New Car Specials - What REALLY Works?

[joe.pistell]

Gas Cards Part 2

I know that some managers can be knuckleheads. They play hardball with the stupid $20 gas card. The morons want to 'control' the gas card handoff to control costs and 'win' the negotiation game. They stress out their reps by getting them wrapped up in this stupid game. I can't think of a better way to kill your be-back business.

 

[Stefan]

... I'm wondering what are some common specials and promotions that others have had success with? Be it a banner on a website, a bulk email, radio ad, commercial etc.

At first I thought this was your question; however, after reading your post over I've found this:

I'm trying to help boost the creative side of things. Our dealership seems to suffer from refusal to change with the times....

To me these are two very different challenges.

I think you are looking for ways to change the culture at your store. Is this correct?

I ask this because banners and specials will not help you change the culture of a store and if thats your goal, the conversation should be steered in a different direction.

Maybe I'm missing something here... it wouldn't be the first time

 

[Alexander Lau]

I used to manage a team of social media marketers at an agency and we pushed out daily (weekday) $50 gas cards on dealer social media pages. With a small budget from a number of dealers, we did this for about a year. I'll say this, the organic posts that offered the gas cards performed a helluva' lot better than non-offer posts. The conversion rate wasn't too bad, but it varied per rooftop. Nothing fantastic, but after our charge and the cost of the cards, it was well worth it to the dealers, seeing the ups. All it takes is one to two customer acquisitions (anything more is butter), but that relies more on the ability of their floor people.

 

[KevinO]

I don't see TrueCar, Edmunds or any other 3rd party buying sites giving out gas cards to get people in the door. Maybe instead of gimmicks one should just duplicate them with good content, competitive pricing and why buy from us messaging.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

I don't see TrueCar, Edmunds or any other 3rd party buying sites giving out gas cards to get people in the door. Maybe instead of gimmicks one should just duplicate them with good content, competitive pricing and why buy from us messaging.

I have to ask @KevinO - What point are you trying to make? How does an incentive become a "gimmick"?

What if you AND the competition are on game. Both providing great content, pricing, and a "why buy.".. then what?

Just curious.

 

[KevinO]

I have to ask @KevinO - What point are you trying to make? How does an incentive become a "gimmick"?

What if you AND the competition are on game. Both providing great content, pricing, and a "why buy.".. then what?

Just curious.

C'mon Jeff ..With JUST a gas card incentive I would pretty much expect every high pressure trick in the book to be thrown at me. I thought this was about New Car Specials and what really works.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

C'mon Jeff ..With JUST a gas card incentive I would pretty much expect every high pressure trick in the book to be thrown at me. I thought this was about New Car Specials and what really works. Save the gas cards for customer satisfaction surveys thst works?

I've been doing it for years @KevinO with great results. It's all in how you implement it into your process.

The original discussion here is around actual New Car Specials and how they're displayed on your dealership's website. Somewhere within this discussion, someone threw in the idea of incentivizing car shoppers with a gift card.

If you're going to incentivize the shopper on your dealership's website, you'll want to take the shoppers behavior into consideration in order achieve the best results and ROI.

The right incentive at the right time can increase your "internet" Lead to Show rate as well. When I incorporate incentives into the follow-up process of third-party leads, I've moved a 20% average Lead to Show rate to 35-45%.

Like most strategies, if you use it effectively and you're smart with your implementation and training, it can be an effective tool.

 

[Alexander Lau]

I don't see TrueCar, Edmunds or any other 3rd party buying sites giving out gas cards to get people in the door. Maybe instead of gimmicks one should just duplicate them with good content, competitive pricing and why buy from us messaging.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's not in the best interest for TrueCar, Edmunds, AutoTrader, Cars.com, CarGurus, KBB, etc. to attack consumers on such a local or granular level. It's just not their business model.

Guerrilla marketing techniques (and that's what I call gas card offers) can work, but like anything else they need to be tested in your demographic(s).

 

[ed.brooks]

Attribution is extremely difficult in the automotive space. Think of an automotive consumer's journey as a game of Jenga. Do you give credit for a victory to the first block pulled? Do you assign blame for a defeat to the last block pulled? Or is it much likely that every action contributed to the end result?

That is why I find it very difficult to assume that a gas card is the reason why someone walks in - the reason the tower falls, if you will. Isn't it much more likely that the sum total of every touchpoint they made on the journey each contributed to end result.

 

[KevinO]

IMO..most people view a dealership website or 3rd party VDP to pick who they are NOT going to visit.
Marketing and a sales process are two separate things. I'm just saying one must think through marketing (specials) before
you begin the sales process.. that's all!