You Need to Know the 5 Best Sales Events You Can Have

If you look back over your last ten years... what is your biggest sales success story? What's the most units your store has delivered in one or two days? What's your store's record? More importantly... what did you do special with your marketing that generated the extra floor traffic that is needed to produce that record-breaking day(s)?

For most dealers... they hosted some sort of private sales event. Promotional events and Direct response marketing are producing better results today than they have for several years for several reasons...

1. The data is better. Offline and online data help data analysts better identify in-market audiences. The days of just blanket mailing 10,000 to 20,000 pieces of direct mail are over. Today, you should be able to target significantly less people and produce the same if not more high quality leads.
2. Social media allows you to promote your event to thousands of people over and above your target list for no additional costs.
3. Less saturation. Digital marketing should and does command a larger amount of a dealer's time, attention and money. Promotional events stand out more today because not as many dealers rely on them every month to hit their sales quota.
4. Very advanced landing pages, ringless voicemail, sophisticated BDC support and triggered emails all help increase response and sales.

My intent with this article is not to try and sell you on direct response, digital or any other marketing approach... My intent is to open your mind to the fact that there are a variety of ways to drive showroom traffic. You have to do what works best for your dealership... and the only way to do that is to test. None of us has the right or the power to predetermine what the marketplace wants. You do not know in advance what the best price, offer or approach will be.

You should put every important marketing question to a vote by the only people whose ballot counts... clients and prospects. They vote with their time and money.

If you do decide to run one or multiple private sale events this year there are some opportunities where clients and prospects have already voted with their time and money - and the results are consistently good.

These opportunities on their own won't produce the results you're looking for. You can't just show up like everyone else and expect great things to happen.

Sales event success in today’s automotive market requires a very advanced strategy but it has to be turn-key and simple so it is easy for you to maximize the potential. It requires the ability to transform data into actionable insights. Those insights must be the driving force behind your marketing strategy. Gut instinct doesn't work today. The market is much smarter than you or I. You must know exactly who, what, where, when and how to invest your always-stressed marketing budget to produce the greatest results.

A great marketer is someone who has the ability to get the maximum result with minimum effort – not the person or company with the most creative imagination. You’re a professional marketer if you understand that one approach to getting clients may produce three times the results of another – so, logically, you stick with the approach that yields the best results.

So a real marketing genius, in my opinion, is someone who is both logical and practical. I gravitate to the person or strategy that produces the highest and best results for the time, money and effort. Anyone can become a marketing genius by doing one simple thing - testing.

Private sale event success is tested and measured by performance in sales, response and profit figures. Get it wrong and it can be costly. Get it right and the sky’s the limit.

While some overlook the core marketing disciplines of testing and measuring, we’ve found that diligent review provides a goldmine of actionable insights. We’ve collected data through millions of dealership sales, parts, and service transactions. But numbers alone don't tell the whole story – that’s why for over twenty-eight years, we’ve also surveyed showroom traffic for 98% of our campaigns.

The following insights are just a few we’ve garnered from the "feet on the street" data we collect at the dealership and deep dives into the offline and online data available to us.

These 5 event opportunities always produce showroom traffic and increased sales.

These sales event opportunities stood out for the simple reason that they are bona fide winners, earning thousands upon thousands of dollars for the dealers who promote them. Four of these sales events are specific to automotive industry conditions and the other is day specific. Let’s explore the reasoning behind each.

1. Presidents' Day and Presidents' Day weekend

Both are great options because of the powerful return they produce on either a single day Monday or any combination of Friday, Saturday and Monday. Presidents’ Day occurs at the tail end of a slower sales period and it’s a perfect way to gain a quick boost in showroom traffic and sales for February.

Presidents' Day weekend is consistently (over the last four years) one of the best opportunities of the entire year in terms of showroom traffic and more importantly to you – the amount of cars sold.

Why is this event day and weekend so successful?

People are off work, which means they have more time to come into your showroom and buy a vehicle. There are plenty of Holidays where people are off work. What works in your favor with Presidents' Day is that people are off work and they usually don't have plans to travel or celebrate it with friends and family. This gives them more time to visit you.

Plus, retailers from every vertical invest millions promoting Presidents' Day sales. Consumers have been trained through advertising that Presidents' Day offers some of the year's best discounts and offers. Data shows that car buyers utilize three-day weekends (like Presidents’ Day) to find new vehicles at holiday prices.

