Hosting an event at your dealership can be costly and if not done properly, you can spend a lot of money without a lot of return. To get the most bang for your buck, you’ll need to harvest your database to ensure you communicate to the right customers to drive them into your dealership for your event. Here’s how you can increase foot traffic and make the most out of a fall event.

What Type of Event?
First things first, you will have to determine what type of event you’ll host. Will you host an end-of-summer BBQ to thank customers for their loyal patronage or will you host a model year close out event to move 2015s off your lot to make room for the 2016s? The possibilities are endless and are only limited by your imagination. Be sure your event fits your dealership needs and budget.

Which Customers Will You Invite?
Once you’ve determined your event type, you need to decide on the target audience to invite. Be sure to segment your database so that you invite the right people. For example, if you plan to host an end-of-summer BBQ, you’ll want to only invite your most loyal customers. You don’t want people coming to mooch off the free food; you want to demonstrate your thanks to your most loyal customers. If you plan to host a model year close out event, be sure to exclude anyone who has recently purchased a vehicle from you. Instead, target customers who are in a favorable equity position, have owned their vehicle for three or more years, or are driving a 2012 and older vehicle. By segmenting your database, you reach the customers who will be most impacted by your event.

Will You Entice Visitors?
The last thing you want to think about is the offers you’ll include in your marketing piece. To make a big impact, be creative with your offers. You could offer recipients something if they come to your event, create a unique offer that highlighting the details of your event, or simply offer savings on services or products at your dealership. When coming up with your enticing offers, remember to think outside the box.

Now is the perfect time to host an event at your dealership. Be sure to harvest your database and entice visitors to drive them to your store.

Hosting an event at your dealership can be costly and if not done properly, you can spend a lot of money without a lot of return. To get the most bang for your buck, you’ll need to harvest your database to ensure you communicate to the right customers to drive them into your dealership for your event. Here’s how you can increase foot traffic and make the most out of a fall event.

What Type of Event?
First things first, you will have to determine what type of event you’ll host. Will you host an end-of-summer BBQ to thank customers for their loyal patronage or will you host a model year close out event to move 2015s off your lot to make room for the 2016s? The possibilities are endless and are only limited by your imagination. Be sure your event fits your dealership needs and budget.

Which Customers Will You Invite?
Once you’ve determined your event type, you need to decide on the target audience to invite. Be sure to segment your database so that you invite the right people. For example, if you plan to host an end-of-summer BBQ, you’ll want to only invite your most loyal customers. You don’t want people coming to mooch off the free food; you want to demonstrate your thanks to your most loyal customers. If you plan to host a model year close out event, be sure to exclude anyone who has recently purchased a vehicle from you. Instead, target customers who are in a favorable equity position, have owned their vehicle for three or more years, or are driving a 2012 and older vehicle. By segmenting your database, you reach the customers who will be most impacted by your event.

Will You Entice Visitors?
The last thing you want to think about is the offers you’ll include in your marketing piece. To make a big impact, be creative with your offers. You could offer recipients something if they come to your event, create a unique offer that highlighting the details of your event, or simply offer savings on services or products at your dealership. When coming up with your enticing offers, remember to think outside the box.

Now is the perfect time to host an event at your dealership. Be sure to harvest your database and entice visitors to drive them to your store.

Every OEM sets key performance indicators for their dealer franchise owners. Most OEMs look at the same type of metrics, but often have slightly different measurements to determine the success of their dealers. One metric almost every OEM is looking to capitalize on is recapturing lost customers. Harvest your database to find your greatest potential with lost souls and use creative marketing and incentives to drive them back to your dealership.

Segment Your Database
When looking at your database, you have four types of service customers:

1. Your most loyal customers – they spend a lot and visit a lot.
2. New vehicle owners – they visit often, but don’t spend a lot.
3. Big ticket customers – they only visit for major services but go elsewhere for minor services.
4. Bargain hunters – they shop around for the best deal and go there.

By understanding your customers’ shopping patterns, you can ensure you target the right segment to maximize results and save money by not marketing to lost opportunities.

Determine Lost Soul Time Frame
Since this post is specifically about targeting lost souls, you’ll need to understand what it means for the specific vehicle makes that you service at your dealership. Some manufacturers consider no service in five months a lost soul, but others define it as a year with no service. In today’s market, the lost soul time frame really depends on your manufacturer’s maintenance schedule. Once you’ve determined your lost soul time frame, be sure to scrub out all active customers.

