In my last blog, we discussed how “Tracking Your Targeted Direct Mail Campaigns Can Reap Returns”.  We emphasized that putting together a solid strategy and creating a theme for those particular pieces can grab your customer’s attention and drive them to your automotive dealership.

Over the last few months, we have also discussed the important facts concerning the following: “How many times does your door swing and your cash register ring?”

Let’s discuss a big facet of making your door swing and how you can grab your customer’s attention and to want to visit your dealership: “What would quickly create a ‘Call to Action’ today?”

Themes are an excellent avenue for car dealership marketing

Each season of the year generally has an artistic theme or concept that is used for that particular season in direct marketing campaigns.  In most cases, you can usually break down themes based upon either the month or the current quarter of the year.  In doing so, there’s usually a theme that typically pops into mind and – geographically speaking – these themes can often be different.

Themes also change for more reasons than just climate-related: there are certain areas of the country that have particular traditions in place that revolve around certain seasons.  These traditions can range from education, recreation, cultural and other activities that can create intrigue for your target audience.  By formulating these strategies, one must consider what your customers think of for that particular season.  But have you thought about doing something completely the opposite or different than what you’re doing?  Sometimes the obvious is too obvious while the different creates intrigue.

The following are questions you can ask when brainstorming for a themed products direct automotive marketing initiative:

• Is there something going on locally of interest that would bring your customers to the dealership?
• Can you tie your identified themes to that interest or occasion?
• Does your theme make your consumer want to visit your dealership to observe what is going on?
• What is the state of your market currently and can you get involved with your community? If you get involved and invite them to an event at the dealership, why would they want to visit?

Identifiable Valuable Seasonal Product & Services

Seasonal products are the nuts and bolts of targeted direct mail initiatives (TDM).  In putting together these campaigns, you must consciously think of a reason why your consumers would want to visit your dealership when they’re in the market for a vehicle.

Not only that, you have to map out how quickly – and for how long – you want to make your theme-centric plan last.  You will have to become creative with your themed offerings and how often you want to roll them out (daily, weekly or even monthly).  But most of all: make your event fun!  Furthermore, what incentives can you offer to get your customers to trigger an identified value to your campaign that gets them to think “I need this!” or “I want this!”

Additionally, you need to ask yourself if there are services that most vehicles need during a particular season.  For example, the fourth quarter of each year is generally reserved for winter-related automotive marketing programs like “Winterization”, “Car Care” or “Year End Closeout”.  With events like “Year End Closeouts”, you need to be able to relate to your targets why they need to buy now and would  any financial “pain” be incurred for making a purchase now.

Overall, the key to your themed automotive marketing order of business is how it will create a “Call to Action”, who is your strategy directed towards and what will drive them to your dealership.  So create a theme and ask your customers to visit, citing the fact they do not want to miss it in order to drive them into your car dealerships doors.

Next month, we will discuss how do you determine your “Hook” and the “Pain” for your TDM efforts.

Happy planning...

~ Paul Ryan, Field Account Manager @ DMEautomotive

Bio: Paul Ryan brings over 25 years of experience in sales, sales management, marketing, and client services. He joined DMEautomotive in February of 2008, as a Regional Territory Manager. With proven success as an inside sales representative selling the FullCircle Solutions’ Bullseye program, he was recognized frequently as Sales Person of the Month and received the highest honor of Sales Person of the Year for 2008. In August of 2009, Paul managed, “Direct-To-Dealer” – Mail Division, responsible for overseeing the sales for the “Direct-To-Dealer” Mail Division. Currently he is traveling in the Midwest as Field Account Manager. Paul graduated with a B.B.A, in Business Administration from Iowa State University in 1982.

In my last blog, we discussed how “Tracking Your Targeted Direct Mail Campaigns Can Reap Returns”.  We emphasized that putting together a solid strategy and creating a theme for those particular pieces can grab your customer’s attention and drive them to your automotive dealership.

Over the last few months, we have also discussed the important facts concerning the following: “How many times does your door swing and your cash register ring?”

Let’s discuss a big facet of making your door swing and how you can grab your customer’s attention and to want to visit your dealership: “What would quickly create a ‘Call to Action’ today?”

