Next Day Traffic

With fuel prices dropping and the present economy, the demand for Hybrid technology has seen better days in terms of turn rate. Many consumers still believe that gas vehicles are less expensive, better equipped, more luxurious and comfortable.

With all the talk on Capitol Hill in regards to the Congressional bailout, what is in store for the next group of hybrid vehicles? What will the government demand the Big 3 to create if the dollars are passed?

While the cost of vehicle ownership is lower today than years past, and vehicles are better protected and covered through their warranties – the manufacturers better take a lesson in marketing and merchandising to become effective at branding and positioning their hybrids. Sure hybrids sell well when gas is at $4.00 per gallon, what what happens when it falls to $1.89?

Oh yeah, that is what’s happening RIGHT NOW… 

Do you want some good news? According to an article put out through Automotive Remarketing we are in experiencing a period of escalated purchase intent among import and domestic buyers.  
 
In the last 2 weeks since the election, purchase intent among the Big 3 (GM / Ford / Chrysler) has climbed almost 23% based on shoppers who have been onEdmunds.com. Purchase intent has jumped a total of 16% when compared to the same time frame in October when combining all brands.  
 
What does this mean? 
Good News for Year End Sales – with GM’s Red Tag, Ford’s Employee Pricing, Happy Honda Days, Toyotathon, Nissan’s Year-End Event and a recent program by Mazda, we stand to have more and more buyers with increased levels of purchase intent in the next 45 days.

One of the positive items coming out of these tough economic times is our dealers (and I mean ALL of our dealers) Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, have quit asking about whether their advertising should be “Branding” or whether it should be aimed at the immediate creation of “Traffic.” Dealers used to not listen when I would tell them that every single ad they run is focused on their brand – the message and hook, or merchandising is what would create their traffic for them. Explaining to dealers that every ad is a representation of their brand is sometimes hard to do. Some dealers may be in a 20 Group “where ‘so-and-so’ ran the most successful ad campaign and never advertised a price, payment, down payment or what’s my trade worth. If they have been successful with this then more power to them. But if you are looking and asking for answers right now, you obviously don’t have the ‘silver bullet‘. 

The ‘silver bullet‘ is a reason to buy, reason to buy tomorrow
and a reason to buy from YOU. 

Did you know it costs 6 times more to sell something to someone new than it does to sell something to an existing owner? Domestic vehicles are suffering from trade in values while imports are enjoying a pretty good ride of solid actual cash values during the life of ownership. 

With all the talk about the price of media dwindling and the value that you get for what you have to pay these days being incredible… Doesn’t it make you wonder why the US Postal Service doesn’t change the price of a 1st class stamp? The simple answer, they don’t have too. With email, social networking sites, text messages and podcasts – every American residence still only has one mail box. No, you can’t cancel all your advertising and bomb your owner body every week of a month to create all your traffic, but what Strong is finding effective is the use of owner body mail sent to the customers of certain vehicles at certain times of the month. 

We are not talking about a cocktail party or a NADA function. Dealerships are using Social Network sites like MySpace, Facebook and Ning to load anything from a newsletter, personal stories, employee interaction and customer comment to help win the war on “search” (on the internet) and make themselves more accessible to the growing number of internet users. There is no right or wrong way to approach one of these networks, but just like with finding the right marketing company, you need to have someone who can work on and build this page for you in order for it to truly be effective.

With the increasing demand for excellence in driving traffic, you better be looking at areas that are outside of the normal lines of advertising, market research, direct mail in the quest to make your advertising dollars go father and make your ads more effective. 

A study was presented from a notable Market Research Company the other day to one of the ten largest Toyota dealerships in the country. When media selection or the dealerships buyers was reviewed it was apparent that NO Hispanic customers had been polled. For a dealership that currently sells to approximately 60% Hispanic customers why would a market research company not poll Hispanic buyers? The answer was – this particular research company did not know how to find or contact Hispanic buyers. 

Great car ads can’t do all the work, there has to be someone who understands marketing and how to make the most out of everything possible in this day and age. The research company will remain nameless but it wasn’t a Strong Automotive Company or in any way related. 

Moral of the story, hire the best because it isn’t easy anymore.

With the news media, the election, the stock market and all the factors that can make even the toughest car guys not want to leave the house… 

And a comment was made the other day that I felt was one of the most fitting things I had heard in a long time. Someone said to me, “our business was built on excellent customer service, I knew that if I took care of my customers I could survive anything”. This statement could not be truer today, for the dealers both import and domestic who are not selling to what their forecast and expectations are, you must remain focused on your customers. They are in your service drives and body shops every day, they too are concerned about the financial world and state of the economy so take a moment and image how good of a feeling you can give them if the service you provided far exceeds their expectations. Also, think about what can happen if they are not satisfied with your service and they were not treated fairly or the quote was not what the final bill turned out to be. “Take care of your customers or someone else will” is a phrase that has been used for many years, but it is vital in the current market that you must take care of every detail for your dealership to succeed. 

If you have always taken care of your customers and built your business on customer service and being good to them, YOU WILL SURVIVE. 

If you have not built your model on excellent customer service, you better start now…

If you choose to make a more aggressive approach to the low priced pre-owned market then one thing to consider is on the lot merchandising. A very smart dealer the other day took his lowest priced used cars and figured 60 month payments, with about 7% APR with approved credit and displayed on his vehicles what a payment would be with mce_marker money down, then what a payment would be with $2k down. 

The purpose is to show payment options with monthly budgets of the consumers being tight, allowing the used car tire kicker to have some options and make them start thinking.

With the credit challenge and used car financing remaining difficult, a number of dealers are turning to lower priced used cars and keeping well over 50% of their pre-owned inventory under $15k. When you do this you are allowing yourself to create volume and appeal to people who require less money to be financed which can make getting them approved easier. With this volume, you are also able to increase the number of cars that you send through your service department thus helping your recon cost while keeping your sales in balance.