Franchise Dealerships

Co-op money changes the arithmetic first

The single biggest difference between a franchise rooftop and an independent lot is that the manufacturer will fund a share of the campaign. Co-op direct mailersare more cost-effective for franchise dealers for exactly that reason — the added funding comes from the manufacturer rather than out of the dealer’s own advertising budget. That is not a small adjustment to the model. It changes what a drop costs you, which changes how many households you can reach, which changes what the event at the end of it can realistically do.

It also comes with rules. Co-op programmes carry brand requirements on creative, claims, logo use and submission deadlines, and a piece that misses them does not get reimbursed. That is the part most rooftops find tedious and the part worth getting right, because the money is already allocated to you whether or not you claim it. How new car co-op mailers work is the longer explanation of the mechanism.

The campaigns that fit a franchise store

Franchise campaigns tend to be built around the fact that you know an unusual amount about your own customers and the manufacturer knows more still. Mid-size franchise campaigns typically involve OEM alignment, lease retention, conquest campaigns and loyalty targeting — four things an independent lot mostly cannot run, because three of them depend on a brand relationship.

• Lease retention. You know the maturity dates. A lease pull-ahead campaign reaches people whose payment is about to end, and the lease-end BDC playbook covers what has to happen on the phone once the mail lands.
• Conquest. Conquest mailersgo after the other brand’s owners, and how conquest mailers steal market share is the version with the targeting logic in it.
• Equity and loyalty. Equity mining and buy-back mailers work your own service and sales database rather than buying a list.

Franchise objectives are part of how the event is scored

For an independent, a good weekend is units and gross. For a franchise rooftop it is units, gross, and whether the month lands where the manufacturer needs it to land. Pinnacle measures a staffed event on total ups, revenue, gross profits, units sold, net profits and franchise objectives met — that last one is on the list because for a franchise store it is frequently the reason the event was booked at all.

If you want the measurement discipline rather than the sales page, measuring units sold and tracking direct mail ROI accurately are the two that matter, and what a $300,000 sales guarantee actually means is worth reading before you sign one with anybody.

The service drive is the other half of the store

Franchise rooftops carry a service department the manufacturer also measures, and CSI follows the advisor rather than the campaign. Service advisor training and service BDC training are where that gets fixed, and BDC training’s effect on CSI and online reviews connects the two sides.

Where to start

If you have co-op dollars sitting unclaimed, start at co-op direct mailers. If the floor traffic is the problem, start at staffed events. If the leads are already arriving and not converting, that is BDC on demand or sales BDC training. If you are not sure, the profit evaporation assessment is ten questions.

This is one of three. The who we serve index has all of them; the same work looks different for an independent dealership and different again across a dealer group.