After opening up my car dealership I tried many different advertising techniques in order to get customers coming in to my car lot. There was a lot of competition around from neighboring dealers and I was beginning to feel as if I would not be able to gain a competitive edge. Eventually I found that billboard advertising was the best option.
First, I paid for some local newspaper advertising. I purchased a month’s worth of ads in the automotive special section of the paper. I was able to advertise specific cars that I had on the lot and their prices. These ads were fairly expensive though, and I did not see an increase in clientele. Another downside was that once those advertised cars were sold, customers were disappointed and accused me of using the ads as a fake way to bait them into my dealership. This was far from the truth, and I was looking to build up credibility within the neighborhood, not to turn customers away.
I looked into both television and radio advertising next. These were more expensive options for me and I really didn’t have the extra money to spend on advertising that may or may not increase my traffic. Radio ads simply would not showcase my products without providing a visual and television ads were just too expensive.
Next, I tried something that was a little gimmicky, I sent out a mass neighborhood mailer inviting people out to my dealership to test drive a car. If they came and did a test drive on a vehicle they received a gas card for twenty five dollars. This advertising technique definitely increased the traffic coming into my dealership, but it did not increase the sales. All in all, I just about broke even after the cost of the mailer and the gas cards were subtracted from my total sales that weekend.
I took a trip with my family to a water park in a neighboring state and during that road trip is when I developed my next plan. I realized that my attention was consistently drawn to billboard advertising signs along the highway.
When I returned home I contacted a billboard advertising company that worked with me to create a billboard that would clearly get my message across. I wanted potential customers to know that they were welcome in my dealership and that we would supply them with fair prices, excellent service, and the best financing that we could obtain for them. The billboard has paid for itself every month given the higher sales volume that we have experienced.
