marketing strategy
Weekly ISM Checklist
from drivingsales.com, posted 6/3/08
Now for the weekly check list. ISMs need to be completelting these items on a weekly basis and reporting to their management on their progress of each of these items. Following this task list regularly will greatly increase your success:
Weekly Check List
Date _______
1. __ Visit dealership website. Call toll free and other phone numbers to ensure they’re working and being answered properly.
2. __ Check AutoTrader, Cars.com, UsedCars.com, and/or other third party website photos, pricing information, and phone numbers.
3. __ Blind shop competitors selling both similar and different makes and models.
4. __ Post any upcoming Events and Specials on website. Be careful about posting any future discounts or pricing - those should be only posted once they are on, or when they are about to end to instill urgency.
5. __ Schedule broadcast email once per month, at the beginning of the third week of the month. Preferably, send on Tuesday or Thursday afternoon. Always have something for the customer first and foremost – give them a compelling reason to open your email.
6. __ Schedule automated targeted email campaigns to existing customers, including interests, specials, birthdays, etc.
7. __ Check with vendors to see if there are duplicate addresses they are sending leads to, to former employees, etc..
8. __ Test templated emails to see how they are arriving to customers.
9. __ Check your site for manufacturers compliance or non-compliances issues.
10. __ If you find any issues, send an email to your vendor (so you have it in writing), cc-ing your GM or ID, and immediately follow up with a phone call. If the issue is not resolved in 24 hours, re-send the email, and cc you GM or ID. They should take it from there.
Following these processes and checklists will help you maximize you efforts and success! Good luck.
http://drivingsales.com/blog/rafi/2008/06/03/weekly-ism-checklist/
7 Strategies for Marketing in a Downturn
Published: May 22, 2008, from iMedia Connection, by: Guy Maser
The following tips will carry your company through the lean times and beyond.
In a challenging economy, you must find new ways to make marketing work more effectively, get more out of marketing investments, and measure and account for marketing decisions. In short, you must make changes. Doing the same things in an uncertain economic environment and expecting the same results is, at worst, a definition of marketing insanity. At best it is a flawed strategy.
How can your company be one of those success stories that market and grow their businesses during challenging economic times? The following strategies will help you allocate marketing investments to better performing programs that will carry your company through the economic downturn and beyond.
Get targeted
A fundamental but sometimes overlooked marketing tenet is to “fish where the fish are.” In other words, invest in those specific, targeted media where you know your customers and prospects will be exposed to your message.
Research shows that virtually all engineering, technical and industrial professionals now use the internet throughout their work process. The same holds true in most B2B markets. But the internet is vast, and the fish you are looking for may be using specific websites where the content is directly related to their information needs. Work with your media partners to identify and target those sites.
Measure performance
While it’s always the right time to purge marketing programs that don’t perform, it may be time to scale back any marketing plans whose results you can’t measure or are unsure about. In other words, re-allocate and “right-size” marketing budgets to measurable programs. Online programs — which are built around delivering visibility, impressions, clicks, leads and customers — are easy to measure.
Think integration
Integrated marketing means your marketing strategy takes advantage of multiple media, resources and customer touchpoints to create a whole that’s greater and more effective than the sum of its parts. The more that marketing efforts are integrated and comprehensive, the greater impact you can achieve in gaining visibility in your market, qualified leads and sales.
Maintain frequency and consistency
The benefits of regular visibility in the market tend to compound over time as more prospects recognize your company. This improves your opportunity to get on a prospect’s short list of potential vendors and also shortens the sales cycle. A consistent online presence where your customers and prospects are looking for information — including websites, directories, search engines and e-newsletters — will help your company stay visible as well as provide measurable lead generation benefits via online contact.
Push and pull your way to success
Most marketing can be classified as either push or pull: companies push their message out through tactics such as direct mail, advertisements and e-newsletters; and they also establish a presence in online directories, websites and search engines to pull customers in real-time when prospects are searching for information, products and services like those your company offers. Rather than struggling over whether to allocate resources to push marketing or pull marketing, seek out a media partner that has your target audience captive and can offer both push and pull programs under an integrated program.
Focus on quality over quantity
If marketing efforts focus solely on quantity over quality, fewer leads will convert, more sales resources will be wasted, and sales people will begin to distrust marketing’s lead generation programs. Commit to programs in which quality is a key attribute: programs that can deliver interested prospects, provide prospect contact information and offer reports of program performance.
Seek assistance from media partners
The economy is likely forcing you to make harder and smarter decisions about allocating budgets. While you may be facing challenges, you don’t have to face them alone. Ask media partners to demonstrate how their marketing solutions help your company achieve the strategies mentioned above.
Ask them:
- Do they have your target audience’s attention?
- Can they keep your company visible to prospects and customers at all times?
