By Steve Campbell

This series of SEMA News stories is based on the idea of using reliable and repeatable methods to ensure business success. In coming issues, we will delve into a range of topics aimed at developing Best Practices through knowledge, motivation and skills.

	Perhaps the most significant benefit of consigning a collector or exotic vehicle to an auction is the extremely passionate pool of buyers drawn by such events.

In the November 2010 issue of SEMA News, we discussed how SEMA-member companies might use auctions to find the perfect vehicle to feature in promotions and advertising. Such vehicles can provide value well beyond their material worth by helping customers realize long-held dreams. In some cases, however, the effectiveness of even the optimal vehicle eventually diminishes, whether because of changing styles, a new marketing direction or other factors. The company may then wish to utilize an auction to divest itself of that property with either a minimal loss or—even better—a net gain because of appreciation. Perhaps the most significant benefit of consigning a collector or exotic vehicle to an auction is the extremely passionate pool of buyers drawn by such events.

“You’re putting your vehicle in a target-rich environment for people who have been prescreened and qualified to buy it,” said Steve Davis, president of the Barrett-Jackson Auction Co. “At an auction such as Barrett-Jackson, we do everything we can to market and promote your car so that virtually every person on the planet who is looking for your type of vehicle is aware that it’s being sold. The auction process also gives you the opportunity to interact with potential buyers, answer any questions they may have and point out features about the vehicle that they may not have even been aware of.”

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Selecting an auction house requires due diligence, just as with any other commercial relationship. Look for stability, reputation and ethical standards. Barrett-Jackson is perhaps the best known vehicle auctioneer in the world. It has been conducting auctions for nearly 40 years and has developed proven techniques for attracting vehicle buyers. In addition to traditional advertising in large markets, the company has become a well-known attraction on the Speed Channel. But it’s most powerful tool may be its website.

“Within the auction-house world, no one comes close to Barrett-Jackson with regard to traffic on its website,” said Gary Bennett, the company’s VP of consignments. “That is undoubtedly the most powerful weapon in our arsenal.”

The site draws about 700 million hits a year, according to the company, and is in the top 10% most-trafficked sites in the two to three weeks leading up to each of its four auctions. It is constantly being updated as vehicles are accepted for sale, and that’s a prime reason why an auction like the one in Scottsdale, Arizona, on January 17–23 was predicted to pull a ratio of about four bidders to every car offered.

Getting started with one of the Barrett-Jackson auctions is as simple as submitting a preliminary consignment agreement. It is essentially an application that includes complete information about the vehicle, including year, make and model; interior and exterior color; engine size and type; modifications; vehicle condition and more. The agreement is available through the website but may also be obtained via regular mail or fax. Scanned images of the vehicle’s title (front and back) as well as any other pertinent documents and photos of the vehicle are required for an online application.

When the agreement has been submitted with the appropriate documentation and images, Barrett-Jackson’s staff screens the vehicle and, if it is given preliminary acceptance, it is assigned a lot number. The lot number indicates which day and approximately what time the vehicle will be called to the auction block.

	Sometimes the ultimate buyer will be the guy about three deep behind the one you’re speaking with. Be approachable and knowledgeable.

“There is a great deal of thought on our side as to where we put the car and how it complements the cars around it during the auction,” Bennett said, “but the seller is in complete control of that process. He can opt in or opt out when he is assigned a lot number. There is a tremendous amount of flexibility in the process until he actually enters into a contract, where he accepts the number.”

Higher-end vehicles are scheduled for sale during premium hours—within the televised portion of a Barrett-Jackson auction, for instance—and are charged a premium fee for that placement. Scheduling vehicles in that type of priority system also serves buyers whose budgets may dictate concentrating on lower-priced vehicles and who can thus schedule their attendance for the times when vehicles in a selected price range will reach the auction block.

For an auction, such as Scottsdale, the premium-placement fee might range from $600–$1,500, and Barrett-Jackson charges a flat commission of 8% when the vehicle sells. The fees for other auction companies vary, as does the amount of time after the auction before the seller is paid. Barrett-Jackson guarantees payment no later than 21 banking days from the sale, but fee and payments schedules are another criterion to consider when selecting an auction company.

