December 2nd, 2009 -
Contextual Campaigns sound like a no brainer but you could end up screaming at your computer. Contextual Campaigns match keywords in your ad to keywords in articles on the web. When a key trigger word or phrase is identified, your ad pops up in the article being read. On paper this sounds like a wonderful targeted web application. If used properly it is.
For example, let’s say you want to run a credit ad and you select credit as your trigger word. Sounds like a good idea. Someone is in need of credit and they’re reading an article on credit and boom your ad appears.
Your ad states very clearly you can get just about anyone approved. You have credit sources and there’s no challenge too great for you and your dealership.
STOP! Credit is way to broad. Suppose an article was published on a famous murder. One of the arresting officers was quoted as giving CREDIT to a store clerk who chased down the suspect. The use of the word Credit is way too loose.
- The design of a good contextual marketing program is that your ad is placed with a relevant article.
Next time you’re on the web see if the ad that pops up has relevancy to the article you’re reading. If it doesn’t, see if you can figure out the trigger word that was used.
Here’s a good tip to keep this from happening to you and your automotive ad agency. Locate sites you would like your ad to appear on and look for unique words and phrases that are used frequently on these sites. After this process you might choose credit approval, credit restoration or car credit.
If you target Honda you run the risk of being up next to anyone who mentions Honda. Your ad may run on an article about lawn mowers or someone that just happens to mention Honda in their copy. This is not the targeted contextual marketing you signed up for.
Better solution is to mention Honda Accord.
Most people won’t put both words together when casually referring to transportation. Do a little research and your ROI on contextual marketing will be much higher. Yes, we want impressions but the more we can target the better.
Has this happened to you? Let me know your war story.
December 1st, 2009 - First: Dealerships Need to Answer One Question Before They Blog
I believe dealerships need an integrated social media strategy for dealership new business. A dealership blog is the central platform. The places you can drive targeted online traffic is through SEO, Twitter, email newsletters, Facebook and LinkedIn. The blog becomes the “gateway” to your dealership.
To create a dealership blog that will be successful in generating traffic and a consistent flow of leads, you will first need to answer one simple question.
The very first question you must answer before you create your dealership’s blog is, “who is our best target audience?”
Without answering this question you will find it extremely difficult to generate traffic. If your blog has no traffic, no audience, no community … then you will have NO leads.
If you don’t know who your target audience is you will also find it difficult:
- Deciding what to write about
- Where to find resources
- What search terms to use for SEO
- Where to locate your online audience
It is a fruitless exercise without having a target audience identified. I can provide dozens and dozens of examples of blogs that have not identified their target audience. They are like ships without rudders. Aimless. I would list some of these for you but I don’t want to embarrass anyone.
But I will provide some examples of blogs where companies have clearly identified their audience:
Let me know what you think of these.
Autonation (From battery life, tire wear and tear, community involvement and hybrid vehicles. Building relationships with past and present and future clients by sharing vital information.)
Blue Collar Branding (From boots, bowling balls to boats. Manufacturers who need to reach blue collar workers.)
She-conomy (Male advertisers who should be marketing to women.)
Healthy Conversations (Health and healthy lifestyle brands)
Marketing Home Products (Home product manufacturers)
A Brighter Shade of Green Marketing (Companies interested in having an environmental component to their advertising/marketing.)
Tech Marketing Blog (High technology companies)
TV Is Not Dead (Retailers who should be using TV as a major part of their marketing mix.)
Tradesmen Insights (B to B companies who target professional tradesmen.)
We Play in Traffic (Retailers)
Why Moms Rule (Companies who should be targeting moms.)
November 23rd, 2009 - Say you are responsible to drive traffic to your dealership and it is your choice alone. You know customers have more access to you than ever before. So, where do you start. Do you go back to old tried and true methods? But you ask yourself how true are they any longer? Your choices now go on forever: traditional marketing, online & interactive, gaming, mobile, social media, etc.
I would suggest you start with what your customers want? If you start with the online shopper you need to ask what should you do when you connect with them?
Look no further! eMarketer Daily has very helpfully published a piece on Lightspeed Research's “Global Web Index.”
