How Haley Toyota of Roanoke Increased Sales 30% and Shattered their July Sales Record

The Client

Haley Toyota of Roanoke serves new and pre-owned car buyers in the Roanoke, Salem, Lynchburg, Christiansburg, and Blacksburg VA market areas. They were looking to make a splash in July to celebrate a milestone event – their 30-year Anniversary Sale – without spending more money. They wanted to reward loyal previous customers and show new conquest prospects their strong commitment to always putting their drivers first.

They wanted to reward loyal previous customers and show new conquest prospects their strong commitment to always putting their drivers first.

The Challenge

Haley Toyota of Roanoke partnered with J&L Marketing to help them overcome the following challenges.

Previous Anniversary events always proved to be a good marketing investment for Haley Toyota of Roanoke but wanted to see major improvements in traffic and sales without spending more money.

The Challenge Was Twofold:

1) First:

The automotive marketplace continues to marginalize and commoditize the products and services auto dealers provide. The marketplace is flooded with all the same inventory, pricing and advertising.

So, running ads with just another “Anniversary Sale” message was not going to differentiate Haley Toyota of Roanoke enough to rise above all the noise unless they significantly increased the volume of advertising to local car shoppers.

To increase advertising frequency Haley Toyota of Roanoke was left with two options:

Increase the advertising budget (which was not the desired solution) OR leverage the marketing assets they already had to multiply results.

1) Second:

Creating a marketing strategy that leverages existing assets and provides a seamless user experience across all channels relevant to the car buyer’s journey is near impossible because it’s too time-consuming and requires collaboration with too many vendors. The learning curve is too steep and the investment in time, money and effort outweighs the potential uplift in sales.

Leveraging marketing assets to multiply results requires a dedicated team to manage a very sophisticated marketing strategy, which is why Haley Toyota of Roanoke partnered with J&L Marketing to create, oversee and execute their 30 Year Anniversary campaign.

The Solutions

J&L Marketing worked with Haley Toyota of Roanoke to implement the following solutions:

Promote and brand a 30 Year Anniversary campaign for the entire month of July using an omnichannel marketing approach.

In a market where customers can interact with a dealership anytime, anywhere, we wanted to make sure Haley Toyota of Roanoke was prepared to accommodate them.

It started with the Attack and Defend Digital Marketing System (DMS)

The Attack and Defend Digital Marketing Strategy leveraged offline and online data to target customers at every intent level in the car buying funnel.

Attack

Used online data to identify where the highest quality traffic would come from, identified who Haley Toyota of Roanoke is competing with in the targeting space, and identified what those competitors are offering by studying their top performing Google ads.

Defend

Leveraged the dealership’s DMS data to serve Google paid search ads as soon as a previous customer started a vehicle search. This allowed Haley Toyota of Roanoke to influence previous customers before they potentially sold themselves on a vehicle from a competing dealership.

Who did the digital marketing target and why?

Leveraging the DMS Data within Google paid search and Gmail ads allowed the dealership to defend from potential customer defection and alert previous customers about the 30 Year Anniversary opportunity.

Polk data determined geographic areas where there was an opportunity. For example, the data insights told us where Haley Toyota of Roanoke was selling a high volume of inventory, where sales were not meeting expectations and where competitors had the highest levels of sales success.

Online data provided in-market data segments and website visitor audience groups. This allowed us to narrow our targeting down to a more qualified audience group (therefore making display advertising more successful).

Which digital marketing channels were utilized?

Google Paid Search Ads

• Captured all search traffic

• Minimized customer defection by leveraging the DMS data

• Targeted competitor branded terms

• Dynamic VIN Campaigns targeted make-model-year searches and directed people to the specific vehicle detail page they searched

• Ads included 30 Year Anniversary copy which added brand awareness and differentiated Haley Toyota of Roanoke’s paid search ads from competitors

Youtube Pre-Roll

• Leveraged video produced to promote the 30 Year Anniversary Sale Event

• Targeted In-Market and Remarketing audiences

• Served as brand awareness

Google Display Ads

• Targeted in-market Toyota consumers and specific vehicle types (SUV, Sedan, Compact, etc.)

