Automotive Direct Mail Marketing
Perserverance
 In theory our success ultimately depends upon our level of enthusiasm. However, in the real world our ultimate fate is determined by our level of perseverance. I make this statement as a result of the many conversations I have had lately with auto dealers nationwide who are struggling just to make ends meet and also, worse yet, with their recently defunct competitors. Sure, attitude, enthusiasm, integrity, and good old-fashioned hard work are the ingredients required to build and maintain any successful business. But what happens when you have done everything you can and the bottom line still falls short? You go on. You persevere. You pick yourself up, brush off the dust and go back to doing what you know works.
“What does this have to do with anything?” you may be asking. And if I was in your shoes I might be asking the same question. However, I'm not in your shoes. Although more than two decades of automotive industry experience affords me the insight to clearly understand the position dealers have been forced into, I am also afforded the privilege of being able to observe the current state of affairs from an objective point of view. And I am only seeing two things. First, there are those dealers that are pushing forward, being cautiously aggressive, taking a few risks, keeping their doors open, and keeping the cars rolling over the curb. Then there is the flip side of the coin. Those dealers that are pulling back, way back, and so far back in some cases that they are pulling themselves out of the market completely. As a result, I have seen many of these dealers close their doors for the last time or who are very close to doing so soon if things don't change in the near future.
Those dealers that are pushing forward and maintaining their own are streamlining their operations and becoming better at what they do. They realize they are playing the same game, but the rules have recently changed. For that matter, so has the entire league. The days of throwing an advertisement in the back section of the newspaper week in and week out, whether it produces results or not, have gone the way of the Oldsmobile. The advertising dollars that are being spent on television commercials to compete with 900 other channels, video on demand programming, and the fact that the TV viewer is now afforded the luxury of digitally recording programs so that they can fast-forward past all of the advertisements (yours included), has converted television advertising into a long-term branding media with no clear-cut accountability of its true effectiveness or its successful return on a dealer's investment. The same can be said about traditional radio advertising. After all, we live in a world of iPods, music downloads, CDs, satellite radio, and a generation full of people who change the channel the minute the fast-talking commercials begin, if their mind isn't already programmed to block out the surrounding noise while they talk on their cell phone driving to work in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
The good news in all of this is that dealers are realizing that the way to get to the meat and potatoes and to trim all of the fat is by taking their advertising dollars and utilizing them where they are most productive and where they can't be missed. Dealers are putting their message in the one place that 87% of all people go six days a week: the mailbox. Additionally, marketing strategies such as offsite tent sales and onsite weekend promotions that were once employed only to add the icing to the auto dealers' fiscal cake have now become the key ingredients to ensure that your slice of the market doesn't shrink even more than it already has. Direct mail has proven itself time and again as the best way to promote their business and is a crucial component to utilizing one of these aforementioned strategies successfully.
It is at this point that I normally hear the words, “I have done mail and it doesn't work.” To this statement I only have one word to say, “Accountability.” Out of all of the avenues that an advertising dollar can go down, direct mail is the only one that extends a business proprietor the ability to have 100% accountability for the return on his investment. If you, as a dealer, send out X number of mail pieces and Y number of people come through the door (with mail in hand) and then you sell Z number of units, you have accountability for how successful or unsuccessful the campaign was. Notice that I stated, “how successful or unsuccessful the campaign was.” Not how successful the mail was.
Mail is merely the vehicle by which we deliver a message. Mail is the “how” aspect of the who, what, where, when and how of the advertising campaign being conducted. The results of a less than successful mail campaign can be attributed to any one or any combination of the previously mentioned factors. Before considering mail a failure you should examine the following:
- Who you sent the mail to. The demographics are the single most influential factor in ultimately determining the success of any advertising campaign. After all, if you send the right message to the wrong consumers, there is a pretty good chance you will not get the results you hoped for.
- What message you conveyed to your customer. Different consumers respond to different stimuli. The content of your campaign will determine what type of response you receive and who responds to it.
- Where you target your mail campaign. Although very similar to the “who” aspect of targeting your campaign, it is different in the manner that you may be targeting the right consumers with the right message, but you may be doing so too far outside of your geographic reach.
- When you do the advertising, as well as how timely the message was delivered, is a crucial facet of conducting a successful marketing campaign. Remember, “Timing is everything.” If you have a four-day sale and the mail arrives two days after the sale ended or two weeks before it is scheduled to begin, I think it would be safe to say that it is not going to be an effective campaign.
- How you delivered the advertising campaign's message. Keep in mind that radio, television, newspaper, Internet, and direct mail are merely the tools that we choose to deliver the message of our campaign.
So as we face the end of 2008 and the prospects of hope that we hold for the year 2009, we must keep in mind that although the game may have changed, it is the players who persevere that ultimately end up on top. If what you have been doing hasn't been getting you the results that you want, change what you are doing. Don't take yourself out of the game completely.
To learn more about Jeffrey F Knott or Showroomtoday Direct Mail. Visit www.showroomtodaydirectmail.com or call (321) 951-1683 or Email Tom:
Jeff@Showroomtoday.com
|
Past Issues