Target with Creative Marketing & Incentives
Once you’ve reviewed your customers’ shopping behavior and scrubbed out any customers who do not fit into your lost soul time frame, it is time to put together your marketing and incentives. Remember all the tips and tricks we’ve talked about in previous blog posts. You’ll want to use an eye-catching, multi-channel approach to maximize the effectiveness and reach of your campaign. Make sure you include service offers that are enticing and relevant to grab your customers’ attention and drive them back to your Service Department.

By understanding your customers’ shopping behavior, removing active customers, and leveraging creative marketing and incentives, you can bring lost souls back to your service drive.

Every OEM sets key performance indicators for their dealer franchise owners. Most OEMs look at the same type of metrics, but often have slightly different measurements to determine the success of their dealers. One metric almost every OEM is looking to capitalize on is recapturing lost customers. Harvest your database to find your greatest potential with lost souls and use creative marketing and incentives to drive them back to your dealership.

Segment Your Database
When looking at your database, you have four types of service customers:

1. Your most loyal customers – they spend a lot and visit a lot.
2. New vehicle owners – they visit often, but don’t spend a lot.
3. Big ticket customers – they only visit for major services but go elsewhere for minor services.
4. Bargain hunters – they shop around for the best deal and go there.

By understanding your customers’ shopping patterns, you can ensure you target the right segment to maximize results and save money by not marketing to lost opportunities.

Determine Lost Soul Time Frame
Since this post is specifically about targeting lost souls, you’ll need to understand what it means for the specific vehicle makes that you service at your dealership. Some manufacturers consider no service in five months a lost soul, but others define it as a year with no service. In today’s market, the lost soul time frame really depends on your manufacturer’s maintenance schedule. Once you’ve determined your lost soul time frame, be sure to scrub out all active customers.

Target with Creative Marketing & Incentives
Once you’ve reviewed your customers’ shopping behavior and scrubbed out any customers who do not fit into your lost soul time frame, it is time to put together your marketing and incentives. Remember all the tips and tricks we’ve talked about in previous blog posts. You’ll want to use an eye-catching, multi-channel approach to maximize the effectiveness and reach of your campaign. Make sure you include service offers that are enticing and relevant to grab your customers’ attention and drive them back to your Service Department.

By understanding your customers’ shopping behavior, removing active customers, and leveraging creative marketing and incentives, you can bring lost souls back to your service drive.

Every year, dealers across the country try to keep pace with the current marketing trends for the fear of falling behind and losing out to the competition. Not only do you need an excellent retention marketing strategy to ensure customers come back to you, but your dealership also has to find a way to attract potential buyers. Not to mention there are thousands of to-do items that you have to check off every day to keep your store running properly. With so much going on, how do you find time to put together a conquest strategy that works without breaking the bank? Today you’ll learn how to keep your summer momentum going by energizing your conquest strategy.

Start with Data
Every good marketing strategy starts with data. Often times for conquest programs, this data comes in the form of a purchased list simply because it is not readily available at our fingertips. When venturing out to acquire a purchased list, be sure the consumers have opted-in to receive information about vehicles and are currently in market. Without these two elements identified in the consumer profile of your purchased list, you may end up wasting money. Once you’ve acquired your conquest list, scrub out any customers who have had recent sales and service transactions at your dealership. Ensuring you have a clean list of ready-to-buy prospects who are not in your current database will result in a higher return for your conquest marketing efforts.

Determine Delivery
The number one reason most companies do not execute conquest marketing is the cost. Acquiring a list and then paying for the delivery of their message can be a huge expense, not to mention the rate of return on conquest marketing is low compared to customer retention marketing. For this reason, you’ll want to select a method of delivery that is low cost. Most companies choose direct mail as their method of delivery, and although it is a great option and will be seen by every recipient, it can be pretty costly. Another option is to go with is email. Although it’s very cost effective, your message may not be seen by every recipient. Either option is a great choice and you really can’t go wrong, so it will depend on your specific budget and needs which choice is best.

Leverage Multiple Channels
If every single one of your customers was standing on your lot, chances are you wouldn’t want to deliver the same message to each individual the same way. This is also true when putting together a conquest strategy. Not every person on your purchased list is the same, has the same needs, or wants to consume their content in the same manner. That’s why it’s important to leverage a multi-channel approach. With so many choices of media, you’ll want to make sure your delivery methods are complementary and the imagery and messaging you use are similar. When done properly, a multi-channel marketing attack is more effective than a single channel delivery. It provides your dealership better brand awareness, multiple touch points for consumers, and increases the reach of your campaign.

