The marketing strategy adopted by Aston Martin for their Rapide sedan includes dealer ride and drives as well as inviting customers whom they pick out while attending consumer gatherings for sponsored racetrack events. This strategy was accepted by their CEO Ulrich Bez as the process they follow to reach out to potential customers.
Rapide is going to be the brand ambassador for Aston Martin for their luxury segment customers, and it would be nearly 20 years since they made their first sedan for the market. With a limited marketing budget, Aston Martin is quite handicapped when comparing with other big time marketing strategies. An example of this is the Porsche Panamera and their CEO also conceded that the company does not have the money power to compete for advertisement of their products and that they were aiming at smaller events where more intimate customer relationship could be built to sell their cars to them.
There was also the issue of the Rapide being a new car of a new segment and that this took more time for marketing given the fact that big advertisement could not be launched by the company for this purpose.
The company, as per their CEO has set a sales target of 5,000 units this year as against 4,000 units sold in 2009. Of the total sales figure projected for the year 2010, two thousand units would be the Rapide. The plant at Graz, Austria however has the capacity to build 4,000 units if the need arose.
Cost of the car would be $201,300, including freight for which the company has received 800 orders as on date; however there is an expected rise in demand once the car has been officially and completely set in the market, as per Bez.
Source: 4wheelsnews
