At Aspen Automotive, we see direct mail marketing as much more than a successful automotive advertising strategy. We see it as a lasting solution that will not only drive traffic to your dealership but also improve your bottom line—two things that are basic essentials for any successful automotive business.

So, if you’ve been wondering how to generate more leads and position your dealership as an industry leader, it’s time for you to learn more about the automotive direct mail solution. Luckily, we’re here with this guide to help you get the lowdown on exactly that. Let’s check it out!

What is the Automotive Direct Mail Solution?

The direct mail solution is comprised of a long list of benefits that provide your business with the results you want. To put it simply, the automotive direct mail solution offers advantages that other advertising options simply can’t match.

For example, studies have shown that direct mail requires 21 percent less cognitive effort to understand than its digital advertising counterparts. This is due, in part, to the reduced amount of distraction associated with a print advertisement over an online ad.

Without the possibility of other media snagging your audience’s attention, they’ll focus solely on the message provided in your dealership’s direct mailer.

As a result, you’ll pour your money into a marketing solution that’s more likely to produce the desired results from your ideal customers: opting into the program or promotion offered by your dealership.

Now that you know more about the direct mail solution and its advantage over digital advertising, let’s take a look at some of the other benefits presented by direct mail.

Direct Mail Isn’t Dead

With the boom in digital and social media marketing over the years you may be tempted to turn your marketing strategy away from print and more to online. Before you jump ship to join the forces of digital marketing, you might be interested to know that digital marketing, in fact, isn’t dead.

While it’s true that fewer business are utilizing direct mail, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. With fewer dealerships sending mail directly to clients—both current and future clients—you’ll find far less competition. In fact, it’s estimated that each person gets 2 pieces of mail per day. Take these two pieces and compare it to the 100+ pieces of email or 50+ ads received every day.

Not only will your direct mail stand out since it won’t get lost in deep sea of digital marketing, but your clients are more likely to remember your mail since it’s a tangible form of marketing that they can hold.

Although, there is nothing that says that you can’t pair your direct mail with a digital strategy. You can utilize interactive direct mailers—like QR codes, PURLs, and more—to make your direct mail stand out even more.

PURLs, or Personalized URLs, are a way to direct your clients to a personalized website where they’ll see their name at the top of the page, their purchase history, maintenance reminders, special offers, or even loan pre-approval information.

QR codes work similarly. With these, your client will use their smartphone to scan a black and white box that’s included on your direct mailer. After scanning this, your clients can be redirected to additional information on a highly anticipated vehicle in your inventory, a financing application, or an upcoming service special.

By sending out PURLs and QR codes, you get the best of both worlds. Not only do you stand out from your competitors by using direct mail instead of digital marketing, but you also take advantage of digital marketing, too.

Direct Mail Solution: Improved Audience Targeting

When it comes to a successful advertising campaign, reaching the right audience at the right time is a crucial component. Well, the automotive direct mail solution makes that even simpler with its ability to effectively target the audience that’s most likely to participate in your offer or visit your dealership.

By working with mailing list distributors, you can home-in on the correct demographic of your ideal customer and only send your auto direct mailer to those particular mailboxes. Some of the best demographics to research before you design your direct mail campaign are:

• Income range
• Family size
• Credit score
• Gender
• Occupation

Thanks to the time you took to target your audience, you’ll use your resources to create a successful automotive direct mail strategy that serves up the results you want.

Tailored to the Individual

As a direct result of your team’s audience targeting efforts, the direct mail solution also allows for enhanced personalization in your dealership’s advertisements. From simple details like adding each customer’s first name to your mailers to more complex, data-driven techniques, the personalization of the direct mail solution is part of what makes it so effective.

In fact, personalization provides dealerships with a host of benefits that draw more buyers to your showroom and cultivate repeat customers. Some of those advantages are as follows:

• Improved audience targeting
• Relevant advertisements
• Immersive customer experience
• Better response rate

To put all of this into context, one of the best ways to tailor your automotive marketing efforts to a particular audience is by presenting them with product recommendations based on their current vehicle and purchasing history.

Not only does this create a deeply engaging buyer experience, but it also shows your consumers that you’re focused providing them with ways to conveniently shop for a car. Ultimately, it’s this type of personalization and attention to detail that keeps customers interested in shopping at your dealership.

Trackable Results

Part of ensuring that the direct mail solution is right for your automotive business is to have a way to measure the results of your campaign. That’s why direct mail comes with plenty of handy ways to estimate the overall effectiveness of your strategy.

Do you want to run a solely direct mail marketing campaign? Fortunately for you, you can track your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) by using simple formulas. These formulas help you learn more about how effective your direct mail marketing campaign was in little to no time at all. Let’s take a look at a few of these easy-to-use formulas.

Direct Mail Trackable Formulas
Response Rate	Responses/Pieces Sent
Cost per Acquisition (CPA)	Campaign Cost/Number of orders
Revenue per Order	Order size-CPA
Return on Investment (ROI)	(Revenue-Campaign Cost)/Campaign Cost

Whether you include a web address for a unique landing page that allows you to track your results online, a coupon code that your customers can use to opt into your promotion, or utilize these performance tracking formulas, direct mail provides you with trackability that makes it easier to understand how your campaign performed.

Direct Mail Solution: Uniqueness and Nostalgia

In the era of digital media, direct mail stands out simply because of its physical presence in your mailbox. Rather than clicking out of an online ad, direct mail speaks to customers of all ages by adding tangibility to your dealership’s message.

In a study, 57 percent of people said that getting something in the mail made them feel more valued. You can even play on the nostalgia factor by sending a hand-written note. Getting something in the mail reminds people of a simpler time and is the preferred route of marketing by 73 percent of study participants.

At the end of the day, your effort to produce a quality piece of attention-grabbing mail shows your targeted audience that you’re willing to go the extra mile to reach out to them with a service reminder, loyalty reward, or special offer.

Automotive Advertising Versatility

Above all else, you want to be sure that your team is using a versatile automotive marketing medium that can adapt to whatever type of campaign you’re looking to roll out. Well, the direct mail solution equips your dealership with flexibility that’s hard to duplicate with digital advertising methods.

For instance, if you’re interested in reeling in new customers with some branded swag—such as a keychain, bumper sticker, or magnet—automotive direct mail advertising allows your team to send these items in the mail.

All you have to do is figure out how you’ll ship this merchandise, which is yet another area in which the direct mail solution shines.

Thanks to the diversity of mailing packages, you can wow your targeted audience with a bulkier envelope or box that contains free merchandise for your customers.

In the long run, including free items with your automotive direct mail generates more excitement from its recipients every time you send them something in the mail.

The more excitement your consumers feel when opening your mail, the more likely they are to read your direct mailer and engage with your dealership’s offer.

The Direct Mail Solution: Learn More Today!

Your dealership’s revenue relies on a compelling automotive marketing campaign that reaches the right customers and the right time.

So, if you’re looking for an advertising option that’ll help your automotive business thrive, search no further than the direct mail solutions and experienced professionals at Aspen Automotive.

To learn more about how our direct mail options can boost your dealership’s bottom line, give us a call or send us an email today!