The internet is alive with turn-key offers to increase car dealership sales through Ringless Voicemail Drops! Citing the high cost of mailing consumers – and low cost of directly delivering messages to a voicemail associated with a cell phone – without touching the wireless network. Ringless providers continue to specialize in market niches to expand the technology. But is this safe for auto marketing companies, car dealerships and stores across the Country?
Being a fan of Ringless Voicemail, I'm loving the explosion of marketing possibilities. We’ve always known about debt collectors quietly laughing all the way to the bank with Ringless, and student loan servicers, but the car business is relatively new. Let's catch up on the latest.
Claims of more sales with Ringless
1. Claiming to be the “Best Ringless Voicemail System – Automotive Digital Marketing” has a cute highly produced video talking shop with dealers. It claims a store manager can add 15% to sales year over year; Service increases 19% and Gross Profit up 10%. Not quite sure where these figures come from, but the video says it's true.
No word on compliance requirements here though – and no attempt to eliminate previous TCPA litigants. No word on whether customers complained, what exactly the message said – just that he could reach “thousands of prospects in minutes to achieve these results. Much better than mailing or waiting around."
2. Another testimonial from Ed Nues after 21 days loves VoiceDrops, and so do his dealers. (See video here.) Three signed up, and two bought his entire marketing package. Ed says “Nobody has ever heard of this at the car dealerships I visit." When he gets in front of the owner, voicemail drops are an easy sale. His calls include customers who haven't been in service for the last six months as well as calls to folks asking to trade their car. These calls can be adjusted to sports cars, trucks – whatever the sales manager is looking to acquire. “There’s nothing like it in the marketplace,” says Ed.
3. Voicelogic has a Voicecasting trademarked product that “is a business-to-consumer message delivery system that will deposit your marketing sales message into the voice mail box of cell phones or land lines… without ringing the phone.” Trademarked in 1997 according to the company.
According to the “Industries that use Voicecasting” on their website, listing number 12 is “Auto tuneup, care, winterizing.” No specifics on messaging here though. No specifics on additional compliance measures.
4. Datamasters gets in on the Ringless Voicemail act with prices as low as 1.5 cents each for 100,000 plus records. But then it says, “Pricing for cell phone based data if required for voicemail drop” 100,000 plus $0.10 per message” – I thought Ringless was for cell phones only. Oh well.
5. Richie Bello has a “Ringless Voicemail for Automotive Sales” article on LinkedIn. Richie says, “If this is done correctly, an automotive dealership could have prospectors for cars at any time… generated so the company will both reach their monthly quota and hit numbers higher than normal, resulting in bonuses. This is beneficial to everyone.” Richie continues, “If the FCC regulations ever change, Auto VMS will change so that their system will always be compliant with the regulations.” (Um – dangerous to forward-think on TCPA though. Assuming these laws will make sense in the future that is.)
6. Tier Marketing also touts Ringless Voicemail for Automotive as a way to “initiate contact with prospective buyers without ever having to manually place a call.” Tier claims a response rate of “more than 80% since 95% of users check their voicemails daily."
According to Tier, “A Ford dealership purchased 2200 Ringless Voicemail credits on a buyback campaign, and in return made 35 sales!”
7. Looking for automotive specific recorded messages? The Message Ninja has it on their samples page. I like this one. It’s for a barbecue at the dealership. They also have message samples for Mortgage, Real Estate Agent, Solar Panel Installer. Cool - with additional coaching on how to record your own voicemail.
Not a word about compliance though – except in small print, “User agrees to comply with all applicable U.S. and international laws, regulations, and ordinances, including the internet, data, e-mail, and privacy.” Not sure how a first-time user would even know what that means. But all Ringless Voicemail providers will ask you to sign some version of this. Everyone is happy to say Ringless is TCPA Compliant – except when it comes to signing on the dotted line –
8. Vdo100 has some cool videos specifically on Automotive Ringless Voicemail Drops here. The video says it’s great for, “sales and service, new and used cars, it’s another layer of data mining for our current clients. Allows you to message directly to current or potential customer based on a need they may have. So customers coming out of a lease, for example, can receive a very personalized message like ‘wanted to talk with you about your options coming out of that lease.’”
Hey – this company scrubs the numbers against the National Do Not Call List – and for Canada also! Haven’t heard of anybody with Ringless doing that. They didn't say if they included the 14 State Do Not Call Lists though.
Lots of Ringless providers claim Auto Marketing Success!
And are pounding the pavement to help more dealers. These companies are heavily promoting ringless benefits and results. Maybe a little shy on calming nervous lawyers on the actual technology. An FCC history of the product and what they think about it might help there.
So according to the automotive jockeys, Ringless continues to quietly march along in the car marketing business.
Ed Note: Of course we're biased towards our own secret sauce solution for trouble-free ringless campaigns. Our benefits include 1. Elimination of previous DNC & TCPA Litigants before each campaign (we're the only ones I'm aware of that do.) 2. Clear, complete message delivery 3. Lowest price 4. No "tinking" or ringing the phone 5. Specific reason-to-stop-by message scripts 6. A big company with a top track record incase problems occur. (Dealing direct with Auto stores, it's best to have a big company Ringless name behind you. In the unlikely event something should go wrong, you don't want to get stuck between a dealership's lawyer and some no-name small time supplier.) You've got one chance to impress. And you better make the best of it with a clean application of this technology.
If you want to talk about Ringless Voicemail for Automotive, give me a call at 561-317-3001 or email here - Bob
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