Mailing to GM Dealers Pulls 17% Conversion

A provider of office forms to the automotive industry has garnered a 17% conversion rate with a lead-generation mailing featuring a sweepstakes.

The mailing, which promoted a new Web-based forms delivery service, went out to 7,500 General Motors dealers across the country last fall. It pulled a 26.1% response rate and cost $10 per recipient, according to Lorene Fryer, account manager at Reynolds & Reynolds, a Dayton, OH company that supplies forms and other products to the automotive industry.

The biggest draw appeared to be a sweepstakes for a Hawaiian vacation.

“We did some research of our customers and found they liked the idea of a sweepstakes,” said Fryer.

General Motors supplied the names of all the dealers from its house files, said Reynolds & Reynolds spokesman Mark Feighery. This list was supplemented by information from Dun & Bradstreet and other sources. List hygiene was critical because many dealerships operate under multiple names, added Michael Boyd, director of strategic planning at BRC Marketing, Reynolds' agency.

Dealers who responded were subsequently visited by a Reynolds salesperson.

The mailing promoted General Motors' new Dealers Supply Advantage program, an online procurement service available through a secure Web site linked to www.reysource.com that provides car dealership office managers with such routine items as bills of sale, repair order forms, cash receipts, checks, stationery, and office and janitorial supplies for a yearly subscription fee of $360.

“This was the most successful direct marketing campaign we did in 2002 at Reynolds and Reynolds,” said Feighery.

The mailing came in a box with letters and a Hawaiian lei inside and the chance to sweepstakes for a six-day Hawaiian vacation, provided they responded to the letter either through a postage-paid business reply card, a toll-free 888 number or through the Web site.

The campaign — which took place in November — was preceded two weeks earlier by an e-mailing to the dealership owners, telling them to be on the lookout for the Hawaiian sweepstakes mailing.

“We did this campaign mostly for brand awareness,” said Fryer. “We had no idea we'd get such a huge response.”

Looking to the future, Reynolds is considering extending this concept to its other clients, but Fryer stressed that no decision had been made at press time.