Canadian Auto Dealer - Event marketing still works | Features

According to a report titled, EventView 2009: Global, “events and the Web (are) the marketing disciplines that provide the greatest return on investment.” There’s always been a place for event selling within the wide range of marketing tools a car dealer uses. The Giant Tent Sale is a still a favourite, and the Private Sale has become something of a staple.

Different approaches

The two differ primarily in their focus. The Giant Tent Sale casts a broad net into the dealer’s market area, to attract new customers as well as old. The Private Sale has its origins in a more elitist approach. It’s a “by invitation” event that mines the dealer’s customer base. With the advent of more sophisticated software, there are a number of consulting companies who will happily facilitate a Private Sale.

Jeff Williams, whose company Absolute Results has been in the training business since 1995, owns the domain, www.theprivatesale.ca. His particular expertise is in thoroughly scrubbing the dealership database prior to sending out elegant personalized invitations. Then his trainer spends two days working with sales staff, booking appointments as well as guiding staff through the one day event. “You have to create the momentum from the inside out,” said Williams. “The sales force has to be galvanized.” Since 2003 they’ve done more than 1100 Private Sales, and Williams estimates that means 23,000 vehicles sold.

Jason Cross, VP of Gauthier Pontiac Buick in Winnipeg, has been doing quarterly Private Sales for six years. Cross plans the Sales when factory incentives are optimum and the market is busy. “Do you go fishing when the fish don’t bite?” he asks.

Database management is critical. With approximately 8000 names, Cross plans to touch each customer no more than twice a year. Every customer is categorized. “It’s easy to pinpoint a segment, like truck customers only, or service customers who haven’t previously bought a car from us. And there’s always a new group coming along who are ready to buy.”

Aubrey George, the GM at Crowfoot Village Honda in Calgary, has worked with Automotivaters since 2004 and done one Private Sale a year with them for the past four. There was a huge blizzard the day of the first sale, but to George’s surprise, most customers kept their appointments. And the closing ratio was very high indeed. “But one year we did two sales and that was too much. You can milk your database dry if you’re not careful.” He’s also starting to see repeat customers at his February events, which suggests some people are now waiting to take advantage of the special deals available only on Sale day.

Variations on the Private Sale theme

A concept still in development is the 48-hour sale, which combines the Private Sale with a media blitz. “We’d choose one media and dominate it,” says Williams. He’s looking for a dealer who wants to be the dominant player in their market, and is willing to do something a little outside the box.

Williams also created “The Greatest Auto Sale,” which he described as “The Private Sale on steroids” and ran a successful month long event in June of 2008 with the Murray Automotive Group. Each of the 21 dealerships located across Canada did its own Private Sale during that month. Williams built a special website and did online video commercials.

Dan Murray is president and GM of Murray ChevHummer in Winnipeg, and a member of the Group. “Each store set its sales target for the month at 25 percent over forecast. That added up to over 1500 sales. It was an intense month and quite costly to do but we sold 1750 vehicles. The number of sales per day was impressive,” says Murray. “The results were posted in real time on a virtual sales board and everyone was checking them regularly.”

With dealerships located from coast to coast, Murray says the Group is mutually supportive but adds, “We’re also competitive. This Sale got those competitive juices flowing between the various dealerships. It created a real synergy for the first time, and most of all, it was fun.”

Murray is running his own private sale this summer. “In a downturn, you have to work harder,” he says. That means phoning customers. And it’s useful to have a focus – such as an invitation to a great two- day sale – when you make that call. Even if the customer can’t manage an appointment within the two day period, Murray says the effort always builds traffic. “And the worst that can happen is we’ve had a nice conversation with our customer.”

And on the Giant Tent Sale

When I spoke with Darren Smyl (Oakridge Ford, London) around the end of May, he was heading off to his local Canadian Tire to buy up their entire inventory of tents. Smyl has taken the Giant Tent Sale one delightful step further. Anyone who buys a car during the weekend sales gets to choose a new tent. He fills the showroom with tents large and small, and can say in all honesty, “the savings are in the tents!” According to Smyl, some customers have more fun selecting the tent than buying the car.

Out on the lot, he also has a huge circus tent along with two slightly smaller tents, and fills them with the cars he’s promoting. The tents and all the promotional material are on the lot for the month. He runs a new car sale one weekend and a used car sale on a later weekend, each preceded by two days of intense radio advertising. Smyl says traffic goes up by 25 percent over a normal weekend. And sales increase at the same pace.

A California company called Sale-in-a-Box was the source of the tent event package, which he’s used four times now. Saleinabox.com offers 40 different sales event packages that include all the set dressing a dealership needs: big banners, posters, balloons, badges, pennants and pens.

Event selling is not a new concept for car dealers, but it’s good to know it still works and that dealers are adopting new ideas to keep it working.