Pub. 1 Issue 4

23 WINTER 2014 service drive or showroom with customers. They just do not have the horsepower to do so. The automotive industry is fortunate in the fact that most consumers own vehicles, need them repaired on occasion and will eventually purchase new ones. The trick is locating the maximum amount of “quali- fied” customers in your PMA and reliably placing your mes- sage directly into their hands without your customer doing a darn thing – except maybe opening their mail box and reaching for the mail. Yes direct mail is the red-headed stepchild of advertising, but it’s probably the best suited and most powerful of the ad- vertising tools available for automotive marketing. The fact that we know where a potential customer lives, what kind of vehicle they own, how old it is and whether they purchased it and have it serviced at your facility is some pretty useful information. The ability to reliably place in the hands of a potential customer, in a noninvasive manner, advertising that shows your facility, introduces your staff, provides competi- tive pricing, displays your location and hours and allows for ample branding opportunities is an extremely powerful tool. Unlike any of the other media, including radio, TV and news- print, a direct mail promotion reaches its targeted customer household at least 96% of the time. In comparison with email penetration, the customer email acquisition rates for automotive dealers is 60% at best and combine that with an average open rate of 18%, you have only 11% of your customer base actually receiving your promotional message. To make matters worse because of anti-spam laws, email offers no op- portunity for conquest marketing. Just how effective is direct mail marketing for the automotive industry? For service related marketing, the approximate monthly response rates taken from 27 dealerships over a two year period was at 16.5% for Active Customers (1-12 Months) and 2.5% for Conquest Marketing (+24 Months and Never). The reporting also revealed those Active Customers receiving a promotional mailer responded at a 2% higher rate on average monthly and spent anywhere from $10 to $20 more per ticket. Direct mail marketing is just as effective when called upon to create new vehicle sales and showroom traffic. Information is now widely available that details a customer’s residence, VIN, current vehicle value, income, lease expiration date, credit assessment, current vehicle loan interest rate plus a whole slew of other demographic tidbits. Data taken from an average of 10 sales promotions a week for the past 3 months showed an approximate 15 sourced vehicle sales per 10,000 piece promotion. A reliable weekend event with 15 vehicle sales for just a $6,000 investment; is it worth it? Many General Sales Managers are beginning to decide that it is just that. So how should a dealership’s marketing budget be allocated? The importance of a dealership’s branding dictates that a siz- able amount of the marketing budget should be dispensed to TV and radio advertisements and since 80% of auto purchas- ers’ start their search online, the maintenance and staffing to support a dealership’s website should also be fully supported. Now it is time to fill the service drive and showroom with customer traffic and the only proven way to reliably engage every active, inactive and potential conquest patron in your PMA is by utilizing direct mail. If used to its fullest potential, direct mail will provide continuous branding of your dealer- ship to those customers in your community that will most likely require your services. Direct mail is targeted, timely, personalized, an inexpensive way to share your dealership’s message, and one of the few media that shows immediate re- sults. If direct mail is not in your dealership’s monthly mar- keting budget mix then countless customers and the resulting revenue will continue to be left unclaimed.  Dale Becker is President of Westates Automotive Promotions located in Buena Park, CA ( www.westates.net) and has been instrumental in providing marketing nationally for Automotive Dealers since 1970.