LOS ANGLES – Affable Andrew DeFio jokes he has a Ph.D. In his case, it stands for “Papa has a dealership.”
But the member of a dealership family has paid attention during a 17-year automotive career, which early on included field manager stints for Toyota Motor Sales USA. And he has a real degree from Boston College.
DeFio, dealer principal and general manager of Hyundai of St. Augustine (FL), is a new-age marketer who uses digital advertising in innovative ways, and often speaks about it at industry conferences.
If he has a reputation of knowing his stuff, that includes knowing what he needs to work on.
“We do great with loyal Hyundai buyers, but we need to do more conquesting,” he says during a presentation entitled “Connecting Clicks to Sales” at an Automotive Customer Centricity Summit here.
DeFio tells of trying to win over car shoppers who initially express an online interest in a competing brand. Citing Google data, he says “only 20% of vehicle shoppers purchase the brand they originally had in mind.”
He describes his store’s efforts to boost sales of the Hyundai Sonata midsize sedan, in part through so-called conquesting.
“When fuel prices are low and people want SUVs and trucks, selling Sonatas can be challenging,” he says. In many car segments, sales are soft compared with CUVs and pickups, according to WardsAuto data.
DeFio “went after” the Nissan Altima sedan for a strategic reason: “It’s one of the highest cross-shopped vehicles for people who ended up buying a Sonata.”
Hyundai of St. Augustine’s Sonata digital ads didn’t just take clickers to a general dealership home webpage, as some banner ads are wont to do. It took them to a specific spot.
“We wanted to drive them to a landing page comparing Sonata to the Altima and highlighting the Sonata’s strengths.”
Software can track online shopper interest based on such things as car reviews they’re reading and dealership inventory they’re viewing. The systems identify them by IP address, but don’t know who they actually are.
Accordingly, a dealer can then target market to them with customized ads. But DeFio says he keeps the message “subtle,” because too much personalization can disconcert recipients. “I don’t want them thinking I’m stalking them.”
As effective as conquesting is, it’s hard work for an individual dealer, he says. “It should be done at the tier-one (automaker) or tier-two (regional same-brand dealer consortium) levels.”
But in doing it, Hyundai of St. Augustine “saw a 132% jump in customers with a higher propensity to buy,” he says. “Consumers shop what you show them.”
