Opinion: 20 automotive marketing guidelines for 2023

As the new year beckons, we need to open our minds more to a changing landscape in terms of consumer behaviour, technologies and larger concerns of sustainability. What we do over the next 12 months will have a greater bearing on a brand’s performance in the years to come. So, like New Year’s Resolutions or even the Ten Commandments, as automobile marketers, here are 20 ‘let us’:

1. Provide solutions and not products

2. Be less bombastic and more honest in our communication

3. Go out to the market and meet customers to get a pulse, rather than rely only on third-party research

4. Adopt methods of sustainable marketing in terms of media and material used

5. Measure every piece of communication and engagement to bring more efficiency and effectiveness

6. Focus on experience and engagement more than just above-the-line advertising

7. Focus on ‘advocacy’ rather than just public relations

8. Work on a balance of offline and online experiences

9. Accept that digital is only a means and not the end – let it not become our rogue monster we have no control over

10. Not get swayed by influencers and work with actual consumers and their testimonials

11. Prepare ourselves for servicing people who will experience our solutions without necessarily owning them

12. Not go after bigger logos but after better placement

13. Set on course a retail experience without traditional physical infrastructure like showrooms

14. Respect competition more in our press statements

15. Start collaborating with all stakeholders and competition to create a better mobility ecosystem

16. Attend all award functions even if we do not win anything, as we are a fraternity

17. Align with causes that impact larger society and community beyond the customer base

18. Impress upon our bosses that sales is an outcome and not the means of good business

19. Say more about your brand than merely about your product

20. Be either a motorhead or a moneyhead, as there is no other way to enjoy what we do

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