Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Guess the price of gas (on a specific day).
Guess the # of gallons saved by your dealership (based on # cars sold/avg savings per car)

Extreme test drive.

Here in Asia we did several big days with Ford Focus that allowed drivers to 'Really test Drive the cars'.

We set up a mini slalom / rally circuit in a parking lot of the local shopping mall.

Driveers (with a license) could come and take a 10 minute class given by a local race car driver celebrity. Then they were given a helmet and allowed to take the car around the track (with a coach in the passenger seat to guide them).

The drive was 3 laps around the circuit (about 2 minutes in real terms ) + a shoot down the straight and weaving through the comes to feel the handling and the ABS performance.

Hundreds of people lined up to try it throughout the day and hundreds of qualified leads were generated for the sales people to follow up.

Many cars were sold.

The key here is that drivers were made to feel like professional racers (free class picture with the race driver, certificate etc. ) and they really got to PUSH the car a little more than they normally would within a safe environment with proper guidance etc.

In real terms, they were all far from the limits of what the car can do and never got above 2nd gear but they got to do stuff that they would normally only see on the TV and fell GREAT about it.

We also got plenty of free press coverage because of course we invited the journalists to drive too.

There was little or no real risk to the cars or drivers and no vehicle was damged ( a few cones got knocked down ) :))

We also had plenty of sales staff on hand with cars ready for immediate standard test drives to experience the comfort etc. (normal sales pitch).

Very successful event that all car dealers should be doing regularly :))

Good luck.

Matthew