Author: Recent surveys show that automotive direct mail is at the top of the list for successful direct mail advertising. Most recent numbers indicate that consumers are responding to auto dealer direct mail about 73% of the time. This is a great improvement over the last few years as automotive direct mail had started to see diminishing returns from 2007 through late 2009.
Auto dealers in the last 25 to 30 years had auto direct mail as a routine part of their advertising plans. Now it appears that direct mail marketing for auto dealers has experienced a very nice resurgence. Here are just a few reasons why any auto dealer, regardless of size or advertising budget, should find room for some direct mail:
Low Costs – High ROI on Direct Mail
One of the great things about auto dealer direct mail is the fact it is so customizable. Any direct mail marketing company should be able to put together a campaign to fit any budget. Don’t let your direct mail company tell you they can’t do this. There are so many different types of automotive direct mail that you want to explore all your options. Since there are so many credit related issues in today’s economy, we have seen the best results when really filtering down by credit score and incomes. The most successful direct mail campaign we have seen is one using a mail piece that is commonly called a snap. It’s the size of a standard business envelope and looks very official and has the highest response rate of any that we have done. There are many formats such as post cards, multi-part in envelopes, give a ways, contests and so on. You will find that most direct mail companies do offer volume discounts usually seeing the discounts beginning around 5000 pieces.
Direct Mail has Flexibility
Automotive direct mail can help you get those incremental sales that make the difference between a month and a great month. Auto dealer direct mail can help you reach your service customers or be used as a lead generation tool which by using the available filtering can target both good and not so good credit customers. If your automotive direct mail company doesn’t provide you with the flexibility to meet your needs, call DealerLink at 800-890-8850. I guarantee that we have the knowledge, skill and experience to get the results you deserve.
Direct Mail Accountability
DealerLink’s auto dealer direct mail programs offer absolute tracking and accountability. We are the only direct mail marketing company that has a call center to take all your calls from the consumers and actually set your appointments based on dealership hours. We actually take the calls, set the appointments and follow up on anyone that misses their scheduled appointment.
Automotive Direct Mail Review
Advertising expenses continue to grow and with the use of a good automotive direct mail company, who will provide you with the filtering, targeting and most of all the accountability of your direct mail advertising, you can lower your costs and sell more cars with a lower cost of sale. If you aren’t getting the results you require call me, Tim Parker, President of DealerLink Inc at 800-890-8850 and I will personally show you how we can get this done. Good Selling!
-Tim Parker
About the Author:
DealerLink President and CEO Tim Parker has been involved in the automotive marketing industry for many years helping thousands of auto dealers across the U.S. increase sales while decreasing marketing costs. Parker’s auto dealer direct mail marketing program is his latest triumph along with his Credit Scored leads program and TRIGGER COMPLETE, the most comprehensive auto trigger leads program ever seen in the auto dealer marketing industry. If you are an auto dealer and want to learn more about how Tim can help you, just visit his website: DealerLink.us.
Any auto dealer who has made it through the last 2 years has to look for ways of controlling advertising expenses and automotive direct mail marketing has proven to be very effective. Auto dealer direct mail marketing can come in many different forms: bankruptcy list mailers, direct mail postcards, credit scored mailers and many others. The smart car dealer utilizes the services of an automotive direct mail marketing specialist like DealerLink.
The most important thing an auto dealer can do is to create and maintain a continuous flow of customers to their dealership. DealerLink has proven to be the best among all automotive direct mail companies and can provide many different forms of direct mail advertising from bankruptcy mailers to pre-approved credit score mailers. 100% of our auto dealer direct mail campaign advertising is FCRA and FACTA compliant. We guarantee that every automotive direct mail campaign will include an offer of credit. We encounter dealers all the time that are unaware of the requirements and are exposing themselves to potentially huge liability because many automotive direct mail marketing companies are not in compliance when it comes to consumer credit related issues.
DealerLink will guarantee that 100% of our automotive direct mail marketing campaigns are absolutely in compliance and we do not do any auto dealer direct mail advertising that isn’t totally backed by a firm offer of credit. All of our direct mail marketing includes a feature that only DealerLink provides: a call center that takes the calls from the consumer responding to the direct mail which means we take the calls, we set the appointments and we do the follow up in the event they don’t show.
