National vs. Regional Marketing
A marketing strategy is a plan or strategy that your marketing team develops to get your dealership noticed in the best possible way. The way your marketing strategy is set up can determine how much visibility your automotive dealership will receive. If you want national coverage for your campaign, and you want to attract customers on a national level, you would want to use a National Marketing Campaign.
A Regional Marketing Strategy is similar to a national marketing strategy; however, your campaign is only developed to catch the attention of a certain region or area. For instance, a smaller auto dealership might be interested in a regional campaign to attract customers in their local area surrounding the dealership rather than a national campaign.
Expanding your Geographic Reach
If you are interested in taking your car dealership to the next level, say from regional to national; you are going to have to expand the geographical reach of your marketing. The campaigns will have to be expanded throughout the entire country instead of only a few cities or counties you are advertising in for your regional campaigns.
Of course, a national marketing campaign is going to cost much more than a regional campaign due to the larger sales staff that is needed to take on the increased clientele that a national campaign is going to bring to your dealership. It is going to cost substantially more to send out press releases over a national distribution channel as opposed to the regional channels that you previously were using for your regional marketing campaigns.
When taking your automotive dealership from a regional to a nationwide marketing campaign you will also have to take into consideration that you will now be competing with some of the largest automotive dealerships. Hence, the competition is going to be a lot tougher on the national level than it was at the smaller, regional level. Where you once had your loyal customers that would come to your dealership to purchase a new car every few years; you could rely on word of mouth for a large percentage of your advertising. However, on the national level, you will need to purchase billboard space and national commercial airtime for your advertising to get across to all the fifty states.
A national marketing campaign is also going to be a need for diversity than what your regional marketing campaign might have had. For instance, if your previous regional marketplace was in the Midwestern states, there wasn’t much concern for bilingual advertising; however, now that you are going to a national marketing campaign, you will need to think about the diversity of clientele in states like California, Arizona, and Texas, and the option of providing bilingual services.
Ways to Maximize your Marketing Campaign
Just as Toyota is using the Olympics and Paralympics as a way of maximizing their national marketing campaign for mobility; your dealership can pick a local charity to donate to and use as a way to market your national campaign marketing efforts. When choosing a local charity to assist your marketing campaign, here are a few ideas to help get you started.
Use Publicity to Associate your Name with that of the Charity
The first thing you need to do is to provide a connection between that of your automotive dealership and the charity you are backing. If you are involved with this charity for the purpose of providing some sort of philanthropic benefit, then your dealership should take the credit for whatever self-sacrificing contribution is being made.
- Make any charitable donations public knowledge by sending out press releases and photos to the media in order to make the public aware of your management team when they make any contributions to this charity.
- Whenever you are sending out any marketing materials — newsletters, brochures, sign, displays, advertisements, even TV or radio commercials — be sure to incorporate your dealership’s involvement in this charity.
- Whenever possible, become involved in anything that is ‘high-priority’ and will appeal to, and cause media awareness.
- If your dealership has provided sufficient sponsorships towards a certain program that the charity offers, you might want to consider asking them to name that program after your dealership.
- Whenever you send out information promoting your dealership, be certain to include the information about the charity you support as well by putting brochures or leaflets within the dealership lobby area. Encourage employees to wear pins on their clothing advertising support of the charity. Whenever shipping any products out, be sure to put information about your charity in with the shipments.
- The last and probably most important facet to remember when trying to get public recognition for your dealership’s support of a charity is to ask the charity organization head to recognize your dealership for its efforts in a public manner whenever possible.
Use the Constituencies of your Charity to Market your Products and Services
Charities have many people who are a part of the charity itself or have some form of likeness to the charity you have chosen to aid in your marketing campaign. By using these people in your marketing campaign along with their direct connection to you and your charity will aid in selling more vehicles and automotive products for your dealership.
Below are some marketing concepts to assist you in selling your dealerships products and services to the people who share a likeness to your charity.
- Provide a straightforward way to promote your business through the association with your charity.
- Be sure to provide plenty of messages, such as informative periodicals and monthly newsletters, to keep the public aware of your dealerships involvement with this charity as well as keeping the public attentive to whenever your dealership is making a donation or providing any supportive services towards the charity.
- Any customers who show an interest in your charity should be offered special discounts or promotions.
- Offer a percentage of any sales of products to your charity that are a direct result of your association to said charity.
- You also might want to consider starting a ‘preferred membership’ club for any members of the constituents of your charity of choice.
On a final note, ensure that you show appreciation to the charitable foundation and provide them with updates on a regular basis as to the progress of any marketing strategies.
