Throughout our years of experience at ADS, we’ve worked with several different types of clients, from smaller dealerships to most that are part of large national chains. One universal factor we’ve seen affecting large promotions or sales for any size of dealership is how well the dealership’s marketing department plans around the local events, and local economy.
If you don’t have well-planned and executed sales strategy in place when you start a campaign, your chances of failure increase exponentially. One of the first things we do at ADS when working with a new client is assess events going on in the local community around the time of a customer’s promotion.
Why is this important?
Whether large or small, community events are often going to cost your dealership traffic, and at the end of the day, sales. If you’re planning a huge promotion for your dealership, there’s never a limit on how many times you can check local events in your area to ensure huge events aren’t coinciding with your biggest promotion of the year.
Plan Accordingly.
Visit local websites and get out your community calendar from the year before. Any of last year’s major events could be put together even a month before the event date this year. Avoid disaster by not only knowing what’s coming in your community, but events that could possibly take place, regardless of whether or not they’re set in stone.
Be Flexible.
When sending automotive direct mail and other printed materials, give yourself a shorter time frame before the event begins to get these printed. You don’t necessarily want to get your materials printed and mailed the week before the event, but leaving a short time frame to change the date might be beneficial to your campaigns in the long run.
If you find out that a major promotion for your dealership will run concurrently with a community event, how can you avoid disaster and make sure you still get traffic to your event?
Make It Out to the Event.
If all else fails, contact the event organizers, tell them you have a huge promotion going on, and ask to take part in the event or hand out automotive direct mail pieces or flyers at the event.
Taking advantage of the event’s traffic may actually be the best thing for your dealership, and can help you spread the word about your promotions while giving you a voice in the community. Knowing how to use community events to boost your branding and profits is all a part of having a well-strategized and implemented marketing plan.
How have you been able to effectively avoid or join marketing efforts with large local events?
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