All of our direct mail list marketing, including bankruptcy mailers, is guaranteed to be DNC compliant as well. We provide multiple ways for the consumer to respond: toll free number and a vanity website where they can submit their information online. In all cases, they all end up speaking with our call center operators who are highly trained in setting appointments originating from direct mail marketing or bankruptcy mailing lists.
We recommend that any auto dealer direct mail advertising be done in conjunction with credit score based direct mail. It makes no sense to advertise to a consumer for whom you can’t provide financing. We even suggest that with our auto bankruptcy mailers that the dealer associates them with specific credit score ranges. Recently, we have seen our best direct mail campaign results using credit scores ranging from 550 to 720.
DealerLink will customize your direct mail marketing campaign to your specific criteria and guarantee that our direct mail list will absolutely help you sell more cars with higher profits. We offer the only truly complete automotive direct mail marketing advertising when you combine our exclusive mailing list and our call center. We guarantee that our direct mail list is Exclusive by Dealer and will not be sold to another dealer in your market. Give DealerLink a call today at 800-890-8850 for all your auto dealer direct mail or bankruptcy mailer needs.
Posted in Automotive Direct Mail, News | 
Tags: auto bankruptcy mail, auto bankruptcy mailer, auto dealer direct mail, auto dealer direct mail advertising, automotive bankruptcy mailer, automotive direct mail companies, automotive direct mail marketing, bankruptcy mailer, dealer direct mail, direct mail marketing
DealerLink unveiled the new design of AutoLoans.us on November 15, 2009. As one of their flagship consumer auto financing sites, AutoLoans.us was redesigned to be more user-friendly and appealing to customers.
Consumers will be able to read auto finance news and articles on a daily basis. The new website will allow DealerLink to communicate news more quickly and effectively to customers.
DealerLink Inc. Launches their new EZ-AutoInsurance.com Website
which will Provide Affordable Auto Insurance to People Across the U.S.
DealerLink Inc. has just recently announced the launch of their new website EZ-AutoInsurance.com. The goal of the website is to provide consumers an easy to access online portal for obtaining affordable auto insurance from the nation’s largest auto insurance carriers.
DealerLink Inc. believes this will be an invaluable service for the millions of customers they have helped find auto financing over the last twelve years. “We are very excited about EZ-AutoInsurance.com because it will allow us to provide a complete solution for our customers by giving them the ability to apply for both auto financing and auto insurance,” says Tim Parker, Founder and CEO of DealerLink Inc. Parker also states: “The positive feedback we have already received from this new website and new service is reason enough to believe that we have succeeded in our original goal which was to provide not just auto insurance options to our customers but affordable auto insurance quotes for our customers.”
The company has already seen a significant amount of customers applying for auto insurance through both EZ-AutoInsurance.com as well as their other Auto Finance websites. “Everyone should be able to obtain affordable auto insurance,” says Parker, “and with our service we make the auto insurance providers compete for the customer’s business.”
Great news for special finance dealers! I wanted to get an update out on the exciting new guaranteed credit score special finance leads program. It doesn’t matter what you call it: special finance leads, auto sales leads, subprime auto finance leads or car sales leads, this program gets the job done.
We have received a huge number of responses from dealers all over the country telling us what a huge success the guaranteed credit score leads are having in their special finance and Internet departments. The feed back we are getting on the auto sales leads are showing results from 12 to 18% in conversions.
This is the most exciting special finance leads program to come along in the 9 years we have been doing this. It’s nice to see that dealers are selling cars again. What is a bit surprising is the fact that our platinum level with credit scores of 600 and above are actually scoring a lot higher than our research showed. The scores in March 09 were 75% were 675 and 60% were 700 and above.
We have found that dealers who do specialize in special finance should definitely be on the Gold program with credit scores between 530 and 599. If you have a true Internet department then you may want to consider the Platinum program as well but we would advise against it if you don’t have people skilled at working with the good credit customers because they do ask different questions and want to negotiate rates and pricing. The Gold tier does not. They are the absolute best special finance leads you have ever seen. Why not start selling cars again??
Give me a call at 1-800-890-8850 and I will help you get more customers on the lot who actually qualify to buy a car.
Tim Parker, President & Founder
We’ve listed our top 10 list of things every person should know about credit:
- The information in your credit files at the three major credit-reporting bureaus can vary.
- You should check your credit report regularly for possible inaccuracies or indicators of possible credit fraud.
- Having too many open credit cards can hurt your credit rating.
