marketing

Building Your Marketing Channels

by : Bruno Lucarelli

Your dealership is still the hub of your sales universe, but you continually need more spokes in the wheel to survive. These “channels” will vary by geography, market size and brand. They do however, serve a critical function. They are the difference between success, mediocrity and failure.

Your customers’ media consumption has changed radically in the last 24 months. Have you altered your dealership’s media plan to adjust? The answer from 99 of 100 dealers reading this will be “no,” and with good reason. Your expertise is in automotive sales, not media. But paying attention to what’s going on around you, or for that matter your own daily experience, could make the difference.

For almost a century, there were a very limited number of “channels” that led a consumer through your door: location, newspaper ads, radio ads and local TV ads (in smaller markets) comprised the majority of most dealers’ “media mix.”

The radical change in consumer behavior in the last five years, however, has companies scrambling to catch up to the elusive auto customer. Are you paying close attention to the new “channels” that could help shoppers discover your inventory? Look no further than your own habits, showroom, friends and family.

• Your web site is your new front door, you know by now. Keep it clean, open and easy to use. If there isn’t a car for sale one click away, make it a priority.

• Many dealers stay in constant touch with their store through their Blackberry or similar device. Yet, they haven’t considered text messaging as an advertising option. Try it. Soon.

• A large proportion of dealers have children of high school and college age. Yet they miss the opportunity to examine how their own family consumes media. According to a recent Pew Research Study, two thirds of all Americans under the age of 30 are regular users of social networking, yet less than one percent of dealer and OEM ad budgets are spent in this space. Start a “group” on a social media site for your dealership. Why not a “social networking channel?”

• Are you still buying cable TV? Make sure to move your money into news, sponsorships and sports. This category of programming is less likely to be pre-recorded by a cable DVR or similar Tivo device. The major networks are lowering rates around the Tivo effect for their large clients. Are you getting a similar deal? Drama programming (FX, TNT) is much more likely to be recorded, with over half of these DVR viewers skipping your spot. Take a closer look at your store’s “cable channel.”

• Still using newspaper? Do your best to measure your response rate, even anecdotally. A few well-placed questions in the buying process will determine your ROI.

Draw a chart of your “channels,” and constantly measure which are contributing most to building your dealership’s brand. This exercise never ends. Learn it. Live it. Make it a part of your daily routine. Knowing where your sales originate is the key to long-term success.

Bruno Lucarelli is the Eastern U.S. sales director for Cardomain.com, the largest automotive social network in the world. He has over 20 years experience in both traditional and digital advertising, including eBay Motors, Autotrader.com and CBS Television.

Source: http://www.dealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=2044

Don’t Blend

There’s a common type of feedback I get from clients when presenting new marketing and creative ideas. It goes something like this: “This doesn’t feel like a <insert client’s industry> ad. Let me show you what my competition is doing and we can mimic that.”

I hear this all the time. And itss the single most common form of misguided feedback I receive. Why? Because the point of marketing isn’ to help you blend in — it’s to help you stand out. I’ll say that again… The point of marketing isn’t to help you blend in, it’s to help you stand out.

Striving for anything short of standing out is a waste of time, money and effort.

D. Jones

Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant

SmackDabble, LLC

There is Nothing Tricky About Permission

There’s an increasingly popular trend among advertisers that think they have to trick consumers into paying attention. They do it with too-good-to-be-true offers, flashy production and bait-and-switch techniques. Does it work? Yes, sometimes it certainly does. But it’s the most expensive, invasive and difficult sort of marketing to pull off. So why try?

Instead, consider just asking your customers and prospect for permission to talk with them. And once you have that, begin an open, honest, straightforward dialogue with them about who you are and how you can serve them. It’s inexpensive (darn near free, actually) it’s totally non-invasive and it works better than interruption marketing.

So who do you have permission to communicate with?

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Web Marketing Grows, but How Much?

JULY 3, 2008

A Look Behind the Numbers

“More than one-half of the average marketer’s budget is now spent online,” according to a press release from lead generation company Clash-Media. The firm conducted its “Online Lead Generation (B2C) Report 2008” in May with E-consultancy.

