When utilizing direct mail marketing for your dealership, are you still hitting “one per household”? If you are not sure, most companies, regrettably, have an automatic default set up to only hit “one per household”. This is old school mentality and was used back when we didn’t have the detailed big data we have available today. Unfortunately, some companies with no automotive marketing experience are dabbling in data with no real direction or strategy.

Consider the data lists available through Experian such as “Boomers and Boomerangs” and “Nuevo Horizons”.

Boomers and Boomerangs: Baby boomer adults and their teenage/young adult children sharing suburban homes. These postwar baby boomers have all grown up, and so have their children who have returned to the nest. Boomers and Boomerangs consist of these two generations sharing single family homes. About 85 percent of the household heads are between 51 and 65 years old. Nearly 40 percent of households contain young adults (the highest percentage in the nation).

(One might think that if a young adult is living back at home, they certainly wouldn’t be in a position to buy a car. Anyone that says that, hasn’t had a kid leave then come back home! That old bedroom that was going to be a “Naked Room” or “Man Cave” is now going to stay a bedroom until the young adult goes and gets a job! What do you need to get a job? A CAR! Hey, the kid will get a car, the parents will be sure of it!)

Nuevo Horizons: The nation’s highest concentration of Hispanic households. Nuevo Horizons are multi-generational, consisting of young adults and aged parents. With multiple workers within the household, income is $38,000 (far above the U.S. poverty line and a striking improvement over the standard of living in their former country.

So, if you are currently doing direct mail marketing at your dealership and you are facing a depleted list of people to hit and results are just not where they need to be, take a closer look at the ”fine print” and broaden that data list criteria out to include ALL CAR BUYERS in your market.

Try it! Otherwise, you will never know if you are truly hitting all the opportunities in your market and enjoying the absolute highest ROI. Direct mail marketing, even with a simple list, can do so much more than anything else out there.