The term “lifestyle” is a useful prompt if you’re looking to fire up your imagination and generate mental images of people. When we hear about a person with an active lifestyle, we think of someone who is focused on fitness or outdoor activities.

Someone living a digital lifestyle is typically an early adopter of the latest technology, and the person you turn to for advice when shopping for a smartwatch or an electric vehicle. A nomadic lifestyle could be a frequent but potentially lonely traveler, always looking to “find” themselves.  A person’s lifestyle, shaped by their passions, beliefs and activities, may not seem directly tied to the auto industry, but it’s crucial to its growth.

Consider the fact that historically speaking, roughly 5-10% of the U.S. population purchases a new or used vehicle each year, according to Wards Auto and Cox Automotive. That leaves about 258 million people over the age of 18 who won’t buy a vehicle this year, which is where lifestyle marketing comes in. While the returns may not be immediate and are not always easy to quantify, there are some lifestyle marketing tactics that have proven beneficial for auto brands and dealers to keep themselves top of mind for that inevitable time when one of those 258 million people decide they need a new vehicle.

Sponsorships and experiential activations

Consider the demographics of your current customers as well as in the area around your dealership. Are you located in or near a college town, or are most of the residents moving in of retirement age? Are there a lot of families, or does the radius around your dealership include lots of high-density units more suited for young professionals?

If your dealership is located in a suburban area where families thrive, sponsoring a youth soccer league is an easy way to align with a parenting lifestyle, whereas if you notice most of your town leaves during the weekends for trips to the mountains, partnering with a local outdoor gear outlet for a vehicle showcase ensures you’re top of mind for those with more adventurous lifestyles.

Take advantage of your local surroundings and attractions and talk about how your vehicles are the perfect complement to all they have to offer.

Another consideration is how your dealership shows up in the community. Ask your current customers what they love about where they live, what needs work and where they engage with other people. These insights will provide clues into what the community values and how the dealership and its employees can show up in meaningful ways at the places that matter the most.

This is especially important now that the top 10 dealership groups own an all-time high of 9.3% of the country’s dealerships, according to Bank of America, raising the risk of a more generic experience without a strategic community engagement plan in place.

Content marketing

To supplement your sponsorship and experiential focus, leverage video across social media and Connected TV (CTV) to highlight how your vehicles enhance the most prominent local lifestyles, ideally starring your current customers. Showcase your three-row SUV lineup and the benefits of cargo and seating capacity by incorporating families taking road trips to local destinations or weekend sports tournaments.

If you’re heavy on EV inventory, a quick explainer video on home charging or a map with local charging stations embedded into a video player is a helpful way to reduce barriers to adoption and sell down your excess inventory simultaneously.

In addition to video, PR efforts across local media outlets reinforce the idea that car dealerships are an integral part of enhancing the lives of their communities, reaching potential customers across the media they’ve grown up with and trust the most.

Mixing traditional sales marketing with lifestyle elements

For young urban professionals craving flexibility and the latest technology, a lease offer for a recently redesigned and refreshed sedan or a compact crossover gives them an affordable option with tech upgrades without committing long-term.

For a community frequented by tourists, collaboration with local tourism boards, resorts or attractions could lead to valuable social media exposure, as 40% of Americans report posting more while on vacation than when at home, according to the New York Post. This could be as simple as loaning vehicles with all-wheel drive capability to offer complimentary trips from local accommodations to a ski resort or taking travelers on an off-roading adventure to highlight a pickup truck’s capability and passenger space, all while promoting your dealership via their social feeds and word of mouth feedback to locals.

Measuring success

The ultimate measure of success in the auto industry is, of course, sales. Lifestyle marketing is mostly about offering value to people in the places they are most passionate about, but that doesn’t mean it should be devoid of opportunities to determine whether your investment in these areas is worthwhile. A three-tiered approach of measuring emotional engagement, physical engagement and sales is a great way to quantify success. Here are some examples of each:

  1. Emotional engagement: Customer lifetime value, net promoter scores, customer reviews
  2. Physical engagement: Digital metrics such as website visits, social media mentions and comments and lead volume are all leading indicators of success, in addition to an increase in foot traffic to your dealer events and the dealership itself.
  3. Sales: In addition to A/B testing of sales and lead volumes before and after events or sponsorships, digital tools now exist where advertising exposure can be tied back to an actual sale, helping quantify the value of your lifestyle marketing and its impact on the bottom line.

Lifestyle marketing shouldn’t just be the realm of Tier One national auto brands with massive TV budgets. Local dealers can develop a strong community-based approach focused on experiences, content and showing up where people are living their best lives while still connecting those efforts directly to sales — and honestly, that sounds like a lot more fun!

James Johnson

 

Jim Johnson is Lead of Industry Solutions, Automotive at VDX.tv