Orchestration is a fine science that builds the art of a symphonic performance. It’s the composer’s understanding of blending or contrasting the various voices of the instruments of the orchestra that bring the written notes on a sheet of music to our ears. Often what we hear moves our emotions and evokes strong feelings, memories and sometimes passion.

Marketing Orchestration, in similar fashion, can evoke profound consumer response through the combination of the inherent strengths of a number of marketing media moving in simultaneous harmony and timing. This has the effect of producing profound profits for the marketer who knows how to orchestrate these multiple consumer touch-points into a meaningful experience for each individual communicated with. This effect is even better when that’s a profitable experience for both parties.

The futurist and writer Alvin Toffler wrote over two decades ago in his book, PowerShift, that… “Today the customer pays twice: once with money and the second with information that is worth money.” That is the proper perspective for the smart marketer who practices the art and science of marketing orchestration.

American automobile dealers are businessmen and women in a highly competitive and capital-intensive arena. For some, with a reasonable marketing budget and marketing acumen, this coordination of communication channels is a must. Others who lack vision, boldness, optimism and a willingness to consider change in the way they locate and harvest prospect and customer opportunities, may have their years numbered.

There is beauty in boldness and acting on developing smart marketing approaches to sell our dealerships that weren’t needed when ‘things were fat and easy.’ Gone are the days of event sponsorships because they ‘feel right,’ in-dealership radio broadcasts, and loud TV spots with lots of reverb. The precious handful of active automotive shoppers, at any one time, now has more sources of information and options than dealers can afford to counter. So don’t try. Keep your marketing allocation on the table and use coordinated marketing channels to reinforce a singular campaign thrust to strategically-targeted audiences. 

Seek and Find

Smart marketing leadership by the automobile dealers who have not only survived the past few years, but have advanced their position against their competition - reveals that they have built integrated campaigns that utilize all or the combination of direct mail, email, mobile, websites, smart landing pages SEO and social media to advance in the marketplace. Multi-channel, focused messaging, driven by performance metrics has proven to receive a warm and fast response by active shoppers. Active shoppers - who because of lease expirations, accidents, mechanical failures, changes within the family, life stage, or lifestyle, Need a new—or new to them, car—or service or body  repair.

Next, in two weeks, we’ll explore the marketing communications tools at our disposal and how to deploy them in an effective, coordinated manner.