January 2009

Accelerating showroom traffic
Online portal and emotionalized DM campaign
rev up leads for auto dealership. By Kalan Vuksanovich

Given the obvious economic challenges that have arisen in recent months, automotive dealerships need to ensure that any and all marketing initiatives generate worthwhile returns. Tim Graham, president of London Ontario’s variable printing powerhouse OTC Systems (OTCS) is highly attuned to this reality. “Dealerships have to know that their money is being spent on something they can justify,” he stresses.

OTCS’ reputation with them has soared since the firm’s inception in 2002 as a newsletter provider for the Canadian automotive industry. Since then, its focus has shifted to an “emotionalized” brand of variable based printing that connects with customers through subtle degrees of personalization. Emotionalized direct mail can be applied to an array of business needs. However, the homegrown printing house still sports a sturdy clientele of Canadian car dealerships—one of which is London Infinity-Nissan (LIN).

In early 2008, the dealership turned to Graham and his creative team to develop an integrated campaign using emotionalized direct mail. LIN needed its pieces to connect with hundreds of clients at various stages of their specific sales cycles. “Sometimes, selling a car isn’t a one day event,” he says
and explains that for success to be on the agenda, client relationships need to be both cultivated and maintained by car dealers.

Driving force
LIN is composed of sister stores London Infiniti and South London Nissan, which is the largest Nissan dealership in southwestern Ontario. Graham explains, “They’re housed in the same building but their objectives and their clienteles are different.” This is because every individual is at a specific juncture in his or her sales cycle. Some clients may need services, while others may be at the end of their vehicle’s warranty. Some may want to purchase a new car. For others, it may be time to renew a
lease. Therefore, LIN works to provide relevant automotive products and services to clients with particular sensibilities and budgets. As a unit, the London based dealership sells approximately 1,000 cars per year.

Business challenge
As Graham explains it, the typical Infiniti client is looking for a certain sense of refinement, while Nissan enthusiasts are all about value. In turn, the Infiniti-Nissan catalogue appeals to a diverse range of pocketbooks. “Nissan sells a car for $11, 000. It also sells a car for $62, 000. With Infiniti, you have a $40,000 G35 or a $90,000 G45.”

The dealership needed to build loyalty within a somewhat fragmented base, while ensuring its marketing dollars were paying for the best possible tools.

“The traditional ways of marketing to clients have become overcrowded. But, traditional direct mail has also become overcrowded,” Graham acknowledges. “By traditional, I mean a shell saying ‘Dear Client,’ in inkjet. It doesn’t have the cache that it used to.” Therefore, OTCS needed to ensure that
its images would create an extraordinary emotional experience for the individual client. When factoring in the wide client base, as well as the monthly programs offered with specific automobiles, yielding returns would require hundreds of variables, and regular B2C mailings.

Targeting
Thankfully, OTCS was more than able to efficiently accommodate these requirements through targeting. An automated online portal, the “Accelerate Portal,” enables the dealership’s own
CRM database names to be filtered and compiled. Using it, sales reps can customize a
monthly mailer that is sent to their existing clients. Let’s expand on this process.

On the first of the month, car companies send their dealers monthly programs which correspond to certain automobiles. These programs include offers such as 0.9 percent financing, $2,000 cash back, a special free gas offer with the purchase or lease of a particular model, and various other promotions. The highly secure portal, already stocked with templates of artwork designed by OTCS, as well as detailed client histories, allows the sales rep to create a mailer in under ten minutes. The mailer is then submitted online for OTCS’ approval. “By 2PM, we have to have that program printed and by 5PM, it’s dropped in the mail,” emphasizes Graham who says that dealers can identify which prospects they want to target based on the programs sales staff expects will be most appealing.

The monthly mailer itself is 7” x 10”. The front panel shows the client’s model of automobile, brand new, on a separate variable background. For example, a woman might own a sporty two-door Infinity. Her exact model might be depicted outside a trendy downtown café. But here’s the kicker.
Instead of displaying her name in some bold typeface, it is instead subtly immersed in the scene, perhaps on the café awning. Graham says that it’s this subtlety that attracts attention. “The client starts to think ‘Is it a coincidence?’ which then elicits emotion.” Mailers can be changed to reflect differences in cars, brands, and programs and used to promote sales, tune-ups, or simply be touch
points. Any program details or offers are mentioned in a personalized letter on the back, which features the sales representative’s name and the option of a head shot.

The mailer directs prospects to a personalized URL (pURL) where he or she can register for an appointment with the sales representative named in the correspondence. Here, an incentive piece, such as a coupon for a low-cost oil change, can be printed off and redeemed after the appointment. After the registration, the prospect’s sales representative will follow up with a call. Later, an e-mail will be sent to the client with three or four relevant printable coupons.

All together, there are four waves. Last month alone, 1,000 pieces went out to LIN’s southwestern Ontario clientele.

Feeling good behind the wheel
It is important to note that 30 or 40 of OTCS’ dealership clients are using the portal simultaneously. The Accelerate Portal, driven by Pageflex software, supports an immense amount of activity. This process works so well that OTCS uses it to market its own services.

For example, before a campaign like the one created for LIN is even conceived, OTCS uses its own integrated campaign to attract the prospective dealer’s attention. An eight page mailer (dubbed the “EasyMailer”) is sent to specific sales reps at varying levels of a particular dealership. Each mailer has different messaging to showcase the power of OTCS’ process. “We use the EasyMailer format to introduce our process and show the client—the dealer—actual samples of what their clients are going to see,” Graham explains. From this dynamic B2B mailer, the sales rep is directed online to create a mock mailing template. This application is meant to demonstrate not only the staff’s abilities but
also the diverse applications available from the Kern EasyMailer, OTCS’ printer of choice. This in-house campaign is so successful that it even won a 2008 Pageflex Customer Innovation Award (see News Worth Knowing).

Since lead generation is OTCS’ raison d’être, success is defined by increases in showroom traffic. “If we send out 100 mailers, typically 50-60 extra people come into the dealership, which is huge,” stresses Graham, who adds that given the current economic hurdles, the market can turn on a dime so anything that helps generate leads and in-person showroom is seen by dealers as a sound investment. “We’re responsible for approximately a 30 to 50 percent increase in showroom traffic,” he explains.

Where LIN is concerned, emotionalizing direct mail seems to resonate strongly with prospective car buyers and helps drive showroom traffic to the dealership—the rest is up to the sales representatives and that great new car smell.

Kalan Vuksanovich is an Oakville-based freelance writer. Contact him at 905-580-5159.

Cosmo Mariano is a personalized marketing strategist and partner of LIFT AGENCY, a leading personalized integrated marketing agency based in Markham, Ontario. He can be reached at 647-880-9468