Amy Hughes from String Automotive discusses how to target and win in three markets by focusing advertising strategies on data. She explains common decision-making syndromes like thinking a new market exists or copying others. Hughes advocates gathering model-specific sales data to identify top vehicles and audiences. Metrics should track new and used sales by model, with targets set. Vendors must model audiences for each medium. The key is bringing everyone together around a data-driven plan to sell more vehicles in each market.
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#DDWNE Tale of Three Markets - How to Target & Win String Automotive
1. A Tale of Three Markets:
How to Target and Win
Amy Hughes
Full Name I Company I Job Title I Email
Amy Hughes I String Automotive I VP Sales and Business Development I ahughes@stringauto.com
70. Getty Images
HBR Reports that $36 Billion is currently being spent
invested in storage and infrastucture to Bring “Big Data” (Predictive
Analytics, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence) to their
industries. Expected to double by 2020.
71.
72. The technology to target is coming
And it will make your life
easier!
Until then, deeply vet all sources of
data, and adopt these three mantras!
76. Metrics to Track:
% of New Sales/New Registrations by
Model (Avg. 6-8%)
% of Used Sales/Used Registrations by
Model (Avg. .05-1.0%)
77. Metrics to Target:
80% of New Sales/New Registrations
by Model (Avg. 6-8%)
2.5-3% of Used Sales/Used
Registrations by Model (Avg. .05-1.0%)
78. Define the top 3 Lifestyle Categories
for each of your core models
Challenge every vendor to model their
audiences
Track everything
79. Share an important takeaway you received from this
session using hashtag #DDWNE for a chance to win an
iPad
Contact Info
Full Name: Amy Hughes
Company: String Automotive
Job Title: VP Sales and Business Development
Email: ahughes@stringauto.com
Editor's Notes
Seems like the markets in a local geographic area should all be the same, but as we’ll see in this presentation, the make up of your customers in different zip codes can be vastly different.
What you see are the 4 national ad firms that represent the majority of the marketing work done for the large OEMs
They are not taking into account the factors needed for each geographic location.
It’s time to take it down to the local level.
Let’s get started by looking at the Honda Ridgeline. Here’s the national ad campaign for this vehicle.
If we went by this video, you would think the Honda is just right for Caucasian, middle-aged, active men who look as if they’ve never gotten their finger nails dirty a day in their life. Right?
It’s not that it’s not a great national campaign. They have all of the elements needed – they will be pushing it across channels such as online placement, social, broadcast television, outdoor banners, print ads in targeted publications etc.
But how do you make it work for your individual market?
The way to get the most out the money being spent on the national campaign is to focus on the Ridgeline and put together a local strategy to capture your market.
Why not go after the Hispanic market?
Not so much. As we continue to look at ACTUAL sales,.. We find…
There are only 3 Ridgelines on the lot.
So we go back to another plan. Accords. Back to accords. Maybe Civic? We don’t really care, we just need a plan that helps hit 115%!
Sound familiar?
Let’s stop the madness, people.
You’ve got ad agencies and the national OEMS telling you how you should be marketing the Ridgelines… yet they have no idea what your local market looks like.
At the same time, they’re warning you to keep out of other dealers’ backyards and to keep off of competitors lawns.
Doesn’t it all just make you want to do a face plant? Me too.
OK, we’ve discussed how ridiculous this all is, so let’s get to the meat of what I’m talking about today and make a REAL PLAN for your market,
How do we get started?
Does anyone know which market we’re hitting first?
Here are a few visual clues to help you out.
That’s right, let’s look at the Mile High city of Denver
Total Households: 1,576,090 – 11.2% registered a vehicle – each lifestyle category makes up roughly 10K households
All Honda Dealers, Heat Map details the concentration of Hondas registered in the last three months
Now, what if we look at the same heat map for Accord?
Now, how does my dealership compare to the market in terms of sales – blue squares are sales.
What if I want to focus only on zip codes where my opportunity is 5+ vehicles (this dealer owns his own backyard on Accord).
Key Metric #1 – Model Saturation % by zip code – New and Used
Honing in on the lifestyle categories for my specific model gives me a much greater chance to have my message resonate when it matters most.
Key Metric #3 – What is my messaging index?
Key Metric #4 How many adjusted target households exist near my store?
Can anyone guess this city?
They have Rodeo drive, an overload of Botox and are the epicenter of everything Hollywood
Target Market # 2 is LA!
Again, looking over the entire DMA for this market, it’s looking pretty good.
Celebrity endorsements are even higher in this market than Denver – a whopping 51%!
Average income is fairly high at 92,000 average
Digital Dominates over traditional with advertising by 7 to 2
And they have a nice mix with steadfast convestionalists (Gen X families) leading the charge.
Easy, right?
Not so fast. Just down the road we have Covina. Not that far from LA, so what works in LA, MUST work here as well. Right?
Let’s take a look.
In Covina, instead of Gen X families we have a plethora of “Cosmopolitan Achievers” – affluent, middle aged and established couples – very metropolitan
Their average income is slightly higher than LA at 96k
And they have an even stronger affinity for digital advertising at 9 to 1 vs. 7 to 3.
Let’s do one more in California and head down to Huntington Beach. How do you think they will add up to Covina and LA?
If you said Huntington Beach is full of mature, upscale couples and Aging Aquarius, you would be right on the money.
Do you think the marketing for Silver Sophisticates is going to be the same as marketing for Gen X families?
Some other things to note – while Covina and LA had a high propensity to be swayed by celebrity endorsements, the folks in Huntington Beach are getting closer to a reliance on customer relationships and dealership reputation.
Whereas financing options and discounts were higher in the other two locations, it’s only 25% here
Direct mail and email are also much closer together in channel dominance than the other two areas.
Are you beginning to see how one market can have several different make-ups depending on zip code? One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to the make up for an area’s residents and their preferences.
OK – last one. Can you tell the 3rd market we’ll be looking at today?
Think palm trees, swanky restaurants and clubs and lots of beaches.
Our 3 DMA today is beautiful Miami!
Edit for Full DMA notes:
First let’s take a look at Ft Lauderdale, Much like Covina in LA, this area is ripe with Gen X families ay 18% and has 5% of what we call the “American Royalty” population – wealthy, influential couples.
Direct mail has much more of an impact here than email and they lean toward digital advertising vs. traditional.
Like Covina and LA, celebrity endorsements should be an important part of messaging. But unlike the other cities, eco-friendly messages and community involvement are also present. With that in mind… let’s look at…
Miami. Same State, different city.
Here we still have the steadfast conventionalists, but we now have Progressive Potpourri and Fast track couples – Young, active and upper middle class.
Here, celebrity endorsements and style and design account for 68% of messaging attirbutes.
Digital is MUCH stronger than traditional at 6 to 1.
I hope you’re able to see through these examples how important it is to take all of the data we know about certain demographics and use it to our advantage.
While national has to take a one size fits all approach to reach the largest segment of the population, it is up to you to learn about the buyers in your own backyard and use that information to your advantage.
Three zip codes, three lifestyle categories, three mediums.
We could spend an entirely separate session delving into the best ways to look at your performance metrics for each campaign. At least quarterly, you should be reviewing your strategy, checking it against your performance against your three key zip codes, and campaign analytics. Then adjust and pick your model focus, your zip codes and your lifestyle categories again.
Your local model market saturation by zip code is the most important number you can track. Know it, track it and model toward the customers who have purchased vehicles in those core zip codes.