- Potential employers can ask to check your credit report. They must receive your permission to request a copy of your report.
- Your credit score can be lowered if you have too many inquiries in a short period. An inquiry is recorded on your report when you apply for new credit, such as a loan or new credit card.
- Having an active, long-term line of credit in your name can improve your credit rating.
- Inaccuracies can happen. The credit history of another person with your same name, or a similar name, can mistakenly be merged with your credit report information.
- Derogatory credit information can stay on your credit report for seven years. Bankruptcies can stay on your report for up to 10 years.
- Identity thieves have been known to assume your identity and open a new credit card in your name. They can re-route your credit card statement to their address. They can also make charges to your credit card account without actually having possession of the card. They simply need your credit card number and expiration date.
- The last two years of your credit history are the most important in lenders’ eyes.
Improve your credit today with a bad credit car loan.
Finally after 30+ years in the car business, it looks like many of the dealers are finally figuring out they haven’t been on top of their business like they should. When general managers are hired generally speaking the dealer has a tendency to step back and essentially turn their business over to them for day to day operations. Most GMs learned from the old school ways which by the way in case you missed the message ARE DEAD! It’s surprising to find out how many managers in stores today still don’t understand or use technology. We encounter dealers every day that don’t even use email and don’t want it.
The vast majority of real car buyers these days are from a generation that embraces technology and it’s a routine part of their every day activities and actually comes as second nature to them. A great example of this is our new President Elect and how he used the Internet to have the most successful campaign finance in history. Dealers should take note of this because as the new generation is coming up, they aren’t going to buy a car that they don’t already know as much or more about it than you do. Especially when it comes to pricing. A word to the wise, if you plan to stay in the car business you better buy your own store name as a domain. If you are already too late then do a whois lookup and find out who has bought it and contact them to buy it back. I would offer any help if you need it in this regard as I own 5000+ domains that I have owned for years.
The smart dealers will embrace what the Internet has to offer and take full advantage of it. Even though you won’t be able to generate the volume of leads you need like some of our 500+ websites, where we promote auto loans, bad credit auto loans, car loans, bad credit car loans – you can still generate quality leads that won’t cost you a dime. The truth of the matter is most owners don’t understand the Internet possibilities and probably have been taken advantage of by companies who profess to be able to get you #1 on any search engine. Since there’s no factory support for this it’s hard for the dealer to trust outside sources for their sites.
Egos will definitely reduce your bank account. If you aren’t truly measuring where you are spending your money, it may already be too late. If your managers can’t tell you exactly where your customers are coming from, you’ve got the wrong managers. Let’s be honest, how often does the desk manager actually interview the buyer? We all know again if we are being totally honest the typical sales person is going to tell the boss whatever will keep the boss off his ass. Whereas the owner needs to know the truth. If you think about it, how much traffic can you really count these days and know precisely where that customer came from?
There’s only a couple of sources where you absolutely know where they came from, how much they cost and how much profit you made. Those sources are new car leads and special finance leads. The problem with new car leads is these customers aren’t giving up any personal information so we know they average person completes almost 5 auto quote forms when they do submit one. If you aren’t doing special finance, what are you waiting on? A solid two thirds of the population has to go the subprime auto finance route now. Even though there’s limited lenders right now, you can still get deals done if you are willing to put in the effort. So unless you are that 1 dealer in the country who has more lot traffic than they can handle, you better find a way to get into special finance. Why wouldn’t you want to service 2 out of every 3 customers who actually do make it onto your lot?
Let us know if you need any help or questions on properly setting up your special finance department, don’t miss this opportunity.
New and used car dealers all over the country are truly struggling with just getting people on the lot. The problem is they keep spending money on various forms of advertising without tracking properly. The only real cost effective way to get a customer on the lot is with special finance leads. It’s time for dealers to understand that a solid 2/3’s of the population fall in this category and growing daily, so my question is “why aren’t you advertising for these people?”.
You can absolutely track every customer so you have true accountability unlike TV, newspaper or radio. DealerLink owns and operates over 500 consumer websites where customers come to the search engines and type in a term or phrase that means something to them about getting financing for an auto loan when they have less than perfect credit.
If you are ready to start selling more cars today at higher gross profits and lower cost of sale, call DealerLink at 704-544-9100. We guarantee 100% exclusive subprime auto finance leads. Someone is going to sell them a car, why not you?
