Tuning Up a Car Dealer's Message

Car dealerships have to deal with a number of popular misconceptions, many of them involving their service departments. Jeff Asher, the Parts and Service Director of Jennings Anderson Ford (a Digett client), noted this recently during a discussion about ways to improve the performance of email campaigns announcing service specials. As he said, "We are always faced with the 'stigma' that the dealership is too expensive or they take too long."

You're preaching to the choir, buddy—we deal with misunderstandings more often than we care to admit.

Thankfully, Jennings Anderson understands the value of straight talk. However, their typical service email campaign, though chock-full of valuable service coupons, wasn't doing much to dispel those myths. We suggested they use this tool for exactly that.

Sometimes you need to touch up, not tear down

Businesses owners and dedicated marketers often can't help but think that a major message needs to be delivered in an over-the-top, out-of-this-world way—and using the newest technology or media. It all has to be done in a way that is fresh and completely unique; otherwise, the message won't be received or heeded.

That's rarely true, to be honest. In fact, it often happens that you have an existing tool that can be reused or repurposed to the same effect. Such was the case here, as Jennings Anderson already had a solid email campaign platform with a good-sized subscriber base. Moreover, Jeff's email to us contained just the type of straightforward statement that was called for, and we proposed using much of it.

The result—seen below—was a simple, personal message that appeared near the top of their latest campaign. The full campaign is located here.

It's too early to measure campaign results, but we believe it stands as a good example of reusing and repurposing an existing, valuable tool. No flashy graphics, inflatable gorillas, or loud, booming voiceovers were needed.