The Seven Biggest Marketing Mistakes Everybody Is Making, and How To Avoid Them!

Written for AutoSuccess Magazine
March 2002

By Scott Joseph

Marketing Mistake #1: Not Testing

Solution: Test. It is amazing how few companies ever test any aspect of their marketing. They bet their destiny on arbitrary, subjective decisions and guesswork. This is sad for a number of reasons.

First, we don’t have the power to predetermine what the marketplace wants, and what the best price, package, or approach will be. Rather, we have the obligation to put every important marketing question to a vote by the only people whose ballot counts: customers and prospects.

The point is that when you test one approach against another and carefully analyze and tabulate the results, you will discover that one approach always out pulls all the others by a tremendous margin. You’ll also be amazed at the performance improvement you will realize from the same marketing effort.

Marketing Mistake #2: Running Institutional Advertising Instead of Direct Response Advertising

Solution: Run only direct response advertising. Most institutional advertising tells you how great the dealership is, or how old and stable they are, or some other non-compelling PR. As a rule, institutional advertising is wasteful. It doesn’t convey any compelling reason for the customer or prospect to favor your business over any other. It doesn’t make a case for the product or service you’re trying to sell, doesn’t direct the audience to any action, and doesn’t work.

Direct Response advertising is self-explanatory. It is designed to evoke an immediate response or purchasing decision from the audience, and presents factual reasons why your dealership, product, service, or offer is superior to all others.

Marketing Mistake #3: Not Developing What Makes Your Dealership Unique and Incorporating It Into Your Marketing

Solution: Develop a ‘Unique Selling Proposition’ and use it in all your TV, radio and newspaper advertising. Your unique selling proposition is that specific advantage that distinguishes your dealership from all your competitors. Most people who are in business couldn’t begin to clearly articulate their USP in 60 seconds or less. Sadly, if you can’t articulate it, your customers and prospects most likely can’t understand it. So, your first step is to decide what your USP is, and then clearly state it to your customers.

Maybe you provide better service than anybody else; maybe you offer greater value than anyone else; maybe you can afford to offer better prices because your overhead is lower- let your audience know!

Most companies try to be everything to everyone, and then can’t understand why they don’t have any unique advantage, and why they can’t really take off ahead of their competitors.

Marketing Mistake #4: Failing to Make Doing Business With You Easy, Appealing, Desirable, and Fun!

Solution: Every dealership should put themselves in their customers’ or prospects’ position. When people come to your showroom, how well trained are your sales reps? How much time have you spent preparing proper greetings, qualifying questions, presentation skills, and advice for your people to ask or offer to customers? Do you take your customers, prospects, and business for granted?

By merely stepping outside your office, walking up to your business, and looking through the customer’s eyes, you should see a lot of flaws in your operation. Once they are remedied, you can dramatically improve your current and repeat business potential.

Remember:
1. You cannot service too much.
2. You cannot educate too much.
3. You cannot inform too much.
4. You cannot offer too much follow-up.
5. You cannot make ordering too easy.
6. You cannot make calling or coming into your showroom too desirable.

Marketing Mistake #5: Failing to Tell Customers the Reason Why

Solution: Whenever you make an offer, ask for a sale, run an ad, have a salesperson make a proposition to a customer or prospect, or offer a product or service for sale at a specific price, always tell the reason why.

Why can you sell a car at a lower price than your competitors? Why is your price so good? If you are conducting a sale or special event, tell why you’re making this special offer. The more believable, credible reasons you give me for working with your dealership, the more compelled I am to buy from you.

Marketing Mistake #6: Not Sticking With Campaigns That are Still Working

Solution: Don’t stop marketing campaigns that are still working just because you’re tired of them. Many dealers change campaigns in mid-stream. In the process they:

1. Don’t let the cumulative effect of a winning concept work for them.
2. Don’t allow the dynamics of testing to work for them.
3. Make a patchwork quilt of their company’s image.
   
   

Business people get tired of their advertising and marketing campaigns long before the marketplace ever tires of them. That is because we see them while they are still in production, work with them on a daily basis, and then finally release them. The public only sees the final campaign.

Most ads, commercials, etc., produce only a modest percentage return every time they are run. Direct response ads usually produce a .5% to 3% response. You may have to run them 200 times before you even begin to saturate your market. Just because you are tired of them, doesn’t mean your marketplace is tired of it, and they have the only vote that counts.

Marketing Mistake #7: When Preparing Ads, TV and Radio Commercials, or Direct Mailings, Forgetting to Focus on Only the Intended Customer

Solution: When you prepare any form of marketing, focus on the intended prospect and no one else. How many times have you scanned an ad in a newspaper and not had the slightest idea what it was about, or for whom the information was intended?

Ads, mailing pieces, or commercials, all need a headline. Think of the headline as an ad for the ad. Its purpose should be to attract only those who are most qualified to be a prospect for your proposition.

Whatever you’re trying to sell, and whomever you want to reach with your message, be specific. Send your message directly to your prospective customers, and tell them what you’re offering.

Remember these points:

1. Attract the attention of your target audience in your headline or opening remarks.
2. State your proposition or offer.
3. Use the rest of the ad to develop, support, and present your offer and your reasons why the prospect should embrace it.
4. Finally, tell that prospect how to act on your offer.
   

Next month: Business Rules To Grow By!


Read another AutoSuccess article:

April 2001:
Seven Advantages of Direct Mail for the Automotive Industry

June 2001:

Testing and Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Advertising to Improve Your Profit

July 2001:

Killer List Strategies For Your Direct Mail Promotion

September 2001:
How to Make Them an Offer They Can't Refuse!

October 2001:
The Secret of Out-Performing All Your Other Advertising!

November 2001:
The Number One Strategy to Out-Market Your Competition

December 2001:
Creative That Gets Results!

January 2002:
Secrets to Improve Your Sales and Profit With Direct Mail

February 2002:
How to Sell One to Two More Deals for Each 100 Pieces of Mail You Send!

April 2002:
Business Rules to Grow By!

May 2002:
The Only Three Ways to Grow Your Business

June 2002:
Your Customers are Speaking To You. Do You Hear Them?

July 2002
How to Attract Quality Traffic

August 2002
Make Money on Your Sales Event Before it Even Begins!

September 2002
Marketing Lists That Work!