AutoSuccess September 2014 Success Story

Success Story

Ernie Palmer Toyota

DATA DRIVEN MARKETING

The Strategy That is Turning Big Data into Big Results for Ernie Palmer Toyota The promise of big data makes a lot of sense – combine everything you know with everything you do into one place. Then, use what the data tells you to make smarter and more profitable decisions. This sounds great in theory, however, turning classroom conversation into real world application is much harder.

Leveraging Big Data requires trust – trust that the data you are using is accurate, relevant and timely as well as trust that your marketing partners are simultaneously creative, competent and capable.

“Yesterday’s anonymous user now has a face, and a physical address, and a service history and an ownership life cycle. Looking at all of this together allows us to be very effective with our marketing dollars. The hard part was taking the first step,” said Clay Murphy, General Manager of Ernie Palmer Toyota in Jacksonville, Florida. “Some of our strategies, like our upgrade program run 24/7 because they are always relevant.

Other strategies, like our targeted social media campaigns for example, are adjusted based on what the factory is doing or what customers are searching for on the search engines. The keys to leveraging all of this are visibility and having partners who can help you separate the important stuff from the distractions.”

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Success Story Ä CONTINUED FROM THE COVER

“Big Data” is a popular buzzword right now. The concept of taking everything you know about everything the dealership does and combining that data to make smarter and more profitable decisions is a powerful idea. However, getting the right data into the right place and using that data to orchestrate multiple campaigns across multiple mediums with multiple vendors is much easier said than done. To be effective, “understanding” and “action” have to work together and this is where the potential of big data breaks down for many dealerships.

Where others have failed, Clay Murphy and his team are succeeding. Their data-driven approach is delivering results in every profit center of the dealership. Best of all, their shift away from mass media and towards data-driven, targeted media is empowering them to increase profitability while lowering their marketing costs.

“To get where we are, we had to change the way we think”, says Murphy, “We had to stop thinking in terms of “digital versus traditional” and begin thinking in terms of targeted versus non-targeted. The virtual world and the real world are connected, and our digital strategy begins with knowing exactly who and where our customers are in the real world.”

This realization lead Murphy to implement a data driven strategy that allows all of his advertising mediums to work together. “Our traditional marketing, — like our targeted mail for example — drives online activity,” Murphy continues. “Online activity now tells us who to target with our mail.”

“Our marketing team’s philosophy is ‘perfect market, per fect customers and per fect offers,” Murphy said. By communicating with those potential customers in the market to buy, and presenting them with offers that entice them to come into the dealership, Ernie Palmer Toyota has been able to make the most of marketing opportunities and convert consumers into customers.

The dealership’s sales statistics show the results. In December 2013, the store sold 166 new vehicles and 63 used. After instituting the integrated targeted marketing program, those figures jumped to 219 new vehicle sales and 71 used sales for June 2014. Their service department also received 2,559 ROs. These results have been noticed by the manufacturer as well. In June 2014, Toyota SE

measured sales retention and sales objective efficiency, and ranked Ernie Palmer Toyota seventh out of 175 stores.

The dealership does not have a state-of-the-art facility, but they are currently in the process of building a new facility. The surrounding area is also a factor. “The credit of some of our customers is challenged,” Murphy said.

“The recession hit our customer base hard, so that’s a constant challenge.” Add in the fact that the dealership is not in a high-traffic area, and its easy to see that the need for effective marketing is imperative.

DIRECT MAIL

search, allowing for a 97 percent delivery rate through the USPS. The dealership’s direct mail efforts were also geo-coded. Geo-coding allows the marketing company to identify statistically the ZIP codes where people were buying cars. Through this technology, they were able to match where someone lives to how long they have had a certain type of car, where they got it, and more.

This reduced waste allows the dealership to launch campaigns made up of high-quality materials delivered to prospects who are much more likely to be interested in receiving the information.

Prior to teaming with TeamVelocityMarketing.com, Ernie Palmer had stopped direct mailing to obtain new customers. “Because of the low ROI, we were only mailing to conquest customers,” Murphy said. While a scattered method of direct mailing might not produce results, direct mail can still be a valuable tool in the marketers’ arsenal — if it is correctly targeted.

Through use of this data, the results of the dealership’s direct mail efforts for both sales and service have improved dramatically. The service department has seen a 17 percent increase from customers in the top zip codes, and the sales department has seen a 24 percent increase from that same area. As a result of this marketing, the dealership has added 11,482 conquest customers to their database.

The first step was to clean up the dealership’s database of existing customers, in order to avoid duplicate or dead-end mailing efforts. By using owner verification technology, 30 percent of the dealership’s database was removed; this leaves a verified pool of contact information that reduces effort and increases ROI.

While direct marketing is a cornerstone to the dealership’s advertising efforts, online marketing is crucial to reaching today’s customer.

In addition to designing and deploying offer-based, variable sales and service

ONLINE ADVERTISING

When dealing with direct marketing, the concept of “data hygiene” is critical. Team Velocity was able to take the dealership’s database, and run a four-year national change of address (NCOA)

ERNIE PALMER

Ernie Palmer Toyota emails to existing customers, Team Velocity put an online marketing package together for Ernie Palmer Toyota to maximize its reach, consisting of several sections.

