New Jersey - Digital Publishing

Fully equipped to handle mobile sales drive
E. Hanover dealer taps market with text messages, social networks
BY JARED KALTWASSER
ON ONE END of Gene Epstein’s desk
at Warnock Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep is
a pair of full-page newspaper ads
from competing dealerships. At the other
end is his computer. In the middle sits his
cell phone.
Epstein, director of business development
at the East Hanover dealership, said
he uses all three items to reach customers,
but the latter two are becoming more important
as his company tries to reach an
increasingly connected and informed customer
base.
“What we’re seeing is a new generation
AT A GLANCE
Warnock Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep
■ HEADQUARTERS: 175 Route 10
East Hanover, 07936
■ FOUNDED: Parent company founded in 1976
■ MANAGEMENT: Tim Ryan, general manager
■ PERFORMANCE: A promotional text-messaging
campaign of some 3,000 customers resulted in 62
calls, 36 visits and eight sales.
of clients,” he said. “This is a new generation,
and they have a new buying mentality.”
The dealership is enjoying a resurgence
of sales in the slow recovery from
the recession, Epstein said. That’s due in
part to Chrysler Group LLC’s decision to
get back into the leasing business, but he
also attributed it to the dealership’s evolving
advertising efforts.
The dealership has embraced new media
such as e-mail, Facebook and the dealership’s
website to attract customers and,
in December, Warnock tried a new method
— text messaging.
“The way it was presented was it’s so
inexpensive, we can’t not do this,” he said.
The company mined a database of
24,000 customers and netted 3,000 cell
phone numbers. A promotional message
sent to that list resulted in 62 calls, 36 visits
and eight sales.
Epstein said in a good month, the
dealership sells nearly 200 cars. Most sales
result from customer referrals, but he said
the 4 percent return rate on the text message
campaign was a success, because he
believes those sales wouldn’t have happened
without the texts.
“Looking at the analytics of all of
this, I can look at you and say we probably
wouldn’t have seen these people,” he
said. “The eight people were in (the store)
because of that text message.”
Epstein said text messages offer the
dealership a more reliable way to reach
customers, giving Warnock an easier way
to track the marketing push’s success.
Warnock contracted with Californiabased
Trumpia on the text campaign.
Four-year-old Trumpia offers new media
advertising across a variety of platforms,
including text, e-mail and social media.
Gene Epstein said a text-messaging campaign
‘was so inexpensive, we can’t not do this’
to try to sell cars at Warnock Dodge, Chrysler,
Jeep, in East Hanover.
Trumpia’s CEO, Ken Rhie, said advertisers
today must use multiple channels to
reach customers.
“It’s no longer just printing, no longer
just e-mail, no longer just having a website,”
Rhie said. “It’s all of that plus new
technologies.”
Epstein said he agrees with the “wide
net” philosophy, and said the company
plans to use text messages again, though
next time, they’ll target the texts to more
specifi c groups of clients.
While new media means new learning,
Epstein said it also means the dealership
has access to more data. They previously
relied on customer surveys to track
advertising effectiveness.
“We’ve reached a point where we can
now post-mortem a given sale,” Epstein
said, “when I can look you square in the
face and tell you where it came from.”
Epstein doesn’t believe any advertising
method is a silver bullet, and said the
dealership will continue to use traditional
advertising methods. The goal, he said, is
to get out the company’s message, and he’s
willing to use any productive method to
achieve that goal.
“Each of these methods is nothing
but a tool,” he said. “It’s just a tool in
the arsenal.”
E-mail to: jkaltwasser@njbiz.com
MAKING IT
Making It explores how businesses and nonpro ts are
meeting the economy’s challenges and opportunities.
Contact Beth Fitzgerald at b tzgerald@njbiz.com
Suite
Escape
Best time
management tip:
Sleep less, work more.
Jose Cruz
Senior managing director,
HFF
Let your assistant
control your calendar.
Bernie Flynn
President and CEO,
New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Co.
Prioritize with a
vengeance, and always
do the most important
task rst each day.
Jim Kirkos
CEO,
Meadowlands Regional Chamber
Prioritize what is most
important and ensure
those things get done
rst. I also surround
myself with talented
people who I trust and can delegate
critical tasks to.
Brenda Ross-Dulan
Southern New Jersey regional president,
Wells Fargo
Ron
Rickles
New Jersey
managing partner,
Deloitte LLP
Stay focused on the big picture;
don’t let the multitude of little
things get in your way.
NEXT WEEK
The March panelists talk
about March Madness.
10 March 7, 2011 ◆ NJBIZ www.njbiz.com
Christina Mazza