Digital Dealer - January 2020 - 32

MARKETING & ADVERTISING

Content Strategy

By
Jim Boldebook
Founder,
CBC Automotive Marketing

Ad Copy Power Points!

Cut to the chase! Quick! Today,

too many ad copywriters are wasting valuable ad dollars and precious
listener/viewer moments beating
around the bush. Your mission is to
give a potential buyer a reason to buy
a vehicle from you or at least consider you.
Start your ad with the 'bottom line' or
a strong tease that keeps eyes/ears tuned.
Here are a few examples:
"NO WAY you can offer a brand-new
truck for 29,999! That's what my competitors said when we advertised not one...
but 15 new trucks for 29,999! And the good
news is, we've just added 10 more trucks
with the same price now through Monday
night! But you know these are going to sell
just as fast as the ﬁrst 15 did..."
"If you can afford $249 a month...
repeat... 249 a month for a brand-new car
with a full factory warranty, let me tell you
what we're doing this week..."
"Last week we sold a 2017 Mustang for
$14,000...about 10K less than book value.
We sold a 2016 BMW 5 series for $18,500.
About 12K less thank book value. This week
we will sell at least 22 vehicles at crazy below book prices because we're overﬂowing
with late-model trades."
"She couldn't believe it! One of our
customers got price offers from CarMax and
TrueCar for her used Ford Explorer and we
beat the offers by TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. We're not only driving the local competition crazy...we're beating the biggest
nationwide public companies and internet
dealers with our pricing, our trade values,
and our amazing ﬁnancing programs."
More and more of Internet and OTT
insertions are placed in an environment
where the customer can skip your ad in
5-10 seconds. You need to grab attention
right out of the chute to earn the next 2050 seconds of time/space you're paying for.
And it doesn't always have to be a price/
payment offer.
Here are a few examples:
"We don't deserve your trust unless
we earn it! If you're shopping for a new

[ d i g i t a l d e a l e r. c o m ]

" You need to
grab attention
right out of the
chute in order
to earn the next
20-50 seconds of
time/space you're
paying for. "

Ford or any used vehicle, shop us ﬁrst! Get
our price. Then go ahead... shop us. Even if
you end up buying somewhere else, you'll
know what kind of deal you've got. We
make it easy by giving you our best offer
upfront. Without a runaround. Without the
games..."
"We have more new and used trucks
on the ground right now than four of our
closest competitors combined! Who's going
to work harder to give you the best deal?
The dealer with 30 trucks... or the dealer
with 470?"
Make a call to action early. Don't wait

until the end to give a phone number, website, etc. Here's an example:
"A brand-new Toyota for $239 a
month? Click on Todd Toyota dot com right
now and see the car... see the details...
value your trade! Or call 1 800 Todd deals.
Now Here's the legal disclaimer for this
amazing offer..."
Don't advertise more than three vehicles
in one advertisement. Repeat the offer
several times. You only need to put a legal
disclaimer once. Throw it away early in the
ad. Then repeat the payment/price several
more times.
Remember that less is more! A lot of
today's ad copy is rushed gibberish with
far too many words. The human brain can
thoughtfully digest around 150 words in 60
seconds. And research has proven that both
ad effectiveness and retention increase
as the number of words decrease. Ideas
become more powerful when preceded by...
and followed by pregnant pauses.
Deliver your message to just ONE person.
No matter how many thousands or millions
of people might see or hear your ad, focus
your message in a personal way to just one
person. Just like you do if a customer is
standing before you in the showroom, on
the phone or chatting with you online.
Use both audio and visual messaging in
videos for online and TV ads. A large percentage of ad viewers mute sound during
commercial breaks and when viewing
videos online. Your message should make
key points in text on the screen, as well as
the audio voice over.
Develop a meaningful tag line and use it
in every piece of copy. Whether it's a slogan
or quote, it's the element that builds share
of mind into our brand.
Always include both a phone number and
website URL in every ad. This is not only
important for attribution and tracking purposes but to make it easier for a customer
to follow up.
You can ﬁnd more marketing articles here:
digitaldealer.com/trending-auto-news/

January 2020

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Digital Dealer - January 2020

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