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“The story board and handout should tell enough about the car so that a potential buyer can ask reasonably intelligent follow-up questions of the seller,” Davis said. “That’s when the conversation really starts. They ask how long you’ve had the vehicle, where you got it, the ownership history—things you don’t have the time nor space to answer with a story board or a handout card. It’s important to be approachable during that time, to be as friendly, courteous and knowledgeable as possible. We do everything we can to achieve the ultimate value for your vehicle, but you should also be prepared to carve out some hours to get the best price. And remember as you’re talking to people that others are listening. Sometimes the ultimate buyer will be about three deep behind the guy you’re speaking with.”

Obviously, the car should be as meticulously maintained and detailed as possible, inside and out, and the seller should make the vehicle as accessible as he is. The hood and trunk should be open for inspection, though it’s fine to request no touching. If the seller must leave the vehicle, he should place a sign on the windshield saying when he will return. As Davis puts it: Cars are sold on the field, not on the auction block.”

“We work for you, but it’s a partnership,” he said. “We hope that you will put in an effort equal to ours. We want to get as much as we can for each car—but not out of greed. If we feel that a car is of greater value than the current bid, we’re going to try to pass along that information. It’s not only fair to the seller, but it also ensures that the buyer ultimately gets the value he’s bidding on. At the end of the day, it’s all about realizing the maximum value for everyone involved.”

	Sophisticated new suites, such as Interactive Marketing Hub, offer marketers dashboards that they can use to create, manage and monitor such integrated programs across all digital media.

Marketers looking to get a handle on social media as a promotional tool have found an easy solution: Integrate the medium into existing e-mail marketing programs. The pioneers of this method say that a little creative contact with current and potential customers on social networks, such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, can add new muscle to tried-and-true e-mail.

For example, some new tools available with StrongMail’s new Social Studio service enable companies to match e-mail addresses in their databases with “top influencers”—people who have a lot of active friends online—and then reach out to those influencers with rewards, offers and word-of-mouth promotional programs. A number of marketers have already used Social Studio to invite such influencers to alert their Facebook friends about discounts and promotions and then give rewards to those influencers who generate the most conversions in terms of referred sales or other desired actions.

“The real value of social media marketing is to move beyond merely listening and to start driving actual revenue,” said Paul Bates, U.K. managing director at StrongMail.

Indeed, the power these programs have to ferret out social activity on the web by simply inputting an e-mail address can be a bit unsettling. For example, Flowtown, a niche service that focuses primarily on mining and manipulating evidence of social networking, invites all comers to its website to input any e-mail and instantly pull up all the web activity associated with that e-mail. I took the bait and, not surprisingly, found a few revelations on my social network activity with e-mail addresses I currently use for such purposes. Flowtown also unearthed a website community I joined—and forgot about—long ago with an old e-mail address I haven’t used in years.

Gulp.

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Granted, marketers need to tiptoe lightly between being seen as reaching out to socially active customers and becoming willing participants in privacy invasion. But it’s clear that the ability to literally monitor every public move made by a person on the Internet can already be discovered, sliced, diced—and turned into a marketing opportunity. In fact, some of the more sophisticated programs now offer marketers dashboards that they can use to create, manage and monitor such integrated programs across all digital media, including e-mail, social, mobile and web.

ExactTarget’s Interactive Marketing Hub, for example, offers a CoTweet Social module that enables marketers to manage multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, track conversations and schedule posts while monitoring all the activity with analytics and reports. Another module within the package, Sites, gives marketers the ability to create, design and deploy static, interactive or socially enabled landing pages to support specific marketing campaigns. And still other modules offer enhanced interactivity and monitoring via e-mail and mobile phones. Similar programs with all-in-one solutions include Interact Campaign from Responsys and the aforementioned Social Studio from StrongMail, both long-established e-mail marketing companies.

This fusion of e-mail marketing and social media seems inevitable. The study “View From the Social Inbox” released earlier this year by Merkle found that active social networkers are also likely to be avid e-mail users. All told, the study found that 42% of social networkers check their e-mail four or more times a day, as compared to just 27% of those who don’t socialize online.

