End of summer means that the kids are getting ready to go back to school, our long summer nights are coming to an end, and of course, it means model year end sales events at your dealership. It’s the time to clear out the current year models to make room for the next year’s models. These can be highly successful times for sales, but the more prepared you are, the better the outcome. As a digital agency specializing in automotive, we have help facilitate a great deal of model year end advertising, and we’ve compiled some tips to help your dealership maximize this event.

Make a Plan

The advertising typically begins in August for model year end, so you’ll want to sit with your team and your automotive advertising agency to come up with a plan for August and September. Keep in mind, Labor Day falls during this time, so we typically advertise model year end for August, switch to Labor Day for about a week, and then switch back to model year end once Labor Day has ended. It sounds like a lot of work, but we typically take on all the leg work so our dealerships can just focus on hitting their goals. If this is something you’re looking to do, you’ll want to meet right away. Set your calendar for a meeting within the last ten days of July to get set up.

Model Year End Advertising Tactics

Through our experience with different sized dealerships in different zones, we’ve seen what works best and what doesn’t work so well. Here are some thing you want to consider when mapping out your strategy.

1: Be consistent – You’ll want to make sure that your campaign is consistent across all platforms whether digital, traditional, or point of sale. Your automotive advertising agency should come up with a campaign and execute that creative across display campaign, email marketing, SEM campaigns, mobile marketing, and traditional advertising. For some help on how to stay consistent and bridge the gap between digital and traditional, download our Eguide.

2: Compelling Message – You will need a message that not only stands out, but that is enticing enough to drive a customer to come to you. Shoppers are spending more and more time online and considering more vehicles than ever before. However, dealership visits have dropped. That’s because people are experiencing dealerships and potential vehicles virtually. You need to make sure your dealership gets in front of them with a good message promoting the value of your dealership.

3: Digital Tactics – At D2D, we are constantly testing new tactics to make sure we not only stay on the cutting edge of digital advertising, but so that we can offer our dealerships the very best solutions. We stand behind digital strategies that include mobile geo-tracking, VDP retargeting display, search retargeting display, a well managed SEM campaign, and email marketing. When it comes to email marketing the list is everything. Many companies promote low cost email marketing. Who wouldn’t want that? However, when tested, the open rates are lower and therefore the conversion rates are as well.

4: Traditional Tactics – These can still be very effective when done properly. Target the same people you’re hitting digitally for your traditional campaigns. Whether it’s cable or postal mailers, have as much consistency as possible in your targeting. The more you get your message out to the right people, the better your ROI. If you haven’t already, son’t forget to download our Eguide to help bridge the gap between digital and traditional advertising.

5: Meet with your Internal Team – Let your sales staff and your BDC know what your plans are for advertising. This way all customer that come in get the same message that they’ve seen through your advertising, and no one is confused if a customer mentions a special they might have seen.

Analyze and Adjust

Different things work for different brands and different geographies. The best thing about digital advertising is that you aren’t stuck in what you’re doing. You can make changes as you learn about what’s working and what’s not. Likewise, you can test different campaign messages out to see which resonates better with your audience. We are constantly analyzing and optimizing everything we do, because we believe in the power of optimization. You can no longer “set it and forget it”.

Advertising for Model Year End sales can help you move the remaining models off your lot so that you can order new models and prove to be very profitable for your dealership if managed well. If you need help getting your dealership ready for the 2020 models, please give us a call at 877-958-4524 or email us at info@digital2dealer.com.