When we first started this personal car shopper company, we thought people would hate all the “car business stuff” so we avoided talking about it. We have since learned that for the most part, people enjoy learning about some of our little tricks and trivial tidbits of knowledge. Well, it’s time we talk about the FREE CAR GIVEAWAY!!!!!
When I was running a CDJR dealership (Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram), we always kept a tricked up Jeep Wrangler on the showroom floor. We kept it shining like a diamond. Twice a day clean the fingerprints off of it. And honestly, no matter the customer, when they came to the showroom floor, they would look through that Wrangler. The darn things are catnip for customers. When I was leaving at night, I would drive through the lot just giving everything a final look over and man, that Wrangler always looked great under those bright showroom lights.
My team loved the free car giveaway. It was a mailer sent out that had a key attached and the winning key started the Wrangler on the showroom floor. The customer would bring in the key, hop in the Wrangler and everyone would gather around and the customer would try to start the Wrangler. Excalibur but with a key.
There were also additional prizes to be won. We hired a company to handle everything for us. The company would make the winning key to the Wrangler, make the mailer, mail the mailer and send us all the associated advertising products. As the General Manager, I always got a manifest of everything including a list of zip codes the mailers were sent to along with how many mailers were sent to each zip code.
We paid for the package that included the bigger prizes which would look something like this:
1st prize: A new Wrangler (one prize total)
2nd prize: $10,000 cash (one prize total)
3rd prize: $1,000 cash (three prizes total)
4th prize: A big screen TV (5 prizes total)
5th prize: A smart watch (250 prizes total)
We gave out a lot of smart watches.
Now, back to the list of zip codes. I would look through the list and MOST of the zip codes were local to the South Plains. We were sending out 50,000 mailers so plenty of Lubbock Zip codes along with Littlefield, Levelland, and Brownfield. Zip codes that started with 794xx for the most part.
The list would look like this:
79412: 1000
79424: 1500
79414: 750
And so on and so on. Just local zip codes with the number of mailers sent out. It was a nice easy way to track how effective the mailer worked for each zip code. At the end of the sale, we just tallied up zip codes sold and emailed that information along with the zip code list to our advertising team.
These companies we hired to do these mailers, were responsible for the winning prizes. We paid them a flat fee and if someone won the Wrangler, the mailer company was on the hook for paying us for the Wrangler. If someone won the cash, we got reimbursed by the mailer company. They had insurance, but they were still on the hook. And they REALLY didn’t want to pay out those big winners.
When I say the car business is janky, I really mean that the car business is JANKY. I talk about dealerships and all the ways they study to get over on customers, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret: The contractors are even worse. WORSE. Especially advertising companies. They’ve been sued so many times they have ways to cheat you down to an art. I’m telling you this to set the table for this next part.
My page of zip codes always had really weird zip codes on it. A couple for Michigan. One for Vermont. Three for Idaho. And they were always small towns. 49967 = 1 mailer. 83539 = 1 mailer. 26671 = 3 mailers. 05905 = 5 mailers. At first, this drove me crazy. I’m paying for each mailer and the company is sending them to zip codes over a thousand miles from my dealership. How stupid!!!! One year, the day before the mailer sale started, I really looked at the zip codes. Studied them. And then it finally dawned on me:
Let’s translate those zip codes to prizes:
1st prize: A new Wrangler (one prize total) 49967 = 1 mailer
2nd prize: $10,000 cash (one prize total) 83539 = 1 mailer
3rd prize: $1,000 cash (three prizes total) 26671 = 3 mailers
4th prize: A big screen TV (5 prizes total) 05905 = 5 mailers
5th prize: A smart watch (250 prizes total)
The mailer company was mailing out the winning key to those distant zip codes on purpose because they knew that no one was going to drive that far to check a key. 50,000 keys mailed out for a dealership in Lubbock Texas, why would someone from Vermont drive down to check their key? Well because that key is probably a winner. The problem is that it might only be the winner of a big screen tv, but it will at least be a winner.
I’m not really writing this to talk about how janky the car business is. That’s for another post. I’m just telling you that if you get a mailer for a dealership 1000 miles away, before throwing it away, you might check in to it. Just read it and see what the prizes are. Take a picture of the front and back of the mailer, send it to us and give us a call. We will be happy to help and we can tell you the questions to ask the dealership to hopefully narrow down if you are a big winner or not. Heck, it’s mailed to “current resident” so if you have friends or family close to that town, send them the mailer and let them check it out. But before mindlessly throwing the mailer away, give it a once over because if you are a thousand miles away from the dealership, it’s probably NOT an accident that it was sent to you.
***We write these blog posts hoping to impart a little knowledge, but also to let you know that we really are on your side. That we know how cruddy it is to deal with a dealership and we work very hard to be the antidote to the car dealership. You Can Read Our Reviews Here and if you want to learn more, you can call us at 737-245-1275 or Message Us Here And We Will Get Back With You Quickly. We appreciate you very much.
