Analyze This

Marketing firm doesn't just plan sales events; it uses data to make the events more successful.

By Susan M. McDonald
Business First Correspondent

Nine years ago, Scott Joseph was working as a salesman at Green Tree Toyota in Clarksville. After watching how outside marketing contractors handled large sales promotions, Joseph thought he could do it better.

Today, J&L Marketing, Inc., the company Joseph launched in 1991, has clients across the country, satellite offices in Florida, Texas and Ohio, and ambitions to expand into promotions for other big-ticket items.

J&L, which is based at 1860 Campus Place in Louisville, primarily works with automobile dealers to deliver customers to the showroom.

The company helps clients identify the audience most likely to purchase certain vehicles, then crafts a letter to those potential customers, offering a free gift for visiting the dealership on a particular day.

J&L has plenty of competitors who offer the same service, said Joseph, 31. His company is different, he said, because it offers hands-on support for a dealer's staff and detailed analysis of results, enabling Joseph and his clients to identify techniques that work and those that don't.

"What separates us is what we do prior to the promotion, during the promotion and right after the promotion," Joseph said.

The turning point

While Joseph's experience as an automotive salesman gave him a working knowledge of the business, getting his company started was a challenge, he said.

Joseph and a partner, Patrick Luck, launched J&L with $12,000 in personal funds, but Luck left two months later and Joseph bought his interest.

The biggest challenge, though, was landing customers. Joseph's father, Tom Joseph, General Manager of Green Tree Toyota, signed on first, "but you don't have much weight when your dad's your reference," Joseph said.

"I was 22 years old and going to millionaires, telling them I knew this would work."

A Toyota dealer in Dayton turned things around.

"They sold 64 cars in one day, so from that point on, it was very easy for me to go around and say, 'This is what we just did.' Dealers were much more willing to listen," Joseph said.

Within eight months, J&L was on firm financial ground, and the company made a profit in its first year, Joseph said. He declined to reveal revenues, but he said 94 percent of the company's business comes from repeat clients.

Focusing on research, training and support.

As a car salesman, Joseph had seen other marketing firms run sales promotions, but most of them consisted only of targeting an audience and sending an invitation, he said.

Joseph thought dealers needed more service, so he designed J&L's program to focus on research, training and on site support during sales events, all services his experience told him were needed.

Joseph went on the road, interviewing dealership managers and top salespeople, then analyzing and targeting the sales strategies used in promotions that were successful and those that were not.

The result was the company's "Sales Atlas," which outlines seven steps J&L has identified as critical to a successful sales event. Joseph provides the document to his clients as a road map to maximizing the effectiveness of J&L's promotions.

The steps range from holding an initial meeting to inform and enthuse employees, to sending a follow-up note to people who came but did not buy. These steps are explained in a pre-promotion training session with the dealership's management.

"That way, everybody is on the same page," Joseph said. "If the sales staff doesn't support the promotion and the promotion doesn't support the sales staff, typically they'll fail."

On the day of the promotion, J&L places a coordinator on site to register everyone who comes in response to its mailing. The coordinator completes a brief survey for each customer, designed to separate the ready-to-buy customers from those who are simply interested in the gift, Joseph said.

The survey saves time for the sales staff by providing precise information, such as the specific model the customer is seeking and detailed information about the vehicle the customer wants to trade.

"It helps ensure that the sales staff is talking only to people who are likely to buy," Joseph said. "If they just want a free gift, we discover that during the registration process, so there's no obligation for them to have to walk around with a salesperson."

Sales experience was key

Again, Joseph's sales experience was important, he said.

"When I developed the registration form, I sat down and said, 'OK, if I were still selling and I had the perfect customer come in, what would be all the answers I would want to help me sell a car?" he said.

The on-site support is helpful, said Tom Jesukaitis, General Manager at Louisville's Cross Pontiac, Jeep and GMC dealership, who has used J&L for several promotions.

"They come out and run your sale for you," Jesukaitis said. "They register people, and I've seen them help work deals occasionally."

Most of Cross' advertising dollars go into newspaper ads, but "this is a different approach," Jesukaitis said.

"Your trying to target people instead of just blanketing the market," he said. "You can hit certain people with certain incomes, and you know what kind of car they're driving now."

"We look for trends like the types of people who respond to certain ads, where they're from and how sales are affected," Joseph said.

The company then uses the information to improve future promotions, he said. Data can be extracted on a national level or narrowed down to a specific dealer.

"Now the customer's advertising dollars start working harder and smarter," Joseph said. "They're spending the same amount of money, but now they're targeting people who are more likely to respond and buy from this type of ad, so they're getting better results."

Like cars, the cost of J&L's services vary according to the number of options the clients select. For example, a 10,000 piece mailing, 100 premium gifts and an on-site coordinator to help manage the sale would cost $7,495, Joseph said.

Nationwide, more than 5,700 clients have run at least one promotion through his company, and some schedule a promotion with J&L every week, said Joseph.

Sometimes several dealers join forces for a large off-site sale promoted by J&L, said Joseph.

Six Denver-area Ford dealers sold 402 vehicles during one week long event, and they sold 620 during the same time period the following year, he said.

J&L now has branched out to include promotions for motorcycle, recreational vehicle and boat dealerships, and Joseph said he hopes to begin working with furniture stores soon.

"It's really the system we're selling."