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The tractor is a high involvement category that necessitates elaborate efforts on the marketing front, having superiority at its core. New Holland has always been at the forefront in recognizing the needs of Indian farmers and providing them with technologically advanced products to fulfill their requirements. New Holland needed to work hard to demonstrate the superiority of its tractors to farmers and to be seen as a wise option.
The timing was the next point of concern to make the most of the situation. Farmers often time their purchases to coincide with auspicious festive occasions, which begin with Navratri and end with Diwali. As a result, there is a lot of buzzing and humming around in rural markets as farmers know their harvest and can better make purchasing decisions. Every year, a significant portion of the overall revenue in the tractor industry comes from the replacement sector. And apart from attempting first-time buyers, the brief gave current customers of new Holland tractors and others equal weight. Furthermore, during Diwali, the dealership sees an increase in foot traffic, which turns out to be genuine customers. The goal of the brief was to find a way to ensure that the same was converted entirely. In totality, the brief mandated to surround farmers with relevant outreach strategies to elicit good behavior.
After many deliberations and discussions between Ascent and the client, team Ascent pushed the envelope further in the form of an integrated program themed “Pragati ki Chaabi” which had been active across MP, Gujarat & UP from the 21st of September. “Pragati ki Chaabi” aimed at driving farmers to dealerships to facilitate offering test drives of the latest technology NH tractor models and incentivizing them on the sidelines. To reach out to farmers, an integrated activation approach that involved Tele-calling (inbound & outbound), Newspaper Ads, Road-shows, and Dealer point activation had been taken up.
The link between all these mediums and dealerships was a key that farmers stand to get through either roadshow or by directly walking into a dealership. Farmers with their keys were expected to turn up at the dealership. The key fetched goodies; to do so, they had to unlock a yellow box with the given key and get their surprise goodie. The communication strategy for the integrated program was conceived to be “ Pragati Ki Chabi.” Our chosen communication strategy was an immediate hit with the farmers because New Holland’s batch of tractors and the technology installed endorsed the concept of change and development.
The concept was beautifully transformed into cohesive actions which synchronized each deployed media to leverage the same to the fullest. The telemarketing team of 30 callers took precedence and kick-started the initiative with a base of 1 lacs existing tractor owners. The primary role was to announce the program, request the participation of those called, and inform them about the arrival of the promotion van to create buzz around it.
Inbound was added 3 days later with the commencement of newspaper ads to ensure steady incoming traffic. By this time, a lead management system was live and active that passed on the genuine leads to sales/dealerships for closure.
Telemarketing has been proven to be an important route to disseminating product-related information. In the line was the activation of the dealer point’s kiosk, where all the dealerships were equipped with a full-time promoter for a month to entertain walk-ins.
This project aimed to get as many test drives as possible and to reward those who did so or purchased the tractor. With the support of the dealer team, we were able to achieve success. The program’s “unveiler,” as it were, was stationed at the kiosk. As previously stated, the key as a connection provided an experience for walk-ins by requiring them to open a box with three locks.
The key could only open one box, and the item stored in that box was the takeaway of that farmer, thus incentivized.
Alongside kiosks, some branding at the dealer point also helped drive farmers into a festive mood. A gate outside the dealership beautified and evoked queries from the passerby. Vans indeed provided adrenaline to the whole integration and reached out to village-level farmers. The villages were strategically sorted out under each dealership. The vans encouraged farmers to visit the designated dealership to avail the offer.
Encouragement was entrusted by way of an engagement devised on the lines of toss-a-ring, which focused majorly on the features that make for technologically advanced NH tractors.
Each van covered between 4-5 villages each day and moved to the next set of villages under another dealership location. The cycle continued in this fashion. Vans have generated huge momentum and inquiries, which were sent to the call center to persuade them further to visit the dealership.
The bannering squad, which came before the van activation, was tasked to cover each dealership location with 200 banners. The aim was to place high on the priority list of farmers who came to the dealership. We pushed farmers with weekly print advertising during the entire length of this integrated program. Since print ads were eating into the budgets heavily, we identified the pocket with maximum circulation amongst the TG and concentrated there.
A good mix of top 2 newspapers helped optimize the exercise. All these media being a judicious mix in the given target area, benchmarked the entire program as the most successful attempt in the history of New Holland Tractor and served best to the set objectives of “Pragati Ki Chaabi” Scale & Results “Pragati Ki Chaabi” involved huge manpower as at each dealership location we had deputed one promoter, who was instructed by a supervisor handling 5-6 dealerships. Since Diwali is the most favorite festival, curbing attrition was a challenge that Ascent overcame by hiring and training manpower with relevant backgrounds from dealership locations only.
As a result, no attrition was reported from anywhere. For training also specially developed modules in local languages were developed. The training was undertaken by a central team who would go to each location and train the manpower before the rollout.
In total, 116 dealerships, 9 vans, 30 seater call center, and 186 manpower meant a herculean task. The devised central team at Ascent was lean and efficient—a central team composed of 4 main functions. One handled van operations. A total of 9 vans are on a roll for the activation. MP, UP, and Gujarat ‘ve seen 3,4 & 2 vans run objectively. The second was in charge of dealer point promotions. Had a head for each state. Each state had a state head who would control the supervisor. The supervisor, in turn, monitored the dealership location.
By the end of the campaign on the 28th Oct throughout, M.P. witnessed 40 days of activation under 45 New Holland dealerships, where 3823 Test drives have been registered.
In the states of Gujarat & U.P., the activities were initiated with full zest & fervor from 28th Sept. 2011. Both states have registered good responses. The 15 dealerships in Gujarat registered 1342 test drives, while, in the U.P., 5138 test drives under 50 dealerships were noted. And third, we took care of telemarketing plus lead management. A 30-seater state-of-the-art call center took care of all the inbound and outbound calls.
And the fourth team was an integrator and propeller, which undertook responsibility for consolidating, monitoring the reporting, providing support for freebies, inventory replenishment, and media planning, and spearheaded the entire project to minimize the gap between the plan and execution.
As a result, New Holland Tractors successfully formed its footing in the target tractor market and further strengthened its presence and brand value amongst farmers.
We at Ascent have been in the strategic brand & marketing consulting business for more than 20 years, working with reputed brands right from MNC to national and regional ones catering to multiple product categories like Agri input, Agriculture, Automobile, Consumer Durable, FMCG, Financial, Health, Industrial among the major ones.