Choose Align2compete, a digital marketing agency laser-focused on customer acquisition strategies. Tired of outdated strategies and indifferent vendors? We'll amplify your great product, solving visibility issues. Regain your work-life balance as we navigate the digital landscape, ensuring your business shines. When revenue sucks . You may have crews that have more time on their hands or salespeople complaining about poor lead quality. In-store traffic is off. Your strategy has run its course. You have a familiarity and trust problem. Marketing is a time drain, Black Hole . You are out of fresh ideas. What worked last year has not changed things today. Either your internal marketing team can’t meet this challenge or your external vendor doesn’t care about your business like they used to. You have a great product, but not enough of your best prospects know that your company is the answer to their problem. Wasn't owning a business supposed to be more fun than this? You have lost your work-life balance and you want it back. New channels and algorithms keep popping up, and Google just rejected your ad campaign, and they did not tell you why. Your family and employees are complaining and you can’t account for the last three hours of your time spent in some back-end order system. You have some fantastic customer reviews, but you keep getting beat by a more established competitor who’s-outspending your business. You have a big time-based event that you need to get the word out fast. So now what ? This is usually where other websites jam in calls to action, like booking a call on their calendar or filling out a form field. We would, instead, rather have you think about and decide if our ideas resonate with you. If the next step is a discussion, then choose your preferred means. Contact Us

This case study shows how a local ad agency helped a Lincoln dealer reach #1 in their region for sales volume in 6 months. Their customer acquisition marketing focused on broadcast email as a key strategy in local zip codes. MARKETING CASE STUDY: Automotive Vehicle Sales/Lincoln Dealership About our client . This locally owned Lincoln franchise dealer sells, services, repairs, and provides parts for new Lincoln automobiles (Lincoln Continental, Lincoln MKZ, Lincoln MKC, Lincoln Nautilus, Lincoln Aviator, Lincoln Navigator, Certified Pre-Owned Lincolns, and other used automobiles to clients in their local metro community. They also perform warranty repairs and maintenance on all Ford vehicles. Not only do they compete with other Lincoln dealers in their market, they also compete with other brands in the luxury auto category. Results Client: Lincoln Metro Franchise Dealer Store. Location: Colorado, United States. Industry: Automotive Sales. Time Frame: 6-Month Campaign. CAMPAIGN REACH AND FREQUENCY MARKET SHARE RANK 1.2 MILLION EMAILS SENT 30 INDIVIDUAL AD CAMPAIGNS #1 IN SALES VOLUME WESTERN U.S. REGION FOR LINCOLN MARKET SHARE WORLDWIDE #1 IN LINCOLN BLACK LABEL SALES WORLDWIDE PEER GROUP Services used: Permission-Based Email Marketing. They had a market share problem. "Our market share was much lower than we thought we should be compared to our peer group. Lower rankings mean lower sales volumes. It is a vicious cycle because it trims decisions we can make about acquiring more new and used inventory, and it affects floor plan costs and our team size. Before we started this campaign with Align2Compete, our single-point luxury auto franchise was ranked #12 in sales volume in our Western United States Region for Lincoln franchise dealers. We needed to improve that. And our email strategy was ripe for change because our current large vendor was experiencing rep churn, and we were starting to feel a lack of love and attention from them." Vehicles on the lot too long cost dealers money. Our agency had a "Goliath" media competitor to beat first. We love talking with dealer principals and general managers because they live in a world of 'real retail' in the automotive business. Beating their local competition is vital. They work with several media vendors and agencies and expect a true partner to help them drive vehicle sales instead of generating vanity metrics. They expect their vendors to offer creative and cost-effective solutions as they should. This client couldn't care less that we had years of successful experience helping dealers sell vehicles on sites like Cars.com, email marketing platforms, and large daily newspapers. "If you can beat the big city daily team and meet our OEM rigid Co-op standards on a limited test of emails to local zip codes, then we will expand our media budget with you." 1 Automotive is an 'eat or be eaten' competitive category. Store General Managers need real results performance. 2 Identify and message to a custom audience from our proprietary database of luxury vehicle prospects. The key here is resolve and commitment to get in front of the right audience for those most apt to buy a Lincoln. We identified a handful of vital zip codes close to their store based on income, age, and lifestyle. We recommended that they send the emails out at 8am on Thursdays so that their weekends would have lot and showroom traffic momentum. We built the creative collaboration with this store's Marketing Director to make it appealing and attention-grabbing. We had to successfully get pre-approval from Lincon's OEM Co-op team each time before an ad could run. Their brand guidelines are among the most demanding in the auto industry. 