The #1 Reason Why Car Dealers Fail To Create A Lot Of Event Traffic... And What To Do About It

Dealerships used to rely more heavily on private sale events (powered by a lot of direct mail and email) to drive showroom traffic for a variety of reasons.

Either their month wasn't pacing where they needed it to be and they wanted an immediate boost in showroom traffic to quickly jump their sales totals.

Some saw it as a way to do stealth marketing - where they appealed to a specific group of local consumers without every competitor in town knowing what was going on.

Most dealers relied heavily on private sale events because it used to be the surest thing to consistently drive showroom traffic and they could see the results.

Over the last two to three years, dealers relied less on these events because of a variety of challenges. The root cause of those challenges is that the car buying journey has drastically changed the impact private sale events have on your showroom traffic.

Car buyers (especially conquest customers) don't want to drive down to your showroom and give you two hours of their Saturday... unless they have already decided to buy what you sell.

Digital Marketing has become a powerful lead source and produces a better ROI with conquest traffic.

However, today Private Sale Events are making a resurgence because many dealers understand the benefits showroom traffic brings beyond the obvious benefit - increased sales.

Many dealers are using Sale Events to boost the atmosphere and energy level of their showroom because of the long lasting impact it has to their dealership's sales team.

This Spring many dealers will invest in a Sale Event because they want to take advantage of a very busy time of year. The mistake many will make is most Sale Events will still be using an old school mentality and target all the wrong people.

What's the biggest mistake a lot of dealers will make with their event?

They will waste thousands marketing dollars on people who will NOT give them the time of day.

Online Shopping Has Impacted a Lot More than Just Private Sale Events

The new car buying journey has created a lot of new challenges for dealers. Showroom traffic is lower (at least at the beginning stage of the buyer's journey).

People no longer give you the opportunity at the start of their shopping experience to explain why you are better. The internet is oversaturated with dealer marketing which also hurts all of your marketing efforts as it becomes more difficult to rise above all the noise and grab your project's attention.

Car Buyers Don't Need You

Shoppers visit less than 1.4 dealerships compared to over three just ten years ago. They no longer rely on you for information about offers & incentives. They’re making decisions before ever contacting you.

They aren’t as easily influenced by traditional marketing. Dealers lack the data and tools to accurately test to determine what marketing delivers the best results.

With everything going on it can be overwhelming for a dealer's marketing and sales teams to align.

Deep Data Insights - This Is Critical in Today's Event Marketing

Old school direct marketing methods focus heavily on targeting prospects based on what they are currently driving. It's a huge mistake to make "what they currently drive" the top priority when identifying who to target.

Today, car buyers are open to buying ten to twelve models early in the buying journey. In the past they only considered three to five (prior to online shopping).

So, what they currently own (their prior purchase history) is not as important as it used to be. Today, the in-market data is critical.

You have to identify in-market shoppers using offline and online data. 

You have to find people who have the highest propensity to buy your product right now because they are the only people interested in giving up their time to drive to your showroom and attend your special event.

Find these people and you’ll see a higher percentage of quality traffic show up, and purchase a vehicle.

Data Doesn't Lie

Narrow your focus and only target consumers who are ready to pull the trigger and buy now. When you do this, your event results will skyrocket.

Trying to appeal to everyone with an Event is a huge mistake that will cost you your event investment. There are better ways to engage prospects who are mid to upper-funnel.

Today, automotive Sale Events only work for low funnel prospects - find them.

When you target the right in-market audience the showroom traffic and ROI is instant.

In a recent study of over 1,200 events and 7 million in-market consumers targeted. Consumers who were invited to participate in a private dealership event bought 3.7X more vehicles over a 30-day period compared to people who were not invited.

The chart below measures the sales activity of customers targeted vs. a control list of customers who would have been targeted, but were not.

That means for every 10,000 people marketed to... dealers sold 27 vehicles within 30 days... the control group of people who also should or would have been marketed to - only bought 7 vehicles within the same 30 day period.

That's right... events still work in today's marketplace but they only appeal to low funnel prospects.

Low funnel prospects already invested the hours of research online and made the decision themselves to buy a certain product.

These are the buyers who will respond to your sales event offer. The key to event success today is the timing of your offer and your ability to narrow down your target audience.

You can't afford to send out the old school way of high volume direct mail and email because too many of these prospects aren't ready to buy yet... and let's face it... they don't need you to find out what a good deal is. They can get that info in 5 minutes online.

If you hope to influence shoppers to your dealership instead of the competition, you must target potential buyers at exactly the right time.

So, private sales events can be highly successful if and when you make a compelling offer to in-market shoppers during the critical decision-making moment low in the funnel. Done right, private sales events convince car buyers that the offers and incentives found in your marketing are better than anything they will find anywhere else.

This can deliver a quick high-impact lift in quality showroom traffic and can help create a buying frenzy.

These one or two day events are most successful when powered by a potent combination of direct mail, email, and social media and are continually optimized to deliver the best results, time and time again.

A successful private sale event must:

• Improve what works and eliminate what doesn't. This allows you to avoid declining traffic, market saturation and low response... so you can escape from the worry and stress of not enough people attending your event.
• Create an event offer that is different and drives high volumes of showroom traffic.
• Make you money before it begins... so you can go into the event already profitable. This allows you to STOP worrying about the potential risk of you wasting all your time, effort and money into something that doesn't work.

By the way, if you really want to maximize your Sale Event traffic, sales and profits... we will lay it all out for you!

Just say...     "Yes! I want more information." and click here and schedule a quick call.

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Be unique... and show up like nobody else!

Scott

Scott Joseph is an automotive dealer and CEO of J&L Marketing. With nearly 3 decades of automotive sales, marketing and leadership experience, he helps automotive clients grow predictable sales with his engineered proven marketing process.