Two years ago, Saab examined its prospect market and realized it could not outspend its much larger competitors in general advertising outreach.
But the firm also estimated that there were 10 million or 11 million people worldwide who would seriously consider buying one of its cars — and that it could, with a bit of a push, have a personal dialogue with each of them. This was fewer than the number of voters in California that were called during the recent recall election, according to Patrik Riese, director of CRM for Saab Cars USA Inc.
The company's first step was to shift money in its eight-figure marketing budget from brand campaigns to customer relationship management. That has since been scaled back, but CRM now accounts for 15% of Saab's spending compared with 5% in 2001, said Riese, who spoke at the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference last month.
The firm's Swedish parent serves leads to its dealers from its central database, each prospect's name appended with appropriate lifestyle or demographic information.
It then follows up with e-mail to the prospects, asking them whether they were contacted, if they had come in for a test drive and how the dealer interaction went. The dealers conduct all sales.
The road to success was not without bumps. In an initial rush to show off its central prospect repository, Saab blasted out every name it had, including those brought in through sweepstakes and banner ads. Many of these proved duds, and dealers began demanding leads with a higher level of qualification.
Saab quickly modified the pre-qualifying characteristics of the leads it passed on, sending out only the names of individuals who had indicated that yes, they wanted to take a test drive and be contacted by a dealer.
To ensure that dealers would use the new leads, Saab included several dummy leads that, when called, rewarded the dealer with a PDA.
They don't have to offer the giveaway anymore. Saab's biggest retailer, a dealership based in Washington, has proven the validity of the new program's leads in a Darwinian fashion: Every morning, the owner provides leads from a variety of sources — and identifies the sources. The salespeople who get to the leads earliest have the first pick. The leads provided by the new Saab program are the first ones taken, Riese said.
Quantifiable evidence backs this up. When the parent company contacted the newly qualified prospects, it found that those reached by dealers bought new Saabs 30% of the time. Those that weren't purchased new Saabs only 5.6% of the time.
