Fremont (CA) Ford Lincoln Mercury Mazda, faced with rising advertising costs and diminishing returns, decided to do something unheard of in the retail auto industry: create and run promotions without using the traditional 20th century media of newspaper, TV, radio, direct mail and outdoor. The results? Amazing.
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"In the retail car business we can no longer afford the $500 or more per car advertising costs that traditional 20th century media were delivering. We have been using the new 21st century media to develop leads one at a time, so we decided to see if our traditional promotions would work without 20th century media. The results: costs are way down and traffic is very good," explained Steve Hallock, owner of Fremont Ford Lincoln Mercury Mazda.
During their weekly marketing meeting Mr. Hallock and his marketing team of Steve Wagman, president, Retail Automotive Ad Solutions 2.1 and John Ingram, president, WebDeals, created a promotion called Auction Price Liquidation and a media plan with only 21st century media.
Included in Mr. Wagman's media plan for Auction Price Liquidation for Fremont Ford Lincoln Mercury Mazda are banner ads on 3rd party lead aggregator websites, classified ads on auto selling sites such as Craigslist, promotion specific search ads on the major search engines and social network marketing through sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
"It comes down to reach and frequency. We can reach more probable buyers in a shorter time period with greater frequency for less cost using the new media", continued Mr. Wagman. "People's buying decisions today are being influenced strongly by the internet so we thought we'd give it a shot. Plus traffic to our website closes at a much higher ratio than even walk-in traffic."
