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Businesses spend thousands of dollars each month creating and distributing a marketing message in hopes of attracting customers. In a previous article, “Digital Marketing Is Still Marketing,” I spoke about how to create a unique message. This article is not a rehash of that, but shows an example of a company who lost valuable opportunities due to confusion of their message.
I was at a friend’s house prior to the Fourth of July and as I looked through the local paper, I saw an ad for a local auto dealership with what I thought was a pretty unique approach.
Their dealership was closed on July 4, but people would be able to walk the lot. After hours in the evening of the July 3, every car on the lot would have a red tag placed on it. People could come on the lot on the Fourth of July and write down the ticket number and price on the red tag and they would be able to receive it during the fifth and sixth of that weekend when the dealership was open with no haggling and no questions. On the evening of the fourth, all the tags were removed.
It seemed like a great selling point: no one on the lot to bother you while you looked, everything you needed listed on the car and a price they guaranteed as long as you had the ticket number from the car.
Pretty unique, I thought, as I decided to jump on their website to see what they said about this event. As I got to their home page, I saw NOTHING about this event.
It was a pretty standard OEM type-site with nothing about this sale. There was nothing on it that helped the dealership stand out and tell me why I should buy this brand from them, seeing as they were in a metro area where within an hour there were multiple other dealers selling the same brand.
So I thought that maybe it was just something blasting out on social media, but again, nothing on their Facebook page. In fact, the last post was from May. What did that tell me as a consumer? That they let things drop, they do not follow through and this could be how I would be treated as a customer.
If you, as a business, are going to be creative and work on ways to drive traffic to your location, understand that traditional marketing drives people to the web. If I do not see the same information on your website as I do other places, it makes me think I am in the wrong place. It creates doubt instead of taking me one step closer to the sale.
We must look at our marketing as ways to take away concerns, not increase them.
Make sure all of your marketing aligns with your message. Make sure all your marketing is tweaked for the platform you are using, but it has feel familiar and carry the same message.
I feel bad for this dealership because I am sure they lost multiple opportunities to gain business and stand out in their marketplace.
Glenn Pasch is the current CEO of PCG Digital Marketing as well as a writer, National Speaker and Management Trainer