marketingcalls

Happy Birthday Jack Brabham.

In many sports, lead participants and World Champions are routinely called ‘a gentleman’ of their chosen profession.

Reflective Jack Brabham, three times winner of the Formula One crown and the only person to do so in his own car

There are some noticeable exceptions in Motor Racing, most recently Ayton Senna or even Michael Schumacher probably missed out on that title.

But, while on the track, there was certainly someone else. Sir Jack Brabham AO OBE, (2^nd April 1926 – 19^th May 2024), he was not called Black Jack for nothing.

Even out of the car he was known for being quiet, often staring, sometimes uncomfortably so.

But I must say, I never found that. Jack Brabham, was one of my first customers. Or rather his dealerships in South London were. Normally, I would work closely with the Director of his UK garages, Brian Fowler, – who certainly was a gentleman – but on a couple of occasions met the great man himself, even going for lunch.

And, he was polite, professional and interested in what we did for his company, I was always trying to spin the conversation around, looking for reminiscences about his time behind the wheel, either in a Cooper or one of his own cars. But thanks to both Brian and Jack himself it always returned to the sales calls we were making and the present state of the Motor Trade.

In 1966, he became the only man to win the Formula One World Championship is his own car, one that he helped build with his own hands. One of three he would claim before he retired from F1.

That is certainly a huge achievement, and one that I cannot even imagine ever happening again.

If he was English, I would say he had that Bulldog spirit on the track, but he would probably hit me as a staunchly, and rightly, proud Australian. There are only two drivers remembered for pushing their car over the finishing line of an F1 race.

Jack Brabham pushing his Cooper F1 car the last 400 yards of the American Grand Prix in 1959

Brabham, in 1959 pushed his Cooper the final 400 yards of the American Grand Prix, after it had run out of petrol. One of the many steps to his first world title that year.

The eventual winner, Bruce McLaren even felt, after the race, that Jack had gifted him the win.

(The other World Champion to famously push his own car was Nigel Mansell, also in the American Grand Prix, in Dallas in 1984).

So we say happy birthday Jack. A hero when racing formula one cars needed you to be a hero, It was certainly a pleasure.

Apparently AI is already with us. Everywhere.

Do you have an AI Kettle?

Ok, I understand. AI is the latest buzz word.

But do we really need every minor technological introduction or update to be ‘AI controlled . . .’

I was surprised how many mainstream news feeds commented on the Princess of Wales ‘AI manipulated family photo’. What ever happened to the derogatory term – ‘photoshopped’.

Is everything with a computer AI nowadays - what do you thnk

The same applies with cars.

Hardly a week goes by without the latest AI update to improve battery life, charging time, air-con efficiency or route to the pub.

And most of it is basic mathematics. In a little equation. Opps sorry, ‘in a little algorithm,’ my mistake.

We didn’t shout in wonder every time the sat-nav software updated and gave us a different route because the A34 was blocked. No, why? Because it’s not AI. It is created a different result from a predetermined set of parameters, that happened to change.

And that’s what 90% of these purported AI advances are. “The machine has worked it out. It learned!, ooooooh”. Er, no. The parameters of the equation changed that’s all.

AI has to learn the parameters and the initial question. Not just calculate.

But then it does sound good in marketing terms. Something new and shiny to shout about 🙂

We have done a number of campaigns this year where the customer can – “come down and, in addition to the £4,000 discount we’re offering, see the latest AI on the new XYZ EV rocket”

I’m not really moaning. But it does make me smile. As they say, “nothing is new under the sun”, and AI is just the latest way to make something sound ‘new’, and therefore attractive, and therefore worth buying.

Interestingly – If you forget the early paper based systems, would you say the 1987 Toyota CD driven sat-nav, or the 1990 Mazda GPS sat-nav was the first ‘production’ satellite navigation system? What do you think?

I hope you’re all having a busy March.

Cymark, supporting the Motor Trade for 29 years

Cymark. 29 years young

Cymark celebrates 29 years providing no commitment telemarketing and email campaign support to the Motor Trade.

‘My god, you made it to 29 years.’ This has happened a few times this week. Not quite as catchy as 25 years, or 30 years, but 29 years is a long time supporting one industry.

A great thank you must go to everyone who has worked for Cymark during that time. Lots of late nights and hard graft. You laid the foundations for today’s company.

In those decades, we have worked for numerous manufacturers and hundreds of individual retailers, providing successful and cost effective telemarketing and e-marketing for retail sales, local business and LCV sales and database building, aftersales service bookings and post service follow up.

The pandemic brought a lot of changes. Cymark streamlined its processes (we got rid of the big white binders so many of you remember). It’s all online and easily accessible. We still make on-site visits, we want to make sure we are doing it right for your retailer.

Successful industry marketing and comments are included within other blog pages. Make sure you subscribe.

Guy Winter

01423 501234

07711 978908

Have a look at the links across the top of the page for Retail / Service / Sales Conversion information.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

Had quite a sobering reminder this week.

Like most companies we send out email updates, newsletters etc to former customers / collegues etc. We aren’t a retail business, instead a business consultancy within the Motor Trade so my own subscriber list is thousands not millions.

By accident, our admin team sent out this weeks “Have a good September 1st” email, but instead of using the latest subscriber list they picked my own list from Spring 2020.

People looking for work and companies hiring.

58% of my former colleagues and contacts are no longer there. Some 4,500 senior managers in the Motor Trade.

A lot of statistics will tell you that people move every 4-5 years, we have had a pandemic, blah blah. But mainly that is to sell the “updated industry list” they are trying to push.

I know people change jobs, but the Motor Trade is quite a family – sometimes a pretty dysfunctional family -, you might move jobs, but often with the same retailer, or certainly within the same group. You have just moved branch. Or quite commonly, returned to a group you were with originally.

So 58% gone, seeing it in one go is quite sobering. I hadn’t noticed it as we update our database and subscriber lists on a rolling basis, happily we have the telesales staff that can call the bounced emails to update the current managers details each week.

If you’re marketing cars and vans to local business and fleet buyers then your database probably went through the same changes as mine and need to have a chat with our data team to see how we can help. They have been making B2B marketing and research calls for over 25 years, and know how to do it.

I know every time they update my database they generate new opportunities for me to call and introduce the marketing services of Cymark. If we can be of help, drop me an email or DM.

#B2B, #telemarketing, #teleresearch

Summer – Flying High or feeling the dip?

How has your summer been in the Motor Trade?

Depending upon the franchise and the available model mix from stock we are seeing a diverse set of retailer results. All driven by the level of enquiries.

Should we expect it? The summer months were always a big dip in the years enquiries, but over the past few years the pandemic has smoothed out a lot of the peaks and troughs.

Overall the picture is good. This August we are seeing the level of enquiries only slightly lower than the peak of 2021. The agency model sites and the ‘electric only at the moment’ brands seem to be fairing the worst, but the levels are still strong right across the board.

On the marketing side, the push for new car events has returned as we try to drive customers into the showroom and encourage them to start a new customer journey, particularly if September registrations are looking weak.

If you can plan the DM in advance and schedule any calls at least 10 days before the event, you are likely to have some success. There are some tricks of the trade to ensure provisional bookings turn up, but at the moment if the offer is good or the finance rate attractive enough, event marketing calls are creating strong appointments.

96 sales from our last event is not to be sneezed at. (Discounted call rate of just £1.65 per record)

#eventcalls, #customerjourney, #showroom

CYMARK