Everyone gets into a rut sometimes.  We get busy. We’re in a rush. We are putting out fires. We don’t have time to devote to things that don’t seem obviously “broken.”  So we accept the status quo and put off questioning whether there might be a better, more effective way of doing things.

This is often true of the way the marketing and advertising for automobile dealerships is handled.  When there is a rare opportunity to pause and catch your breath, you may realize that some things that have been done a certain way for as long as you can remember really don’t make a whole lot of sense.  Here are a few things that have never made sense to us at 3 Birds:

  • Why isn’t there a way for dealers to have better visibility into all of their planned traditional and digital advertising and marketing activities for a month all in one place? What if this could bring in Tier 1 and Tier 2 marketing and advertising support for a global view?
  • Why are so many vendors only providing ROI reporting on all of the vehicles they “sold” for the dealership?  When a dealer adds up all of the cars each of the vendors claim to have “sold,” the number of vehicles “sold” by the vendors often exceeds the total number of vehicles delivered by the dealership that month.
  • Why is it so difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of each component of a dealership’s marketing and advertising mix as well as the overall effectiveness of the strategy?
  • Why are there so many different account managers to coordinate with every month?
  • Why is it so challenging to get all of a dealership’s marketing and advertising partners to sit at the table together and leverage each other’s efforts to extend the reach of campaigns and initiatives?  Why does the left hand never seem to know what the right is doing?  Why is it so difficult to have branded campaigns seamlessly carried across every digital and traditional channel?
  • Why does it feel like dealerships go back to square one at the beginning of each month? 

3 Birds was founded upon the premise that automobile dealers deserve better solutions that deliver more meaningful insight and greater value.  We know there’s a better way and we’re delivering it.  It’s called ME.  ME is a complete digital solution and it stands for Market Effectively.  It’s a better way to connect and communicate with today’s consumers and it’s simply a better way to market your dealership.

Wouldn’t you like a global view of all of your digital and traditional marketing and advertising activities? Wouldn’t it be great to have your branded campaigns consistently leveraged across all of the channels where customers and prospects interact with your dealership?  Wouldn’t you like to allocate your marketing budget in the most efficient and effective manner?  Wouldn’t you rather invest more in your best customers and less in the ones that are the least profitable, loyal and engaged?  Wouldn’t you like to know as much as you can about what your best, most profitable and loyal customers look like so you can find more just like them?  Wouldn’t you rather start each month with a leg up?  This is what ME does. 

We’ll be introducing ME at Digital Dealer, so please be sure to check ME out by visiting us at Booth #117. 

ME was born because there’s no question that the Internet has changed and continues to change car buying and consumer behavior.  Single-mindedly advancing your own business agenda through your marketing isn’t working as well as it used to.  At 3 Birds, we’re focused on consumer experience and driven by data.  Interpreted correctly, the data communicates interest and predicts future needs and commercial activity.  We use the data to create “consumer-directed” marketing strategies.

After all, no matter how much technology enables us to automate processes, marketing is about people. Today, good marketing finds and attracts people to you to do business with your dealership. In fact, many of the same principles involved in human attraction apply to automotive marketing. I’m honored to be speaking on this topic at the Digital Dealer Conference with former AutoNation CMO and 3 Birds Advisory Board Member Gary Marcotte.  So if you’re interested in learning "What Match.com, Tinder, and Ashley Madison Have in Common with Automotive Digital Marketing," come see Gary and I speak. Our session is scheduled for Tuesday October 6, 2015 at 11:00 am PST.  

In keeping with our ongoing commitment to using data to market in an increasingly intelligent and effective fashion for our clients, we are proud to welcome Doug Van Sach as our new Vice President of Insight and Analytics.  You can learn more about Doug’s impressive background and experience in this issue of our newsletter.  Doug will be sharing his perspective on data in future newsletters and he and Megan Gardner, our Vice President of Accounts, will also be presenting at Digital Dealer. Doug and Megan’s session is entitled, “Get Addicted to Data: Start Creating Higher Value Customers” (Tuesday October 6, 2015 at 3:30 pm - 4:20 pm PST).   

We look forward to visiting with you in Las Vegas next month.