In the recently published Cars.com Guide to The 4Ps of Automotive MarketingTM, we define The new 4Ps of Automotive Marketing as price, product, place, and person. Why did we add people to the 4Ps and drop promotion? Is promotion dead?
Not exactly.
Promotion is very much alive and well in the automotive industry, but our traditional notions of promotion have changed in three big ways:
- Consumers want complete transparency and utility when they interact with businesses in the automotive industry – ranging from dealers to Cars.com. Consumers are being informed by the openness and usefulness of brands such as Zillow for buying a house.
- Consumers have more access to information about vehicles than ever before, using tools such as price badging and resources such as reviews to learn what they need to know before they ever walk on to the lot.
- At the same time, consumers want to know more about the person selling the car to them. They know that even with all the research they have at their disposal, the final decision occurs on a lot, as we’ve discussed on our blog.
Savvy brands are responding. They’re capitalizing on their biggest asset: their people. They are doing this by giving more access to their salespeople through tools such as DealerRater profiles. They’re also turning their Vehicle Details Pages (VDPs) into lead generation machines by offering more useful content such as photographs, reviews, and price badging. They’re rethinking promotion as providing a utility, not “look at me” advertising.
Promotion has not died – rather, it’s an element of the new four Ps we have been blogging about:
Check out the above links for our blog posts on the four elements. And read The Cars.com Guide to the 4Ps of Automotive Marketing.