What do customers want from the brands they love? Information mostly (well, after a good discount anyway.) Ultimately, they want value. Most importantly you just need to ask yourself is my message relevant to them? If it is they probably want more of it.
Something to think about as you plan your online strategy.
eMarketer Daily has very helpfully published a piece on Lightspeed Research’s “Global Web Index.”
November 22nd, 2009 -
You need to unlock your competitive advantages in this hyper competitive market place. The trouble is most dealers lock up their true competitive advantage in a difficult market and this is just the opposite of what you should be doing. Here are six keys for you to turn on the engine to more dealership traffic.
KEY ONE: CONQUEST SALES
Don’t stop your conquest marketing efforts. You must still invest in this process. With all the tools you have available there is no excuse to abandon conquest sales. So Today start planning how to capture sales from people who HAVE NOT yet considered shopping your dealership. Effective advertising always targets new customers.
Steal sales from the competition.
KEY TWO: THREE-FOLD DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING
1. Get the message to the masses – Target your audience.
2. Provide a valid opportunity to respond – Target your message.
3. Achieve results & sell product – Make it accountable.
YOUR ADVERTISING SHOULD SELL… NOT JUST TELL.
KEY THREE: PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE ADVERTISING MESSAGES
1. Attention Getter 3. Logical Reason
2. Strong Statement 4. Urgent Call to Action
KEY FOUR: CHARACTERISTICS OF CAMPAIGN EXECUTION
1. Planning 3. Continuity
2. Contrast 4. Believability
Plan your inventory, plan your best days. With good branding you will have continuity in all your customer touches. Be creative and contrast. Nothing expands an advertising budget like good creative. Finally people are more cynical that ever and if your message is not believable your leaving traffic at the door.
KEY FIVE: ELEMENTS OF IMPACT PRODUCTION
1. Intensity 3. Execution
2. Consistency 4. Different
If you really want effective creative make sure it has these elements. I have always found that skimping on production makes no sense. Why put the entire media budget at risk because you want to save a few hundred dollars on production.
KEY SIX: MAXIMIZE THE SALES DRIVERS
1. Desirable Inventory
2. Motivated, Informed and Professional Sales Force
3. Honest, Ethical and Effective Advertising for Results
If you can’t say yes to these three items you might consider holding off on your campaign until you can yes to all three!
November 15th, 2009 - Since advertising is not a science, there is no formula or equation to insure its success. But, you can measure certain elements that will help you determine your advertising’s effectiveness.
Here are the five items you should track.
1. CUSTOMERS
Track how many customers are shopping your dealership, who they are and why they came in today. In addition, track how customers are shopping. i.e. drive-by, internet, radio, TV or billboard.
2. MARKETING COST
Determine your Cost per Unit (CPU) by dividing your total advertising expenditure for the month by the number of units sold.
Total Ad Dollars Spent for Month = CPU Number of Units Sold
3. REVENUE
Determine your Average Gross by dividing your front end and back end grosses by the number of units sold.
(Front End Gross + Back End Gross) = Average Gross Number of Units Sold
4. TRANSITION
Determine your Demo Index by dividing your total number of customers by the number of demos.
Total Number of Customers = Demo Index
Number of Demos
(1 is perfect. The higher the number, the worse the performance.)
5. SALES
Determine your Sales Index by dividing total number of write-ups by the number of deliveries.
Total Number of Write-ups = Demo Index
Deliveries
(1 is perfect. The higher the number, the worse the performance.)
With these five measurements you can effectively evaluate the performance of your sales drivers and make any necessary adjustments.
November 8th, 2009 - Birds of a feather flock together for many reasons. People buy Hondas for many reasons. The main overwhelming reason is they have the same lifestyle. Lifestyle marketing is the most under used tool dealerships have available to them. Why do you ask?
It’s simple, no one has taken the time to explain to you how today’s technology, the access to data and reduction of costs can provide you the opportunity to implement these tools.
Back in the good ole days you had only 6 broadcast television stations you could saturate the market with. You had to buy enough spots that would hit your prospects cost effectively.
Today we are attempting the same saturation but with hundreds of more choices. Yet the media continues to present media analysis from the same boring demographic position . You know what I mean, one size fits all. Your demographic of women 25-54 will match about every product being sold today. The next variable put into media selection always lands on opinion or in some cases experience.
