| Brush up on Marketing (continued) |
| I was working on-line a few days ago and was greeted by a loud blaring commercial that both shocked and irritated me. It got me to thinking about the current state of advertising and marketing in the auto business. Since the 1920's, when Jordan first ran "Somewhere west of Laramie" in the Saturday Evening Post, advertising was changed from product to emotion |
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By George Toth
Sales Manager/AutoPro Training Solutions
Email gtoth@automotivedealersnetwork.com
| George has 25 plus years of retail dealership experience. He has held dealership management positions in parts, service, body shop, new cars, used cars, finance and general management. His five years training experience includes service, parts, sales, finance, CRM, new and used management. |
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| SUPERIOR DEALER SOLUTIONSsm |
Jordan had already run ads appealing to emotions before this ad, but this is the one that made them
memorable in the advertising business. Other auto companies followed and the appeal to customer’s senses was
on. In the late forties somewhere the advertising moved heavily toward price. As we progressed into the sixties
and early seventies it was not uncommon to see a discounted price advertised in just about every ad. When the
Finance Department came of age the dealers found a way to advertise vehicles for invoice yet make most of their
profit in the Finance Department by advertising payments and selling add-ons. As profits disappeared in the new
car department, the ads on television and radio were often loud, obnoxious screaming that jolted you out of your
seat in order to draw attention. The buying public soon did not believe these ads as when they went to the dealer
for the product they found the model was not in stock or was just a base price unit and they were moved to a
more expensive model. Today newspaper advertising is almost a thing of the past, reserved for vehicles that
appeal to the older population. What has happened here?
memorable in the advertising business. Other auto companies followed and the appeal to customer’s senses was
on. In the late forties somewhere the advertising moved heavily toward price. As we progressed into the sixties
and early seventies it was not uncommon to see a discounted price advertised in just about every ad. When the
Finance Department came of age the dealers found a way to advertise vehicles for invoice yet make most of their
profit in the Finance Department by advertising payments and selling add-ons. As profits disappeared in the new
car department, the ads on television and radio were often loud, obnoxious screaming that jolted you out of your
seat in order to draw attention. The buying public soon did not believe these ads as when they went to the dealer
for the product they found the model was not in stock or was just a base price unit and they were moved to a
more expensive model. Today newspaper advertising is almost a thing of the past, reserved for vehicles that
appeal to the older population. What has happened here?
While baby boomers were not paying attention, things changed. About five years ago I was visiting my
daughter in California. It was Saturday, and like most off-spring of a baby boomer she does not subscribe to a
newspaper. I walked down to the coffee shop, bought a paper and, as I have done for more years than I care to
remember, read my paper with a cup of coffee. Of course being a car person I always look at the auto ads. I
noticed that there was not one advertisement for Acura. I was surprised! I went back to my daughter's place and
jabbed her about dealers not advertising in the newspaper. Her reply stunned me “Dad, Acura customers don’t
read the newspaper - they get all their information online”.
Since that jolt five years ago I have been asking the question, "How are we going to reach the younger
generation? How are we going to create an interest or curiosity to come and look at our vehicles in the
dealership?" If you have not already, get prepared, because the face of advertising has changed. It is no longer
the newspaper, television, and radio. It is now the internet, face book, youtube, my space, twitter and new media
that just keeps coming. These are the new faces in advertising. The imports have a head start on the domestic
automakers, who have depended too much on traditional print, television and radio. Bob Lutz has indicated GM
will be doing more social media marketing. Ford has been the domestic leader and I am sure Chrysler will be
following suit. So what about you dealers? For a lot of you this is foreign soil, but you must get involved. There
will still be a need for traditional advertising, and most dealers have at least a small online presence with
AutoTrader, Cars.com and other sites, but this is just a start. But what about a young person looking at your
inventory on his or her smart phone? So you are going to have to get there just like the internet. You best get on
the train now because waiting until everyone else has that presence will put you at a disadvantage. There are a
number of new companies that specialize in this form of advertising.
daughter in California. It was Saturday, and like most off-spring of a baby boomer she does not subscribe to a
newspaper. I walked down to the coffee shop, bought a paper and, as I have done for more years than I care to
remember, read my paper with a cup of coffee. Of course being a car person I always look at the auto ads. I
noticed that there was not one advertisement for Acura. I was surprised! I went back to my daughter's place and
jabbed her about dealers not advertising in the newspaper. Her reply stunned me “Dad, Acura customers don’t
read the newspaper - they get all their information online”.
Since that jolt five years ago I have been asking the question, "How are we going to reach the younger
generation? How are we going to create an interest or curiosity to come and look at our vehicles in the
dealership?" If you have not already, get prepared, because the face of advertising has changed. It is no longer
the newspaper, television, and radio. It is now the internet, face book, youtube, my space, twitter and new media
that just keeps coming. These are the new faces in advertising. The imports have a head start on the domestic
automakers, who have depended too much on traditional print, television and radio. Bob Lutz has indicated GM
will be doing more social media marketing. Ford has been the domestic leader and I am sure Chrysler will be
following suit. So what about you dealers? For a lot of you this is foreign soil, but you must get involved. There
will still be a need for traditional advertising, and most dealers have at least a small online presence with
AutoTrader, Cars.com and other sites, but this is just a start. But what about a young person looking at your
inventory on his or her smart phone? So you are going to have to get there just like the internet. You best get on
the train now because waiting until everyone else has that presence will put you at a disadvantage. There are a
number of new companies that specialize in this form of advertising.
| The other form of advertising that almost nobody pays any attention to is the customer data base. When I was installing CRM it was fun to go into a dealership, and after the software was all set up, go and pull up all the orphan owners in the dealers DMS. I loved it! One dealer had been on his DMS for about twelve years. I pulled his orphans and I got over 15,000 customers. I would then burn that to a CD and give it to the General Manager or Dealer. This particular General Manager said “Well, that shows you what a great job we do with our follow- up”. The point is, Where can you get a list of people that have spent thousands of dollars in your store, and get this, it is FREE! More dealers than not have forgotten or are ignoring this valuable resource. The cost to maintain a current customer is pennies compared to the large amount of dollars that you have to spend to draw new customers. I am sure we all can agree the grosses for a past customer are much higher than for a new customer. Some valuable marketing tools to be noted are service specials, automated calls, and recall campaigns. I know most of these are old news, but they are inexpensive, yield results, and many dealers are ignoring them. Why not spiff your service writers to get email addresses? At one store where I was installing a BDC we decided to pull the sales of Explorers for a three year period. It was a big store and there were just under twenty nine hundred sales. I then sorted for the ones with email addresses, I got just under ninety. Talk about missed opportunity. Communicate with your customer without spending a dime for postage. How much more cost effective can it be? |
| Hopefully this has jolted you out of your comfort zone and has you thinking a little outside the box. Just do one thing for me, you see I was a sales person and sales manager at one time, don’t beat everybody up too bad when you find out how many of your customers are orphans. I just hate it when that happens. |