- Do they offer a variety of integrated marketing solutions aligned with your goals?
- Can they provide both visibility and lead generation?
- Do they deliver targeted, quality leads with full contact information?
- Do they provide reports you can use to measure the performance of your marketing and justify your marketing investments?
During challenging times or when things are going well, marketers need to clarify goals and create tailored, integrated marketing solutions that complement the current media mix and extend their companies’ ability to compete and win business in the market. Utilize a wide range of digital media advertising and marketing solutions. Consider keyword ads, email marketing, searchable product catalogs, banner ad networks and industry-leading e-newsletter advertisements. Figure out the right combination and you will deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience and integrate with your traditional marketing efforts.
Watch for Personal Bias
As marketers, we’re constantly building, tweaking and adapting our marketing plans in an effort to maximize the return on our marketing investment. In doing so, we have to make judgments about which tactics will be most effective. And that’s where, if you’re not careful, mistakes can be made.
One of the most common mistakes I see marketers make is to forget a simple truth that should be obvious. That truth is this: You are not your audience. It’s the same mistake that causes us to buy birthday gifts for our friends that are actually something we’d like, rather than something he or she would enjoy.
You are not your audience. It seems obvious, but forgetting it can have profound implications. Just because you personally don’t respond to direct mail, watch Channel 8 News or like the color red doesn’t mean that’s not the right solution to your marketing challenges. Learning what personal biases you may have is important when designed a campaign meant to influence other people.
So, trust your audience, trust past results and trust the numbers… they won’t lead you astray nearly as often as your hidden, personal biases.
D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC
Maximizing Pre-Owned Traffic From the Internet
By: Pat Ryan, Jr.
From Digital Dealer Magazine February 2008
Every week seems to bring an interesting new study on how consumers are using the Internet in their car buying process. While all of these studies point to the importance of an evolving e-strategy for dealerships, it is not always easy for dealers to glean actionable takeaways from these studies. With all the data flying around, this presents a great opportunity to make sense of it all. Let’s start with the most dramatic headline.
The 2007 Dealer eBusiness Performance study sponsored by Yahoo revealed that 88 percent of consumers use the Internet for research prior to visiting a dealership. At the same time, dealers we hear from typically report 15 to 20 percent of their business coming from their Internet departments.
What happened to the 68 percent of buyers that used the Internet to research vehicles yet were invisible to the Internet department? Simply put, they may have shopped your “virtual frontline” but did so anonymously; some later came to visit your dealership while others bought from your competitor.
Why do the majority of buyers using the Internet choose to stay invisible to your Internet department? Because the majority of Internet shoppers are reluctant to share their personal information online with dealers or third-party web sites and therefore never become a “lead.” The result: the majority of visitors to your “virtual frontline” are invisible and untouchable for your Internet team.
How does this impact my business?
Dealers routinely work hard to engage every guest who walks their lot and shops through the traditional buying process. In the online world, if your vehicle is not competitively priced with similar vehicles in your market, a consumer will leave your virtual frontline for another dealer’s with one click, never returning and never speaking with anyone on your team. Buyers will also “vote” with their mouse by clicking away from vehicles that do not have enough pictures, have poor quality pictures, or lack compelling descriptions.
What makes dealerships vulnerable to these kinds of missteps?
Dealerships traditionally priced pre-owned inventory on a “cost-plus” basis-pricing the vehicle to ensure they have enough room to negotiate with a customer and still sell a vehicle for a strong gross profit. Since pre-owned vehicles are more varied in value because of age, condition, mileage etc., consumers were unlikely to find a similar vehicle to yours across the street, giving dealers the upper hand. However, in the Internet age, customers can see your pricing next to nearly all of the similar vehicles in your market, making cost-plus pricing a barrier to driving traffic from the Internet.
In addition to the consumer being empowered by the Internet, dealers who are inconsistent in putting enough pictures or robust vehicle descriptions online will find themselves clicked past by consumers as well. It’s no longer enough to just be online. Dealers need to excel online by being as diligent in merchandising your online inventory as you are in the presentation of your dealership’s showroom.
How can I maximize my pre-owned traffic from the Internet?
1. Market pricing - Replace “cost-plus” pricing with market pricing by competitive shopping every vehicle versus the competition. This ensures that your pricing will appear fair for its value in online search results. Treat competitive vehicles online the same way you would if they were on the frontline across the street. Price based on the “key strengths” of your vehicles but be realistic given the competition.
2. Consistently execute the online advertising fundamentals - Mystery shop your own dealership to ensure all of your vehicles are online with robust descriptions and pictures. You’d never put a vehicle on the frontline without detailing it. Make sure you detail your online vehicles to the same standard.