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING:

The marketing partner Ernie Palmer uses gives them the ability to target up to 80% of their “perfect prospects” on social media sites like Facebook.

According to a recent study

by Nielsen, this capability increases incremental reach 164% during daytime hours and gives them the ability to deliver personalized offers and videos directly to in-market prospects who live within their targeted market area.

ONLINE DISPLAY ADVERTISING:

By partnering with a marketing company that has access to the latest technology and knows the realities of running a dealership, Ernie Palmer Toyota is able to take advantage of higher-level marketing opportunities to grow their business in the future. Online display advertising, consisting of behavioral targeting, retargeting, offer-based advertisements and customized motion ads are amongst these opportunities. Many consumers live online, so reaching them where they are with messages that are tailor-made for them has proven to be effective.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM):

To get the best results from consumers in the market for a vehicle, Ernie Palmer Toyota undertook an SEM program that included dynamic phone numbers, custom copy, and custom landing pages. The result was doubled results in search engine traffic.

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Utilizing a more integrated marketing strategy, in addition to bringing in new customers to the dealership, has allowed the business to reach out to customers that it might have missed with earlier campaigns. Many of the customers in the dealership’s area have

“The mystery is gone.

Yesterday’s anonymous user now has a face, a physical address, a service history and a visible ownership lifecycle.”

- Clay Murphy General Manager Ernie Palmer Toyota

difficulty maintaining high credit scores.

This knowledge enabled the dealership to craft a marketing message that speaks to the individual shopper. “We’ve been able to increate our buyer diversity through the more targeted approach to marketing now available to us,” Murphy said.

OPPORTUNITIES FROM SERVICE

“Our service department has been a great resource for sales,” Murphy said. The integration of dealership departments has led to new sales opportunities that were simply escaping out the door in previous years. By knowing their customer base and their vehicle situation, both from an equity and maintenance standpoint, the dealership can alert salespeople when customers who might be open to trade in their vehicle are in the service lane.

execution by the dealership team, call tracking and monitoring are vital. Ernie Palmer Toyota uses CallRevu and 15 unique “1-800” numbers to track and record all inbound calls. These calls are monitored and transcribed, and alerts are sent to save a deal that might otherwise be lost, depending upon the situation at hand.

“As dealers we look at everything in the front,” Murphy said, “but we really need to be thinking about our service customer. What we can do for them? Can we improve their situation without raising their monthly payments?”

While there are a lot of pieces to the marketing puzzle, the answer to successful marketing is the same: a coherent idea that stays on target no matter which medium delivers the message.

Ernie Palmer Toyota’s marketing team has online campaign reporting capabilities, where a dashboard measures the ROI of all marketing campaigns throughout all mediums.

THE WHOLE PICTURE

While other dealerships are still attempting to crack the mystery of big data, Ernie Palmer is putting the promise of big data into practice today. By making smarter marketing decisions and having all mediums work together, the dealership has increased its gross profits by lowering marketing costs while increasing its effectiveness.

“Leveraging all of this together give us a clear competitive advantage and allows us to be very effective with our marketing dollars,” said Murphy.

The dealership also has automated in-store software that manages communications to eligible consumers so no opportunity is missed.

The initiative of sales in the service department has been paying off for the dealership. Between June and November 2013, the store averaged 47 same-brand trades a month. Between January and June 2014, it averaged 83 same-brand trades a month, almost doubling its output.

“As dealers we look at everything in the front,” Murphy said, “but we really need to be thinking about our service customer. What we can do for them? Can we improve their situation without raising their monthly payments?”

Case Study

Find your perfect market. To get a free Market Analysis for your dealership, email: successstories@autosuccessonline.com

See video.

RESULTS-DRIVEN MARKETING

All of this marketing is useless if it’s not converted by the dealership. To ensure proper

Success Story

Success Story

Ernie Palmer Toyota

The Days of Radius Marketing Are Over!

52

Available Zip Codes in a 30 mi. Radius

65% of sales and

“

Our digital strategy begins with knowing exactly who and where our customers are in the real world.

“

Clay Murphy General Manager

service business comes from 14 targeted zip codes.

Ernie Palmer Toyota

IN A NUTSHELL

DATA DRIVEN MARKETING

The Strategy That is Turning Big Data into Big Results for Ernie Palmer Toyota • Create a Centralized Marketing Database: Pull all proprietary and 3rd party data (DMS, CRM, Call Tracking, Website behavior, registration data, etc…) into a single, normalized database that is optimized for marketing activity.

• Define “Perfect Market”: Clearly identify the zip codes within your market area that have the highest conversion rates and the lowest cost per sale.

• Define “Perfect Prospects”: Clearly identify the prospects within your perfect market that have the highest statistical probability of buying and/or servicing at your dealership.

• Define “Perfect Messages”: Use variable-driven technology to create compelling, personalized offers for every prospect within your perfect market.

• Integrate Marketing Across All Mediums: Increase conversion by leveraging the combined power of consistent messaging / graphic assets across all marketing mediums.

• Simplify Execution: Save time and money by using a full-service agency that can give you a single point of contact for creating your strategy, designing offers, executing campaigns across multiple mediums and reporting all marketing activity on a single set of reports. Å READ FULL STORY