But the press release may be a misreading of the report. According to respondents, a greater proportion of lead generation budgets is being spent online (on average, 53%) than offline (44%).

The survey’s methodology seems to confirm the point.

Of those polled, 73% said their channels to market were “online or multichannel,” and 23% said “online only.” Only about 4% said they were “offline only.”

So respondents were focused largely on online approaches. The rest of the summary issued with the report was more accurate. Among the findings:

Seven out of 10 responding marketers said their companies used search engine optimization, paid search and e-mail marketing to in-house lists.
Offline marketing methods largely decreased, with only press and television advertising growing. Over 90% of marketers saw online lead generation as a growth area.
Print media was still the most commonly used offline method to generate consumer leads (65% of organizations).
Natural search (79% of respondents), e-mail marketing to in-house lists (75%) and paid search (71%) were the three most commonly used online methods for lead generation.

Without question, online ad spending in the US is rising quickly. eMarketer predicts double-digit growth will continue for the next several years.

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006376

Auto Ad Spending Down, Except Digital

Double-digit Web ad growth

Automotive advertising spending in the US dropped to $1.99 billion in Q1 2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence. That was down more than 14% compared with Q1 2007.Ad spending is “sinking as fast as new car sales,” said Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS, in a July 2008 Detroit Free Press interview. Mr. Swallen noted that consumers’ focus on fuel economy has cut into truck sales, which has affected ad spending. “A year ago, for every dollar spent on truck advertising, they spent 80 cents on passenger auto,” he said. “This year, the ratio of truck advertising to car advertising is almost 1-to-1.”Automakers have traditionally been the biggest advertisers in the country. General Motors is the fourth-largest advertiser in the US, and the company spent $535 million in Q1 2008, according to TNS data cited in a July 2008 Media Life article. GM spent $2.1 billion on ads last year, which was the third year in a row of lower ad spending for the company.

Last year total auto ad spending was down 10.8%, to $12.3 billion, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus data cited in the Detroit Free Press article.

If there is a bright spot in auto ad spending, it is online. Internet spending was up 57.9% last year, to $441.6 million. TNS put GM’s Internet spending alone at more than $212 million (excluding search and online video), 79% over the previous year’s spending.

eMarketer predicts double-digit growth for auto online ad spending through 2012, when it will reach more than $5.61 billion.

Learn how auto marketers are using the Web. Get your copy of eMarketer’s Automotive Marketing Online: Negotiating the Curves report.

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006426

The Newest Sales-Boosting Strategy

By David Wengel

Making the sale hinges on the lead. On-demand lead scoring is a technique that clarifies who your best leads are and allows you to target them accordingly.

How many sales versus marketing conflicts would vanish if marketing could easily vet and prioritize every lead it passed on to sales? And how much airfare could you save if you could grow wings and fly?

If you’re a marketing executive, then you would probably put both questions in the same box because one is just about as likely to happen as the other. Vetting and prioritizing sales leads is labor intensive and expensive. Doing it fast enough to get the hot leads to sales before they cool off has been close to impossible — maybe only slightly less impossible than actually sprouting wings.

It would be in the marketing organization’s best interest to rank the promise of every lead it passes to the sales organization, but the realities of time and cost effectiveness have not allowed the necessary information gathering and analysis. Devoid of solutions, marketing executives have been left to soldier on as best they can: No matter how much they spend on marketing, most companies still treat every inbound lead the same, no matter how valuable the leads are likely to become.

Recently, however, on-demand lead scoring, supported by advances in marketing technology, has developed to improve the quality of leads that marketing sends to sales.

On-demand lead scoring should ideally combine historical customer information with consumer data and predictive analytics. If you’re setting out to automatically prioritize each incoming lead, then you’ll need the level of insight that comes from combining these three types of information. Without all three, you’re throwing away chances to boost sales conversions and customer value.

The most basic on-demand lead scoring solutions reveal exactly who is contacting your company through your marketing programs, whether they’re reachable given the contact information they provided, which leads should be top priorities and which products or services are most relevant to the lead.

This information enables salespeople to target the hottest prospects, whichever criteria you use: those who are most interested in your products or services, most likely to buy a lot of them or most likely to turn into long-term customers. The same knowledge can tell you which of your messages and offers will provide a more customized experience for each prospect.

