How much does your dealership spend each weekend for full page color advertising? Is it ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars or more?

Next question:

How many readers will be impacted by those advertisements?

Case Study – Single Mom’s Car is stolen

Last week in Southern California, a single mother had her car stolen from the parking lot by visiting her disabled child in the hospital. This story was reported locally and people came out of the woodwork to offer assistance. The best assistance of all came from a local Nissan Dealer who donated a 1997 Sentra to replace the 1986 Toyota that had been stolen.

The following day a “Los Angeles Area” paper ran a story about the dealership in the local section that included a teaser headline on the front page. The article included a photo of the surprised woman, the name and location of the donating dealership, and several quotes of good will from both the dealer and recipient.

Of course the story suggests that this was an act of “charity” that painted the dealer as a caring and considerate member of the community. Truth is dealer attitude and feelings aside, it’s also a good business decision.

Business Benefits

1. Cost of Vehicle vs. Cost of Advertising – The trade in value of this vehicle is estimated around $3300.00. By contrast, a full page advertisement is triple the price or more depending on the market.

2. More readers - People who read the weekend auto sections are generally only those who are interested right now. And while you certainly want to be in front of motivated buyers, those buyers AND thousands of others will read the story. This will improve awareness and increase traffic.

Of course once the customers get to your dealership, you’ll need to keep them there with customer focused processes. That’s where we come in. Give us a call to discuss how we can help you retain more customers and increase your bottom line.