Retarget, Retarget, Retarget
If you have the opportunity to utilize your purchased list for retargeting purposes on social media, you should absolutely do so. Nowadays everyone is taking part in the social media phenomenon and like any good marketer, you have to be where your customers are. Think about taking your conquest strategy one step further and advertising on popular social media networks. A lot of these networks have an advertising platform with the ability to retarget data sets. Others allow you to use consumer demographics to target your ads. Regardless you should use complementary creative and social media advertisements to extend the reach of your conquest strategy.

Promote Online Brand
Even if you have the best data, deliver a stellar multi-channel piece, and retarget specific owners through social media, your conquest strategy may fail. The truth is consumers today always go online before they enter a brick and mortar business. While online, these consumers are looking to see how you handle your customers by reading reviews and searching your dealership locally to find its exact location. If at any time these potential buyers can’t find your dealership or see that your dealership has a poor reputation, then chances are you will lose their business.

Measure Results
Most marketers have an extremely hard time measuring the success of their conquest efforts, especially if their sales are not completed online. Through Google Analytics and other website measurables, you can determine how many leads were driven to your website through various channels, but how do you know if they actually made a purchase? By leveraging the conquest strategy laid out in this post and completing a match-back report, you can determine true ROI. Simply take the initial purchased list and match up recent sales since the launch of your conquest campaign to see how many targeted customers came back to you for their vehicle needs.

We can spit out numbers that tell you the effectiveness of this conquest marketing strategy, but you won’t really understand its power until you try it. But don’t wait, keep your summer momentum going by finding in-market buyers, influencing them to visit your dealership, and measuring the effectiveness of your conquest campaign.

Every year, dealers across the country try to keep pace with the current marketing trends for the fear of falling behind and losing out to the competition. Not only do you need an excellent retention marketing strategy to ensure customers come back to you, but your dealership also has to find a way to attract potential buyers. Not to mention there are thousands of to-do items that you have to check off every day to keep your store running properly. With so much going on, how do you find time to put together a conquest strategy that works without breaking the bank? Today you’ll learn how to keep your summer momentum going by energizing your conquest strategy.

Start with Data
Every good marketing strategy starts with data. Often times for conquest programs, this data comes in the form of a purchased list simply because it is not readily available at our fingertips. When venturing out to acquire a purchased list, be sure the consumers have opted-in to receive information about vehicles and are currently in market. Without these two elements identified in the consumer profile of your purchased list, you may end up wasting money. Once you’ve acquired your conquest list, scrub out any customers who have had recent sales and service transactions at your dealership. Ensuring you have a clean list of ready-to-buy prospects who are not in your current database will result in a higher return for your conquest marketing efforts.

Determine Delivery
The number one reason most companies do not execute conquest marketing is the cost. Acquiring a list and then paying for the delivery of their message can be a huge expense, not to mention the rate of return on conquest marketing is low compared to customer retention marketing. For this reason, you’ll want to select a method of delivery that is low cost. Most companies choose direct mail as their method of delivery, and although it is a great option and will be seen by every recipient, it can be pretty costly. Another option is to go with is email. Although it’s very cost effective, your message may not be seen by every recipient. Either option is a great choice and you really can’t go wrong, so it will depend on your specific budget and needs which choice is best.

Leverage Multiple Channels
If every single one of your customers was standing on your lot, chances are you wouldn’t want to deliver the same message to each individual the same way. This is also true when putting together a conquest strategy. Not every person on your purchased list is the same, has the same needs, or wants to consume their content in the same manner. That’s why it’s important to leverage a multi-channel approach. With so many choices of media, you’ll want to make sure your delivery methods are complementary and the imagery and messaging you use are similar. When done properly, a multi-channel marketing attack is more effective than a single channel delivery. It provides your dealership better brand awareness, multiple touch points for consumers, and increases the reach of your campaign.

Retarget, Retarget, Retarget
If you have the opportunity to utilize your purchased list for retargeting purposes on social media, you should absolutely do so. Nowadays everyone is taking part in the social media phenomenon and like any good marketer, you have to be where your customers are. Think about taking your conquest strategy one step further and advertising on popular social media networks. A lot of these networks have an advertising platform with the ability to retarget data sets. Others allow you to use consumer demographics to target your ads. Regardless you should use complementary creative and social media advertisements to extend the reach of your conquest strategy.

