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Automotive Marketing - Branding Your Dealership

Why You Need to Promote Your Automotive Dealership's Brand

What is a brand? In its most narrow definition, a brand is a name, symbol or design that is used to identify and differentiate goods and services. In a broader sense, your brand is a lot more that just the type of vehicles you sell.

According to Frank Delano, author of the The Omni Powerful Brand, a brand is represented by the salesperson explaining the product to the buyer; the guarantee or warranty behind the product; the service support; the praise behind the brand; and even the contractual handshake.

Your Dealerships brand represents both the tangible and intangible value perceived by your customers. A well conceived brand has a distinct personality, forms a lasting impression, and makes an emotional connection with the customer.

For customers, your automotive brand identifies products and services and are generally associated with a level of quality and reliability, thereby lessening the risk of purchasing decisions. This saves the consumer time and emotional energy during their evaluation process.

Developing Your Dealership Brand Strategy

Developing a Dealership brand strategy is a critical part of establishing your automotive company's identity. Your Dealership brand identity must be communicated consistently across different media over the life of your business. Your brand message should resonate with you target market and mirror their customs and values.

The steps involved in brand strategy development are:

• defining your Dealership's brand
• creating a brand statement
• setting objectives
• establishing an action plan to carry out those objectives.

Defining Your Dealership's Brand

This is the foundational step in building a brand strategy. Define the personality and/or heritage of your brand. For instance, does your dealership cater to a specific niche market?

Define the qualities associated with your dealership, inventory and services. Describe the core value of your company and characterize the promise behind the brand.

Who are your primary customers? What are their values and interests? Where do they live? How will you reach them and how will you attract them to your brand? How will you keep them loyal to your products and services? How do you intend to “Wow” them and turn them into brand devotees?

Move on to your competitors. Gain insight into their brands, particularly the thrust of their marketing campaigns. What is their relative strength? Have they achieved a dominant market position?

Describe your Dealership products and services mix. Do you serve a niche market such as credit? What do you do exceptionally well? What sets you apart from competitors? Why do people do automotive business with you? Is it price, quality, or unique inventory, products and services? What about location, hours of operation, or even your return policy? What is your Unique Selling Proposition?

By answering these questions, you’ll have created a Dealership brand profile that can be used in all your marketing communications. Craft a brand positioning statement underscoring your core competencies. Be sure to differentiate your business from your competitors and load your positioning statement with the key benefits important to your customers.

Set Brand Objectives and Action Plan

Define measurable objectives and apply specific timelines to each. For instance, if your objective is to establish yourself as a leading authority on financing, you may want to schedule lectures at professional gatherings or present topics of interests to local community groups. If public speaking isn’t your thing, then perhaps you’d like to contribute informative articles to your local newspaper. If your objective is to cement customer loyalty, why not institute an incentive program featuring discounts, points or rewards?

The key to developing your brand strategy is to be as concise as possible with your goals and to create an action plan specifying the “what, when, and how” you will accomplish those goals.

Marketing a Service Brand

Marketing a service is challenging, because by its very nature, a service is intangible and harder to assess than a product, which has physical attributes. Very often, service marketers differentiate their business from competitors by emphasizing experience, expertise, and professionalism. But don’t stop there. People choose companies based on feelings, emotions, and trust. Play up the emotional impact of your inventory and services.

When marketing your services, pay close attention to your biggest brand asset, your employees. As treatment providers, they represent your brand, including its message, promise, and personality. They not only face the customer, they literally touch the customer and communicate your message more intimately than any other service industry.

All your employees have to be on board and communicate their individual expertise, knowledge, and their commitment to customer service. They have to buy into the brand statement and actually live the brand, both during work and on their own time.

The impression clients receive from your sales staff (including front desk staff) influences their opinion about your dealership. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon you to hire people who represent the philosophy behind your brand. According to Ian Buckingham, of Interbrand Inside, “Employees bring a brand to life; they are its ultimate custodians.”

Brand Packaging

Brand packaging extends beyond your logo, stationary, business card, and brochure. Brand packaging is all about your image and making a statement about your dealership. That statement should be consistent on every piece of outgoing mail (print and electronic) including promotions, sales offers, thank you cards, holiday greetings, business correspondence, your website, and even email. Hint: don’t use yourdealership@yahoo.com as your email address! It looks unprofessional.

Make sure each piece of mail is checked for grammar and spelling errors. If you don’t think people care about those things, think again.

Media Selection and Dealership Branding

Keep your brand strong by distributing media buys over those that deliver the highest return on your investment (ROI). Your marketing strategy should take into account your objectives, target market, budget, and what has worked for you in the past. Do your homework regarding local media buying because each market varies widely making cost comparisons difficult.

Here are some tips to control the cost of media spending and to take the frenzy out of the buying experience.

1. Plan your media advertising well in advance.
2. Keep records of response rates.
3. Negotiate the best deal possible and ask about frequency discounts.
4. Find out if rates fluctuate seasonally.
5. Negotiate for ad placement in magazines and newspapers.
6. Specify day parts for radio advertising.
7. Choose specific local and cable programs that appeal to your target audience.

Media Type: Pros and Cons

Always evaluate your media buys to determine their effectiveness. Were your objective met? Did you reach your sales goals? Did you receive the projected number of vehicle and service inquires?

If you were unhappy with your advertising campaign, do your best to objectively find out how you can improve on the next go-around. Was it your creative that fell short, your offer, or perhaps you chose the wrong media vehicle? If you were successful, roll that success into the next advertising campaign.

Qualities of Great Brand Advertising:

1. Keep a brand focus: your ad must sell the brand as well as the product or service.
2. Your ad should capture the brand’s most compelling story.
3. Use your brand theme line in all media seen by the public.
4. Demonstrate how your service is superior.
5. Make your ad believable.

Summary

Make it a point to establish an emotional connection to your customers and prospects. To keep your salon in the hearts and minds of customers they need to see you as the only solution to their skin care concerns. Find out who your customer is and create a space that caters to their every need. Although it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever become a household name in your province or state, it is very possible for you to obtain notoriety in your city. Sure your customers can go to other dealerships and receive quality service, by why would they want to when they have you right in their own back yard?

And remember, your brand is more than an image, it’s a statement about your credibility, values, and expertise. Develop a strategy consistent with the personality and characteristics behind the brand. Establish trust and brand recognition by using every piece of marketing communications to reinforce your brand message and watch your customer base and profits soar.