3 OEM Marketing Strategies in 2022

Posted by Whitney Williams on Feb 11, 2022 12:29:32 PM

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Brand loyalty has a longstanding tradition of being an excellent lead catcher for dealerships. While the appeal of the OEM remains for many customers, it’s become more complicated. Today, customers are better researched than ever before and lean heavily on reviews to make purchases. Throw in a historical inventory shortage and even your best customers are liable to jump ship out of necessity. This year, dealers have to pivot marketing efforts to capture every lead they can.

Strategy 1: Find Out How You Lost Sales to Other Brands

According to Think With Google, 92% of car buyers research vehicles online before making a purchase. Reliability is at the top of the list of consumer’s concerns, and online reviews are a driving force. Statistics also show that “over 90% of loyal customers still consider other brands while on their shopping journey.” It’s clear that relying on OEM loyalty alone simply won’t pay the bills. 

There are plenty of options to capture data analytics and discover how you’re losing sales to other brands. To hone your marketing, you must pay attention to how other OEM brands captured your customers. Most consumers were brand loyal, now, they pick the one that best suits their needs. You must pay attention to how other OEM brands capture your customers. Data is only half the battle, of course. Make sure you’re responding to leads promptly and using your personality to connect with the next prospect, right off the bat! 

Strategy 2: Ditch the Super Bowl

Before you say that’s extreme, consider the current climate. The price tag of the commercial spots simply don’t return enough “interested leads” to justify the cost right now. With the industry still recovering from pandemic hits, marketing dollars are better spent elsewhere. AdAge also points out that high dollar automotive ads with celebrity endorsements may not “fit the mood of a country still hunkered down in the pandemic.” The last thing an automotive brand wants to do is put a multi-million dollar bad taste in consumers’ mouths. Take the $6 million budget, for a 30-second commercial, and invest it into increasing your retargeting campaigns and put your banners on third-party websites for longer. Or, use it to amp up your influencer marketing; people may treat TikTok and YouTube as a joke—and those people will be out of business in 10 years. 

Strategy 3: Focus on Organic Marketing

Many countries are trying their best to eliminate the ability for analytics and cookies to be used for marketing, rendering paid ads ineffective. If your brand isn’t coming up in queries for “most reliable SUV”, you’ve done something wrong. It might take a couple of years for the government to really do damage to paid ads, which gives dealers more time to perfect their organic strategy—namely, producing quality content, consistently. At present, most dealerships don’t focus on organic marketing, making it almost explicitly up to the OEMs to keep their organic presence known so their dealerships don’t suffer. Dealerships who choose to focus on organic marketing will set themselves up for success for years to come by growing their reputation and crafting their voice over time. The best thing about organic marketing? It fits into every budget. Even the tiny ones.

Set Your Brand Apart with Insignia Group

Insignia Group is the leading accessories sales system that also offers an API. In fact, we are the only accessory sales system that has an API—which means it can plug into any OE website to gather more leads for your brand and its dealerships. You don’t need stock photos when you have our realistic renders! We’ve already partnered with OEs like Volkswagen and Mopar to provide their tier threes flawless images, data management, and a system that can present accessories online to any customer; all while providing robust tracking and reports for everything. 

What are you waiting for? Schedule a demo with our team today and see how you can stay ahead of the other OEs!

Topics: Dealership, tips, accessory sales, OEM