Tire dealers who aren’t using all of the marketing tools available to them probably aren’t selling all of the tires and vehicle service that they could.
To be sure, many marketing tools add expense, and in these tough times no dealer wants to add to the operating line. But there are many solid, no- or low-cost marketing tools available to tire dealers in places they may not normally look – even with their suppliers.
Marketing is a term that is used by many who may not fully understand what it is. According to a newly-minted definition by the American Marketing Association, it is: “The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
That’s a mouthful, but it spells out a broad image of what marketing should be.
On a more specific level for tire dealers, it is the process of planning, communicating, pricing, selling, servicing and building relationships with your customers. This should include developing an annual marketing plan, outlining how you want to position and sell tires and service, and what methods you want to use to accomplish that.
Those methods involve everything from advertising, to point-of-purchase displays, to involvement in your community to something as basic as having nice customer waiting areas and clean restrooms. And potential methods include many options available from suppliers.
The marketing and communications programs outlined in this article are mentioned mainly to give dealers ideas on what they might develop for their stores.
How Dealers Market Their Tires and Services
Tire Dealer
The marketing initiatives of tire dealers vary more widely than those of other small companies that sell goods and services. When you walk into a tire store you never know what you’ll find.
Some dealers have a waiting room plastered with posters, or a showroom with numerous tire displays. Some are dark and dingy and others are sparkling clean with eye-catching displays and a customer waiting room with coffee, TV and fresh reading material.
Tire Review surveys find that merchandising support, advertising/promotion support and training – all part of a marketing effort – rank toward the bottom of dealer concerns (September 2008 issue). Their top concerns are product quality and availability. When you talk to dealers, however, most seem to want to improve their efforts at marketing.
At a minimum, dealer marketing and communications should include research (a basic survey of customers to learn their wants and needs, and of competition) and planning (at the very least a one-year plan; even better, a three-year plan).
Research and planning will help you sort out your marketing goals and the best way to meet those goals. And it will give you direction as to what tools to employ:
• Advertising – print, radio and TV
• Sales promotion – direct mail and special events
• Point-of-purchase materials – tire displays, posters, banners
• Employee training – in-house, association provided and supplier programs
• Public relations and publicity – the least expensive and fastest way of letting customers know about products and programs
• Community relations – involvement in community and civic organizations
Marketing Research and Planning
You can’t tell where you’re going without a road map, and marketing research can help you blaze your path. Simple mail surveys with return cards can help. You can also conduct surveys of your customers during their visits. Suppliers can give you advice or even share some of their research with you.
Find out what customers want and expect. What brands do they want to consider? What do they want their buying experience to be like? How do they see your business compared to others? What are you offering that they like and want, and what products or services are they looking for? What percentage of your customers are young (18-25 years old), male or female, seniors (age 55+), and so forth.
Then take a look at your direct competition. What are they doing? How are they competing with you? What is working/not working? What brands or products do they carry that differentiate them from your business? What are their long range plans?
With solid research in hand, dealers and their staffs should sit down each year and write a marketing plan that addresses customer desires and competitive issues against company goals. This will help you understand how to leverage what your customers want against what you want – increased sales and profits. Consider, too, how to target certain population groups in your market area, and, most importantly, how to build your brand in the market.
After building a marketing plan, then you can start putting pencil to paper and outline a communications and spending plan. First, determine what percentage of sales or of your annual budget will be set aside for marketing communications, including basic advertising/promotion and publicity.
Marketing programs shouldn’t be executed in a haphazard way but should be carefully planned to achieve your sales goals – short- and long-term – against customer needs/wants.
On a local level, you can get assistance from local daily and weekly newspapers and radio and TV outlets. Consider, also, yellow pages, direct mail, reminder cards and your Web site, as well as donations and sponsorships.
Supplier Programs
In any marketing mix, dealers should consider how the various programs offered by tiremakers can help them meet marketing goals. Some are free, some come with being part of a marketing group program, but all are optimized to move product – for the dealer and the tire company.
Michelin introduced an enhanced version of its Alliance Associate Dealers (AAD) program in January. The highlight of the revised program was a simplified reward program for purchases, electronic statements and tracking, enhanced ordering and delivery options, and marketing support programs.
The entire AAD program is executed online and e-statements allow dealers continuous visibility of purchases, goals and earnings.
“It was our goal to simplify processes, improve cash flow and allow dealers to be more competitive while handling a complex product mix. We’ve attained those goals and are contributing to continued growth and profitability for this very important channel,” said Emmanuel Ladent, Michelin vice president of sales for replacement consumer tires.
According to Bob Schaffner, manager of distribution development wholesale for Michelin, careful strategy development, direct input from Alliance distributors and the dealer’s willingness to adapt to the electronic administration of the program all contributed to a successful launch in 2008.
