How To Promote A Car Dealership Sale

Car Dealerships are in a constant battle for new business and sales are when they really bring in an audience. There are specific times of year customers wait to strike and they usually center around big holidays. DigDev Direct takes a look at past experiences and effective strategies that work well in promoting a big sale for local dealerships.

Client: Auto Dealership in South Florida

Target Areas: Miami, Hialeah, Coral Gables, Kendal, Key Biscayne, South Beach, Doral, Florida City

Promotion: Weekend sale for select vehicles

Selection: Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Toyota

Goals:

• Increase traffic to the site and location
• Add to the contribution of new car purchases and leases
• Expand brand to surrounding cities

With less than two months to promote the sale the dealership was already putting money behind television and radio commercials as well as local newspaper ads. However, in order to improve their online presence the following was recommended for a two month campaign to increase interest in a short period of time.

• Email: DigDev Direct was able to launch a series of campaigns sent to over 100,000 permission based email subscribers in the area of the dealership that met the clients target audience. Subscribers received multiple campaigns that increased brand and sale awareness while showcasing different options for new automobiles available in the sale.
• Social Media Advertising: A budget of $10 a day was set to increase awareness of the sale and averaged over 100 likes per post. Posts were made daily for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google +.
• Creative: All creative for social media and emails were created by DigDev Direct.
• Press Release: A press release was written and sent out to over 100,000 sites of which over 100 local media sites picked up the release which increased traffic within a matter of weeks for the site.

The Results Stood Out

The client deemed the campaign a success and felt that the internet advertising strategy resulted in a better ROI than TV, radio and newspaper ads.

• Over 15,000 email subscribers viewed at least one of the company’s promotions which led to over 2,000 quality visits to the car dealerships website for more information about the vehicles and the sale.
• Postal addresses for the email subscribers who got the offer were received by the dealership that estimated 38% of their sales over the weekend were done with customers who had received the email.
• Social media follower-ship for the auto dealership increase 11% because the budget was put towards the ads rather than building a bigger follower base.
• The press release was picked up by over 100 sites which directly led to an additional increase in traffic the month leading up to the sale.

An added benefit was that the press release added long-term traffic and SEO and reputation management benefits for the company and the social media campaign added to the list of followers for Facebook, many of whom remained followers after the sale was completed to stay informed of upcoming promotions.

For less than $7,500, DigDev Direct was able to increase the traffic and social media presence of the dealership as well as reach tens of thousands of potentially new customers in the surrounding areas. The campaign was not only a success for the client but it was far less expensive than other methods of advertising.