For example, an auto dealer receives names and phone numbers of active car shoppers within minutes of their filling out forms on auto-related websites. The leads are instantly and automatically scored based on 1) the individual’s verified contact information, 2) household demographics and 3) the dealer’s experience with customers fitting that demographic profile. The sales team knows to immediately pursue leads that score in the top 20 percent with an immediate outbound call or customized email. Others are prioritized for follow up in order of their potential.

On-demand lead scoring applies the same methodology to phone channels. When a credit-card issuer’s advertising drives prospects to its toll-free numbers and websites, the on-demand scoring solution grades them for potential value, matches them to the most suitable credit card and immediately routes likely-to-convert prospects to the best agents. The callers who are least likely to convert are routed to an interactive voice response (IVR) system, allowing the likely-to-convert callers to get more attention from agents.

A lead scoring solution’s predictive power is limited only by how much a company tailors it to specific business, goals and customer knowledge. For example, is the objective to grow revenue by increasing conversions or by focusing on cross-selling opportunities? Has the company found more upside in identifying prospects who look like its most loyal customers or in those who look like those customers most likely to respond to a particular offer?

In each case, the key is a rich mix of data that includes demographics, lifestyle and behavioral information, sales histories and product and channel usage. With currently available services, a company’s customer database and sales histories can be combined with descriptive and behavioral information to create predictive profiles. Companies that have embraced on-demand lead scoring have found three best practices that determine how successful their solutions are.

The first is that the lead-scoring information must be actionable at the moment you need it. Most existing customer insight platforms can offer microscopically precise insight on existing customers, but none of this rich information is actionable in the instant new prospects submit an online form or call in. In the past, you could segment your customers but you couldn’t predict which prospects would behave like your best customers unless you stopped to ask each prospect, say, the five attitudinal survey questions you’d found to be predictive. A lead-scoring solution must be able to link your customer knowledge to brand new prospects in the instant you begin to interact with those prospects.

The second best practice is a basic tenant of good solution development, but it merits mention nonetheless: data quality. Your lead scoring is only as good as the information that drives it. If your scoring doesn’t include verification of contact information, then you won’t even know which leads can be reached, making the effort worthless. And if your scoring solution doesn’t include up-to-date consumer contact information, then you’re slashing your ability to assign scores to your leads.

Finally, if your lead scores aren’t customized to your business, then their predictive power will lack punch. Off-the-shelf lead scoring systems typically rely on consumer profiles that aren’t even tailored to your industry, much less your company, so they provide uneven results when used to drive your real-time decisions. An online shoe store will miss some sales if it relies on the same customer profiles that an insurance company uses for its automated processes. A lead scoring solution that includes information from a company’s customer databases and sales history will be more predictive than one that doesn’t.

There is no single instant cure-all to the problem of dead leads, but on-demand lead scoring solutions are a huge step forward from what passes for lead qualification at many companies today. Lead scoring can improve the relationship between sales and marketing, which creates a stronger company that closes more sales and spends less on qualifying leads — without growing wings and flying.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19811.asp

Hybrid Marketing?

With $4.00 gas putting a slow down on the automotive business, and the economy in general, auto manufacturers are clamoring to develop and build hybrids and other energy efficient vehicles.

Amid all this, you’re still trying to run a dealership. Chances are, you’ve had to make cutbacks across the board. And even if you’ve had to cutback marketing, that doesn’t mean you want to cutback the number of customers walking through the door.

So that raises the question: What are the most energy- and cost-efficient marketing strategies you can employ? Mass marketing is certainly out. You’ll have to go direct… very targeted. And get creative… chase after a new audience or trying a medium no one else is using. What would you do if you had to reach the same number of customers on one-fifth the budget? What can you do that costs nothing at all? The dealerships that use a downturn to get stronger and wrestle away market share are the ones that will dominate the next age of automotive retailing.

What are you doing to make the most of your marketing dollars?

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Your Virtual Lot Needs Attention Too!

by : Arnold Tijerina

In this digital marketing age with more and more consumers choosing to utilize the Internet to assist in making their automobile purchasing decisions, it is increasingly important to monitor the activity within your Internet departments.