Don’t underestimate the power of hunger. Your sales team just finished January... one of your slower months of the year. They are hungry. A Presidents' Day event brings in a lot of showroom traffic. Combine a showroom full of quality leads with a hungry sales team and you have a real opportunity to pick up 10, 20 or 30 extra units. Many dealers use Presidents' Day weekend as a way to jumpstart their Spring selling season.

If you haven't planned a promotional strategy or scheduled a sales event for Presidents' Day or Presidents' Day weekend... click here to discuss a turn-key proven process for event success.

2. Milestone Events (either Dealer or Manufacturer Milestones)

Every dealership has milestone event opportunities (and yes... when the manufacturer is celebrating a milestone - you should piggyback those milestones). An anniversary, a new location opening, or commemorating the retirement of a founder. You must leverage milestones into sales events because it helps you differentiate your dealership from the competition, attract new prospects and enable growth.

Differentiating your dealership in today’s business climate is tough. You have to make the most out of every opportunity that draws positive attention to your store. Your milestone not only offers a believable and credible reason to promote, it conveys to your customers and prospects that your dealership is doing well. A well-planned and executed sales event promotion pays huge dividends by...

? Increasing conquest and repeat business

? Spreading recognition in your community

? Boosting employee morale

I am shocked by the number of people I talk with who do not know their store's anniversary month. My own stores celebrate their anniversary with a private sales events every year. On average it is our best performing campaign and it is the event that has set every store's sales record.

Anniversary events humanize your dealership. In an increasingly commodified business landscape where car buyers have more and more choice, your commitment to celebrate your history with your customers will give them a chance to emotionally connect with you and significantly up the chance that when given two purchasing options – they’ll go with their heart and choose you.

Happy employees make for happy customers. Your dealership's anniversary is a perfect opportunity to give your current employees another reason to feel proud to have had a part in shaping your history - now and for the future.

Click here if you want to discuss your next dealership milestone and the most profitable way to promote it.

3. Model Year Close-out Events

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested promoting model clearance or close-out events from every manufacturer - for at least the twenty eight years J&L has been in business. This has systematically programmed consumers to expect deep discounts. The industry has trained car buyers this is a great time of year and a real opportunity to save.

This represents an opportunity for you to piggyback off of all the national advertising money being spent promoting the savings event. Not just from your manufacturer but from every manufacturer. The more money that is poured into advertising nationally... the better that works out for you.

Consumers now know that model year clearance events are a great time to benefit from the urgency you and the manufacturer have to move older models to make room for the new models. These perceptions automatically boost traffic to these events . . . and not just the window-shopping kind. Usually the manufacturer competes with other manufacturers and gets more aggressive with rebates and incentives. This gives you a chance to get people into vehicles at less cost than normal.

4. New Model Introduction Events

People usually buy for emotional reasons and we justify the decision with logical reasons. Is there anything better than buying a new car (especially when it's a new model or a re-design)? New Model Introductions bring a high response from consumers that are always the early adopters of new technology and new products. The people that stand in line for 14 hours when Apple introduces the new iPhone take the same approach to buying cars.

Although there are typically nice incentives associated for a NMI type of sale, most people that attend these events are probably more concerned about being the first one to have the new model and might be willing to pay a premium price to do so.

5. Year End Clearance Events

Year End Clearance events continue to set a predictably high standard of return, thanks to the enduring perception of consumers that dealers are willing to discount their inventory more aggressively at the end of each month, and even more so at the end of the year. You can choose to blend this theme with the holidays or not, with similar results. Consumers always associate good deals with the end of the year.

Similar to model year close-out events hundreds of millions of dollars are invested every year by every manufacturer.

Plan now for your 5 best sales event opportunities in 2019

These five event opportunities have a lot in common. They have a built in consumer perception that these are the best opportunities for them to save a lotto money and get the car, SUV, truck or van of their dreams. So you have very believable and credible reasons "why" you are promoting a sales event.

When these five events are well-promoted and well-executed, they are proven to capitalize on a blend of factors: the consumer perception that dealers who are urgently trying to achieve their sales goals are more likely to reduce prices and negotiate, and that there are certain endorphin-spiking opportunities throughout the year to appeal to the consumer’s sense of occasion and the excitement of being first in line to get something new.

If you want more information on how to optimize your next promotion or sales event... 

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.