Text messaging figures to be more prominent in Land Rover’s future marketing plans. A few successful tests over the past year have driven attendees to a car show and their local dealers.
The company declines to quantify results from the program, but the efforts have yielded response rates better than the 2% to 5% rates it sees from direct mail.
The car manufacturer last month ran a regionalized campaign to trumpet the introduction of its LRX concept vehicle at the New York International Auto Show. It partnered with content provider Movoxx to send messages with text alerts to cellphones through Reuters Business News, Reuters U.S. and International News and AP Business News.
The messages were geo-targeted to wireless customers in the New York area while the auto show was on in March. The objective was to draw consumers in to see the concept car and the other vehicles Land Rover had on display.
“Auto shows are a great way for auto manufacturers to interact with customers,” says Jonathan Renker, customer relations management digital marketing manager for Land Rover. “It’s a great hook.”
Thus far, Land Rover’s most effective use of mobile has been a first-quarter, national campaign to drive potential buyers into its dealerships to test drive the Range Rover Sport.
Targeting iPhone users, it partnered with Google Maps to show on the handset the dealership locations. “It allowed the quickest access if the person was truly interested in the vehicle,” Renker says.
Land Rover’s target demographic dovetails with iPhone users: Males with annual household incomes of $150,000. “We’re looking at exploiting this technology to reach our marketing base,” Renker said.
In 2007 the company promoted via text its LR2, LR3 and Range Rover vehicles. “These mobile campaigns that we’ve been doing are pilot programs,” says Renker.
At this point, it’s still attempting to gauge what sort of response rate text messaging can typically provide. “As part of these campaigns we’re trying to find what a good response rate is,” says Renker.
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