Yes, You Read That Correctly, Digital Direct Mail

To start, this article is not bashing direct mail, because let’s be honest, it’s still an effective medium for dealers to get customers in the door, but traditional direct mail has many flaws. First off, out of any and all of the advertising your dealership is (or could be) doing, direct mail has, typically, had a very low conversion rate. This is why most dealers spend thousands of dollars to send out tens of thousands of mail pieces in hopes of getting a 1.5% – 2% conversion rate at best.

As we all know, most direct mail goes in one place upon arriving at a potential up’s home; the trash. Whether you believe we are finally on our way out of this recession or not is your own opinion but the reality is that dealers need to be (and SHOULD be) spending their ad budgets in a smarter and more forward thinking way. The days of relying on print media to bring customers in the door is coming to an end, and the dealers who will survive are the ones who are willing to keep an open mind and invest in digital mediums of marketing to the masses. In fact many dealers are starting to ditch direct mail and print media all together and going 100% digital

Ok, Ok! I’ll get into this new thing called “digital direct mail.” We’ve already established that direct mail gets at best a 1.5% – 2% conversion rate. Even the best emails written by world class, direct response copywriters get a 20% OPEN RATE at best. What if you were able to serve a direct mail style ad to past customers on a digital platform where they spend a large chunk of their time? Not only does this guarantee they see your ad, but unlike a direct mail piece or an email it is not easily erased!! That’s right, they’ll see your ad/ offer more than once, several times in fact. And we all know, sales and marketing 101, an ad begins to become “top of mind” after the 6th time a potential customer has seen your ad.

What digital platform, you ask? Well, there are a few different ones, but this strategy does use different social marketing platforms. “We tried marketing on Facebook, it didn’t work,” you say? Typical dealership social advertising falls short because all they did was push an offer. There was no definition to what the objective was. Also, most offers are not geotargeted, so people WELL out of your PMA were seeing offers for your dealership. No one is going to drive 100 miles for an oil change, and unless you have the exact vehicle a customer is looking for, they’re not going to drive a far distance.

Imagine if you had 150 past sales clients in your DMS that bought a specific car from you 4 years ago and they’re all just about off lease. What if you could serve a digital “buyback mailer” ad to those specific 150 people knowing that your ad, your “mail piece,” wouldn’t get thrown out, and better yet, they’d see it several times and finally click on the offer. But it doesn’t stop there, what about another hundred or so people who have a totally different model? Past sales clients who finished paying off their vehicles years ago? They can all be reached.

Best of all, everything is trackable! Want to know how many clicks the ads get or how many impressions you’re getting? No problem. Customers who are served these “mailer ads” can be sent to any type of landing page. Want phone ups? Send them to a landing page that allows them to call your dealership directly, all calls are tracked. Want them to receive a coupon to bring in? No problem, this can be set up to send a coupon via email, text message OR they can simply save the coupon and print later.

To find out more, get in touch ASAP before your competition reads this and does! Make sure to ask about the performance based package.