Themes are an excellent avenue for car dealership marketing

Each season of the year generally has an artistic theme or concept that is used for that particular season in direct marketing campaigns.  In most cases, you can usually break down themes based upon either the month or the current quarter of the year.  In doing so, there’s usually a theme that typically pops into mind and – geographically speaking – these themes can often be different.

Themes also change for more reasons than just climate-related: there are certain areas of the country that have particular traditions in place that revolve around certain seasons.  These traditions can range from education, recreation, cultural and other activities that can create intrigue for your target audience.  By formulating these strategies, one must consider what your customers think of for that particular season.  But have you thought about doing something completely the opposite or different than what you’re doing?  Sometimes the obvious is too obvious while the different creates intrigue.

The following are questions you can ask when brainstorming for a themed products direct automotive marketing initiative:

• Is there something going on locally of interest that would bring your customers to the dealership?
• Can you tie your identified themes to that interest or occasion?
• Does your theme make your consumer want to visit your dealership to observe what is going on?
• What is the state of your market currently and can you get involved with your community? If you get involved and invite them to an event at the dealership, why would they want to visit?

Identifiable Valuable Seasonal Product & Services

Seasonal products are the nuts and bolts of targeted direct mail initiatives (TDM).  In putting together these campaigns, you must consciously think of a reason why your consumers would want to visit your dealership when they’re in the market for a vehicle.

Not only that, you have to map out how quickly – and for how long – you want to make your theme-centric plan last.  You will have to become creative with your themed offerings and how often you want to roll them out (daily, weekly or even monthly).  But most of all: make your event fun!  Furthermore, what incentives can you offer to get your customers to trigger an identified value to your campaign that gets them to think “I need this!” or “I want this!”

Additionally, you need to ask yourself if there are services that most vehicles need during a particular season.  For example, the fourth quarter of each year is generally reserved for winter-related automotive marketing programs like “Winterization”, “Car Care” or “Year End Closeout”.  With events like “Year End Closeouts”, you need to be able to relate to your targets why they need to buy now and would  any financial “pain” be incurred for making a purchase now.

Overall, the key to your themed automotive marketing order of business is how it will create a “Call to Action”, who is your strategy directed towards and what will drive them to your dealership.  So create a theme and ask your customers to visit, citing the fact they do not want to miss it in order to drive them into your car dealerships doors.

Next month, we will discuss how do you determine your “Hook” and the “Pain” for your TDM efforts.

Happy planning...

~ Paul Ryan, Field Account Manager @ DMEautomotive

Bio: Paul Ryan brings over 25 years of experience in sales, sales management, marketing, and client services. He joined DMEautomotive in February of 2008, as a Regional Territory Manager. With proven success as an inside sales representative selling the FullCircle Solutions’ Bullseye program, he was recognized frequently as Sales Person of the Month and received the highest honor of Sales Person of the Year for 2008. In August of 2009, Paul managed, “Direct-To-Dealer” – Mail Division, responsible for overseeing the sales for the “Direct-To-Dealer” Mail Division. Currently he is traveling in the Midwest as Field Account Manager. Paul graduated with a B.B.A, in Business Administration from Iowa State University in 1982.

Dealerships have begun incorporating current trends such as social media and digital marketing in their traditional marketing plans.   By doing so, car dealerships are on the road to building bigger -- more robust -- marketing plans to drive retention.

As time goes on, strategies will change again – or get tweaked – to capitalize on the ever-changing trends in marketing circles.  Currently, the following three trends are starting to make themselves more relevant in automotive direct marketing campaigns.

It’s all about the digital content.  While the website is the face of your organization or dealership, what fills the “walls” of that site – and related content to the site via varying social media vehicles like Facebook and Twitter – is vitally important.  With access to the Internet at an all-time high, thanks to such product innovations as Apple’s iPad® or smart phones/iPhones®, the desire for those seeking information has concurrently increased.  Interesting and engaging content helps build trust with your site visitors and makes your dealership’s site become a destination for news and information.

Cutting coupons is hip.  Today’s economic climate has definitely had a profound impact on the spending habits of consumers.  With that mindset in place, it has made more people trend to discounts/couponing in non-traditional couponing verticals.  Integrating coupons and incentives into automotive service marketing programs not only offer discounts to your customers, but it also allows for a nice way to drive traffic into your service centers.

