Yes, it does and the reason as you’ll see in this article is that according to your customers themselves, TV, radio, and Direct Mail have less influence on them than driving by your dealership. But first let’s talk about a faster better way to drive sales at your dealership in October – and every other month after that for that matter. And that’s by ensuring you’re marketing correctly in today’s digital world. Polk and Cox put out a 2015 Automotive Buyer Influence Study earlier this year and basically laid your most effective marketing strategy on a silver platter for you.
First how to align your marketing stack. Real simple, if your marketing stack doesn’t closely resemble what sources your opportunities use to get to you, you won’t be as successful as you should be. Here’s what your marketing stack needs to look like from a percentage basis according to the Polk/Cox study. Notice that according to buyers, the internet is growing in influence whilst all others mediums are falling.
Second, your customers and opportunities are online, ALL THE TIME, NOT JUST WHEN THEY’RE SHOPPING FOR CARS! At the Tier 3 level that’s where you need to reach them to effectively brand your dealership. Do your advertising there early and often. Look at the chart below about what drives customers to your dealership most and ask yourself this question: “Do I spend advertising dollars according to the facts and reality of my customers or the bias and interests of my traditional advertising vendors?” For instance look at Direct Mail, not only do many dealers do it wrong (see the Do you do Direct Fail post), but according to the data it only represents 2% of traffic headed your way. And TV and Radio are even worse. Look closely too at customer service and relationships in the chart. Most dealers are making a killing via great customer service and internet marketing alone.
According to the Polk / Cox study Direct Mail, Print, TV, and Radio are the least effective means to drive traffic to your dealership in today’s digital world.
Third, if you’re spending money on the wrong mediums then you’ll have additional problems, like low brand recognition, low traffic, low sales, and wasted budget expenses. Again, according to an 2014 NADA study, dealerships are spending advertising dollars incorrectly relative to what the data says drives customer to dealerships.
Ignoring research, ignoring the facts, and instead relying on “this is the way we’ve always done it,” or “we see good results with our mail or tv” means that you’re NOT getting the best results for your dealership. The data is clear and inarguable… if you’re selling cars in a digital world then the internet – before, during, and after the sales funnel – is head and shoulders above any other medium in terms of where your marketing dollars should be. The internet is three to ten times more effective than any other medium you have available to advertise in.
Why? Simple, your opportunities aren’t in front of their TV’s like they were in years gone by. They listen to Spotify and Pandora not the radio, they’re definitely not consuming direct mail or catalogs. They’re online. All the time. Before they think about buying, when they think about buying, and after they think about buying. Most likely that’s where they are right now. There have been more than enough studies that prove that over and over.
So, if you want to sell more cars in October and in the future – get your management team together and immediately align your strategy and expenses to align with your buyers’ reality.