• Increased relevancy with Dynamic VIN remarketing campaigns that served ads specific to the vehicles website visitors (who did not convert) showed the most interest in

Google Gmail Ads

• Served to dealership’s DMS audience

Facebook Ads

• Targeted conquest prospects who were in-market for a Toyota

• Remarketed dealer website visitors who did not convert

When branding is consistent across all channels, you can see an increase in revenue by 23%
Leveraging their current digital ad spend to communicate a holistic offer allowed Haley Toyota of Roanoke to increase the frequency of their 30 Year Anniversary message and build tremendous awareness without spending more money.

The 30 Year Anniversary campaign’s brand awareness grew throughout the month and finished with an exclusive 3-day 30 Year Anniversary Sale Event experience.

The Sale Event Domination System

The 3-day 30 Year Anniversary Sale Event was scheduled towards the end of the month to allow the digital marketing team to create a lot of momentum and buzz.

Who was invited to participate in the sale event

J&L Marketing tracks, tests and measures every marketing campaign using its proprietary software Response Analysis. Isolating every marketing element down to a single variable (from over 50,000 successful sale events) gives Response Analysis the capability to identify exactly what marketing elements produce the best results and which ones do not.

Response Analysis determined the best approach for sales copy, the offer, hooks, creative design, landing pages and the timing of all marketing communications.

Leveraging the DMS data, J&L Marketing analysts identified 5,000 of the highest-rated in-market previous customers through a proprietary algorithm that relies on insights from eight years of sales and service transaction data along with all prior marketing communication data.

These insights guided the decision to use a direct mail sales letter and a triggered email sequence to the initial 5,000 in-market audience. An additional 2,000 people received only email marketing inviting them to participate.

What Sale Event support was provided?

Ten days prior to the event, leaders from Haley Toyota of Roanoke participated in The Event Success System. This online call provides a step-by-step proven process to maximize the event’s profit potential and to make sure everyone is well prepared in advance for the event.

During the event, an Event Coordinator was on-site to register all event attendees and to ensure the Haley Toyota of Roanoke sales team was working with motivated car buyers.

What was included in the Sale Event Domination System?

• Response Analysis (tracks, tests and measures every marketing element to improve what works and eliminate what doesn’t)

• Data analytics to identify In-Market previous customers

• Proven Turn-Key Formula for Sales Copy, Creative, Offers and Hooks

• Sale Event Marketing Funnel – Direct Mail, Triggered Email Sequences, Social Media assets, Landing Pages, On-Site Event Coordinator, 24/7 Reporting Dashboard

• The Event Success System – total event preparation to maximize sales and profit potential

The Results

The results of the partnership and this omni-channel approach helped Haley Toyota of Roanoke achieve a seamless user experience that increased traffic, sales and profit.

The omni-channel marketing strategy proved to boost results in all digital marketing channels and the direct marketing that promoted the sale event.

Haley Toyota of Roanoke increased sales by 30% in July breaking their all-time sales record. New car sales increased 20%.

How did digital marketing benefit from the omni-channel marketing strategy?

0 %
increase in impressions
0 %
increase in clicks
0 %
increase in conversions
0 %
increase in paid search conversions
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conversion rate on YouTube

The exclusive 30 Year Anniversary Sale Event that finished the month produced 168 car shoppers in their showroom over the 3-day event at a response of 3.36%. Haley Toyota of Roanoke sold 61 vehicles during the event!

How J&L Marketing Can Help You Achieve an Instant Sales Boost

If you’re looking to achieve the same results as Haley Toyota of Roanoke, contact us.

J&L Marketing has a proven track record of helping clients achieve sales records and we’d like to help you do the same. Contact us today to find out how we can bring winning results to your next marketing campaign.

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