Judging the effectiveness of your Internet traffic cannot be done solely by evaluating its production. Whether you are using third-party lead providers or driving traffic to your own web site or a combination of the two, you need to be aware of what’s going on with the leads. Just like you look at how your ups are being worked by your salespeople, closers, or sales managers; you should know what’s going on with your Internet ups.

What most dealers forget to include in evaluating their Internet departments and/or where the budget is being spent to provide leads is the most basic factor imaginable:
1. Are my Internet managers working the leads properly?

2. Do I have a process in place to insure that I can use to hold them accountable?

It’s important to have processes just like any sales force has. Would you expect your salespeople to take a customer on a test drive before writing them up? Of course you would. Internet leads are ups in the same way as someone that walked onto your lot. In fact, you may get more ups through your virtual lot than you do on your physical one. There are many dealerships that have Internet departments that account for 30-40 percent (or more) of their business but this is the department that is typically the most neglected and least monitored of all departments by sales managers. Dealers pay a lot of money for these ups yet fail to work them as hard as they would any customer that had walked on the lot because they don’t see the potential of turning these ups into sales today. The mentality that exists, and has existed, is that this is a today business. While we would all prefer to sell a car today (anybody waiting for the be-back bus?), I think everyone would agree that selling a car eventually is better than never.

Through my experience and observations, I’ve noticed that unsuccessful Internet departments tend to have Internet managers that don’t continually work a lead. Maybe they call a few times over a week or so but then they just give up and restart the process on fresh leads. This circular pattern neglects the customer that’s not ready to buy today, but is a buyer. With most Internet customers being seven weeks out from initial contact to sale, no wonder you are losing business. I understand how frustrating it is for an Internet manager to call someone 18 times and never get a hold of anyone and never have any calls returned. That doesn’t mean these aren’t buyers, only that they’re not ready to buy or not enough of an impression has been made to earn their response. Just like any salesperson knows, you can give a customer every way to contact you imaginable: the dealership’s phone number, your home and cell phone numbers, your work and personal e-mails, etc., build great rapport and ask the customer in every way possible to call you when they want to come in and that you will be there to assist them and, despite all of this, the customer will still show up when they are ready to purchase without calling the salespeople. Knowing this, why is it hard to believe that a customer who nobody at your dealership has ever even met in person would do the same thing?

I’m a firm advocate of utilizing a business development center (BDC) to follow up with your customers whether they are prospects or previous customers rather than entrusting your customers to salespeople who may or may not follow up with them. At least with a BDC, you can create a consistent process with dedicated people that follow up with your customers and prospect for your dealership. This simple addition to your business will increase your sales immediately and create greater customer satisfaction and a great first impression. Have you ever heard a customer say that nobody ever contacted after requesting information? How about feedback from a customer saying a salesperson never called them back after promising to?

By paying more attention to your Internet departments, Internet managers and leads, you will be able to increase your sales within that department immediately, without any additional expense to you. If your salesperson were burning ups, you’d stop the behavior. Why allow your Internet managers to do the same thing? If you don’t pay attention, you only have yourself to blame.
Source: http://www.dealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=1907

Singles and Doubles

I consistently see marketers in all industries trying too hit marketing home runs. They’re swinging for the fences with every television campaign, direct mail piece and online promotion. And just as often, they’re putting all their financial energy into each swing, ensuring that they’re only going to get one shot. And their intentions are good… but they’re also misguided.

Good, sound marketing is about consistently putting out targeted, timely communications with a compelling message and actionable offer. It’s about hitting singles and doubles every time you step up to the plate. That’s how you win ball games and that’s how you win the marketing game.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Key Innovations From the World of Auto Marketing

Published: May 30 2008 by iMediaConnection

In a tight economy, it takes ingenuity to capture the attention of in-market shoppers. See what tools the automotive industry uses to generate consumer interest and increase conversions.

As you would expect, today’s biggest trends in the automotive industry all revolve around e-commerce. As more consumers head online to research and shop for vehicles, vehicle sellers and marketers have to provide the websites, electronic tools and online information consumers want and need.

