Overview

We want you to understand the difference between a new model introduction or customer appreciation night and an Automotive Private Sale Event. The first two activities are about having a fun night out on the tab of your company. We realize that you are trying to further relationships in the community and your customer base with these events. They are also great for keeping your store and your products top of mind. They help keep the customers up to date about styling, engineering and product changes for the day when they stop dreaming of owning something newer and are ready to start the process of acquiring one.

On the other hand, our Automotive Private Sale Event concept is a Boxing Day Sale. It is about giving the store’s clients a chance to save money. Rather than spend a bunch of money on a huge TV advertising campaign to draw people from far and wide, you use those funds to buy down prices … and you do it for the people already spending money at your store, your own clients.

On every December 26th you can turn on the news and see how all those people lined up to be first to enjoy the price breaks. You can take in all the efforts the stores make to create a buying frenzy. We know people are going to buy vehicles eventually; we just want it to be at your store and on our sale day. It allows you to cut down on defections to other companies and get a better return for your marketing expenditures.

Target Marketing

Generally we like to use three criteria in selecting whom to invite: payments-made, service department patronage and proper contact information. Payments-made is crucial because you don’t want to invite people who still owe more on their vehicles than they’re worth. Patronage is important because we want to talk to ‘active’ clients who are already turning in your driveway … as much as possible, eliminating folks who have moved away or bought something else. Telephone numbers are necessary because we need to follow up the direct mail with an appointment-getting call.

We want you to invite clients who have had their new or used vehicle for at least 36 months … on full size trucks and SUV’s: 18 months … people you sold a new or used vehicle to between 3 and 7 years ago who have serviced it with you in the past 18 months plus … people sold by another dealer, who have serviced a 3-7 year old vehicle with you in the last 18 months … we can help you retrieve this data … and extract it to excel spreadsheets.

Direct Mail

Choose one of nine highly personalized invitations with the look from the outside of a wedding invitation. A card that opens up like a clamshell inside a smaller hand-addressed, hand-stamped envelope … is pretty much guaranteed not to make it to the bottom of the bill pile. On the outside, we include only a return address. We use good paper quality. We strictly follow the ten rules of direct mail. The latest version of what they are driving now is on the outside!

Resources

Training

The start of the first day is taken up with a Dealer Meeting, a Manager Meeting and two training sessions with the sales staff. As a result, everyone has a picture in their head of what is going to happen and what is expected of them. We walk through the concept, discuss past results and then really focus on the appointment-getting telephone scripts. We will role-play until everybody is comfortable with the process.

Appointment-Getting Blitz

We have to understand that this is completely a numbers game. The goal is appointments. Bell to bell from 1pm on the first day until close of business on the second day, nothing is more important than reaching assigned clients to speak to them or leave a powerful message. We will work elbow to elbow with your team to get as many appointments as possible. Prior to the calling, we will have our Voice Broadcast Service leave messages on clients’ voice mail.

Or you can use our terrific Call Centre to make the appointments and gather surprising Intel for you turning this day into a sale day!

Day Three: The Event

The Event is scheduled from noon to 9pm. However, we do everything we can to bring people in earlier in the day. We try to spread out appointments as much as possible. We set up and man a Welcome Desk to ensure guests meet their assigned Sales Consultants and most important of all … we take the opportunity to identify ‘now buyers’ and politely give people just browsing an understanding that we will not have time for them unless they’ve decided to take advantage of the sale. This is a crucial step in making the best use of human resources.