You know we both work with leaders and often, they'll hear information about something new like this podcast, they'll say something like, "let's try this", and they'll do one and that will be it. If they don't immediately get the result they were expecting; they move on to the next shiny object. How important is consistency in a Conquest Email Marketing model?
Tony: Well, consistency is the number one. There is no such thing as one and done; you're going to advertise one time, you're going to have a million customers come into your dealership, it doesn't work that way. Picture this, picture McDonald's, let's use that as an example. There's a McDonald's on every corner in the United States and in Canada. However, how many times do you see a television commercial, you hear a radio jingle, or see a billboard?
They're constantly, constantly pounding into you to remember McDonald's. That's what you want to do with your dealership as well. You want to constantly keep it out there so when someone says, "I'm really looking for another car or a newer car.", "Hey, you know what, I know this dealership. I keep seeing them advertising, let's go over there see what they have to offer." The more you advertise, the more it stays in the front of their mind. That would be the first thing they would think of when they're in the market.
Sean: Yes, I agree 100%. I think statistically, prospects need between 9 and 15 points of contact to move into action if they know the brand. I think the number jumps around 45 to 50 points of contact if they don't yet know the brand. If you're conquesting I agree 100% with you; consistency is the key. In my experience when doing conquest campaigns contrary to loyalty marketing to existing customers who are much more likely to complete a form, provide you information or pick up the phone and call somebody specific at the dealership.
When we're conquesting people might be much more subtle about the way they approach the dealership, and might not admit that their interest was triggered by the email campaign and the conquest efforts. You have a method to help leaders figure out the results of the campaign. If I'm right, you call it the match back method. You want to walk the listeners and me through that technique?
Tony: Absolutely, absolutely, match back. Basically, there are several different ways that we can do this. Number one is if the dealership has a dashboard which can be provided, they can actually see daily what the actual vehicles that these consumers are looking at. Which one are they clicking on? Are they clicking on say the SUV or the four-door sedan? We're able to see that. They can also use tags to put in there to watch it in their Google Analytics.
There's a lot of dealerships out there that will watch the traffic with Google Analytics. However, that shows us the traffic which is great. As far as the match back is concerned, that's where you actually can take the buyer's name, and match it to an email or possibly a postal address and a name, where we're able to match that to say, "Yes, this person was on the list that we were targeting, and they actually purchased a vehicle from your dealership."
Sean: That helps dealers figure out at the end of a particular campaign how many people were targeted, and how many of these people or people from within the same household ended up buying a new vehicle from them?
Tony: Absolutely, absolutely.
Sean: Tony, I know when we do campaigns for dealers together, we also have access to an additional service where we target the people on the email broadcast list with a social media campaign that conveys an identical message to the email to increase convergence and responses. Can you tell us a little bit more about that aspect of the solution?
Tony: Sure. Let's just use an example. Let's use a Ford dealership. we send out an email, we see that the majority of the clients or consumers are clicking on the Ford Escape and the Ford Mustang, that's where they're getting the most of their traffic. What we can do is then target those consumers on social media and possibly use maybe a carousel ad where it goes from the dealerships name to the Escape, to the Mustang, and just keeps going round and round.
When they click on it in social media, what they're actually able to do is go directly right to the dealership again, and look at the vehicles, or fill out the form, or find the color that they want, that is very, very critical. We can also use what we call banner ads. Banner ads are where we can basically follow the consumer around onto some of their websites that they do go to.
If they do shop on other websites or if they like sports or something like that, we can always put up a banner ad so they would say, "Hey, look at that. I was just looking at that dealership, and I got an email from them, and now I see them that they're on this website advertising. I like that." They may click on that; when they click on that creative ad, again, it will bring them right back to the dealership's website where they can continue to look or possibly say, "You know what, that's the car I want. I'm going down there."
Sean: That increases the number of touch points that we can serve prospects within the environment of the campaign hence, increase the chances that people will show up at the dealership.
Tony: Absolutely. If they see you on email, and they see you on social media, and they see you on banner ads, your dealership is going to be the first one that they think of as soon as they're ready, or maybe their friend or family member is ready to buy a car.
Sean: Now, this is not blanketing a geographical area with Facebook or banner ads, this is specifically targeting the people who received an email, right?
Tony: Absolutely. This is only the people that we know are in the market to either purchase or lease. That is it. We also have what we call trigger data. I want to bring that up. That's very, very critical. A lot of times what will happen is someone may become in the market that we were not aware of, let's say, for example, they weren't in the 30-day, the 60-day or the 90-day market, all of a sudden they start looking at this dealership and that dealership and this dealership. What we're able to do is we're able to capture their information and send them an actual email from the dealership in their geography if we're working with them.
Sean: Somebody learns their wife is pregnant, then the two-seater Corvette won't cut it anymore, they get triggered.
Tony: Absolutely. They start looking at minivans or something like that, absolutely, that's when we target them.
Sean: Wow, Tony, this information is like having access to a Conquest Email Marketing masterclass. Any other element or components you would like to add just before we wrap it up?
Tony: One other thing I do want to bring up is that brand loyalty isn't what it was years ago. Every dealership or every brand is losing anywhere between 25 to 60% of their clientele because they're going to different brands. What you have to do is you have to make up for the clientele that you're losing. That's why you have to bring in the conquest customer into your dealership. You want to bring in the person who's never shopped your store before, that's very, very important. That's why Conquest Email Marketing is the number one.
Sean: Do you feel, Tony, that some dealers are having a snobbish attitude towards email marketing because it's not as fancy or the latest fad as Facebook staff, Chatbox, Instagram or other shiny technology, and they're wrongfully shying away from email marketing?
Tony: Yes. The reason why some of them are wrongfully shying away from it is that they say, "You know what, I get all these emails and I never asked for them, and I just throw them into my spam." On the contrary, these clients that we are contacting, they are actually asking for advertising from some of the companies that we work with, so they are expecting it. If they told us that they are in the market to buying a new vehicle, well, when they see the new vehicle ad in their email, they're going to open it up. It's not therefore because they didn't ask for it, they actually did ask for it. They want to hear from advertisers what we have to offer.
Sean: Tony, as you know part of the car dealership lifestyle, many dealers are forced into a very reactive mode. We would all love them to be more proactive and plan their Conquest Email Marketing efforts as a component of their monthly efforts. If someone is listening to the podcast and it's the 27th, just four days left to make the month, how fast can we turn around a Conquest Email Marketing campaign?
Tony: If we get all the information readily upfront and we can have the creative built almost immediately, we can have it out that day.
Sean: Tony, thank you again for taking some time off your schedule to share with us this precious information. I really appreciate both your friendship and your expertise.
Tony: Sean, I'd like to thank you very much. It was my pleasure being here with you and answering some of the questions. I hope that people take some of this advice and implement it into some of their dealerships.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode on Conquest Email Marketing and that you will be back for more great content like this. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play and Spotify, so you don't miss the next exciting tools and tactics I want to share with you. Make sure also to leave me a few comments on this week's strategy; I'm curious to get your feedback and most of all your success stories. In the next episode, I want to talk to you about the Big Blue app. It's a new Facebook advertising tactic that will blow your mind.
Like it or not, Facebook is still the dominant social media platform, and automotive
marketers are going to spend a big portion of their budget on the platform hoping to get some traction from all the eyeballs. What type of ads are the pros looking at for the year ahead, I'm inviting a surprise guest to tell you all about it and reveal a few industry secrets. You're not going to want to miss our next show. Until then I wish you a great week. Remember that we only have 30 days to sell cars when the month starts, and we probably have less than that if you look at your calendar now. Like I love to say, let's sell some cars.