Text Messaging and Automotive Advertising

What an awesome time we live in! Marketing is truly changing every day, and although I'm sure that can be said for other time frames as well - few saw as many changes in media as the last decade.

Obviously Social Media is all abuzz (as it should be) and email marketing is coming in to its own, along with more ways to personalize messages and target specific demographics every day. Many dealers are ahead of the game when it comes to all of these mediums. One area I haven't seen a quick adoption in is the use of text messaging.

How can you use Text Messaging in your marketing?

1. Build your list. Before you can just start blasting out text deals you have to have a list of people that have "opted in" to receive those messages from you. Include text offers on all your marketing - in the short term it will increase response for the current campaigns you are running, for the long term you are building a strong database of customers who have opted in to receive future marketing from you in this format.

2. Be consistent. Continue to use text messaging as an option to correspond with you and your dealership. Over time it will give your customers more flexibility and allow you to collect more opt ins.

3. Send relevant messages. Once you start using Text Messaging for outbound campaigns be smart about it. Send messages that people are happy to receive - like discounted oil changes or a sales special exclusive to your texting customers (that is actually worth something).

4. Don't be a stalker. If you've dated in the world of text messaging you know many people abuse this communication channel. Just like email or social media (and any other media for that matter) don't jam things down your customers throats. Be there, and be available but don't overdo it.

Give us a shout today to talk about specific text messaging offers you can start using in your current marketing tomorrow!

Text Messaging & YOU

I have a confession to make. As a company we rolled out Text Messaging services about six months ago, and honestly I haven't talked to more than 5 dealers total about it. Sure, it sounds sexy to talk about adding a text messaging campaign to your current marketing plan, but I wasn't sold on how it can actually help dealers - and if I don't think it will help, I'm not going to offer it.

That is, until recently. Our Marketing Director has sent me over several case studies on how texting has brought in a ton of great leads for dealers (you can check them out here and here). In addition to these, real life examples of success I'm learning about the other applications and how this can fit into a long term strategy for dealers.

Here's the 20,000 foot view on what adding Text Messaging to your campaigns can do - I'll blog later on the week with more specific ideas.

1. Communicate with your customers the way they want to be communicated to. Think about even in your personal life - when people want to get a hold of you do they call, email, text, hit you up on Facebook? Your public is the same way. Texting gives them one more, convenient method to contact your store, and receive marketing messages from you.

2. Build a database for the future. When we add an offer to one of your current marketing campaigns "Text to win," "Text for a $15 oil change," etc. anyone who texts in to receive the offer is also "opting in" to receive future texts from you. As you build a database of people who has opted in you'll be able to start sending outbound messages to those folks with additional service & sales offers.

3. Offer something new in your market. Very few companies in general have hopped on the texting bandwagon, and even fewer dealers are in the game. This is an inexpensive opportunity to be one of the first in the market to offer this type of marketing.

4. Work texting into the advertising you're already paying for - TV, Radio, Mail, Billboard, etc. Click here to listen to a radio campaign with texting!

Email Marketing & Email Campaigns

As email marketing becomes more and more popular it's becoming clear there is a lot of confusion regarding this medium. Many companies offer email campaigns of one kind or another, here are the breakdown on the most popular - and the two kinds we offer here at Tri Auto. Database Email Marketing I'm calling this part "marketing" because it's not just a single advertising campaign, it should be a long term marketing effort aimed at continuing name recognition & goodwill to your client base.

• The email list is provided by the dealership, it can be pulled out of your DMS, CRM or from Marketvision data from previous sales.
• The email comes directly from your dealership.
• The message of the email can vary based on who the customer is. For example, you could segment your list into recent buyers, buyers 3+ years or older & service customers. The recent buyers could receive new vehicle tips, accessory info & an incentive for the service or detailing department. The buyers from several years ago would likely receive sales info, special incentives on vehicles similar to what they own, or a buyback offer. ...you get the picture.
• It is also common to keep in touch with all past leads & customers through a monthly newsletter that works in all departments of the dealership along with some warm & fuzzy content like recipes, automotive tips, local news, etc.

Saturation Email Campaigns

• The email list is provided by us. We let you know how many emails are available & legally opted in around your dealership and you choose what zip codes to email.
• The email comes from a third party, but has whatever you like in the subject line.
• The email message has to be the same for all recipients.
• Typically dealers use this type of campaign in one of two ways: in collaboration with a specific direct mail sale or promotion or monthly as an inexpensive way to keep their name out there.

Email marketing doesn't typically draw huge responses immediately to the dealership. It's just one more tool that can be added to a well rounded marketing campaign.

Tri Auto adds TV & Radio to the Mix!

That's right-we're adding a couple of more products to our marketing arsenol here at Tri Auto. Many of our clients have tried to create syngery with their mailers buy utilizing additional media with the same message. We're just taking a little of the leg work out of it for you by offering TV & Radio spots that match the mailers we provide. Just let us know if you'd like to add one to your next mailer. Check out our You Tube channel for samples of each.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPa-DEvpcyE

*New Product Alert* Saturation Emails

Good morning all-just wanted to get the word out about a brand new program we're offering at Tri Auto! As most of my readers know we already offered personalized emails to your database or MarketVision list of emails. We typically send 3-4 different messages depending on the different groups of leads. For example people who purchased recently would get a service offer, while those that haven't bought in a few years would get a more sales focused email. However, now we can also do basically what we sometimes do with mail-saturate your market via email. I'll be honest, we've had the opportunity to get into this market before and have declined-there are a lot of shady ways to send out emails and we wanted to make sure we were keeping our clients compliant with phishing & spamming laws. Through a lot of diligence and searching we've found a way to do this for our dealers. I'll blog later on the best uses for saturation emails-but they are a great way to boost traffic to your next event type sale, database mailer or VIP event. You can saturate your entire market for pennies per email. Let me know if you want to talk in more detail on this new product.

MIA Direct Mail Diva

It's been a week since my last post, I've been extremely overloaded the past few days working out the final details on our BRAND NEW, top SeCReT program we've put together specifically for automotive dealers.

This program will absolutely change the way you look at mail and your entire marketing program.

Tomorrow we're rolling it out to everyone here at Tri Auto, so next week I'll be able to talk to all of you about it! I'm the saving the "what it is" for later, but will share the "who will benefit" now to get you thinking of if you fall into the category, or if you know someone who does.

Who might be a good match for this new program?

• Forward thinking dealers who like to be early adopters, or be the first to hit the market with something.
• Dealers that are still spending money to market themselves even in the current economic climate.
• Groups with several locations looking to put together a program that allows everyone fair market share without stepping on toes.
• Mid to large franchise dealers.
• Dealerships that want to know exactly what results they are getting off of every marketing dollar they spend.
• Management that is looking for ways of improving their marketing, closing ratio and sales person performance.
• And finally, dealers with leadership that is open to discussing what's happened in the past, what's happening now, and what they want to happen in the future.

I'm so excited for this new chapter in Tri-Auto's journey as a company! This program takes everything we've already learned from MarketVision and harnesses its power to start taking the marketing at individual dealerships to the next level.

More to come...