Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1638
At the beginning of May, Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, posted four Weibo posts in a row, talking about the marketing rates of car companies, trolls, and kickbacks. Li Xiang pointed out that the brand market expense ratio of Ideal Auto is 0.6%, including brand-related public relations, events, advertisements, auto shows, press conferences, car owner operations, etc., “I have to approve expenses of tens of thousands of yuan to avoid spending money randomly “.
He said that the market expense ratio of mainstream brands is 2%-3%, which is 4-5 times the ideal. The full-scale sales expense ratio of brands and channels is ideally a quarter of that of luxury brands.
Li Xiang also proposed a method for passers-by to measure the marketing expenses of car companies’ brands-reading messages, “especially brands that buy a lot of real people’s messages, use a lot of real accounts that have nothing to do with cars, and spend a certain period of time desperately in each Comments below the content praise a certain product, but also derogate a certain competing product, such a brand marketing department is the richest!”
But Ideal is not the car company that spends the lowest proportion of money on marketing. Tesla’s spending is 0%. It has no CMO, no advertising team, and only a public relations team in China.
Desirably low marketing rates haven’t affected its growth, which recently surpassed 8,000 weekly sales. And Tesla’s business is no longer a first-class model business in one country. It still sells more than 140,000 vehicles per month even though there are no new models for many years. However, Tesla’s success is difficult to replicate. The ideal marketing efficiency and user operations led by Weilai are being learned by more automakers.
Automobiles have always been one of the largest sources of funding for the advertising industry. How will changes in the marketing of auto companies affect the companies and people attached to it? “Later Auto” interviewed Wang Yan (pseudonym), a marketer who has worked in the marketing department and advertising agency of mainstream car companies for more than ten years, and talked with us about how car companies spend a fortune in marketing for major brands. Media platforms “recharge” to sell more cars. We also chatted about the 0.6% market rate, rebates and trolls.
Marketing is “saying”, sales is “selling”
Late Auto: What does the marketing expenses of car companies include?
Wang Yan: Auto companies can be divided into “big market” and “small market”. Li Xiang said that the market rate of Ideal Auto is only 0.6%, which probably refers to the “small market”. Divided into two directions, one is the brand, the other is the effect, which is to bring goods.
The brand and the market share the marketing budget together, and there is no fixed allocation ratio. Different companies have different product cycles. If the brand is weak, invest more in the brand, and if the product is weak, invest more in sales. Car companies will first formulate a marketing plan, and then based on the marketing plan, they will do it themselves or find a public relations company to implement it. Public relations companies take over the work of the manufacturers and break it down. Some buy advertisements for the manufacturers, and some buy word-of-mouth from KOLs (opinion leaders).
When a new car is introduced to the market, the marketing expenses generally range from 50 million to 100 million to 200 million yuan. Those with money will spend more, and those without money may spend 20 to 30 million yuan. The marketing department will warm up the model, such as making posters, inviting the media for a test drive, and then going public, holding a press conference, and planning activities such as factory visits. Based on this line, the expenses are allocated.
Generally speaking, 50% of the sales conversion of a car comes from the three major vertical media – Dianchedi, Autohome, and Bitauto, 15%-20% comes from offline shopping malls and stores, and 15%-20% comes from automobiles. 20% of the manufacturer’s own official website and App come from brand advertisements.
Later Auto: What do small markets and large markets refer to, and what effects do they aim to achieve?
Wang Yan: “Small market” focuses on marketing, while “big market” focuses on sales. “Big market” generally refers to all actions related to selling cars, including going to dealers to distribute goods, promoting them in various regions, and collecting clues. For example, in the atrium of a shopping mall in a certain business district, a touring exhibition is held to attract customers. The goal is to get a phone number and attract people to the store. It also includes participating in auto shows in various cities and organizing test drives. A car may cost 500 to 1,000 yuan in the regional market. To sell 10,000 cars a month, you need to invest 5 million to 10 million yuan in the regional market.
The effects of marketing and sales are sometimes blended. For example, at the Shanghai Auto Show, the first two days are media days, which focus on marketing and publicity. The last 7 days are public days, mainly for car sales. Booth fees, booth construction, personnel, and media communication costs are usually tens of millions of yuan. The less may be one or two million yuan, and the more may be three to fifty million yuan. Many foreign companies, such as Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, also send people from the headquarters to participate in the exhibition, and the cost is even higher. You can look at the manufacturer’s own announcements for sales results. If it sells well, it will say it, but if it doesn’t sell well, it won’t say it.
The essence of marketing is “telling”, and the essence of sales is “selling”. When you want to drink Coke, Coca-Cola and Pepsi will pop up in your mind. Marketing makes the product enter the user’s final purchase list, and sales makes the user consume my product from the list.
