Combining Brand, Dealer Promos Drives Strategic Outcomes

When it comes to the power of consumer promotions, sometimes one plus one equals more than two. That was the case for a recent program developed by Digital Fusion, Channel Fusion’s in-house digital marketing agency.

A leading tire manufacturer experienced slow sales after launching a new product and turned to Digital Fusion to develop a strategy to help local dealers drive new product sales, while boosting sales of all the brand’s products.

The strategy created by Digital Fusion to drive consumer engagement and sales conversions focused on combining the brand’s national promotions with dealer-specific secondary offers. When it came time to execute the program three digital advertising packages were developed to work in conjunction with the national promotions being executed at the brand level.

Turnkey Packages

The dealer packages were based on the number of promotions a dealer wanted to execute in conjunction with the brand’s promotions. The packages were eligible for co-op reimbursement and included Google Ads, Facebook advertising and organic social content, as well as streaming radio advertising on Spotify. Dealers selected a package based on participating in one, two or four promotions. Correspondingly, the packages included one, two or all three advertising channels, with all three channels included in the four-promo package. Dealers could also include additional promotions to the packages for an additional charge.

To encourage and drive dealer participation, Digital Fusion created an easy signup experience and communicated the program to dealers using a landing page, flyer and slide deck. In addition, the brand’s business managers also worked with their dealers to ensure they were taking advantage of the program. By including the program in the brand’s co-op program, dealers were reimbursed for their participation and funds were pulled directly from their co-op fund account, resulting in no out-of-pocket expense or claims submission for participating dealers.

Easy Implementation

As part of the onboarding process for a participating dealer, the Digital Fusion team created custom promotional calendars to ensure alignment between the brand promos and each dealer’s complementary promotional offers. Each brand and dealer-specific promotion included offers that helped a participating dealer standout from the crowd.

Each promotion focused on driving foot traffic to a dealer’s bricks and mortar location, getting a consumer to call their location or driving them to a dedicated campaign landing page designed to capture additional opportunities to provide a quote for tires. In addition, each landing page was designed to send leads to a dealer’s location in real-time.

An important contributor to the success, efficiency and alignment of the promotions is what the brand did to support the program. This included creating marketing assets that aligned with the dealer promos and corresponding advertising campaigns. The brand’s salesforce was also positioned to encourage dealers to take advantage of the promo packages.

Achieving Outcomes

At the end of the first year of the program, the brand and their dealers achieved their desired outcomes. For the brand, the program resulted in a 43 percent increase in direct dealer unit sales over the previous year. Indirect dealer unit sales increased a whopping 137 percent for participating dealers.

At the dealer level, one particular dealer realized a 42 percent increase in overall sales compared to the previous year after implementing the program and a 15 percent increase in sales as a result of a specific dealer promo.

Key Takeaways

The program was so successful for the brand and dealers alike that it is being offered again. There are a number of reasons for the program’s renewal, including:

·       Dealers’ desire for having a turnkey digital offering

·       The ability for the Digital Fusion program to convert online shoppers to in-store purchasers

·       Demonstrated ability to increase brand sales at the local level

·       Maximizing results through ongoing iteration and optimization of the creative assets used to support the program

By developing a sound strategy to support consumer engagement and sales conversions by combining a brand’s national promotions with dealer-specific secondary offers, Digital Fusion was able to help local dealers drive new product sales, while boosting sales of the brand’s other products.

Learn more about all the outcomes of this program and how Digital Fusion can impact your brand at the local level. Schedule a personalized walk-through of the full case study today!