Trash the Trashy direct mail. 5 critical trends that you need to heed.

In 2017, Millennials to Seniors will most likely reward those who will use mail intelligently and will "un-shop" those who promote fake offers.

Too many times I see on a manager's desk a mailer that is shoddy or has no intellectual merit. I ask, "why are you sending this garbage out?" He or she usually smiles and answers that it works sometimes, or he doesn't have anything better to send. The price is right, or he has been using the same mail company and he trusts that they actually mail what they promised.

I'm amazed at all of the confusion this causes. Just yesterday I was interviewing a BDC center here in Florida and they were eager to share that the mailer is out now was asking customers to trade in their 2016 model cars and trucks. They received phone calls alright, telling them how stupid it was to offer them a buyback on a car they just purchased. Old data? No-one considered suppressing new purchases? What happened? The center says that it keeps happening over and over again. For every phone call they received in complaints, 100 more were mad but didn't call.

Another center reported that the direct mail company robo-called all of the direct mail recipients all at once and they we're getting inquiries wondering what was going on and why they were calling their cell phones. It's so great to tick off your potential customers with a message that they don't listen to. Most people don't listen to the message they get from their cell, sometimes they simply dial back the number that called them. You then catch them off guard and unhappy for the hassle.

Sooner or later we have to get serious about direct marketing.

5 of the most powerful campaigns that either my top clients are asking for are on the list below. I won't do kinky mail. Why tarnish the dealership's reputation by having clown pieces out in the marketplace?

Instead of kinky mailers or pieces that have false advertising, why not go intelligent and upscale?

Here are 5 areas that dealers should be taking advantage of when they think of mail:

1. Acquisition of competitor’s best customers for sales and service.
2. Retention of struggling customers before they leave forever.
3. Good people bad credit as opposed to bad people with bad credit.
4. Entry level buyer credit approval campaigns.
5. Spontaneous customers, VIP campaigns. Alternative lifestyle households.

In 2017, there should be no reason to acquisition mail anything else to your PMA than these 5 campaigns. Mailing almost a billion mail pieces each year, we see and track a lot of information. You should take a position and defend these highly targeted campaigns for the year. These campaigns will, in most cases, out-perform the acquisition attempts that you are making on social media and poor leads that you are buying from aggregators.

Acquisition of competitors best customers are essential for growth. There was one market area that I found almost 5000 orphan OEM specific owners that we not in the database of the dealer. That's right, 5000 orphans driving past a dealership or somewhere inside of a market area. Would it be smart to tap that resource and market to those potential customers several times a year?

One myth is that data is not accurate out in the market place. False, nothing further from the truth. Our factory delivers only to actual households that exist, or tracks down the misnomers until we find them. Anyone who has less than a 95% percent success rate is using a second hand list or is not paying attention. All of a sudden, you're .50 cent mailer is starting to climb in cost with wasted non-deliverable addresses. NCOA AND CASS will not cure all of the changes in address, you have to work with a company that will hunt most of them down or not mail to fictitious address. A lot of people don't fill out change of address forms with the post office.

We help our customers understand the different households in a PMA and when they are going to make a move in the market place. There are several households that would buy from you but don't consider you becuase you're web site isn't on their hit list. The mega dealers and all of the "lead companies" that are on your team are now gathering data for themselves. Most of them are marketing to your customers when they are not in the market to stay top of mind. Consider that.

You need to stick with a handful of campaigns, and not move around. Sometimes it takes a few mailers to resonate with a household, by then most dealers have moved on to another campaign hoping this one will pull them in.

If you had been going after your orphan customers or had a good track on first time buyers, would that be a benefit right now when most OEM's are very liberal with approving first time buyers?

Now is a good time to review your current marketing situation and see if it is not time for change. We offer a simple test in your market area. Let see if we can help you tackle the current marketplace. Call Tracy at 954-949-6330 and schedule time to talk about this important topic and see if you're candidate for a test.