How the Flash Can Help You Improve Your Dealership

Image courtesy of IMDB

In the television series "The Flash," Barry Allen struggles to balance the demands of his personal life with the demands of being the Flash. Whether you're a superhero or an automotive dealership, life tends to throw curveballs when you least expect them.

For the Flash, those curveballs have been epic battles with meta-humans wielding crazy superpowers. Conversely, dealerships might have struggling marketing campaigns or unhappy customers to deal with.

If you need help measuring your marketing success or providing speedy, awesome service to your customers, take a few tips from the Flash to keep your dealership in the Speed Force.

Always Be Prepared

The Flash rarely goes into any situation without preparing for it. That’s because with preparedness comes the confidence to take on the challenges of the day. Flash understands this and frequently trains on his Cosmic Treadmill or heads to S.T.A.R. Labs to hone his amazing abilities. In many instances, the Flash and his team of scientists analyze threats ahead of time so they understand how to best conquer them. It’s not always easy, but one way or another, Flash finds a way to be prepared for whatever he comes up against.

For a marketer, being prepared means knowing who you're targeting when you launch a campaign. For example, if you’re marketing luxury automobiles, do you get more customers with campaign messaging that focuses on price or on luxurious features? Using your incoming call data to analyze location, age group and average income levels to make sure your campaigns target the right groups.

Push Yourself to Improve

Thanks to mechanical engineering genius Cisco Ramon, the Flash is kept up-to-date on everything that goes on in his city. Via his meta-human tracing technology, Ramon seamlessly alerts Flash to any threats. Although he knows about all the threats, there are some situations where the Flash needs to learn a new ability to defeat his foe. In those times, Flash commits himself to mastering a new technique so that he’s more powerful than ever before. Whether it’s a five-alarm fire or another meta-human terrorizing citizens, the Flash constantly pushes himself beyond his limits to keep the city safe.

Evolving and improving is just as crucial to marketers in today’s digital age. Social media and other technologies require us to constantly change with the world around us, because a clever campaign might go viral one day and be forgotten the next. Always track the success of your campaigns so you can cut the campaigns that don't keep pace and focus your time and money on successful campaigns — until they, too, run out of speed.

Know When to Ask Questions

It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to impress others by not asking for help, but that can lead to costly mistakes. Despite his amazing powers, the Flash is never above asking questions at S.T.A.R. Labs or leaning on family and friends for support and encouragement.

Just as the Flash knows when he needs help with a situation, your employees should know that they have resources and opportunities to help them get better at their jobs. One way to help your sales team improve is to record incoming and outgoing calls and review them for mistakes. If a common mistake is found, you can help management tailor training for specific employees to keep those mistakes from happening again.

Whether you’re trying to stay in front of marketing trends, improve employee training or manage the many leads your awesome marketing is undoubtedly bringing in, we can all strive to be a bit more like the Flash.

If you think your marketing can’t quite keep up with the Flash, check out our post “Shift Your Marketing into High Gear.”

Three Great Auto Marketing Campaigns

The automotive industry has done some wild things over the years in the name of generating buzz. Need examples? Ford put a Mustang on top of the Empire State Building (twice), Smart used extra-large bike locks to secure some of its diminutive-but-versatile vehicles to lamp posts in Canada, and BMW created a not-so-diminutive art piece called "An Expression of Joy" with a drifting Z4 and lots and lots of paint.

At Callbright, we're big fans of quality automotive marketing, especially when those big, expensive stunts actually do their job and generate a healthy return on investment. Here are some of our favorite auto campaigns from recent years that generated both buzz and ROI.

Chevrolet — Firsts

Image courtesy Think With Google

How do you market to millennials? Chevrolet's answer in 2011 was to engage them digitally. They did this by making YouTube videos showing the 2012 sub-compact car, Sonic, doing crazy stunts. Chevrolet took the Sonic on its first skydive, first bungee jump, first kick-flip (with Rob Dyrdek at the wheel) and first music video (co-starring OK Go). The campaign started on YouTube and then culminated with a TV spot during Super Bowl XLVI.