Promote Online Brand
Even if you have the best data, deliver a stellar multi-channel piece, and retarget specific owners through social media, your conquest strategy may fail. The truth is consumers today always go online before they enter a brick and mortar business. While online, these consumers are looking to see how you handle your customers by reading reviews and searching your dealership locally to find its exact location. If at any time these potential buyers can’t find your dealership or see that your dealership has a poor reputation, then chances are you will lose their business.

Measure Results
Most marketers have an extremely hard time measuring the success of their conquest efforts, especially if their sales are not completed online. Through Google Analytics and other website measurables, you can determine how many leads were driven to your website through various channels, but how do you know if they actually made a purchase? By leveraging the conquest strategy laid out in this post and completing a match-back report, you can determine true ROI. Simply take the initial purchased list and match up recent sales since the launch of your conquest campaign to see how many targeted customers came back to you for their vehicle needs.

We can spit out numbers that tell you the effectiveness of this conquest marketing strategy, but you won’t really understand its power until you try it. But don’t wait, keep your summer momentum going by finding in-market buyers, influencing them to visit your dealership, and measuring the effectiveness of your conquest campaign.

Finding the right marketing message to keep customers coming back to you can be difficult. You either have to know exactly where they are in their ownership cycle or you have to have extremely relevant content. Good news! This week’s campaign ideas will give you three ways to connect with current customers with pertinent fuel savings messaging to keep your summer momentum going.

Offer DIY Tips
Every consumer in America wants to save at the pump, but how? With the majority of the country paying close to $2.50 for a gallon of gas and some parts reaching as high as $3.50, fuel economy is still a hot topic. Think about offering your customers fuel savings tips. For example, you could inform them that properly inflated tires and clean air filters improve a vehicle’s fuel economy. Or, you could tell them things like driving with the windows up and the AC on actually helps a vehicle’s fuel economy. By leveraging a current topic and providing helpful DIY tips, your dealership will stay top-of-mind for future vehicle needs.

Capitalize on the Back-to-School Frenzy
Not only do Americans want to save on their monthly fuel bills, but most of them are in back-to-school mode. You can leverage this time of year to deliver relevant marketing about fuel savings. Think about offering fuel savings facts to customers about their specific driving habits to reduce their vehicle’s fuel consumption. For example, tell them that every extra 100 pounds in their vehicle reduces gas mileage by 2%. Or, that idling for longer than 30 seconds uses more gas than starting up their vehicle’s engine. Utilizing current events like back to school is a great way to raise brand awareness for your dealership.

Promote Your Lineup
It doesn’t matter which OEM your dealership is a part of; each year your lineup becomes more and more fuel efficient. Any customer who purchased a vehicle three or more years ago probably doesn’t even realize how much more efficient a new vehicle is than their current model. Think about delivering a message to this audience that highlights your new lineup and each vehicle’s fuel economy. You could even include a metric for how much weekly savings they could be receiving by driving a more fuel efficient vehicle from your new lineup. Your dealership will grab the attention of any customers who have thought about fuel savings or upgrading their vehicle.

You’ll want to tailor your campaign messaging to fit your dealership’s specific goals. By delivering relevant marketing to your customers about fuel savings, you’ll keep your summer momentum going.

Finding the right marketing message to keep customers coming back to you can be difficult. You either have to know exactly where they are in their ownership cycle or you have to have extremely relevant content. Good news! This week’s campaign ideas will give you three ways to connect with current customers with pertinent fuel savings messaging to keep your summer momentum going.

Offer DIY Tips
Every consumer in America wants to save at the pump, but how? With the majority of the country paying close to $2.50 for a gallon of gas and some parts reaching as high as $3.50, fuel economy is still a hot topic. Think about offering your customers fuel savings tips. For example, you could inform them that properly inflated tires and clean air filters improve a vehicle’s fuel economy. Or, you could tell them things like driving with the windows up and the AC on actually helps a vehicle’s fuel economy. By leveraging a current topic and providing helpful DIY tips, your dealership will stay top-of-mind for future vehicle needs.

Capitalize on the Back-to-School Frenzy
Not only do Americans want to save on their monthly fuel bills, but most of them are in back-to-school mode. You can leverage this time of year to deliver relevant marketing about fuel savings. Think about offering fuel savings facts to customers about their specific driving habits to reduce their vehicle’s fuel consumption. For example, tell them that every extra 100 pounds in their vehicle reduces gas mileage by 2%. Or, that idling for longer than 30 seconds uses more gas than starting up their vehicle’s engine. Utilizing current events like back to school is a great way to raise brand awareness for your dealership.

