Below is an article written by Dave Carach, the General Manager of Metro Ford, for the Dealership Innovation Guide about this success his dealership found after signing with Potratz.

In 2004, Metro Ford in Schenectady, NY was facing some serious challenges. After 30 years in business, the explosive growth of internet marketing, and the change in our market due to General Electric eliminating thousands of jobs, we still had not created the top-of-mind awareness in our market that was needed to prosper the way we had many years ago. Our dealership didn't truly stand out when compared to our competitors. We found that our location was virtually unknown to a lot of buyers. We knew that we were well behind the curve in taking advantage of digital advertising and the Internet sales process, but had no idea where to start or how to set goals. It was my job as sales manager to find answers.

The Solution: Branding Our Dealership

We knew we needed help so we did what every other dealer does: hire an automotive advertising agency. That partnership lasted only about six months, mainly because it felt like the agency was just doing more of the same things we had tried previously. I knew if we really wanted to make a transformation, we could not continue doing the same thing and expect different results.

It was September 2004 that we met with a firm that seemed completely different - in fact, even a little weird in what they were saying - but, we liked what we heard. They created a strategy that would grow and improve over time. Our new partnership was with Potratz, and several years later we continue to work with them, using the same marketing philosophy which began with creating an integrated traditional and digital campaign incorporating the celebrities of the dealership. Dave Dariano, our president, and I, Dave Carach the vice president, became the faces of Metro Ford. We are Dave and Dave, the Dealmakers, "Looking for a Deal We Can't Beat." To accomplish this, we put ourselves in television commercials, print ads and online. We're in all of our advertising, so people feel comfortable when they come into the dealership. They can say, "Hey I saw that guy, I know that guy, I saw him on television."

Positioning Dave and myself as the celebrities of the dealership was a progressive step at the time and continues to be; it's something other agencies don't do in the same style. In our industry, it's hard to walk away from the idea that we must be selling by price, payment, rebates, and sales events. We had always focused on the offer, the hook, instead of creating awareness in a fun way. While it may be true that as a dealership we must always be looking to sell, our strategy also includes branding or "Creating Our Celebrity Status," so when people are shopping, they shop us online and on the lot. We always underestimated the power of incorporating a consistent, branded, and unique message, but that is what has allowed us the luxury of more customers at a lower cost per sale.

Part of the branding process was developing a slogan that represented Dave and me as the celebrities of Metro Ford. We adopted "We're Still Looking for a Deal We Can't Beat." We do a lot of creative advertising around our theme. Dave and I are the sometimes quirky, always outgoing and sometimes (we think always) funny guys of Metro Ford. We have done skits beating deals ranging from running a lemonade stand, fishing for a deal, hunting for a deal, shooting basketball for a deal, and even cooking a pig for a deal. We can be found on the sales floor most days supporting our sales team and interacting with customers. People know who Dave and I are through the humorous ads that have been produced over the years. Customers know we're "Still Looking for a Deal We Can't Beat," which gets our call to action heard, but in a slightly different way. After all, that's what works.. being memorable! Keeping the brand message consistent was not a priority before. Instead, like most dealers, we were focused on one-off sales events, but now we are all about maintaining and developing new ways to impress our dealership's brand message onto the public.

The Integration

Digital marketing has probably been our biggest leap ahead. Embracing technology is a vital step in being the answer to your customers' needs. We have never really considered Facebook and YouTube as part of our advertising plan. We quickly built up our following on various networks. If it's new and it's digital, and if it fits into our budget, we do it! We are not gadget freaks or tech guys, but when that call comes in from Potratz and they say were doing video ppc, video this, video that, text, behavioral, we say, "Great! Let's do it!" Our latest venture has been text marketing and mobile marketing and it seems like we have hit on something that is working like a charm.

We have seen a lot of opportunity for a more integrated campaign for our service department through the use of text marketing and mobile marketing. I know it's a factor in our fixed-ops being up 18 percent this year since we are now communicating with people the way they want to communicate and building interaction. Mobile text coupons are receiving five to seven times the redemption rate of traditional coupons we run in the newspaper. We have found having a mobile strategy essential because it has increase our traffic weekly. It's incredible the impact mobile marketing has had and can only imagine what it will become. We have a strategy in place to continue building our 100 percent opt-in mobile text database, which includes point of sale signage in the service lane, customer waiting areas, wash rooms, vending machines, repair order fliers, entry doors, showroom sales tables and on the lot - whatever we can get people to sign up! We have added our text-in code and QR code, and we use only 100 percent opt-in list to avoid fines that have been handed down to companies much larger than ours in the past.

It isn't only mobile text marketing that has made the difference, but mobile marketing has been a great tool for driving traffic to our websites. In March 2011, we were receiving 2 to 3 percent mobile visitors to our websites. Now we are seeing visits to our site at 12 percent and returning visits as high as 23 percent every month. It was not long ago we would see people with the newspaper on the front seat of their car but now they walk in with an iPad.

A technology that Potratz has had us using for a couple years that we see and hear a lot about from customers is Retargeting. I didn't have the slightest clue what it was at the time but now it is a staple of our marketing. Retargeting is based on behavioral and search terms of a car shopper visiting our website. This strategy has definitely increased our brand awareness. The bottom line is we have more traffic to our websites, more people seeing our ads, clicking our ads, watching our videos. Even when I am at the grocery store we are selling more cars, more people are talking about us, more people knowing who we are outside of the dealership. It's all about awareness and being different than any other dealer. The stats do show that 70 percent of people who are retargeted are more likely to convert on our website or call us. That makes it worth doing if you ask me.

We created a dedicated Internet department and Internet team focused specifically on developing our e-commerce business. The Internet department had to create a new system for handling all of the new leads we were generating from our traditional and Internet branding campaigns. Sales increased by an average of 34 percent. We followed Paul's guidance and built a business development center that is primarily focused on converting our Internet leads into appointments. When the conversation with the customer starts to discuss details about rebates or price, the customer is passed to a sales person, but the BDC follows the process to continue the quest for an appointment. If the customer visits the store and does not purchase, the lead goes back to the BDC for continued interaction. We never mark a lead bad if the contact info is correct..We believe in lead or customers for life in our process, we will win them over one day!

Measurable Success

Over the years we have grown to understand how maintaining a clear, constant and concise brand message enables a customer to see your products as the answer to their needs. By having a set marketing budget, a clear strategy utilizing both traditional and digital media, and marketing Dave and myself as the celebrities, we have increased our gross profit and total sales of used vehicles by 53 percent. This simple marketing philosophy worked to our advantage, while our advertising budget cost per unit decreased. By 2009, we were able to claim our position as the fourth ranking certified pre-owned volume dealer in the New York region and we firmly believe in turning inventory fast. Today, we are only 3 units behind the number one spot and plan on securing the position of largest CPO dealer in the New York region. Sales have seen double-digit growth year over year, gross on the front and back is up and advertising cost for sales and service is below the national average at $375 per vehicle.

It is all about having fun with your marketing strategy, being consistent, staying true to your brand standards, embracing all the tools that are available, and being different in your message delivery. I am so excited for 2012 and I'm confident that the continued integration of our traditional, Internet, and mobile campaigns for both fixed-ops, and sales will take us to higher profits. We will keep saying it "We are Still looking For A Deal We Can't Beat!"

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