3. Mystery shop the competition - Experience your dealership’s “virtual frontline” versus the competition as the consumer will experience it. Go to an online advertising site such as autotrader.com or cars.com and see how your vehicles compare. If you are using market pricing and executing online advertising fundamentals consistently your vehicles should show well, but you may find that your vehicles differentiation is not clear to a potential buyer. For example, you may find that your vehicle is the lowest mileage vehicle in the market. In that case it may be okay to be the highest priced vehicle; you simply need to ensure that your online listings are highlighting the value. Know each vehicle’s online market and ensure that your listings are highlighting the unique value of each vehicle.
With those three simple steps any dealer can ensure that they are maximizing the potential of the online advertising they are purchasing. The key is to execute consistently, the same way you do every day in merchandising the showroom and frontline at your dealership.
http://www.digitaldealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=1787
Dealing with the Big ‘R’ — Recession doesn’t have to be what it’s feared to be
by : Jim Richter
From: Dealer Fixed Operations Magazine April 2008
A recession is kind of like the common cold; it’s a natural phenomenon, it happens every so often, it’s usually not life threatening, and if you’ve taken reasonable precautions it usually is just an inconvenience. Those who don’t take care of themselves can get pretty sick, but the ones who are in good health to begin with usually ride it out with a minimum of pain and suffering.
Get past the fear!
A recession is a normally occurring correction in our economic cycles. We’d all like to think that our market will continue to climb forever, but that’s not the way things work. When the economy is too good to be true it slows itself down until it levels out and gets ready for the next charge forward again. Dealers who have not prepared for this get hurt; those that have will simply have a downturn for a short time period. If the core profit centers of your fixed operations are sound and fixed absorption is high, then the worst scenario will be fewer profits coming from the variable-based profit centers. Many of my clients have learned this lesson from previous cycles and are better prepared for this one. Others with short memories, who focused their efforts on the quick money from sales are not prepared, and will end up suffering losses again as a result.
Putting basics in place
The first thing to do, if you haven’t already, is to get your parts house in order. Service and collision both feed from your inventory and the more you are counting on them to provide needed revenue, the more important the levels of service from parts become.
- Clean up obsolescence: Remember your parts inventory is all net working capital. At a time when cash becomes a critical factor make sure it’s all usable. Factory based opportunities must be utilized effectively. This means sending back everything you can and applying purchase discounts to scrapping rather than gross profit, which saves tax payments. You’re only kidding yourself if you hang onto this stuff; junk today does not turn into gold tomorrow, it’s only Fools Gold at best.
- Control the backflow of unsold service special orders and police returns from wholesale accounts and your collision center. Review your special order policies and procedures. I often find that these are not being enforced or have never been communicated to new employees. Don’t assume that they are working, Check it out! Contact me if you need to know how to do this.
- Review the DMS settings for stocking levels. Many manufacturers have changed their terms and conditions since the last recession and many managers have not adjusted accordingly. If you’re on multiple weekly orders, or better yet a daily stock order, be sure that you are not stocking more pieces than you need. If they have it and you can replace what you sold today tomorrow, how many do you really need to stock? Frequently it’s only one.
- Cut down on sheetmetal, especially if you can replace it quickly and reliably. This kind of “comfort stock” can tie up a lot of cash.
- Make sure that you are aggressively developing a broad selection of valid stocking numbers through proper use of the lost sales function. Every job that gets finished today is one less special order, and you get paid today, not days or weeks later. It also reduces unapplied time in the shop and reduces work in process, all of which impacts your retained profits.
Review marketing strategies
Recessionary markets become very competitive. Just like the big box retailers are now experiencing, customers are looking for more cost effective ways to get what they need. Price becomes more of an issue than it had been before.
- Review your matrix formulae and price levels. If the revenue levels are dropping and the gross profit percent is still high, you may be pushing business to competitors. Shop yourself on specific parts that are down in sales to see if you are still competitive. When that’s done, adjust your DMS price settings to bring yourselves back in line with the market. Revenue flow is the critical issue now and it’s OK to give up some margin to pick up increased dollars. When the economy comes back you can readjust it then.
- Update your maintenance menus. The dollar has been taking a dive recently and most importers have been adjusting their prices accordingly. The market shopping exercise you did should also lead you to where you need to re-price parts used for scheduled maintenance. Once this is done get it to service so they can do their update and get competitive prices in effect in the service drive.
- Get more aggressive in communicating with your customers, especially the wholesale ones. Just like your prices, the aftermarket has gone up substantially too. Much of what they stock has offshore origins so their prices have gone up as well.
Get ready for the ride
Once you’ve got your basics in place you have to watch the business flow very closely and adjust accordingly. If you have the basics in place, then you should be able to ride out the storm. It’s very much like the person who takes vitamins and extra precautions during the flu season; hopefully he or she won’t get sick, but if they do it’s usually a lot less serious for them than the ones who are not prepared. Get going now!
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