Digital Dealer - August 2019 - 36

M A R K E T ING & A DV ER TI SI NG : R ep ut at i on/ Loyal ty

By Melanie Borden
VP of Marketing,
Celebrity Motor Cars

Why Public
Relations is
Essential for Your
Dealership
Tom Maoli's Celebrity
Motor Cars is where I
reside as the in-house VP
of marketing and built and
run our internal agency.
Celebrity Motor Cars is a
luxury auto group in NJ/NY
that consists of the following
luxury brands: Lexus of
Route 10, BMW of Springfield, Maserati of Morris
County, Alfa Romeo of
Morris County and Mercedes-Benz of Goldens
Bridge. Since Tom has
purchased the dealerships
in 2011, we have won the
following prestigious awards
BMW Center of Excellence
Award. Lexus is a 7x
consecutive winner of Best
in the East, as well as the
defending champion of The
Crown Jewel and the Circle
of Excellence for two years
running. Our Maserati and
Alfa Romeo dealerships are
both run completely by
women leaders in sales,
service, and finance.
Maserati and Alfa Romeo of
Morris County service have
also tripled gross since
becoming brand new points.
Mercedes-Benz of Goldens
Bridge continues to grow
36

AUGUST 2019

exponentially since our
ownership took over in 2017
and won 2018 Mercedes-Benz Best of the
Best - Golden Laurel.
As a newcomer to Ce-

power of millennials and the
universal digital shift that is
happening in our industry,
which is why in my department we have a significant
focus on digital marketing

ONE OF THE BIGGEST
CHALLENGES DEALERS
HAVE TODAY AND HAVE
HAD FOR YEARS, IS
LACKING CONSISTENCY
ACROSS THE BOARD
ON ALL FORMS OF
MARKETING MEDIA AND
TELLING THE PUBLIC
ABOUT ANY AWARDS YOU
RECEIVED."
lebrity Motor Cars and the
automotive retail business
in 2018, there were some
major challenges that I
faced coming into my new
role after being a supplier/
vendor in digital marketing
for most of my career. I was
creating a brand-new position which had never been
established in the company. Our owner and COO
understand the purchasing

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

and public relations.

HERE IS WHAT I HAVE
FOUND IN MY JOURNEY
SO FAR:
YOUR COMPETITION
IS DOING IT. The NJ/NY

metro area is fiercely competitive. There are dealerships in and out of our PMA
constantly conquesting
our stores in every form
of media, mainly in digital
marketing (search, display,

social, SEO, etc). In our
meetings with the manufacturer, I see first-hand
the numbers on the pump
in - pump out report(s),
who is pulling customers
from our market and how
we are doing as a store(s)
in our market(s) with defending our market share.
When I joined Celebrity
the percentage of market
share our competitors had
was absolutely reflected
online in the searches
that I did for both paid and
organic, as well as social
media. Traditional media
such as television and
radio tell a similar story, if
one of our competitors is
heavy on a local radio station in our area, they are
most likely showing up on
the OEM report. We have
had tremendous success
recently in saturating our
dealerships local presence
and "holding" market share
in our PMA, or primary
market area.
YOU NEED TO
HAVE MARKETING
CONSISTENCY ACROSS
EVERY CHANNEL. One

of the biggest challenges
dealers have today and
have had for years, is
lacking consistency across
the board on all forms
of marketing media and
telling the public about any
awards you received. It's a
very basic concept that we
all still seem to miss in the
daily grind.
As a dealership are you
using the same message
on all forms of media? This
includes sales messaging, service messaging,
awards, events, socially
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