I am looking for a good promotion to drive traffic to a used car dealership - The timeline of the promotion does not matter - summer would be good. It does not have to be tied around a holiday and can be self contained but needs to drive traffic.
How about a "Blue Book sale - Kelly, NADA, etc. Dealer prices all sale inventory to be at least ___% or $___ under blue book value, with enlarged copy of the Blue Book price posted with his sale price.
Price drives car sales - incentives for test drives or hidden keys bring in traffic but can waste a lot of time for the car sales staff with people only interested in winning a prize or getting a gift card.
How about Car Wars - can be done off-lot in a 'neutral' location or kept on separate lots, invite multiple or just one other volume dealer, the radio can be a back-and-forth from the two or more dealers.
Free Gas for a Year. You have to set a $ limit per month but rising gas prices are top of mind for consumers.
Diane-
Do you have a proposal for car wars that you may have used in the past? I am curious to learn more about that promotion! Thanks.
-Bryan
I don't have a proposal per se but one set-up is this: pick a neutral location like a fairgrounds, a mall or other large facility parking lot, can be a grassy area or paved but you need electricity. Invite local dealers to participate. Each gets an allotment of vehicles to bring to the sale - new or used or you can designate the event as a used only event. A Th-F-Sa-Su schedule with hours something like 9a-9p. All dealers must have staff on site at all times. They will need internet - which no longer requires hard wiring for a secure line so they need to plan for that themselves. If the space allows for, say 30 vehicles per dealer, a 'holding area' away from the sale area is a good idea so the dealers can bring 10 or so extra vehicles to replenish w/o wasted time or to meet a prospective buyer's specific need. The creative can be pretty... creative and the deals have to be the real deal. Everyone can move a lot of vehicles in a short time if they work the deals correctly.
You provide and price out: the venue, security for after-hours, port-a-potties if needed, access to electricity, 2-weeks of heavy promotion in all media you believe necessary. Dealers can provide their own tent or trailer, tables, chairs or you can add that into the cost. All dealers F&I needs to be on-premise and you can sell 'booths' to banks, insurance, vehicle customizers like Rhinoliners, pipes, detailing, etc. Divide expenses plus your expenses by the number of dealers.
The other scenario is to have one dealer challenge one other dealer and bring vehicles, et al to a central location. The rest would apply as far as cost.
This really is a used promotion. A recent 2-dealer car wars in a town next to ours included some new vehicles but pretty much everything sold at the event was used.
