Postcard Campaign -- Looking for input

Couple of things:

1. When someone calls the 1-800 number, will it route directly to your office so they can talk to a live person? Or is it a recording? I would definitely recommend a live person answer that, callfire has a whisper message that the person answering the phone hears before the call is connected, so the person answering the phone can know that they are about to talk to a lead from the postcard campaign and to schedule the test drive.

2. Since your list is from previous customers, it should be good. I wouldn't wait a week after the postcard hits, I would start calling the next day. "Hey you received our postcard in the mail yesterday offering $50 to come test drive, would you like $50?" I personally think a week is too long, especially since you have a May 30th deadline.

So lets say you hit mailboxes by the 8th, call the 9th-12th, test drive, test drive, test drive, then on like the 20th-23rd, I would call everyone who either didn't answer, or didn't schedule a test drive again.

Do you also have email addresses for your customers? Email the offer out too!

Several things.

For one, you want to make sure they're in a position where you can sell them a vehicle. So when they call, there should be some "qualifying" questions to ask so you can determine if you've got someone who might buy.

Then I'd also rephrase the offer to tie it more into selling them the test drive and vehicle.

"If you don't feel the Mitsubishi Fuso's the best ride you've ever had, we'll give you fifty bucks just for trying it out."

So to get the $50 they don't just have to show up and test drive it, they'd have to tell the salesperson how they didn't like it. Unlike just collecting the email adress and the prospect saying "thanks, it was fun" That initiates a conversation, right? A conversation the sales staff ought to be able to turn into sold vehicles.

Which reminds me of another idea which comes from Harley Davidson. They did no strings attached test drives on real terrain, which other motorcycle dealerships weren't doing. When each rider was done, they handed back the keys and said "thanks." Nobody was buying. Until someone asked one of the riders for feedback. Then they got to hear what the buyer would've wanted to see in the bike. They started asking everyone for feedback and made changes. That sold vehicles like crazy for them. I know you can't change the vehicle but getting conversations started is going to give you information and sales.

Here's a little something that'll help with the postcards.

I like the $50.00 amazon voucher.

You see why when you read this...

Attachment 20518


Steve

Could you let them test drive the truck for a day or two??

Back in 2003, I was buying my first NEW car (Well, technically my mom was buying it for insurance purposes) and the salesmen said to take it home and drive it around for a few days.

Did I buy it? Of course I bought it! I already wore the seat in.

So, not sure if you can do that or not.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will surely do a follow up postcard as well.

Working on the call script. Once we get the person on the phone I was thinking of having my people say:

"Hi (customer name), I'm calling about the $50 we'd like to give you"

Likely customer response will either be "who is this" or "what $50?"

We respond "oh, we sent you a postcard the other day offering $50 to test drive a new Mitsubishi Fuso truck. When would you like to schedule yours?"

If they say "not interested" I'll have my people ask "why?" ... Or if they are interested I'm not sure if I should have my people try to qualify them more (ie, "great! Are you looking to replace a truck you have now or add another truck to your fleet?)

Any suggestions/input would be appreciated!

Tyler

Doesn't sound bad. I say go for it

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on this. The postcards got dropped in the mail Friday, so customers started to receive them this week. Tomorrow I'm prepping my "call team" (6 employee's) on the script and what to say when we start calling (starting tomorrow as well). So decided to practice on the first 25 customers to see how well the script would work and what kind of feedback I would get. My very first call netted a customer that was looking to purchase a truck! He actually had the post card in his hand when I called him, so very good timing. So I feel good about 2 leads on the first day, and hopefully once we start calling tomorrow we will grab a few more.

My one complaint is that the printer/mailer we used ended up cropping off the landing page ... so instead of domain.com/fuso it just showed domain.com on the postcard... so hard to get some good data on how many visit our website because of it.

Hi there,

Sounds like you've done what most don't - take action. Well done.

If your only complaint with direct mail providers/suppliers is a cropped URL you are lucky!

It sounds like you've also done a decent job in picking WHO you sent your cards to.

Well done!

All the best,

Sasha.

Okay.. I can tell you that several dealerships in my area are doing something similar but with a twist.

They are approaching Schools and offering this as a fundraiser.. They pay the school like $50.00 for each parent that test drives a car and it has been successful. They sold several vehicles this way.

Just thought I would share that with you.. It might be an approach you can add to your existing plan.

You can do the same with Churches and civic organizations.

I promise you right now if you approach a nice sized Church with 500 - 1,000 members and offer to donate $50 bucks per test driver and you will be swamped.

Something else you might want to consider is getting feedback from people that actually buy your trucks, maybe call them at 1 month after the sale, 6 months after sale (example). Ask them about their new truck, what do they like, what would they have changed about the truck, sales process or maintenance.

Follow up phone calls will show your interested in helping them, which also gives you feedback for tweaking your current sales process for future customers.

Also, If they bought one $50K work truck it's only a matter of time before they'll be in the market to buy another similar truck considering most work trucks get abused on job sites, etc...

If your dealership also handles the maintenance, check out the condition of the truck. Is it time for a new truck? Maybe it's time for another test drive?

If your not the one doing the scheduled maintenance for the work truck, offer them a free oil change ($50 value, or whatever) about 3 years after the sale to get them back to the dealership, & look at the condition of the truck. Is it time for a new truck?