AUTOMOTIVE ADVERTISING & MARKETING

Dominate

Dominate Your Advertising Targets (or Don’t Bother)

JKRAdvertising / Automotive Advertising Advice /

February 5, 2016

When you advertise, be sure to dominate in whatever you’re doing. Doing things half-heartedly is a mistake, and you’ll never get more than lukewarm results when you decide to spread your advertising budget too thin.

Here’s why: effective advertising takes both reach and frequency. If you are part of a large dealership or dealer group, you could conceivably have a large enough budget to get good reach and frequency on any number of radio and/or television stations (broadcast or cable).

However, if you don’t fall into that category, it is important that you do one or two things well, rather than trying to do multiple things not-so-well. That means if you can’t dominate all the radio stations in your market, pick out the one or two that make the most sense – and make them yours. Once you see an uptick in sales from that, add another station or two.

If you don’t do it this way, you will lack the frequency necessary to have any kind of impact in the marketplace. If a prospective customer only hears your message once, the odds are very low that they will remember you when it’s time for them to go car shopping.

Of course, each dealership’s situation and budget are unique. Determining the right budget amount for your store takes a thorough knowledge of reach and frequency; an understanding of your market that only the latest software and media buying experience can provide; and the insight of knowing how other stores not in your market have thrived in similar situations. Without having an automotive advertising agency like JKR on your side, you’re only able to guess what budget and media buys make the most sense for your store – which leads to wasted advertising. And it’s pretty hard to dominate when you are spending your ad budget in a scattershot manner!

How to Dominate

Would you like to find out if your advertising and marketing efforts are truly on target? If so, give Eric Tigner a call today at (321) 397-0777. He will provide you with a FREE advertising review that takes a close look at your current strategies and how they compare to what you should be doing. You might be surprised to find that you aren’t getting the most bang for your advertising dollar.

JKR Automotive Advertising: We Move Cars.

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Post-Pandemic Dealer Gross Profits are Down – But They Don’t Have to Stay There!
March 13, 2024
It is no secret that dealer gross profits per vehicle are down sharply in the post-COVID automotive world. According to a recent article in Automotive News, gross profits of the six largest publicly traded dealership groups plunged significantly from Q4 2022 to Q4 2023. One of them was actually down 35% per vehicle!

The article explains: High interest rates, more expensive vehicles and a steadier post-pandemic supply chain continue to soften demand and bring it closer to pre-pandemic levels. Still, new-car buying has remained strong overall …

This means that, while sales volume is similar, overall bottom lines are lower for many dealers due to the reduced gross profits. What about your dealership?

Being Realistic
It’s time to turn the page! The time for dealers to simply be order takers for people willing to pay MSRP for a vehicle (and in some cases more) has passed and dealers have to work hard once again to achieve acceptable gross profits.

Selling a high volume of cars doesn’t control gross profits, no matter how much you wish this was the case. Correct processes and menu pricing – and strict adherence to them – do!

What kind of processes?
∙ Slow down the transaction! Your sales staff has to once again sell the customer on the features and benefits of every new and pre-owned vehicle on your lot.

∙ Your salespeople and managers should devalue the customers’ trade-in value (politely, of course) as much as possible. After all, if the customer expects you to lower your price, shouldn’t you be able to do the same on their trade? Remember, you’ll have to fix it up, put your name on it and resell it to someone else with all the tenacity you would a brand-new car. So make sure you buy it right … because the profit is made when you buy it, not when you sell it!

∙ To that end, management should be ready and willing to leave the desk and do thorough walk-arounds on each trade to ensure the best outcome for the dealership.

The Cure for Low Gross Profits
If you are like a lot of dealers these days, you could use some good news. Here it is: while you may not have the capability to achieve profit margins similar to those you enjoyed during the pandemic, they could likely be improved. JKR’s clients enjoy the benefit of attracting not only more customers, but better ones, too!

If meeting and exceeding your sales goals (and increasing gross profits at the same time) sounds great to you, you need to call us. Don’t settle for reduced gross profits when help is out there to get you closer to where you’d like to be.

Want to know how we do it? Reach out to Senior Partner Richard Brauns (407) 701-4233 or Partner/Vice President Jon Albert (407) 718-2494 today.

JKR Automotive Advertising: We Move Cars.

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