We had another great Presidents Club Online session with industry experts Paul Daly, David Regn and Sarah Throne about advanced brand strategies. 

Defining a dealership’s brand

We kicked things off defining the components of a dealership brand and how your brand is different from your marketing. “Your brand is how you are perceived in the marketplace by your local community and at the customer level, no matter what phase of the buying process your customers are in.” said Sarah Throne of Stream Companies. 

“A brand is what you become over time… it’s multiple experiences.” according to David Regn of Stream Companies. 

Marketing is the strategic deployment of that brand across many channels. Your brand is closely connected to the reputation that your dealership has and the emotion that your customers feel when thinking of your dealership. “We largely are not in control of the feelings that people have about our businesses” said Paul Daly of Congruent. “We can only do our best to define what we think our brand should be”. 

Culture influences brand

It’s important that you create a culture in your dealerships that supports the brand that you are striving to build. You need to have the people in place that reinforce the values that align with your culture and brand. It’s easy to only focus on the visual or technical channels when we consider a brand. However, your people also play a very important role in defining your brand and how your customers view your stores that you shouldn’t overlook.

Use your brand to differentiate your dealership

We also discussed the importance of understanding where our brands fit in the market. What do we offer to our customers that is truly unique and is that offer being communicated in our branding? Dealers should be aware of the competitor brands so they can focus on communicating the value that sets them apart from other stores.

What to focus on today

“We need to be nimble and meet the customers where their needs are. And we need to be able to communicate that.” according to David. We can’t predict the future but COVID-19 could act as a wake up call to dealerships that aren’t providing and communicating an experience that aligns with the needs of their customers and their preferred method of transacting.