The Tyranny of the Urgent: How Dealership Marketing Gets Fragmented
Ask most General Managers how their current marketing lineup came together, and the honest answer is usually the same: one vendor at a time, one decision at a time, over several years.
A manufacturer rep called with co-op funds that had to be committed by end of day. A digital vendor pitched a social campaign that was working in other markets. A new platform emerged, and someone on the team suggested you try it.
Each decision made sense in the moment. None of them were made as part of a larger plan.
I call this the tyranny of urgency — campaigns built because a decision had to be made, not because it fit a plan. Over time, those reactive choices accumulate into a marketing footprint that nobody designed…and nobody fully controls.
The result is five or six vendors, each running their own campaigns, each reporting their own metrics, and none of them talking to each other. In some cases, two different vendors are running nearly identical campaigns in the same market — and you are paying for both.
The Difference Between a Campaign and a Strategy
Here is a distinction worth noting: a campaign is a tactic. It solves an individual problem — move this model, respond to a competitor’s promotion, spend down a co-op balance before it expires. A strategy is what helps you accomplish a holistic objective over time.
Most dealerships are running campaigns. Very few are running a strategy. The difference shows up in the data.
A typical car buyer consults four to five different sources before they ever set foot in a showroom. They do not see one ad and walk in. They are influenced across television, social media, search, and word of mouth. When your marketing is a collection of disconnected campaigns, you are only present in some of those moments, for some of those buyers, some of the time. Your competitors with a unified strategy are present across all of them.
There is also a compounding problem with over-investing in a single channel. Google, Facebook, and every major platform will spend every dollar you want to give them, regardless of whether it is producing the return you need. When you keep pouring budget into one channel, the returns diminish, but the spend does not. You end up paying more for the same buyers you were already reaching.
Consistency > Intensity
Here is something that is easy to forget: a car buyer spends the vast majority of their life not in the market for a vehicle. They are not visiting your website, keeping track of your inventory, or comparing trim levels. They are just living their life. And then, one day, a lease comes up, a transmission goes, a family grows…and suddenly they are in the market.
According to Cox Automotive’s annual Car Buyer Journey Study, the average new-car buyer spends just under 14 hours on their entire vehicle shopping journey. That is not 14 hours spread over months of leisurely browsing. That is 14 hours of active, focused research. Nearly half of all buyers make their purchase within 30 days of entering the market.
To put it plainly, they are not ready until they are. But when they are, they move fast.
This is why consistency matters more than intensity. You cannot time a media buy to catch a buyer the moment they enter the market. What you can do is make sure that when that moment arrives, your name is already familiar. They have driven past your billboard. They have heard your radio spot. They have seen your social ads enough times that your store feels like a known quantity.
First-time buyers are worth calling out specifically. They do not have a prior dealer relationship to fall back on. When they enter the market, they go toward the name they already know. Consistency builds that recognition before they ever start shopping.
A unified strategy is what makes that consistency possible. When every channel — television, radio, social, search — is coordinated around a single message and a single sales objective, your store shows up at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Being their first choice means a faster close, a lower cost per sold vehicle, and stronger margins. A unified strategy is how you get there.
Chris Petrawski
President, Head of Ad Strategy at Bedford Advertising.
Over a career spanning retail, automotive, and higher education, Chris has managed more than $500 million in advertising spend. His campaigns have earned a Gold Medal in the Educational Advertising Awards, multiple ADDY Awards, and a Best in Show TELLY Award, and his work has been featured by Facebook, Instagram, and the American Advertising Federation (AAF).
Chris also volunteers with Genesis Women’s Shelter, where he manages their Google Ads grant — work that earned him 1st Place in the AAF National Public Service Awards. In 2018, Ad 2 Dallas named him to its 32 Under 32, recognizing the top marketing and advertising professionals in DFW.
Since becoming President of Bedford Advertising in 2022, Chris has led franchise dealerships across the country in maximizing sales growth and profitability.