Buying a car is a stressful time. Payments will significantly cut into your lifetime earnings. It’s arguably the second biggest buying decision of your life behind a house. At the same time, successful auto dealerships will guide customers through these situations multiple times every single day. What are the best practices to A) efficiently get your message in front of your potential customers and B) get them into your store? Successful automotive dealership media placement starts with a few simple tenets.
Finding the right audience
Most dealers who have dealt with past agencies have heard about maximizing impressions. That is, they’ll recommend putting your message into the market as many times as possible. While this sounds great on the surface, take a second to understand your ideal customer. Not everyone is in the market to buy a new vehicle. Why are you spending to get your message in front of 100% of the audience? You’ll probably find that maybe 15% are actually interested? This is a question that has led to an influx of “Auto-intender data.”
The most successful dealerships will maximize their message only for this audience section that will benefit from your message. Using a “spray and pray” model for your dealer advertising will ultimately lead to a giant waste of spend. With so much value in potential customers already in the market of buying a car, how can we capitalize on it?
Frequency in your message
Simply put, once we narrow in on an audience that can benefit most from the auto inventory we have, we need to ensure this audience is receiving our message. On top of that, we need to make sure this audience is receiving our message a lot. Most advertisers use a “Rule of 7,” which explains that most customers will need to hear your message 7 times before converting. Now translate this rule to your monthly sales model.
How can we get our message in front of each individual potential customer 7 times when our dealership functions on a monthly schedule? You need to maximize your frequency. If your minimizing your audience by focusing on your intenders, your spend will naturally decrease. Use this extra cash to improve your dealership media placement. Above all, you goal is putting your message in front of your potential customers as frequently as possible.
Using multiple touchpoints
Frequency can take many different forms. The traditional model would simply include running more television or radio ads. Since it’s particularly difficult to constrict your targeted audience through these popular forms of media, we can set our sites on the multitude of digital options.
Your customers will use a multitude of media on the way to making a purchasing decision. If you’re only reaching your audience through television and/or radio, you’re missing several touchpoints along the way. By saving some of your spend by not targeting an entire market, you can now allocate toward Social and Digital Media. Filling in these gaps in your dealership’s media placement can help potential customers reach the coveted “Rule of 7” and drive them to convert through your store.
And if you’re ready to begin your journey, take your first step to becoming a client now.
