The custom install business has been widely busy, a silver lining to the past nearly two years. But even during “normal” times, and no matter the size of your business, making time to market to grow or even maintain a business often takes a back burner. Sony’s Consumer Integrated Systems (CIS) Division will help change that.
While business has been and continues to be particularly good, Sony’s CIS head of sales, Jeff Goldstein, doesn’t believe in resting on your laurels. “Even though things have been super busy for our CI dealer base, we feel it’s really important to help them to create a digital footprint in their operating areas so that they can promote themselves to existing and new customers,” he said. Goldstein wants to help Sony’s Diamond Dealers keep the business going and expand the pipeline of new jobs. “Our belief is that is there’s an entire customer base that has not been exposed to custom installation that would potentially like to get this kind of work done—especially now that the world has changed a bit.”
Leveraging the Sony Cachet and Marketing Experience
For decades, Sony has been and continues to be one of the most recognized and trusted consumer electronics brands in the world. The company is lending that cachet to help Sony Diamond Dealers with a turnkey, co-branded lead-generation email marketing program.
Many co-branding plans will provide assets for dealers to use. But, knowing that sometimes even a small effort can be enough to sink the best-laid plan, Goldstein said, “We’ve tried to make the program extremely hands-off for the dealer.” All a Diamond Dealer needs to do is provide Sony with its logo, a link to its website, and a customer email list that is accessed by a third party to ensure privacy. Sony will never have access to that data.
Customer Journey
Each month, Sony will be producing highly targeted cobranded ads, social media posts, and prebuilt email templates that will feature a Sony custom-install product in a lifestyle setting that will resonate with dealer’s customers. “When a potential client clicks on one of these assets, they’re taken to a Sony and dealer cobranded web page, so they stay in context with what they just clicked on,” Goldstein said. The customer lands on an engaging webpage where they can learn more about different product lines from Sony. “The customer journey leads them to a “chat” with a Sony representative or they can have the dealer contact them directly,” Goldstein added.
Barriers to Entry
Zero. But Goldstein said there are three reasons why a dealer would say no to the program. “One, I can’t find the time in my schedule to get you a logo, an email list, and a link.” Second, dealers are concerned about giving access to their email list. “Now, I will tell you, Sony doesn’t want their email list. We just want to drive new business for our dealers.”
The third is a misunderstanding of the program’s intent. “This is not as much about making a retail sale on any one product. It’s about creating a new client relationship for the dealer where they can sell a whole system,” Goldstein said.
KPIs
Based on research done with Sony’s agency, an email sent with a Sony-centric message with the dealer tagged performs 30 to 40 percent better than an email coming from the dealer alone.
Sony’s CIS team has been running this program for a while, and here’s what some Diamond Dealers had to say:
- Media Design Associates: An old client who received the email contacted me and we were able to refresh their TV’s throughout the house with new ones…. including a 100″ and 83″ OLED!
- Audio Video Excellence: I don’t have any specific client details… I just know that many clients have said “I saw your Sony ad. We’d like to setup a meeting…”
- First Priority Audio: Yes, 100″ TV sale 5 minutes after our first email blast was released. We have also sold other TVs as a result of the campaign to or clients.
- A.B.E Networks: It is a nice MDF program that is always appreciated. We strongly believe that these programs incentivize more sales of Sony, which in turn helps us attract more customers who see the Sony ads.
- Audio Video Excellence (AZ) We have certainly seen an uptick of interest in Sony over the past months. Where before most would say ‘Samsung, Sony LG… any are fine…’, now they seem to be asking for Sony.