Bridgestone Americas also offers comprehensive programs for its dealers that include a wide variety of marketing materials, many available online. The company has consumer promotions supported by appropriate materials, POP displays, dealer store branding and training programs.
“We consider Bridgestone training to be a marketing program,” said Phil Pacsi, executive vice president of consumer marketing. “We conduct a four-day retail management workshop in Nashville that includes segments on finances, products, management skills and marketing. It’s a comprehensive education program,” Pacsi said.
Bridgestone Americas focuses strongly on grassroots marketing with dealer participation, and has developed community relations programs for its dealers that include display cars, contributions to local organizations, car clubs and consumer training programs on car care, offered through local dealers.
Self Help to Help Sell
Other than yellow page ads, dealers depend on newspaper ads more than any other form of advertising. Many dealers develop their own ads with the assistance of the advertising staffs of their daily and weekly newspapers, or even with their own agencies.
Assistance provided by tiremakers comes through advertising and promotion kits, including CDs and online programs that enable a dealer customer to design and build ads electronically.
According to Steve Hutchinson, vice president of marketing for Toyo, “We take a fully-integrated marketing approach to ensure the highest level of dealer support while also increasing consumer awareness.” Toyo has an ongoing national print campaign that supports the brand with product line and product-specific ads in tire industry, automotive niche and appropriate lifestyle magazines. It assists its dealers with local level ads and promotions that leverage the national efforts.
Many tire companies provide online advertising and promotion assistance, as well as extensive Internet-driven product and tire service training programs to make training convenient for dealers and dealer staffs. Some now also offer online ad builder features, giving dealers handy, easy-to-use tools to create their own print ads, direct mailers and promotional mailers.
An often overlooked feature on most tire company sites are the “Find a Dealer” searches that help consumers find their local brand dealers. For the most part, participation takes nothing more than to be a recognized dealer for that brand. To really make it work, though, dealers should have their Web site included as part of a brand’s “Find a Dealer” feature.
Stimulating Sales
Continental provides its commercial dealers with a wide variety of sales support and POS materials. In addition to the standard databook with all of the tires and technical data offered by most tiremakers, Continental also provides single-page product sheets for each truck tire in the line.
Continental also supplies a number of enhanced POS materials, such as poster-sized reprints of trade ads, signage and heavy-duty truck tire stands so dealers can display products easily in the showroom.
Tire display systems, as well as a full range of brand- and product-specific graphics and a selection of brochures, are supplied by Yokohama and many other companies. Many tiremakers also offer comprehensive signage (indoor and outdoor) systems, and even complete showroom systems.
Then there are community relations programs like the youth soccer support program offered by Michelin’s Uniroyal brand and teen defensive driving efforts by Bridgestone and Kumho, not to mention the dozens of grassroots motorsport programs dealers can tie into.
The wealth of POS materials and displays available from marketing groups and tire companies is seemingly endless, and each is designed to help awareness for the brands offered and to provide valuable information to help you sell tires. Sure, there are plenty of items like key chains and pens, but far more useful are modern eye-catching displays, promotional POS materials and product brochures that support “buy it now” sales.
Don’t forget that many of your ads may qualify for co-op reimbursement from your supplier, and that purchase volumes may qualify your dealership to earn free or reduced-cost display and POS materials.
Public Relations
Most brands are very active in public relations activities, much of which is devoted to building a positive consumer attitude toward their brands.
Toyo, among others, makes an effort to place its products on show cars for events like the SEMA Show and magazine stories or tire testing programs.
Toyo also sponsors college and pro sports events, and wraps a lot of local publicity around those efforts.
In recent years, Goodyear has promoted its Free Air program to encourage consumers to think about tire inflation, and to visit a Goodyear outlet for a free tire check. For dealers, it’s a way to get more car traffic, and possibly more customers.
Goodyear also gets involved in events. This past year the brand arranged to gets its TripleTred tread imprinted along the entire route for the Philadelphia Marathon. Dunlop has made a lot of hay with its Tread Heads haircuts and local market driving events. And lets not forget the impressions made daily by the Goodyear blimp.
Bridgestone Americas uses public relations and local market efforts to support its big-picture sponsorships of the NFL, NHL, MLB and F1 and IndyCar racing.
The list of tire company PR efforts is virtually endless and highly effective, and many of these programs leave plenty of room for local market dealer involvement. Participating doesn’t cost that much, but can deliver a positive image in your market.
Although tire suppliers offer tons of programs, marketing is still the responsibility of the local tire dealer. Programs that positively impact your customers are the most effective. Tiremakers offer a wide range of options, but it is up to you to figure out how to make them work locally, and then execute, execute, execute.
One of the best definitions of public relations is, “Doing good things and letting people know about them.” When you have a special program, let your local media know about it. You’ll be surprised about the publicity you’ll get – and the positive impact it will have.