Promote Your Lineup
It doesn’t matter which OEM your dealership is a part of; each year your lineup becomes more and more fuel efficient. Any customer who purchased a vehicle three or more years ago probably doesn’t even realize how much more efficient a new vehicle is than their current model. Think about delivering a message to this audience that highlights your new lineup and each vehicle’s fuel economy. You could even include a metric for how much weekly savings they could be receiving by driving a more fuel efficient vehicle from your new lineup. Your dealership will grab the attention of any customers who have thought about fuel savings or upgrading their vehicle.

You’ll want to tailor your campaign messaging to fit your dealership’s specific goals. By delivering relevant marketing to your customers about fuel savings, you’ll keep your summer momentum going.

It’s hard to believe Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer, is just around the corner. Since Labor Day weekend is one of the most popular times of the year to buy a vehicle and often there are additional incentives from your manufacturer, you’ll want to make sure you are top-of-mind with customers, potential prospects, and your community. Here are three ways to leverage the Labor Day holiday weekend to keep your summer momentum going.

Host an Event
It doesn’t really matter what type of event you host for the holiday weekend, drawing people to your dealership in a non-sales manor will increase foot traffic. Think about hosting a BBQ, customer appreciation event, or even an end of summer party. Whichever you choose, make sure you have activities planned to keep people on your lot and have your sales staff present to ensure they build rapport with your attendees.

Meet or Beat
If your dealership has great customer service, your employees care about your customers, and you’ve worked to become part of your community, logically anyone in your area should be coming to you for their vehicle needs. Unfortunately, consumers are driven by price and if the guy across town is offering a better deal, they’ll drive there to save a few dollars. The way you combat this is by advertising that you’ll meet or beat any advertised price. Now this idea isn’t feasible for every dealership, and yours may be one of them, but if you have the capabilities, this is a great idea to ensure you aren’t losing sales because of price.

Be Creative and Fun
We’ve talked a lot about this, but let’s review again. Consumers are inundated by marketing now-a-days. They receive so much, they actually have become numb to its impact. This is why you have to get creative and have fun with your marketing; it makes your dealership memorable and likeable. There are so many different ways to accomplish this feat that listing them here would literally take pages and pages. All you have to do is look through the marketing you get and decide what stands out. Then, apply those ideas to your own brand.

Keep your summer momentum going and market your dealership for Labor Day at the same time. You’ll drive more traffic, create more brand awareness, and drive more revenue to your dealership with these three easy to implement ideas.

It’s hard to believe Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer, is just around the corner. Since Labor Day weekend is one of the most popular times of the year to buy a vehicle and often there are additional incentives from your manufacturer, you’ll want to make sure you are top-of-mind with customers, potential prospects, and your community. Here are three ways to leverage the Labor Day holiday weekend to keep your summer momentum going.

Host an Event
It doesn’t really matter what type of event you host for the holiday weekend, drawing people to your dealership in a non-sales manor will increase foot traffic. Think about hosting a BBQ, customer appreciation event, or even an end of summer party. Whichever you choose, make sure you have activities planned to keep people on your lot and have your sales staff present to ensure they build rapport with your attendees.

Meet or Beat
If your dealership has great customer service, your employees care about your customers, and you’ve worked to become part of your community, logically anyone in your area should be coming to you for their vehicle needs. Unfortunately, consumers are driven by price and if the guy across town is offering a better deal, they’ll drive there to save a few dollars. The way you combat this is by advertising that you’ll meet or beat any advertised price. Now this idea isn’t feasible for every dealership, and yours may be one of them, but if you have the capabilities, this is a great idea to ensure you aren’t losing sales because of price.

Be Creative and Fun
We’ve talked a lot about this, but let’s review again. Consumers are inundated by marketing now-a-days. They receive so much, they actually have become numb to its impact. This is why you have to get creative and have fun with your marketing; it makes your dealership memorable and likeable. There are so many different ways to accomplish this feat that listing them here would literally take pages and pages. All you have to do is look through the marketing you get and decide what stands out. Then, apply those ideas to your own brand.

Keep your summer momentum going and market your dealership for Labor Day at the same time. You’ll drive more traffic, create more brand awareness, and drive more revenue to your dealership with these three easy to implement ideas.