Digital Dealer - April 2020 - 30

MARKETING & ADVERTISING

Branding

By
Melanie Borden
VP of Marketing,
Celebrity Motor Cars

When Dealership Leads Aren't
Enough to Make Your Month

>

If you're in any type of sales

capacity, you might experience
those months when leads just aren't
enough. Maybe business is slow,
you're not hitting your objective for
the month or quarter, you lost a few deals there aren't as many leads coming in as last
month. In business, especially sales, every
single one of us goes through this.
Are you maximizing your efforts as a
face for the dealership? Do your family and
friends know what the monthly specials are
or if there are any new programs or special
cars that come in? Are you letting them
know they can purchase vehicles directly on
your website?
Over the last few months, I've been
connecting with our sales team at Celebrity
Motor Cars, working one on one, to help
each person create a brand for their self.
It's been an insightful experience for me
because while I've worked with, consulted,

Three
marketing

TIPS

to sell more
units per
month

PRO TIP 1: Get educated on
your dealership's marketing
eﬀorts. All dealerships have
some type of marketing budget. That budget may cover
various facets of advertising,
such as social media, digital

30

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" The fun part is
pinpointing your
story, interweaving it
with the dealership's
culture, and tying
it in with relevant
marketing... "

and sold services to car dealers for over a
decade, I've never sold cars.
Everyone, in any sales role, regardless

ads (search, display, preroll video) television, radio,
events, promotional items,
etc. You might not get the
speciﬁcs on how much exactly your store is spending,
however, you should be able
to ﬁnd out what the media
mix is.
PRO TIP 2: Connect to the
agency or person at the dealership who works with the
owner and/or GM monthly,
and ﬁnd out how you can
help leverage some of their
marketing assets (video ﬁles,
audio ﬁles, photos, banner
ads, email templates, etc.).
Marketing assets are usually
stored in a content library.
Having access to these assets

of the industry, can beneﬁt from guidance
and a refresher on how to use technology
(while humanizing it) to market themselves
to their network/ Every person is unique and
has a different story to tell. The fun part is
pinpointing your story, interweaving it with
the dealership's culture, and tying it in with
relevant marketing that will connect and
resonate with your audience.
If you work in a dealership in any
department and at any level, you are a
walking advertisement for the dealership
and dealer brand. To ﬁll in the gaps in the
empty months, you must begin to go back to
sales basics and market yourself as a brand.
This requires effort, consistency, and lots of
patience. Long-term, this strategy will not
only help the dealership and leverage the
advertising your dealership is doing but also
will put more money in your pocket.
To share feedback or submit questions/topic
suggestions, email magazine@digitaldealer.com

can help you to market
your personal brand. For
example, if the dealership
is running a TV campaign,
you can take that Mp4 ﬁle of
the commercial and share it
with your social network in a
post tagging the dealership,
mentioning the store/brand
while using a unique hashtag
to represent you! Once you
get the ball rolling, see if your
dealership's advertising agency or creative team will assist
you in making personalized
creative.
PRO TIP 3: Know what the
factory is doing for advertising. Dealers rely on their
dealership advertising budget each month to bring in

traﬃc to the showroom, but
they also rely on the manufacturer to bring guests in
as well. The manufacturer
advertising is also referred
to as Tier 1 and drives
awareness for the overall
brand. Most car dealers
piggyback oﬀ the manufacturer programs in their
advertising, so be aware of
what your manufacturer
is advertising each month.
All programs usually come
out on the third or fourth of
the month. A lot of brands
have an annual marketing
calendar so you can start
preparing in advance for
all of the events that go on
throughout the year.

April 2020
http://www.digitaldealer.com
Digital Dealer - April 2020

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