May 2013 Success Story

Success Story

Jeff Haas Mazda Up 26% in Sales, Jeff Haas Mazda Starts the Year Strong, Landing a Top 10 Spot for Mazda Nationally in February

How is it that some dealers appear to have an advantage over their competitors in the marketplace?

Don’t most dealers face similar challenges? Like how to effectively reach the right customers with the right message, bring those customers into their showrooms and service bays, and keep them coming back again and again?

As consumer shopping habits continue to change from traditional mass media platforms like TV, print and radio, toward more targeted and digital mediums that are more personalized and accessible like targeted direct email and mail, internet, mobile and social, dealers must also make a change.

Dealerships that fail to recognize the value in targeted and digital marketing become disadvantaged against their competitors.

They continue to see diminishing returns with traditional mass marketing that remains costly, not to mention extremely difficult to measure.

Today, the most successful dealers are using targeted and digital mediums that are less expensive, more measurable and give a better return on investment than traditional

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mass marketing. Although, combining multiple ad mediums can present its own challenge; as the average dealer works with multiple vendors to execute their marketing strategy often resulting in different messages and designs that too often are not integrated with one another. The key is to integrate all targeted and digital advertising into one cohesive campaign to maximize results.

Jeff Haas Mazda, serving the greater Houston area, jumped into the No. 8 spot for Mazda nationally in February and has kept its momentum going by implementing an integrated targeted and digital marketing strategy across multiple mediums using one marketing partner to attract, sell, service and retain more customers for less cost than traditional mass marketing.

“Our sales are up 26 percent YTD, but we’re actually up 70 percent within our top-selling zip codes since more clearly defining our audience within our primary market,” said Todd Crabtree, General Manager of Jeff Haas Mazda. “We sold almost 1,000 new Mazdas for 2012, this was a big goal for us because it hasn’t happened in the Houston market in over 12 years.”

Jeff Haas Mazda began with a comprehensive five-year historical analysis of their sales and service transactions to determine customer trends. Those findings were then compared to leading third-party and industry data to establish consumer patterns within the local market. The results enabled Jeff Haas Mazda to identify vehicle owners with the greatest probability of buying or servicing with their dealership, as well as identify same-brand owners who had never visited Jeff Haas Mazda, and off-brand owners with a historical pattern of crossing over to Mazda.

Once Jeff Haas Mazda had more clearly defined their market, they

implemented a comprehensive targeted and digital marketing strategy using variable direct email and mail campaigns that consistently speak to customers throughout the 60-month life cycle of their vehicle with custom messaging that includes: a thank you and welcome message for recent purchasers, maintenance reminders for newer vehicles not yet in-equity but that may be due for recommended maintenance, and ongoing targeted email and mail sales communications to customers in an equity position.

Using high-end creative campaigns, Jeff Haas Mazda promotes its best sales offers with custom service offers that reflect the service status of the customer’s vehicle. For example, active service customers who routinely come in for service receive a $22.95 “Full Service Oil Change” coupon, but customers who are categorized as lost, or who do not regularly service with Jeff Haas Mazda, receive the same offer but for $9.95 to encourage them to come back.

Jeff Haas Mazda also aggressively targets conquest service customers within their primary marketing area who own Mazdas but did not buy from them. This is unique because

most dealers use the manufacturer’s service marketing program which often limits a dealer to only communicate with customers that have purchased directly from their store, but also limits the dealer from contacting numerous conquest opportunities within their market. If a dealer only has 30 percent market share, they are essentially missing out on an additional 70 percent of the area’s service market.

Jeff Haas Mazda recognized the opportunity to broaden its service marketing program with conquest and has greatly expanded their reach of potential service customers.

Another component to the Jeff Haas Mazda’s strategy is that every outbound targeted email and mail campaign directs customers to an online Campaign Conversion Site that not only displays the featured promotions of the email or mail campaign they have just received, but also shows them every sales and service offer that Jeff Haas Mazda is currently running. If a customer is not in the market for the specific offers they just received they can simply go to Jeff Haas Mazda’s campaign conversion site, www.JeffHaasMazdaOffers.com to find what they’re looking for in just a couple clicks.

“This site is already proving to be invaluable. It looks incredibly professional, it ties in with all our sales and service promotions and we’ve seen an increase in the customer traffic printing coupons from the site,” says Crabtree. “Plus it’s completely low maintenance for us because it’s updated every month by our marketing company.”

When customers visit the dealership they see POS merchandising throughout the store that validates the advertising message they recently saw online or received in the mail, further building credibility and helping increase the closing ratio.

Jeff Haas Mazda

As part of their overall strategy, Jeff Haas Mazda also recently implemented a unique strategy that specifically targets vehicle sales within their service lanes. This Vehicle Exchange Program (VEP) focuses on proactively selling to service customers who are in an equity position. When customers bring their vehicles in for service, a VEP Specialist greets the customer and explains that the customer is eligible to upgrade to a new vehicle for the same or lower monthly payment. Rather than wait and hope that customers will buy from them when they’re ready, Jeff Haas Mazda is taking the initiative to sell customers in the service bay before they enter the market and shop the competition.

“The best customer that any dealer can find is one they already have because customers who have an active service relationship with a dealership are seven times more likely to purchase with that dealership,” says Budd Blackburn, owner of Team Velocity Marketing, the company that Jeff Haas Mazda uses for their sales and service marketing.

An added benefit to this integrated sales and service marketing strategy is a healthier trade pattern. “We’ve seen a noticeable improvement in our trade pattern. Since switching strategies we’ve brought in 50 percent more late model trades,” said Crabtree.

Jeff Haas Mazda certainly appears to have the advantage in their marketplace. They are a 12-time, and counting, recipient of the Mazda President’s Club award that rewards high sales volume and customer satisfaction. They strive to stay ahead of the curve. They know their market and their customers. With their most recent effort to implement an intelligent targeted digital marketing strategy across multiple mediums that serves all their profit centers by attracting, selling, servicing and retaining more customers for less cost, Jeff Haas Mazda is looking forward to closing out 2013 stronger they started.

Success Story

Success Story

Jeff Haas Mazda

“We’ve seen a noticeable improvement in our trade pattern.

Since switching strategies we’ve brought in 50 percent more late model trades.”

TODD CRABTREE GENERAL MANAGER JEFF HAAS MAZDA

IN A NUTSHELL Up 26% in Sales, Jeff Haas Mazda Starts the Year Strong, Landing a Top 10 Spot for Mazda Nationally in February • Define their ideal local market by finding the perfect customers and prospects with the highest statistical probability of buying and/or servicing with their dealership now and in the future.

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Create dynamic, cohesive campaigns that consistently speak to their customers throughout the 60-month lifecycle of their vehicle.

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Consistently target in-market same-brand prospects, and consumers who drive off-brands with a historical trend of crossing over to the brands they sell.

• Drive consumer traffic to a custom campaign conversion site that promotes all their sales and service offers to help increase their internet sales and service leads.

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Establish a sales-in-service program to sell vehicles from their own service bays for in-equity customers before they shop the competition.

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Work with a marketing partner like www.TeamVelocityMarketing.com to implement an integrated targeted and digital marketing strategy across multiple mediums that promote all their profit centers, new, used, finance, service and parts.

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