Chevy wasn't lacking creativity on this campaign. The car's bungee jump was streamed live online and the car wasn't "launched" until the website received enough clicks to push the Sonic over the ledge. The campaign was so popular for the way it engaged the audience that it earned a coveted Effie Award in 2013.

Honda — Cog

Image courtesy YouTube

This one still amazes us more than 10 years later. The "Cog" commercial was part of a larger U.K. Honda campaign that included TV spots called "Sense" and "Everyday." It originally aired during a British broadcast of a Formula 1 race in 2003 and featured an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine built with parts from the new generation of Honda Accord.

Honda, which had struggled in the U.K. over the previous five years, struck gold with the "Cog" commercial. It became one of the earliest viral videos as it reached a global audience via the Internet. The commercial was called the "water-cooler ad conversation of the year" by a British journalist, and Honda's website traffic jumped 400 percent over the course of the campaign.

Mini — Let's Motor

Image courtesy AdverToLog

Rebooting a brand that had been dormant in America for almost 35 years was a daunting task for Mini when it brought its new Cooper and Cooper S hatchbacks to the U.S. in 2002. The market was dominated by SUVs and pickups, and Mini had a relatively modest marketing budget to work with. Mini's solution was to target enthusiasts with a counterculture message that encouraged adventure and derided the status quo of American car buying.

Thanks to the "Let's Motor" campaign, Mini's return to the U.S. was a roaring success. The company sold 5,000 more cars than the original 20,000-unit limit.  Brand awareness increased to 80 percent, with about 40 percent converting to consideration. The modest budget meant Mini spent just $567,000 per percentage point of awareness in its first year while other brand's spent an average of nearly $6 million for the same gains.

For more marketing inspiration, check out some of these awesome dealership mascots!

The Auto Sales Boom: How to Keep up With More Leads

If you’re in the auto biz, you know that 2015 is predicted to be one of the best years the industry has had in a while. Now that gas prices are lower and the economy is getting back on its feet after a nasty knock, dealerships are expected to sell 17 million or more vehicles this year. To give you a little perspective, that’s the highest this number has been since 2001!

With this kind of growth, you can bet you’ll have more leads to manage. Things might get a little crazy, so get ready! Here are a few tips for keeping up with all those leads.

Don’t Let Data Entry Cripple Your Sales

Making sure your CRM is up-to-date is an important part of the car-buying process. But who wants to deal with data entry when you have sales to focus on? If your salespeople are busy handling an increasing number of sales calls, important lead information is more likely to fall through the cracks — unless you automate your information-gathering process.

By integrating your call tracking system with your CRM, you can sync your call records and prospect information, giving your sales team a break from data entry. And here’s another plus: When a new prospect calls in, you won’t have to worry about spending valuable time gathering their information, because your call tracking system will capture these details for you.

Train New Employees Efficiently

Last year we talked about how the auto industry’s workforce was booming. We expect that pattern to repeat itself this year. After all, you have to have people to manage all those sales! But then how do you find time to train all those people to manage all those sales?! To find out, read our post here.

Rethink How You Assign Leads

In response to an increasing number of phone and web leads, one dealership in California decided to rethink the way employees handle leads.

The old way: Calls were evenly distributed to all associates, whether they were salespeople working the floor or associates sitting behind desks responding to Internet leads. As for web leads, there were seven people to handle 1,000 leads a month. 

The new way: The dealership analyzes employees’ unique skills with a computerized test. Based on the results, employees are assigned to one of two dedicated teams. One group helps customers on the showroom floor, while the other responds to and tracks web and phone leads.

By maximizing its workforce, the dealership managed to raise its total sales by 4 percent last year. You might find that a similar overhaul of your workflow is necessary when leads start pouring in.

What changes will you make to your lead management process this year?

[INFOGRAPHIC] Automotive Industry Spotlight

When it comes to new car searches, gone are the days of dealership-hopping. Now, 34 percent of car shoppers do their research online before visiting a dealership. Check out this infographic by Kenshoo for some more auto marketing stats.

If you're planning to keep up with your web-surfing prospects, you'll need a lead management tool to help. Use an online lead tracking solution that'll inform you as soon as a lead fills out a contact form on your website — that way you can call them immediately to make sure you get their business.