Tesla’s experience is difficult to replicate, ideally it can
Late Auto: What is the concept of a 0.6% market rate?
Wang Yan: The ideal market rate of 0.6% is very low in the industry. The outside world says that the ideal recharge is more, but in fact it does not cost as much as the outside world seems to spend.
Although the proportion is low, it is not without spending. The absolute value of 6.7 billion yuan is actually quite a lot. Like Tesla, it really does not spend marketing costs, only for channels, open stores in good locations, and at the same time reduce prices to increase sales.
Apple does not do much public relations in China, and its marketing is mainly for advertising. Tesla is even more extreme, not even shooting advertisements. But Tesla’s experience cannot be learned by automakers, because it is the industry leader, or even the pioneer. When new energy was first launched, Tesla did not need to find car reviewers. Car reviewers would take the initiative to comment on Tesla, buy Tesla, and use Tesla, so as to prove that you are a person in the new energy circle. In addition, Musk keeps creating topics, acquiring Twitter today and launching satellites tomorrow, which is not something any company can do. The less advanced companies have no way to take over the characteristics of Tesla.
Auto later: Tesla’s experience cannot be replicated, who can automakers learn from?
Wang Yan: The ideal experience can be learned. The ideal gradient is better. The bottom layer is a large number of car owners, the middle layer has a lot of technology-related self-media, and the top layer is the so-called car circle KOL, which has built a complete word-of-mouth system from bottom to top.
But before Li Xiang said that a press conference cost 2 million yuan and obtained tens of thousands of orders, which should be viewed rationally. It does not rely entirely on press conferences to obtain orders. It has also done online marketing before, and the users continue to accumulate. Old customers know that you have developed a conference. It is the overall marketing that has made tens of thousands of orders.
The ideal does not depend entirely on marketing, it still depends on the product layout and the grasp of user needs, which are done well. Automobile is an industry with a long cycle and a long industrial chain. Only when every step is done well can it sell well. Rather than relying on marketing, relying on a certain event, relying on a certain leader. If you don’t do well in other things, it’s useless to rely on blowing. Some new energy vehicle brands made by traditional car companies actually spend a lot of money, but their sales are miserable.
Later Auto: How do you see that many automakers have been learning from Weilai in user operations in the past two years?
Wang Yan: User management has now become the highlight of marketing. It turns out that car companies have a CRM (Customer Relationship Management, customer relationship management) department, but it is not so systematic. Weilai cares about users in every possible way, and even brings the App up. There is a user community in the app, which is used as a carrier for user operations. Now if car companies do not have an App, it seems a bit outdated.
Weilai’s user operations are doing very well, but it is now being backlashed by user operations. ES7 car owners defend their rights. Everyone blames the car owners for being spoiled by Weilai. I don’t think the car owners can be completely blamed. Weilai has shaped itself into an image that thinks of car owners and listens to their opinions. Its brand genes have this thing in it, and it has been continuously strengthened, and it has gone too deep. Many car owners buy Weilai, thinking that your company is negotiable, and many things can be solved for me.
I think it is difficult for car companies to be user-oriented companies. Because the life cycle of a car is too long, it used to take more than five or six years for a user to repurchase a car after buying it for the second time. Automobiles are bulk durable consumer goods, and there is a high possibility of problems. The replacement time is relatively long, and the value of replacement is relatively high. In this case, if you want to maintain users, you must continue to do activities for them, and users may continue Scrape the wool.
There are still kickbacks and trolls, but this industry has been regulated a lot
Late Auto: How has the trend of car marketing evolved over the years?
Wang Yan: I entered this industry in 2004 and 2005. At that time, I was mainly marketing digital products, such as printers and monitors, and then gradually transitioned to mobile phones. The marketing of automobiles probably developed in 2008 and 2009. The earliest automobile companies placed advertisements on TV and paper media. Later, with the rise of the Internet, marketing followed the form of media, and marketing did what users saw.
The earliest portal sites, Sina, Sohu traffic is very large. Later, the portals gradually declined, and vertical media began to occupy a place, such as Bitauto, Autohome, and later gradually became mobile Internet, and there was Dianchedi. Now vertical media has become a must for the automotive market. Vertical media can bring sales leads to automakers. Generally speaking, a store’s overall investment in the three major vertical media may range from 100,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan a year. If there are 500 stores, it is 50 million to 200 million yuan.
The decline of 4A companies is mainly due to the gradual disintegration of traditional media platforms and the dispersion of channels. The old advertising model of opening and closing is no longer suitable.
I have moved from an advertising company to a car company, and my perspective has changed. When I was in an advertising company, I was more concerned about whether the idea was “explosive” or not. In car companies, the concern is more about implementation. I have all this money, where should I spend it? Is it useful for sales promotion, or for branding?