3 Trial and soak your marketing message. Buying a $95,000 Lincoln Aviator vehicle isn't like choosing where to go out for dinner tonight. That is a lot of money, even if you are affluent and you have choices. Maybe you also like BMWs or Audis? There is risk involved in getting this right. Higher-risk purchasing decisions require the frequency of messages for a dealership's marketing. There are no 'one-and-dones'. The risk of a major purchase gets reduced for vehicle shoppers with solid research on what, when, and where to buy. These purchases take more time. Soaking a great audience with your message keeps your store top-of-mind. We started with an email cadence for this dealership of three times per month, sending out 50,000 to the same audience each time. They liked what was happening with email opens, clicks to the their vehicle detail pages and vehicle sales. Our budget grew with them quickly and after six months we were sending out eight email blasts per month with over 300,000 addresses reached. We were creatively soaking their patch because they decided they wanted to own it at the expense of their competition. They captured more market share and, with that, grew new and used vehicle sales volume. Weekly used vehicles specials emailed-out at 8am every Friday So given what you have just read, do you feel that your current marketing team and resources are fully aligned with your business objectives? Where do you see disconnects or areas for improvement? Our agency had this overall business impact on their store. 6-Month marketing campaign. 1.2 Million Emails Sent THEIR STORE IS THE PLACE TO BUY A LUXURY VEHICLE. 30 Unique Ad Campaigns TOLD THE LINCOLN BRAND STORY AND CREATED EXCITEMENT. #1 In Sales Volume WESTERN U.S. REGION FOR LINCOLN. #1 In The World For Lincoln Black Label Sales WOLDWIDE MARKET SHARE. Dave and Mike managed a weekly email marketing ad campaign for our team at the Lincoln store. They were skilled at analyzing our needs and presented excellent creative ideas. The plan was very effective at driving new and used vehicle sales and making our return on ad spend more efficient than before. During Align2Compete's campaign, we rose to #1 in our Western U.S Region for Lincoln Sales and to #1 in the world for Lincoln Black Label Model Sales. -Marketing Director Lincoln Franchise Dealership Does your dealership need a fresh edge to reach more auto-intenders ? If the next step is a discussion, then choose your preferred means. Contact Us

State Government marketing case study success story. Our agency specializes in customer marketing and growth tactics that demonstrate our expertise in adapting to change and seizing significant opportunities. Specializing in marketing and advertising solutions for various industries, including Hiring Talent, Automotive Dealers, Charter/STEM Schools, Local Events/Festivals, Home Services, State/Local Government Programs, Health Care Open enrollment, Charter Schools, and B2B Business Development. State Government gets the word out fast about health care open enrollment. MARKETING CASE STUDY: Client: State government health care plan. Location: Northeastern United States. Industry: Health Care Insurance. Time Frame: 4 weeks Services used: Permission-based Email Marketing. Results 35,778 ENGAGED SESSIONS EMAILS OPENED 3,139 CLICKS TO LANDING PAGE $1.60 RETURN ON AD SPEND COST PER CLICK This is a respected regional marketing agency in the East Coast United States. They are a full-service strategic communications firm that prides itself on pushing the boundaries of creativity, strategic thinking, and aggressive execution – and they do it all to exceed expectations and help their clients succeed. Their clients are the best in the business – from NY to DC, CA, and abroad. Their model succeeds because they always put the right people and plan together. About this client . Their challenge . One of the ad agency principals told us they were looking for a cost-effective and creative way to get the word out quickly to create demand generation for a limited-time healthcare plan. "Open enrollment was approaching quickly for our customer which was a state government-sponsored health care plan for current and former government employees. The state told us we had six weeks to get the word out. At the time, we were looking for additional marketing channels for our agency to complement the local channels we already had intended to use in our marketing plan. We wanted something unique to present to our customer that would be a creative twist. Our other media in our plan gave broad coverage but needed specific targeting capabilities to reach current and former state employees like teachers, highway workers, and police." Teachers Highway and Sanitation workers Law Enforcement and Judicial Employees What we did. 1 We isolated a specific audience list of 87,000 current and former government employees from our proprietary datasource who qualified for the healthcare plan that resides only in their state. 2 The list we pulled was for the demographics of State Employees. Municipal occupations: Teachers and School Staff, Police and Sheriffs, Judges/Defenders/Clerks, Roads/Highway, Infrastructure and Sanitation workers. The channel we recommended was permission-based email marketing. 