviews, the awards, hotels & resorts/hotel reviews, and safety ratings. For a full traffic report on RTM, please click here.