Yet, they are also challenged to attract and retain in-market auto shoppers to their online turf, especially during a weak – and therefore highly competitive – economy. This calls for innovation in areas such as campaigns, eye-catching visuals and clever SEO tactics. Following are five of the big marketing trends we’re seeing in the automotive industry and how they’re affecting and changing the online environment overall.

Mobile marketing
Although mobile marketing has been popular for a while, it’s only recently that companies in the automotive space have started to optimize this communication channel.

Take a look at the work of some companies currently employing this technology. Dealership e-newsletter service IMN Loyalty Driver has started including mobile coupons in its publications. When customers receive an e-newsletter that includes a coupon, they enter their cell phone number into the space provided and within seconds the coupon is delivered to their phone as a text message. To redeem the coupon, customers only have to show their phone at the dealership.

Mobile marketing company Gumiyo makes it possible for a dealer to place trackable keywords, VINs or stock numbers next to vehicle advertisements (both print and online) that consumers can text from their cell phones. These buyer-generated text messages receive automatic dealer replies with specific vehicle information, or promotions with links that launch a cell phone’s web browser. Services like this make a dealer’s inventory directly available to cell phones, potentially shortening the sales cycle and increasing the value of offline advertising.

Innovative uses of video
Full-motion vehicle videos are steadily gaining in popularity. We’ve seen many dealerships and portal sites licensing video content because it delivers compelling presentations that keep viewers on sites longer which, in turn, raises conversion rates. In response to the overall success of video-based ads in the automotive market, vendors are starting to experiment with video in unique and innovative ways. The Wall Street Journal online for example, is now using a video component to supplement many of their articles and special features, including those about the automotive industry.

Another great example of this is MyDealerBroadcast. The company is working with dealerships to deliver automated, personalized email messages in response to customer vehicle inquiries. Each message includes an embedded photo along with a link to a vehicle video. Once an email is sent, the dealership sales team receives instant text and email alerts whenever the customer interacts with the message, so they know what leads are hot and when to follow-up. Not only does their product guarantee that a customer vehicle inquiry will be answered promptly, the inclusion of video gives the customer immediate access to the information they want in an eye-catching presentation that grabs attention and better primes them for the sales call.

Web services
The automotive industry is data-heavy: With numerous new vehicles released every year, each with more than 10,000 option and pricing configurations, a dealer or portal trying to get complete vehicle information online and provide configuration and comparison services has a steep development hill to climb. Because of this, web services are rapidly gaining in popularity.

Web services allow companies to focus on core competency – how the application manipulates and enhances data for the best consumer experience – rather than structuring, warehousing and updating the source data. In addition, using web services for VIN decoding, mapping to used vehicle values and configuration and comparison reduces development cost and shortens the development cycle because it obviates custom databases and coding. And unlike framed-in applications, web services allow for the freedom to customize every aspect of a website’s look and feel.

Dealer generated leads
Virtually every dealer has a love-hate relationship with third-party lead generators. On the one hand, they deliver solid sales leads, but on the other, volume does not equal quality, and multiple dealers often receive the same leads.

Some companies in the space are helping dealers to skip the middle man and generate their own leads by creating small landing pages for individual vehicles, or by using SEO to drive consumer traffic to these pages. eBizAutos, a leading innovator of online marketing solutions for dealers, and NowMarketPlace.com, a new company creating dealership websites that combine the power of video and the web, are putting the power of lead generation in the hands of dealers.

OEM-owned vertical ad integration
Vertical ad networks are a big topic right now, and in the automotive space we’re seeing manufacturers using this model to create their own vertical channels. General Motors, for example, recently began offering its dealers a comprehensive digital marketing package for free. Designed to drive more in-market shoppers to GM dealership websites, the program will enable GM to better coordinate its national advertising message with its dealers’ local advertising for consistent messaging that grabs casual shoppers, as well as sophisticated, brand-savvy shoppers.

These five trends attest to the industry’s commitment to attract and retain online vehicle shoppers. The steady sophistication of websites, marketing campaigns and interactive tools is a boon for customers and, therefore, the automotive industry itself.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19405.asp