Driving Franchised Dealer Market Awareness

Justin Wilson

Why Franchise Dealers?

• Considerable number of franchise dealers across the UK:• 4,900 according to National Franchise Dealers Association

• Contract Hire and Leasing penetration is currently low (1-2%), so big opportunity

• These dealers work hard to drive people to their dealerships, but often the focus is on other ownership options – they can play a role in educating people to the benefits of moving away from purchase / PCP to contract hire

• Perception is that Contract Hire and Leasing is a competitor, not an enabler – education

What does success look like?

• Measuring awareness is very challenging:• Without large scale, measures such as brand recall and brand

recognition can be very expensive• We need different metrics…

• Audience reach – the number of people who had the opportunity to see our communications (NOT people who have engaged with it)

• Web traffic – able to track from a digital perspective through custom URLs and Google Analytics

• Search traffic referrals volume – people searching for the website but not knowing the URL (we can measure direct referrals too)

• Enquiries – although this is not the objective, it should be a by-product• Anecdotal Sales Team feedback – although difficult to quantify

• The campaign should be integrated to ensure that the target audience have the best opportunity to find out more about Contract Hire and Leasing

Online OfflineSearch Engine OptimisationPay Per ClickSocial Media

EmailAffiliatesDisplay

PrintDirect Mail

Trade EventsPR

RadioOutdoor

Search Engine Optimisation• Before any campaigning starts, we

need to be ready to receive traffic• Generic landing page:

• Who we are• What we do• Video content needs to be

more engaging• Contact form ideally not below

the fold• Run some intensified SEO

activity (link building, social sharing)

• Specific landing pages can be created for other campaigns (e.g. with joint branding)

Budget:• Page creation - £0• SEO - £neg (push for £0)

Social Media• Where do our audience spend their

social media time?• Likely to have a presence on

Facebook, but this is ‘personal’ time and people are not receptive to business communications

• LinkedIn:• Able to target by job role (9k

Fleet Managers)• Can target priority dealerships

before others• Simple message, e.g. “We can

share your offers with 500k monthly visitors”

• Followed by InMail campaign, with more depth about what we do

We can share your offer with 500k monthly

visitors…

Budget:• Display Ads - £750• InMail - £750

Email• We have a database of existing

franchise dealership contacts but they tend to be dealer principals rather than our target audience

• DPs:• Reply to the email with your

fleet manager contact details to receive X% off your first campaign, or another incentive

• Fleet Managers:• We are not a competitor• We can show your offers to a

massive audience• Testimonial / quote from happy

franchise dealer client

Budget:• Email - £200 (for creative) • Promotion - £tbc

Affiliates• There are websites who have

already developed credibility with our audience – we can use these sites to communicate with the audience

• National Franchise Dealers Association:• Email comms to subscribers• Content written for their news

section / whitepapers

• Fleet News:• 85% of all fleet news web visits• Sponsor email updates• Display advertising• Large social presence (Tw 6k)

Budget:• NFDA - £500/email• FN Display - £1k per week• FN Email - £500

Print• To maximise spend effectiveness, we

should focus on just one title: Fleet News

• Variety of print options available, but should start small and track its effectiveness

• Specific phone number set up to track enquiries

• Specific URL to track people moving from offline to online, e.g. contracthireandleasing.com/fleetnews

Budget:• Per Half Page: £900• Per Page: £1500

Direct Mail• Is dependent on quality of postal

address information on database

• Would need to be addressed to Fleet Managers rather than Dealer Principals

• Questionable effectiveness and very difficult to track changes in awareness

• Cost can vary dramatically depending on creative, volume of contacts, etc.

Budget:• Per Mail approx. £2.50

Trade Events• Good way to build credibility and help

with education by engaging 121 with potential clients

• Can be run through sponsorship of award ceremonies or exhibitors at trade conferences

• Fleet News Awards (March 2015)• AM Digital Dealer Event (September

2015)• National Franchise Dealer Association

Ball (October 2015) Budget:• FN Awards – £1k to £10k• AM Exhibit – £5k• NFDA – £2k

PR• We have content creators in house, and

should be utilising these• Thought leadership pieces published on

our website, but publicised through social media / media network

• Content to be shown in different formats:• More persuasive content on the

business itself rather than at car-level

• White papers for download• Infographics• Video• Text visualisation

• Likely to require some agency support

Budget:• Content £0 (in-house)• Dependent on PR activity

Campaign TimelineActivity Spend February March April May June July August September October November December

SEO Page Set Up Generic Landing Page £0 SEO support for page £0 Landing Page Amends £0

Specific Landing Pages £0

Social Media LinkedIn Display £1,500

LinkedIn InMail £1,500

Email Email Creation £200

Promotion TBC

Affiliates NFDA £1,000 FN Display £3,000

FN Email £1,500

Print FN Half Page £1,800

FN Full Page £3,000

Direct Mail

To 1000 dealers £2,500

Trade Events FN £2,000 AM £5,000

NFDA £2,000

PR

TBC TBC

TOTAL £25,000

Priorities• All activity would likely cost £25k• In the event of budget not covering this, we should prioritise in the

following order:

Activity Cost Rationale

SEO £0 Necessary to direct all online activity

Affiliates £5,500 Well targeted for audience

Email £200 Low cost and effective

Social Media £3,000 Can target at individual level

Trade Events £9,000 Good opportunity for 121 discussions

PR TBC Scope very broad, difficult to prioritise

Print £4,800 Expensive and can be ineffective

Direct Mail £2,500 Costly and difficult to measure effectiveness

Driving Franchised Dealer Market Awareness

Justin Wilson