DWM Marketing

Business owners. If you were a Chrysler Auto Dealership how would you handle this meltdown, assuming of course you were not one the of the 800 dealerships closing? Perhaps signs would be going up around your lot advertising “blow out sales”, “everything must go”, or value adds such as movie tickets and dinner coupons for test drives. Embrace the free PR and grab the opportunity to turn this media disaster into free advertising. If the media is somewhat accurate most people haven’t been shopping for Chrysler products lately. So keep your prices standard and hang your shingle high…People are going to start noticing those surviving dealerships along Main Street and stop by. Most are probably expecting great deals and bargains so play the car salesman game you got into business with and sell some units…Turn the new wave of “ups” that are paying attention to your lot into volume and manufacturers vouchers.

So most people have had a chance to weigh in on the newly proposed and approved $152 billion dollar stimulus package. Most would agree that getting a few extra hundred dollars is not a bad thing but what are you going to buy with it? The obvious choice would be to pay down debt but that is not much fun. So what “want” is going to be satisfied? As retailers gear up for the summer shopping DWM recommends that as a store owner you answer the question for consumers by smartly designing packages or products that would normally be too expensive down to a price point that matches with the differing amounts of the econ stimulus checks.

The checks are to be mailed in May & June and your marketing needs to be in place before hand including supporting POP displays to help compliment your call to action in your pro active mediums. Using Radio, Mailers, TV, or Outdoor are good examples of mediums to initiate and bring attention to your product. Once in the store or interested take advantage of their decision to shop you by coordinating your marketing through out your website, store or sales pitch with consistency between your media and the look and feel of the final product. i.e. if your target customer is typically going to receive a $1200 check take your most popular product and price it at $1,299 even if it becomes a ‘loss leader.” Then once your customer is in your store have in store signage and sales pitches that compliments the advertising message. Here is where the up-sell and impulse buy items are crucial. Make sure that you realize that the buying decision has already been made when they walked in the store, now you must bring the value proposition that they can afford more of what they wanted because of the stimulus check. Down with recession and up with happy consumer spending!

Learn more about marketing and how to utilize low cost “grass roots” advertising at  www.darkwatermedia.com