Location based marketing.  As DMEautomotive expert Steve Dozier touched upon in his recent blog highlighting automotive customer retention, the uniqueness of your product or service should be more directed towards a franchise and its location.  Regions of the country are being affected differently by the recent economic decline. By integrating campaign data results as part of your automotive marketing campaigns, it’ll serve as an important starting point in planning successful future initiatives

As you pause and take a look at the effectiveness of your automotive direct marketing initiatives, keep the three marketing trends mentioned above as a starting point in your evaluation efforts.  Implementing just one of these can help give your automotive direct mail campaigns a kick-start that it may need.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

Dealerships have begun incorporating current trends such as social media and digital marketing in their traditional marketing plans.   By doing so, car dealerships are on the road to building bigger -- more robust -- marketing plans to drive retention.

As time goes on, strategies will change again – or get tweaked – to capitalize on the ever-changing trends in marketing circles.  Currently, the following three trends are starting to make themselves more relevant in automotive direct marketing campaigns.

It’s all about the digital content.  While the website is the face of your organization or dealership, what fills the “walls” of that site – and related content to the site via varying social media vehicles like Facebook and Twitter – is vitally important.  With access to the Internet at an all-time high, thanks to such product innovations as Apple’s iPad® or smart phones/iPhones®, the desire for those seeking information has concurrently increased.  Interesting and engaging content helps build trust with your site visitors and makes your dealership’s site become a destination for news and information.

Cutting coupons is hip.  Today’s economic climate has definitely had a profound impact on the spending habits of consumers.  With that mindset in place, it has made more people trend to discounts/couponing in non-traditional couponing verticals.  Integrating coupons and incentives into automotive service marketing programs not only offer discounts to your customers, but it also allows for a nice way to drive traffic into your service centers.

Location based marketing.  As DMEautomotive expert Steve Dozier touched upon in his recent blog highlighting automotive customer retention, the uniqueness of your product or service should be more directed towards a franchise and its location.  Regions of the country are being affected differently by the recent economic decline. By integrating campaign data results as part of your automotive marketing campaigns, it’ll serve as an important starting point in planning successful future initiatives

As you pause and take a look at the effectiveness of your automotive direct marketing initiatives, keep the three marketing trends mentioned above as a starting point in your evaluation efforts.  Implementing just one of these can help give your automotive direct mail campaigns a kick-start that it may need.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

Despite the vicious and rampant rumors on the Internet about its demise, email marketing is alive and well. In its early days, marketers sent out an excessive amount of blast emails to the masses with one generic message. Today, an effective email marketing campaign can be recognized by personalized and relevant content that is directed at a segmented group of consumers.

Not only is email marketing a low-cost, effective way of reaching customers, it also allows your dealership to tailor information to specific markets. Rather than spending time designing, printing, and mailing promotional pieces, you have the ability to rapidly contact consumers who can benefit from your message – eliminating wasted marketing dollars.

Email marketing continues to be one of the most powerful marketing tools available in today’s marketplace, especially when used correctly. According to a recent study by Direct Marketing Association, email marketing has the best return on investment (ROI) in comparison to other marketing vehicles, with a return of $44 for every dollar spent. Though the use of email marketing alone can yield positive results for your dealership, it becomes even more powerful when used in collaboration with other marketing channels such as direct mail and telephone calls.

Inside this white paper you’ll learn:
• Why email marketing is still a viable tool for the automotive industry
• How data segmentation improves your message
• How to integrate social media into email marketing
• Best practices about email marketing every dealer should know

For additional information related to our latest whitepaper, please visit our website.

Despite the vicious and rampant rumors on the Internet about its demise, email marketing is alive and well. In its early days, marketers sent out an excessive amount of blast emails to the masses with one generic message. Today, an effective email marketing campaign can be recognized by personalized and relevant content that is directed at a segmented group of consumers.

Not only is email marketing a low-cost, effective way of reaching customers, it also allows your dealership to tailor information to specific markets. Rather than spending time designing, printing, and mailing promotional pieces, you have the ability to rapidly contact consumers who can benefit from your message – eliminating wasted marketing dollars.

