Outsell‘s Vice President of Sales, Guy Super, joined Jim Fitzpatrick on the CBT Stage at NADA 2020 in Las Vegas to discuss how the Outsell marketing automation is continuing to improve the changing needs of the industry.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Jim Fitzpatrick: Your company is known for automation. Why do dealers need automation in their marketing today?

Guy Super: So an effective marketing strategy at the highest level relies on massive volumes of data, okay? If you don’t have tons, and tons, and tons of data really can’t understand the consumer. So unless you have a marketing automation platform, you can’t consume that volume of data, and make intelligent decisions about what type of communications people are looking for …

Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure.

Guy Super: … what kind of content, and what kind of copy, and which channel? So, that’s why you need it. And also for efficiencies.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure, sure.

Guy Super: Do you really want to hire 30 people to try and run these things? No. You use software.

Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s great.

Guy Super: You use AI, and that’s the only way to get there.

Jim Fitzpatrick: And if the technology is out there, why not have that for a dealer? I mean, that’s what it’s all about now. As you mentioned, efficiencies, dealers want to sell cars. they want to manage people. They want to hire people. They don’t want to spend so much time trying to navigate through the data for the marketing.

Guy Super: All those things that would keep you up as a dealer, as an owner, I want to make sure that all of my prospects, my owners, and my service customers get consistent communications that’s brand compliant, and makes sense to where they’re at in their individual life cycle.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure, sure.

Guy Super: And to do that with a product like I would sell, or a marketing automation product, you just flip a switch.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure, sure. Talk to us a little bit about the Outsell marketing automation. It’s continuing to improve, and changing the needs of the industry.

Guy Super: Yeah, so we just did a little study, I say little loosely, because it was a huge study with Experian and RXA, and we looked at 5.6 million consumers across 960 dealers.

Jim Fitzpatrick: My gosh.

Guy Super: 18.7 million transactions. This was a huge study.

Jim Fitzpatrick: I was going to say, that’s not a little survey.

Guy Super: Right, and again, because why is that important? Data?

Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right. That’s right.

Guy Super: Lots of data, that makes it accurate. And we saw a 31% increase in service visits.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow.

Guy Super: This is for people who are using marketing automation platforms.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Oh my gosh.

Guy Super: We saw a 49% increase in dealer loyalty rates.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Those numbers are astronomical.

Guy Super: And a 23% increase in repurchases, which-

Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow.

Guy Super: Look at the market is down. We’re not going to sell more cars this year.

Jim Fitzpatrick: No, I know, I know.

Guy Super: We’re going to be 16.8 million, something like that.

Jim Fitzpatrick: I know, that’s right.

Guy Super: So what do you have to do? You have to keep your book of business. You’ve got to keep these people coming back.

Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right. And you also need the service retention to be where it be, so that you’re-

Guy Super: So it pays the bills.

Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. So, and talk to us a little bit about the VIN Service Engagement.

Guy Super: Okay, so we’re really excited about that. So when we looked at what was happening in the industry, and had to make some decisions on where we were going to reinvest, and build our product, the one thing we wanted to do was, number one, we didn’t want to increase our costs for the dealer, but we wanted to provide a ton more value. So our VIN Service Engagement, it’s a subset. It’s 23 additional campaigns covering everything from declined services to appointment reminders, and service intervals, and based on the brand, so all aligned with each OEM’s specific service scorecard, KPIs. So, yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Right, right, right. So direct mail for dealers, they hear the word direct mail, some dealers say, “I’m not so sure.” We spoke to one of your clients and they said, “You do direct mail, and you’re spot on.” Talk to us about your direct mail program.

Guy Super: So, we take a different approach to direct mail. Some people own printers. It costs money. They’re really expensive, and you’ve got to sell a lot of direct mail if you want to keep the printers running and pay for them.

Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.

Guy Super: So, we call it Smart Mail. So if I can get somebody engaged through an email or through a social channel, I don’t want to spend all that money on direct mail.

Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.

Guy Super: The other thing is we don’t have a conflict of interest, so we don’t mark up our direct mail. And because the goal isn’t to try and get dealers to send more direct mail. It’s to get them to send less. In a down market, we need to be more efficient with our marketing spend, and utilize an omnichannel approach, not just spend $25,000 a month in service reminders, right? So …

Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right. But you are bullish on the use of direct mail for marketing with dealers.

Guy Super: There is still a very important place for direct mail in the market, but it’s all about how you utilize it, and it’s not spending tons of money, and trying to hit a huge audience. That’s not the right approach.

Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right. That’s right. Any final thoughts on what dealers should focus on in 2020 in terms of marketing?

Guy Super: Put together a marketing calendar, you know?

Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, yeah.

Guy Super: I mean, you really need that. And plan out a quarter by quarter approach. Get yourself some decent software that can help you with that individualized communication, creating a great experience for your customers, and you’ll win.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure, sure. For the dealers that are listening to this right now that want to get an analysis of their current marketing plan, can they contact you and say, “Hey, just take a look at what we’re currently doing, without any obligation-

Guy Super: Absolutely.

Jim Fitzpatrick: … and tell us what you think, and what your opinion is, and how maybe we would move together forward?”

Guy Super: Absolutely.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Is that available?

Guy Super: Absolutely.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, okay, great. We’re going to show it on the screen here. Guy Super, Vice President of Sales for Outsell. For dealers that don’t know about Outsell, find out about Outsell. They’re on the cutting edge of all things marketing. And we’re going to show the website, as I said, on the screen here.

Guy Super: Cool.

Jim Fitzpatrick: It’s always super to have Guy super.

Guy Super: Thank you.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Thank you.

Guy Super: Yeah, great to see you.

Jim Fitzpatrick: I appreciate it very much.

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