This is usually a disaster waiting to happen and I know you have fallen into this trap!
Why has the media not taken lifestyle marketing to heart?
Well the short answer is they haven’t had to. You haven’t required them to act any different. The one size fits all demographic presentation works for any type of business so it doesn’t require any one to one data.
Lifestyle marketing begins and ends with the people who have bought from you. They are giving you some incredible data to work with. You have in your data base the perfect picture of the people most likely to do business with you.
Their profile can be matched household by household to provide you with an audience of clones. If you want to drive more dealership traffic then simply invite people more likely to do business with you.
The ROI for demographic buying is just not there.
Given a choice to drive more dealership traffic without spending more money is a no brainer. Lifestyle media buying can be implemented quickly. Why wait? Your burning dollars if you don’t!
October 24th, 2009 - The basics to driving traffic to a dealership have never really changed. The tools may be more dynamic or more complicated but understanding the basics will make your job easier.
DO YOU HAVE DESIRABLE INVENTORY?
It may sound simple but you must stock your best-selling units in the best-selling colors. You’re going to get a lot of pressure from the manufacturers to carry other models, but don’t focus as much effort on them. The simple fact is desirable inventory in a mixture of popular colors will always create and drive traffic to your dealership. I am seeing this in used car inventory more than ever. Look for opportunities like Sure Post that provide valuable analytics to the used cars people are shopping for on line.
DO YOU HAVE A MOTIVATED AND INFORMED SALES FORCE?
Your sales force is the link between your customer and the dealership. Be sure you keep them informed.
1. Inform them about every ad campaign and get them motivated.
2. Develop a prospecting program that gives them a purpose and incentive. There are some neat programs out there like Dealership Advantage that give sales people some great prospecting tools.
3. Train them on how to use your ad campaign as a closing tool. If there is logic in your campaign and a real reason to buy, your staff should know it.
DO YOU HAVE A SOLID RETAIL MESSAGE?
Focus your advertising on getting Conquest Sales.
1. Communicate one clear message.
2. Relate the value to the targeted buyer.
3. Create urgency, not distress.
4. Ask for the order
BE SURE TO ASK YOURSELF BEFORE EVERY CAMPAIGN- DO I HAVE THE INVENTORY, DO I HAVE MY STAFF READY AND IS MY MESSAGE BUILT TO DRIVE TRAFFIC.
October 16th, 2009 -
ULTIMATELY YOUR MARKETING PLAN HAS TO BE JUDGED!
Did it generate immediate, accountable, and profitable sales? The success of your ongoing advertising will only be as good as the fundamental base of your marketing plan. I have always thought a river without boundaries is just a swamp. There’s just no way to find your way without some boundaries.
The following six-step marketing plan I have found provides an advertising strategies for the year.
Each advertising campaign should build upon the success of the preceding campaigns. By following each of the six steps in order and without compromise, you should expect more sales and profits for an improved bottom line in the year ahead.
STEP 1: DEFINE AND TARGET YOUR BEST POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS
Who are your best potential customers and what are their motivations to buy? What is the best way to reach them? Your best advertising money should be spent on getting new customers into your dealership. Social media will soon take care of your repeat customers by building a lasting relationship with them.
STEP 2: CONTROL THE THREE ELEMENTS THAT DRIVE SALES
Lay the foundation to control your sales, products and campaign strategy. All three of these elements must be present to have the most effective marketing.
STEP 3: ADVERTISE WITH A PURPOSE
Develop your campaigns to sell specific products to specific customers and relate the compelling reason why they should buy from your dealership. In your advertising, don’t try to be all things to all people.
STEP 4: ADVERTISING FOR RESULTS
Combine these four ingredients for maximum advertising dollar effectiveness:
1. Campaign strategy 3. High-impact production
2. Dynamic message 4. Strategic media placement
STEP 5: EFFECTIVE MEDIA MARKETING
Use your media placement as a marketing tool. Be sure to make adjustments to your strategy based on seasonality and product focus. Use lifestyle buying whenever possible. Your marketing dollars will be more effective.