3 To maximize frequency and reach, we sent (2) permission-based email blasts on behalf of their client in late April and early May. Over 175,000 emails went out. We built their custom HTML creative art consistent with the design they sent us. Audience curation. Chose the channel. Permission emails sent from our list. So given what you have just read, do you feel that your current marketing team and resources are fully aligned with your business objectives? Where do you see disconnects or areas for improvement? Results. 35,778 Emails Opened 3,139 Clicks to Landing $1.60 Cost Per Click 175,722 Emails Delivered only 45 unsubscribed 4-week time fame "Each time the email campaign was sent out, the state health care plan's website visitors doubled based on Google Analytics. We appreciate how quickly your agency could execute this campaign in our given time frame. We are pleased with the results of working with you, and expect more work from us every month" -Principal Ad Agency of record for a state government health care plan. Build fast awareness just like this state health care plan did. If the next step is a discussion, then choose your preferred means. Contact Us

You hire us for marketing and growth strategies, not page views and clicks. Discover client wins, industry success stories, and insightful blog articles that elevate your marketing game. Let us turn strangers into customers, solving your most nagging revenue challenges. You hire us for revenue , not page views and clicks. When revenue sucks. There is no peace in your world. You feel it, sales are stagnant, and your pipeline of new deal prospects is starting to dry up. More About This How to avoid making a big mistake. Let’s face it, website traffic is important but if it is not driving top-line sales or profits then you just have some stats, columns, and bar graphs. You don’t need a bunch of leads; you need a steady stream of a few leads that convert to sales on a regular basis. You Need Why us . Dave Hiebeler Mike Higgins We love your problem way more than you do. We’ve worked on thousands of successful campaigns in wide-ranging industry categories. We are business owners, unapologetic sales pros, and advertising message dogs at heart. Meet The Team Client wins . These are the clients, the industries, and the case study evidence to back up how we operate. View The Evidence Growth hacks . dave11140 Dec 20, 2023 2 min read Everyone says that by Dave Hiebeler and Mike Higgins | Apr 13, 2021 You might want to audit with a fresh eye the claims or statements your business... 29 0 comments 0 Post not marked as liked dave11140 Dec 20, 2023 1 min read Dave and Mike are guests on the Action’s Antidotes Podcast by Dave Hiebeler | Jul 29, 2022 Click here to listen to the podcast From the show notes: Every business, every owner, every employee has... 26 0 comments 0 Post not marked as liked dave11140 Dec 19, 2023 8 min read How Much Should Your Business Spend Per Month with a Marketing Agency? BY: Dave Hiebeler | June 8, 2023 Disclosure: The following article was authored 100% by a human with experience in the category; it... 42 0 comments 0 Post not marked as liked dave11140 Dec 19, 2023 8 min read Advertising: Do you have a brand familiarity problem in your patch? By Dave Hiebeler | July 26, 2023 (Above image source: 123rf.com) Disclosure: The following article was authored 100% by a human with... 38 0 comments 0 Post not marked as liked View All

Selecting the right marketing team is crucial. A misstep here can be as detrimental as hiring the wrong employees, potentially leading to significant losses in market share and missed growth opportunities. You need tactical customer acquisition execution. Many business owners are overwhelmed, working tirelessly within their business, leaving scant energy to work on it. We provide that critical external perspective to inject new life into your marketing strategies. Revenue , not page views or clicks. You don’t need a bunch of leads; you need a steady stream of a few leads that convert to sales regularly. Consistent growth gives you more options. Someone willing to crawl into your business. This is easy to promise early and challenging to execute late. You hope you have a vendor care about your business’s success as much as you do. As business owners, talent turnover with trusted vendor suppliers is usually not good. To avoid making a big mistake. Hiring the wrong marketing team is as deadly as hiring the wrong employees. Sure, you will waste money with a poor decision, but worse, it sets your company back with lost market share and lost growth opportunities. Creativity, clarity, and a tactical edge. You’re working so much in your business that it has left little energy remaining to work ‘on the business’. An outside perspective from those from other industries and disciplines can do wonders. You think you know who your ideal prospects are, but you might be working from a focus group of one person. You need . To turn the ship. It is clear that things will not change if you keep doing what you have been doing. As a leader, you know that the marketing thinking has to change, and you are not confident that fresh thinking is inside your building. So now what ? This is usually where other websites jam in calls to action, like booking a call on their calendar or filling out a form field. We would, instead, rather have you think about and decide if our ideas resonate with you. If the next step is a discussion, then choose your preferred means. Contact Us