As the fusion gels, here are some tactics you’ll find marketers already using to combine the two, either by using pre-configured programs or by putting together applications of their own:

1. Hold Twitter-Driven Contests: The immediacy of this medium perfectly lends itself to time-sensitive contests. Hold an answer-the-question contest once a week and reward the first person with the right answer with company product, company bucks or the like, and watch the tweets come in.
2. Get the Most From Testimonials: Customer accolades look good on company websites but even better on customer Facebook pages. The most aggressive marketers in this area start by e-mailing a customer for a testimonial on a product or service shortly after the item is purchased. Customers who respond with glowing reviews—and often a related digital photo—get the testimonial posted to the company website. In addition, the authors are e-mailed again with a request to re-post the testimonial on their Facebook accounts or in Twitter tweets to all of their friends. Willing participants often receive a small reward for their service.
3. Embed Social Network Testimonials in E-mails: Sometimes, spontaneous testimonials pop up on Facebook and Twitter without any prodding whatsoever. Such promotional gifts can be easily cut and pasted into the next marketing e-mail—with a grateful nod, of course, to the author.
4. Reach Out to Top Influencers in New Ways: With the ability to monitor social networking activity like never before, marketers are becoming very creative about reaching out and partnering. Many of the e-mail/social media suites and services, for example, allow them to input an entire customer e-mail list and instantly identify the e-mail addresses on that list owned by people who have hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of friends on Facebook and similar social networks. Marketers can then reach out to these people via e-mail and partner with them on word-of-mouth promotions. Many of the new programs can also track the referrals that these influencers generate and verify which influencers are ultimately creating the greatest number of conversions in terms of sales or some other desired action. Subsequently, la crème de la crème can be rewarded most heavily and primed for a series of unfolding word-of-mouth promotions.
5. Fish Where the Fish Are: Running an e-mail database through some of these more sophisticated programs can also yield an interesting picture of where your customers “hang out.” You may find, for example, that the greatest percentage of your customers use Twitter more than Facebook. Consequently, you’ll be able to put your digital marketing dollars where they’ll reach the greatest percentage of
   your customers.
6. Give People a Reason to “Like” You on Facebook: Only a few months old, the “Like” button on Facebook has become one of the most coveted clicks on the marketing world. When someone “likes” your company on Facebook, your product or service becomes quantifiably more important and more desirable. Many Facebookers click the “Like” button in the hopes that they’ll get a freebie from the company. Don’t disappoint. If at all possible, offer a coupon or some other tangible reward for the endorsement.
7. Optimize Your E-mail for Social Media: This is really step one in any synthesis campaign and should be a part of every e-mail marketing campaign, no questions asked. Such optimization is as easy as adding links to the key social networks in your e-mails, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. There’s also a ShareThis button you can add to your e-mail that instantly offers clickable access to dozens of social networking sites. 

Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan, New York.
631/256-6602
E-mail: joe@joedysart.com
Website: www.joedysart.com

	Sophisticated new suites, such as Interactive Marketing Hub, offer marketers dashboards that they can use to create, manage and monitor such integrated programs across all digital media.

Marketers looking to get a handle on social media as a promotional tool have found an easy solution: Integrate the medium into existing e-mail marketing programs. The pioneers of this method say that a little creative contact with current and potential customers on social networks, such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, can add new muscle to tried-and-true e-mail.

For example, some new tools available with StrongMail’s new Social Studio service enable companies to match e-mail addresses in their databases with “top influencers”—people who have a lot of active friends online—and then reach out to those influencers with rewards, offers and word-of-mouth promotional programs. A number of marketers have already used Social Studio to invite such influencers to alert their Facebook friends about discounts and promotions and then give rewards to those influencers who generate the most conversions in terms of referred sales or other desired actions.

“The real value of social media marketing is to move beyond merely listening and to start driving actual revenue,” said Paul Bates, U.K. managing director at StrongMail.

Indeed, the power these programs have to ferret out social activity on the web by simply inputting an e-mail address can be a bit unsettling. For example, Flowtown, a niche service that focuses primarily on mining and manipulating evidence of social networking, invites all comers to its website to input any e-mail and instantly pull up all the web activity associated with that e-mail. I took the bait and, not surprisingly, found a few revelations on my social network activity with e-mail addresses I currently use for such purposes. Flowtown also unearthed a website community I joined—and forgot about—long ago with an old e-mail address I haven’t used in years.

Gulp.