Email marketing continues to be one of the most powerful marketing tools available in today’s marketplace, especially when used correctly. According to a recent study by Direct Marketing Association, email marketing has the best return on investment (ROI) in comparison to other marketing vehicles, with a return of $44 for every dollar spent. Though the use of email marketing alone can yield positive results for your dealership, it becomes even more powerful when used in collaboration with other marketing channels such as direct mail and telephone calls.

Inside this white paper you’ll learn:
• Why email marketing is still a viable tool for the automotive industry
• How data segmentation improves your message
• How to integrate social media into email marketing
• Best practices about email marketing every dealer should know

For additional information related to our latest whitepaper, please visit our website.

The ever-changing online environment requires direct marketers to deal with many different obstacles in trying to keep entrenched and viable in the marketing realm.  The Internet continues to play a huge role in handling customer feedback as it relates to direct marketing efforts in any industry, especially the automotive business.

When engaging in reputation management activities online, there are typically two types of disciplines that lead the pack: reactive and proactive.  Each field can set the pace to your automotive marketing endeavors and can have a strong influence on others.  Both types should also drive search engine optimization (SEO) rankings and provide a positive spin to your reputation management initiatives

In the automotive sales and marketing arenas, it’s common practice to essentially do little to nothing in reacting to a social media-based push.  Why is it easy to choose the reactive marketing path? Dealerships are understandably timid due to potentially upsetting the applecart and straying from message, i.e. “don’t bite the hand that feeds” theory.  However, it’s detrimental in that the lack of reaction fails to influence their social media friends or followers.

Proactive marketing, on the other hand, acts like an independent steward in your direct marketing planning – it’s a guide that sets the course of your intentions.   As a rule, proactive marketing provides direct marketing personnel an active role in continuing to inform customers on products and services.  The one advantage it does have over its marketing cousin is proactive marketers tend to spend wisely and have control over their message.

Proactively creating ongoing lines of communication with your customers has been known to drive positive results to your dealership’s bottom line.  In fact, establishing a proactive automotive marketing campaign can help exploit changing consumer behavior and in turn, sell more vehicles off your showroom floor.

In the reputation management game, it’s vital to be able to strike a delicate balance between both reactive and proactive automotive marketing.  While doing so, be sure to commence each initiative with the proper research and listening programs to ensure that your campaigns are following a consistent message throughout.

So be proactive: Listen to what your customers are saying online and react via your direct marketing campaigns appropriately!

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

The ever-changing online environment requires direct marketers to deal with many different obstacles in trying to keep entrenched and viable in the marketing realm.  The Internet continues to play a huge role in handling customer feedback as it relates to direct marketing efforts in any industry, especially the automotive business.

When engaging in reputation management activities online, there are typically two types of disciplines that lead the pack: reactive and proactive.  Each field can set the pace to your automotive marketing endeavors and can have a strong influence on others.  Both types should also drive search engine optimization (SEO) rankings and provide a positive spin to your reputation management initiatives

In the automotive sales and marketing arenas, it’s common practice to essentially do little to nothing in reacting to a social media-based push.  Why is it easy to choose the reactive marketing path? Dealerships are understandably timid due to potentially upsetting the applecart and straying from message, i.e. “don’t bite the hand that feeds” theory.  However, it’s detrimental in that the lack of reaction fails to influence their social media friends or followers.

Proactive marketing, on the other hand, acts like an independent steward in your direct marketing planning – it’s a guide that sets the course of your intentions.   As a rule, proactive marketing provides direct marketing personnel an active role in continuing to inform customers on products and services.  The one advantage it does have over its marketing cousin is proactive marketers tend to spend wisely and have control over their message.

Proactively creating ongoing lines of communication with your customers has been known to drive positive results to your dealership’s bottom line.  In fact, establishing a proactive automotive marketing campaign can help exploit changing consumer behavior and in turn, sell more vehicles off your showroom floor.

In the reputation management game, it’s vital to be able to strike a delicate balance between both reactive and proactive automotive marketing.  While doing so, be sure to commence each initiative with the proper research and listening programs to ensure that your campaigns are following a consistent message throughout.

So be proactive: Listen to what your customers are saying online and react via your direct marketing campaigns appropriately!

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

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