Automobile Dealer Magazine

Making Direct Marketing Truly "Direct"

by Denny Long

How "direct" are your dealership's direct marketing campaigns? In many instances, dealerships that profess to be targeting their best prospects may actually be wasting marketing dollars on fair or even poor prospects. In many dealerships, that money could be better channeled into a more targeted program.

First, remember that your best target audience is people in your area who own the make or makes that you sell. Generally, 50% of the people who own a certain make will buy that make again. By targeting people who own the makes that you sell, you know that right off the bat 50% are good prospects.

Should you target owners of competitive makes? You already know that 50% are likely to buy the competitive makes again. As for the other 50%, only a small percentage is likely to buy your make. Let's say that only 5% of that total will buy your make. A direct mail campaign that focuses on current owners of your make would hit at least 10 times more of your best prospects. If you feel that you must market to owners of competitive vehicles, look at your used car department to see if certain models are being traded. Target owners of those models only, not the whole line.

You can also benefit by adding other demographic factors to your list, such as model year. If the goal of your direct mail campaign is to sell new vehicles, you may want to consider selecting only people who purchased their current vehicle brand new. The opposite goes for a used car campaign. Also, you can now target individuals who should be ready to purchase a vehicle within the next three months based on their buying history.

In your Special Finance Department, your best prospects are those individuals recently discharged from bankruptcy. Other lists will simply target people who are currently in financial trouble, such as individuals who are 60-90 days behind on their bills. Bankrupt individuals have already hit bottom and are on the way back up. People who are late on their bills may be on their way towards bankruptcy. Ask your sub-prime lender which type of individual they would prefer to finance.

Get the most out of your "truly targeted audience". The belief that you can only mail to the same people once a year is a myth. The months that you are not marketing to them, someone else probably is. Change your offer or just give it a different look.

Here's another hint: In most cases, the same audience that will purchase vehicles from you can also use your service department. Why pay postage to mail to the same people separately for both your sales and service departments? Inserting a page promoting your service department along with your sales letter is an inexpensive way to increase the value of your mailing. If you get a 2% response to your sales letter, that still leaves 98% that could potentially use service.

Will adopting the above strategies reduce your number of prospects? Not really, but it will reduce your number of "suspects". It will allow you to identify your prime target audience and dominate that audience. By focusing on your best prospects, it will appear to them that you are the most aggressive dealer in the area.

Denny Long is National Sales Manager for the Americalist Automotive Marketing Group.