	SEMA News Sponsor

Granted, marketers need to tiptoe lightly between being seen as reaching out to socially active customers and becoming willing participants in privacy invasion. But it’s clear that the ability to literally monitor every public move made by a person on the Internet can already be discovered, sliced, diced—and turned into a marketing opportunity. In fact, some of the more sophisticated programs now offer marketers dashboards that they can use to create, manage and monitor such integrated programs across all digital media, including e-mail, social, mobile and web.

ExactTarget’s Interactive Marketing Hub, for example, offers a CoTweet Social module that enables marketers to manage multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, track conversations and schedule posts while monitoring all the activity with analytics and reports. Another module within the package, Sites, gives marketers the ability to create, design and deploy static, interactive or socially enabled landing pages to support specific marketing campaigns. And still other modules offer enhanced interactivity and monitoring via e-mail and mobile phones. Similar programs with all-in-one solutions include Interact Campaign from Responsys and the aforementioned Social Studio from StrongMail, both long-established e-mail marketing companies.

This fusion of e-mail marketing and social media seems inevitable. The study “View From the Social Inbox” released earlier this year by Merkle found that active social networkers are also likely to be avid e-mail users. All told, the study found that 42% of social networkers check their e-mail four or more times a day, as compared to just 27% of those who don’t socialize online.

As the fusion gels, here are some tactics you’ll find marketers already using to combine the two, either by using pre-configured programs or by putting together applications of their own:

1. Hold Twitter-Driven Contests: The immediacy of this medium perfectly lends itself to time-sensitive contests. Hold an answer-the-question contest once a week and reward the first person with the right answer with company product, company bucks or the like, and watch the tweets come in.
2. Get the Most From Testimonials: Customer accolades look good on company websites but even better on customer Facebook pages. The most aggressive marketers in this area start by e-mailing a customer for a testimonial on a product or service shortly after the item is purchased. Customers who respond with glowing reviews—and often a related digital photo—get the testimonial posted to the company website. In addition, the authors are e-mailed again with a request to re-post the testimonial on their Facebook accounts or in Twitter tweets to all of their friends. Willing participants often receive a small reward for their service.
3. Embed Social Network Testimonials in E-mails: Sometimes, spontaneous testimonials pop up on Facebook and Twitter without any prodding whatsoever. Such promotional gifts can be easily cut and pasted into the next marketing e-mail—with a grateful nod, of course, to the author.
4. Reach Out to Top Influencers in New Ways: With the ability to monitor social networking activity like never before, marketers are becoming very creative about reaching out and partnering. Many of the e-mail/social media suites and services, for example, allow them to input an entire customer e-mail list and instantly identify the e-mail addresses on that list owned by people who have hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of friends on Facebook and similar social networks. Marketers can then reach out to these people via e-mail and partner with them on word-of-mouth promotions. Many of the new programs can also track the referrals that these influencers generate and verify which influencers are ultimately creating the greatest number of conversions in terms of sales or some other desired action. Subsequently, la crème de la crème can be rewarded most heavily and primed for a series of unfolding word-of-mouth promotions.
5. Fish Where the Fish Are: Running an e-mail database through some of these more sophisticated programs can also yield an interesting picture of where your customers “hang out.” You may find, for example, that the greatest percentage of your customers use Twitter more than Facebook. Consequently, you’ll be able to put your digital marketing dollars where they’ll reach the greatest percentage of
   your customers.
6. Give People a Reason to “Like” You on Facebook: Only a few months old, the “Like” button on Facebook has become one of the most coveted clicks on the marketing world. When someone “likes” your company on Facebook, your product or service becomes quantifiably more important and more desirable. Many Facebookers click the “Like” button in the hopes that they’ll get a freebie from the company. Don’t disappoint. If at all possible, offer a coupon or some other tangible reward for the endorsement.
7. Optimize Your E-mail for Social Media: This is really step one in any synthesis campaign and should be a part of every e-mail marketing campaign, no questions asked. Such optimization is as easy as adding links to the key social networks in your e-mails, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. There’s also a ShareThis button you can add to your e-mail that instantly offers clickable access to dozens of social networking sites. 

Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan, New York.
631/256-6602
E-mail: joe@joedysart.com
Website: www.joedysart.com