Planning of marketing communication strategies by car dealerships

Effective marketing communication strategies and campaigns are of much importance in many organizations in informing, reminding and persuading current and potential customers to support the organization by buying organizations product offerings. Organizations in planning of marketing communication strategies and campaigns, organizations in theory need to conduct micro-environmental analysis determining organizations’ strengths and weakness. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the planning of marketing communication strategies and campaigns of car dealerships in practice with more emphasis on micro-environmental factors of consideration. In achieving the purpose of this paper, a qualitative research approach using semi-structured in-depth interviews with marketing personnel of different car dealerships in Gauteng Province, South Africa was followed. In this paper a qualitative content analysis was used to analyze primary data using Atlas ti version 7 computer software. The results revealed that there are key micro-environmental factors of consideration during the planning of marketing communication strategies and campaigns. Based on the results of this paper, the author provided recommendations to stakeholders in the motor vehicle industry, specifically, car dealerships and future research directions. Keywords: marketing communications, marketing communication objectives, marketing communication strategy, mediatypes, micro-environment. JEL Classification: M31