The Campaign

One of the big and expensive questions for all car dealers is advertising budget. Tens or thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars drop per month without metrics that define their success. The buying argument is what advertising is all about. The effectiveness of this message determines whether a customer "votes" with his pocket book.

Core Constituency:

Who is my dealership's customer? Let's say that your customer is a man\woman between 27-35 who lives within five miles of your dealership. They tend to spend money and their average gross is one thousand per unit. Tracking your good sales months you see that they have been at least 10 to 20 percent of total sales. They don't buy metro papers and rarely look at the dealership's print ads. Describing the big weekend ads as a "scam" they get most of their information from Edmunds, Kelley, or the manufacturer's website. If your dealership were a political candidate this is its core constituency--the people that vote for you. But big splashy ads don't reach your core and every dollar spent on big print media is wasted.

The Take Aways;

What about the core customers of your competitors--those with the same brand. When they buy at your dealership they turn out to be the dealership's most profitable and satisfied customers. What are their hot buttons? Have they had a bad experience, either service or sales at your competitor?

Let's go back and analyze that great weekend. Most dealers don't analyze data past the complexity of their "Ups", "Demos" and "Write-ups" and "Deliveries"; good descriptive statistics, but not very useful in discovering buying habits of consumers. Anne Miller, a Southern California Auto Marketing and Advertising Consultant comes right to the point,

"This week-end was successful at your dealership. People came in and they bought. But how and why did they come? Does that expensive newspaper advertising that corporate and you pay for really help you on an individual level? Or does a different use of that money create a better return for you and ultimately the corporation?"

Getting a group of buying customers on the phone and conducting a virtual focus group, asking the reasons they moved from their home dealership is the best way to learn these customers' reasons for buying from you--which can then be quantified. With good customer information their behavior is modeled and the best ways to reach the Take Away customer can be implemented and tested.

Inauguration Day:

Inauguration Day comes with a price: knowing your customer and their behavior and then making an effective buying argument. The increased sophistication of the consumer means that information and ultimately knowledge has to keep pace. Know your demographic and their behavior and the votes will come.

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Comment by Garrett Osborne on June 7, 2012 at 5:09pm: Hi Gillon, right now there are no dealerships I know of that are offering rigorous metrics for marketing and advertising of the type you describe. There are companies that offer these services but the understanding of the power of these tools is just not there. The good news about Business Intelligence, Statistical Modeling, etc just hasn't gotten to the right people. In terms of your dream job I would talk to the boss and get everyone to sign off on what constitutes success and failure. It won't be the scientific method but it will give consensus to the endeavor.

Comment by Mr. Natural on June 7, 2012 at 11:34am: Hi Garrett...This is interesting stuff for me right now, and I'll tell you why:

For the past two years I have been running the internet department for a group of three stores. We have a budget, and I know the G.M. is always looking at our numbers, and going over the R.O.I. (if any) with a magnifying glass. I have always complained about this, as I have never been able to figure out how he can justify such a huge Newspaper budget. Would we go out of business if we stopped all newspaper ads tomorrow? Somehow I don't think so.

It seems to me that if we got evaluated the same way as the newspaper, all I would have to do is ask the customer if they had ever been on the internet, and if the answer is yes, I could chalk their sale up as an internet deal. Sounds good to me! Isn't that how we measure the newspaper?

Anyway, tomorrow-Friday June 8th-I will be captaining our new 35' Traveling Showroom to our first public event. I have been instructed that our job will be to make impressions only. We dont have to sell cars or make appointments. Just make impressions with the fair goers. We have a summer of fairs and events scheduled for our Traveling Showroom. On our maiden voyage we are going to the Ursa, Illinois Pork-O-Rama...I kid you not. It's a small thing, but most likely just right for our first one.

At any rate, as you might imagine, one of the first questons that has come to my mind is this: How is my performance going to be measured? This motorhome represents a pretty big investment. Not only this, but it brings the sanity of my G.M. (and myself for that matter) into question. How will we measure our contribution?

For me, it's a dream job...All I have to do is talk to people. But I really want to know is this...This thing is going to be pretty expensive to operate and maintain. My schedule is going to have to be much more flexable, and I feel a heck of a lot more hours coming on. I'm gonna need more money. How am I going to prove that I'm worth it?

How does one measure a circus?