STEP 6: MEASURE AND EVALUATE
Track your results and use them as a base to structure your future campaigns upon. Keep the winners and learn from the losers. Use all tracking tools you have. Don’t cut corners here. Data is the key to continued success.
These six steps are explained in greater detail in separate blogs. The pro-active effort invested in these six steps will substantially improve the effectiveness of your Conquest strategy.
September 27th, 2009 -
 Da Vinci was a Change Agent, Are You?
“If all you’ve got is a spreadsheet filled with red ink and dire forecasts, it’s easy to be paralyzed by fear and resistant to change. But if you can summon some leadership nerve, then hard times can be a great time to separate yourself from the pack and build advantages for years to come.” Bill Taylor, best selling author Mavericks at Work.
Harvard Business Publishing, is part of my daily reading. An article I read this morning by author, Bill Taylor, “The 10 Questions Every Change Agent Must Answer” was adapted for this post. I thought these questions were very applicable for dealerships in this rapidly changing and challenging new business environment.
Bill writes, “When it comes to creating the future, the only thing more worrisome than the prospect of too much change may betoo little change — especially in an economy where there are too many competitors chasing too few customers with products and services that look too much alike. Now is the time to rethink long-held strategic assumptions inside your company (dealership), to challenge decades of conventional wisdom in your industry, and to push yourself to learn, grow, and innovate.“
Here are four questions to help your dealership face the challenge of change:
1. Do you see opportunities other dealers don’t do drive dealership traffic?
Change breeds opportunity. Be the first to find new opportunities. Don’t play by the rules, unlevel the playing field and redefine the rules of the competition. Don’t wait for other dealers to lead the way, be innovative. French novelist Marcel Proust said, “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.”
2. Can your customers live without you?
Your Customers’ options are rapidly evolving. Dealerships can no longer pretend to be all things to everyone. The use of terms like we care, lowest prices, great service, customer comes first doesn’t mean anything anymore to prospective customers. You must specialize and create a strong appeal to a particular target audience. If you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one. Dealers and manufacturers used to be comfortable in the middle of the road. Today, the middle of the road is the road to ruin.
3. Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?
You need to be a leader. Currently dealers are behind the curve. To survive change you must get ahead and stay head of the curve. In a world that never stops changing, great leaders can never stop learning. How do you push yourself as an individual to keep growing and evolving — so that your agency can do the same?
4. Are you consistent in your commitment to change?
The problem with many dealerships is that all they do is change. They go from one consultant to another, from the most recent fad to the newest. If you want to make deep-seated change, then your priorities and practices have to stay consistent in good times and bad.
“If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you ever got.” If your lucky!
Read Bill Taylors entire article: The 10 Questions Every Change Agent Must Answer
September 18th, 2009 - Cable Television has been a mystery for most auto dealers. They really believe it should drive dealership traffic but most never see positive results and conclude that the audience dynamics of cable are not condusive to a short term strategy.
This is where perception and reality don’t match up. It’s not that the cable audience is elusive, it’s that most dealer’s cable buys are 75% off target. How can this be? It’s simple, the networks being chosen and bought are for the wrong reasons. So the perception is cable doesn’t work but the reality is the tool is being used improperly.
The spreadsheet above shows a typical buy based on traditional influences and one based entirely on lifestyle media. You can quickly see that Advantage Media (lifestyle buying) is the way to go when wanting to drive traffic to your dealership. If you continue to use a screw driver to hammer a nail you’re going to get frustrated. Cable is a great media if you can put your message in front of your buyers with frequency.
Your customers have a unique lifestyle pattern. Demographics simply don’t allow you to target your customers and people who look like them. Lifestyle buying is based on the simple truth that birds of a feather flock together. Talk to your birds with frequency and the hunt will be much more rewarding.
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Ron, Wheeler, Founder/CEO, Wheeler Advertising, Tel-Edge, and the Wright Edge Advertising.
The Integration of today's marketing channels is the single most important task you have as a retail marketer. This blog is designed to assist you in discovering ways to integrate traditional, digital and social media into a dynamic free flowing marketing program. Up Your Ups is "An Integration Think Tank" and we look forward to your interaction with us.
If you have questions or if you have suggestions on how I can improve this site, please don't hesitate to email them to me at rwheeler@wheeleradvertising.com
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