The 1% Rule of Automotive Advertising
There's an old saying in the advertising business: “Half the money you spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is figuring out which half.”
That's depressing enough, but the truth is that on any given weekend less than 1% of the people in your city are in the market for a new or used car. 16 million new cars are sold every year in the U.S. plus another 15-20 million used cars. Dividing that by 260 million total population and dividing that by 12 months per year gives you approximately 1% of the population including children! That means 99% of the population has almost no interest in listening to your radio spot or watching your latest TV ad. 99% of the population will never notice your print ad because they have no reason to go looking through all the car ads in the classified section.
That's the bad news.
The good news is that the 1% who are in the market will pay close attention to everything you say, will actually seek out your ads with their checkbooks in hand trying to figure out exactly how much car they can afford. These are the people you should target with your advertising.
Limiting your advertising to this elusive 1% of the market affects both where you advertise (The Media) and how you advertise (The Message). Every media rep in town can quote you ratings and Demographics. But the age, income and gender of their audience isn't the most important factor for automotive marketing. Where they are on the buying decision time line is the most important factor in you getting a decent return on your investment.
That's why the newspaper is such a valuable tool for car dealers. Yes, newspaper readership and subscription rates are declining. But, What do you care if people are reading the comic section everyday? The newspaper is still the media of choice for the 1% of the population who are actively in the market for a new or used vehicle. They are at the very end of the buying decision time line and you need to make sure your advertising is reaching them.
Once people make the conscious decision to start shopping or even the unconscious decision to start looking around, generally the first thing they do is pick up the Saturday paper, the one with all the car ads in it. Car ads are a magnet for car shoppers. That makes the weekend paper a giant catalog for car shoppers, but I've actually had dealers tell me in the past that they avoided the weekend papers because of all the other dealers “cluttering” up the auto section. That's exactly why you should be in there, with the biggest, brightest and boldest ad you can afford.
Radio and TV are a little more difficult for pinpointing your 1% target. They're both mass media designed to reach the broadest market possible.
This is where the HOW part of the equation comes in. Since you can't aim your MEDIA at the 1% target, aim your MESSAGE.
One way to do this is start your commercials with a statement designed specifically to attract the attention of those people who are actively shopping for a vehicle.
“IF YOU'RE IN THE MARKET FOR A NEW CAR, TRUCK OR VAN...”
“IF YOU THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T AFFORD A NEW CAR...”
“NEED A NEW CAR, BUT THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T QUALIFY FOR A LOAN...”
And once you have their attention you have to motivate them to take action. Just getting your name out there isn't enough. You have to give them a good credible reason why they should get up off their couch and drive to your store TODAY!
Advertising to build a brand name and advertising to create immediate retail sales are vastly different undertakings. For instance, some marketing people will tell you that you shouldn't have a big sale going all the time. “Look at Wal-Mart,” they say. “They're the number one retailer in the world because of every day low prices. They're not having some big sale every time you turn around” Well that's true. EVERY DAY low prices works for Wal-Mart because people buy what Wal-Mart sells EVERY DAY. Their customers don't have time to look around and research the best deal every time they buy a new tube of toothpaste or pack of underwear. And they're probably not going to get excited and drive to the store because they think they can save $5 on a pair of jeans.
But people, at best, buy a new car every two or three years. The one person out of a hundred who is seriously looking to buy a car right now, doesn't want LOW prices EVERY day, he or she wants the BEST price, TODAY! And they will get excited if they think you can cut their monthly payment by a hundred bucks.
If your target market is basically everybody, you can afford to do nice, polite genteel advertising. If you're only advertising to 1% of the population, you've got to pump up the volume. If 99% of your friends and coworkers complain that your advertising is loud, obnoxious and over the top ...WHO CARES? What's important is that the ad is exciting enough, dramatic enough and aggressive enough to get the attention of that one person out of a hundred who needs to see it and motivate them to take action.
To find out more about Mike Whitty and Salesperson, Inc., visit www.mikewhitty.com and www.slpinc.net.
Reprinted with permission from: Mike Whitty and Salesperson, Inc. (800) 453-2787. |
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