Mack Genuine Oil Campaign
Challenge Simply put, yes, the oil costs more, but you use much less of it. With the introduction of its innovative EOS-4.5 heavy-duty oil, Mack Trucks needed to educate fleet operators about the potential cost savings in both equipment protection and extended service intervals made possible by the new formulation. Solution The campaign consisted of […]
Road Choice Truck Parts Rebranding Increases Dealer Participation
Challenge The original Road Choice branding was designed to bring to mind a simpler time with the vintage look of an old, friendly truck stop. However, as the brand evolved it became apparent that it was out of sync with the target of fleet operations of varying sizes. Without a clear, well-defined brand the customers […]
Let’s Make the Dealer the Hero of Your Brand
Your dealers should be catalysts that propel your brand forward. Marketing and brand directors will likely nod along and say, “Absolutely, they should be. But they aren’t.” I’ve witnessed frustration on both sides of the fence between dealers and the manufacturers they represent. Like any relationship it requires effort from both parties. But dealers are required to serve many masters, so for better or worse the lion’s share of the effort in this relationship belongs to the manufacturer. Of course, the manufacturers also reap most of the rewards.
Quick, what does your brand stand for?
If you have to stop and think, you’re in trouble. It’s important to continuously educate your organization about what makes your brand unique. Because the worst brand message is no brand message at all. Of course, you have a brand message. You know it by heart from all those conference room presentations you’ve made. But […]
Filling potholes in the customer journey.
The path from your brand to your customer must include your dealer’s brand. Manufacturer brands that sell through independent dealers often ignore those dealers. And in cases where the dealer isn’t completely ignored, they’re taken for granted—and treated as an in-house sales rep. Manufacturers and their dealers often end up fighting over customers like a divorced […]
Three ways to fill the holes in your digital strategy.
Having a digital strategy is a good thing. But there’s a problem. We count on digital metrics to make an impact in the non-digital world. And frankly, they’re not enough. Most products exist in a form other than just pixels. They’re on a shelf, in a showroom, or on your porch in an Amazon box. […]
A little help for your in-house creative groups.
As those of us in advertising and marketing busy ourselves with definitions of new norms, and point to trends we’ve observed during the current value-pack of crises, I’d like to focus on one of the fastest growing entities in the marketing world: in-house creative teams. Over the past few years, in-house creative—collectively the staff and […]
The world is changing and good marketing matters more than ever
For most B2B brands out there, the role of marketing has changed drastically during the COVID-19 crisis. Marketing, as we understood it a few short weeks ago, has fundamentally changed. My guess is it will continue to change for months to come. But more than even a few weeks ago, getting marketing right matters. Here […]
Helping Your Dealers Starts with Understanding Their Business
Heavy equipment and truck dealers manage a lot of competing priorities: Staffing, sales and marketing, evolving technology, and dealing with market forces. Brands often want to help, but many run into an obstacle that prevents them from making a difference. They just don’t understand the dealer’s business from the dealer’s perspective. Understanding that perspective means […]
In the world of dealer sales, a little understanding can outperform a lot of technology.
Here’s a common story: A brand introduces a technology platform designed to support marketing and selling through their independent dealers. It fails after a long, painful implementation process. No one – brands or dealers – is happy about the experience. You wanted a happy ending? There can be one, but only if the story starts […]
Three essential branding tools that improve lead gen and ROI
Every marketer is concerned with lead gen and ROI. Every marketer gives lip service to the importance of branding, but few make it a priority.
Tell better stories, get better results: 4 rules for communicating technical marketing messages
Every holiday season, I repeatedly witness a phenomenon that we can all relate to. Every family has at least one person who insists on monopolizing the conversation, regaling us with lengthy accounts of bygone days. What I observed is that it isn’t so much the stories are bad, they are just badly told. And that […]