After the rise of Weibo and self-media, auto manufacturers’ investment began to be distributed to auto bloggers and KOLs. Now, automakers’ releases are very scattered, and users will vote if they have access to the media. In addition to the three major vertical media, I will also do Douyin, Moments, and Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, and Bilibili. I have a lot of users in this media, so I invest more in this media, and do it in a refined way to improve my brand. and dissemination of product awareness.
Later Auto: Li Xiang said that the marketing departments of some car companies charge 10%-50% rebates. Is this common?
Wang Yan: This is a phenomenon in the circle. Many manufacturers vote for a media, and the invoicing is a price. In fact, only a part of the media is left, and different people in the middle will divide the money. I don’t think I can elaborate on this.
10 years ago, there would be many things in this gray scale, but now it is becoming more and more standardized. Bidding has become more and more stringent, and many people in the marketing department of state-owned enterprises have been interviewed. Now the situation is much better. The company will also grasp this matter. In the early years, Samsung had a special discipline inspection department in China, and sent a group of people down to check all processes, including suppliers, and dealt with them once the amount was enough.
Now the quotations of big media are relatively transparent, and there is not much space. In order to fight for the manufacturer’s budget, small teams will have irregular and gray areas in the competition. But generally speaking, I think this kind of thing is relatively rare now.
Later Auto: Li Xiang said that some car companies “buy a lot of real people to leave comments.”
Wang Yan: You can judge for yourself. If the comments and answers are similar, the direction is the same, and the tone is the same, then it is actually a large-scale and organized project. Sometimes it is the needs of the manufacturer, and sometimes it is the needs of the boss. From the earliest forums to the present, people have always done it. But I think most manufacturers now prefer the truth, because ordinary people can see it, so it doesn’t make much sense.
When I was in a public relations company, I generally refused to accept this kind of demand, and the large-scale use of naval forces was not in compliance. Some companies will organize their employees to comment, it doesn’t matter, he can say that this is the loyalty of the employees to the company, just like the boss asking you to post on Moments, this is called private domain marketing.
The pace of work in marketing has changed from months to weeks
Later Auto: In the past two years, the competition in the automobile consumer market has become more and more fierce. Has there been any change in marketing methods?
Wang Yan: In the past two years, the pace of work in the market has become faster. It turns out that a traditional company may release a new car in the first half of the year and a new car in the second half of the year, and conduct test drives, listings, media communication meetings, etc. around these two new cars. Make a plan on a yearly basis, execute it on a monthly basis, and have one thing to do every month. Now it has become, plan on a monthly basis, execute on a weekly basis, and have things every week. The rhythm of automakers is more and more like that of mobile phones.
The reason for the fast pace is firstly that there are more cars, and secondly, the gap between cars has become smaller. It used to be that the big cycle of car replacement was 5 years, and a facelift would be done every two or three years. But now, with the rapid development of technology, it may be necessary to make a facelift every year, and it will continue to appear in front of consumers. In addition, the competition has become fiercer, and competitors are doing a lot of things. It is impossible for you to sit there still, and everyone will roll up. In this year’s car price war, the fuel car market is basically following. If you don’t follow, users won’t buy.
Late Auto: How is the effectiveness of marketing measured?
Wang Yan: The biggest challenge in marketing is that it is not easy to achieve results. It’s not as straightforward as selling, where a car is sold and a car is sold. The advertising industry has some measurement indicators, such as CPM (Cost Per Mille, cost per thousand people), how much it costs per 1,000 people; CPL (Cost Per Lead, lead cost), whether a click can bring leads. In the past, the degree of digitalization was not high, and it was more troublesome to count. Now the media will give very detailed digital reports, which can be traced back. Although there are these indicators, it does not lead to sales in the end, it is just a process, and the measurability of marketing effects is not so strong.
But the overall goal of the enterprise is sales, and as a part of the enterprise, what you do must serve the overall goal. If you can’t prove that this thing is useful, the money may not be spent, or spent elsewhere.
Late Auto: Whether a car can sell well depends on many factors. How much role can marketing play?
Wang Yan: For a car company, there are product definitions and strategic departments at the top, followed by R&D departments, manufacturing departments, marketing departments, and sales departments. Whoever is closest to consumers is under the greatest pressure. In the past two years, the sales of cars have not been good, and the sales pressure is the greatest, followed by the market.
There is a 4P theory in the marketing industry, product (Product), price (Price), channel (Place), marketing (Promotion), product takes the first place, followed by price, then channel, and finally marketing. If the first three items are not done well, then the latter will be in vain.
But no matter whether the product is good or not, and the price is right or not, when it comes to marketing, you can only accept this fact and work hard to sell it well.
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