Category: Digital Marketing

The Download on Shifting Consumer Preferences

Posted on

Have you had a chance to watch the video recording of Dealer Forward Marketing Edition: Shifting Consumer Preferences? If not, we strongly recommend you do! And if you have watched it, you’ll know it covered highly relevant topics for dealers like you, including recent trends in automotive digital marketing and automotive service marketing, and tactics you can use to embrace shifting consumer behavior.  

Keep reading to get the highlights from this discussion between Wayne Pastore, General Manager of Dealer.com and Vice President of Operations Dealer Marketing, Cox Automotive Dealer Software Solutions, and Jeff Ramsey, eCommerce & Marketing Director at Jones Junction. Learn how Shifting Consumer Preferences influence how your dealership operates, and how to exceed customer expectations to close the deal. 

Keep communication seamless. 

Consumers today expect to have digital retailing options when they go to buy a vehicle. The enduring question here is how far each customer will want to remain online through the purchase process. For instance, some may prefer to “Get Today’s Price” online and visit the dealership to complete all other steps, while others may not want to leave the comfort of their home at all.   

The dealership sales process and staff need to be organized and equipped to handle the full range of consumer digital preferences. One essential factor is seamless communication. The better your team communicates, the greater success you will have with your automobile leads solution, resulting in the progression of more leads. Sales managers, internet managers, the service team, and others need to be comfortable with processing customer information that was shared through digital forms and using this data to inform future interactions.  

Acknowledge the shopper’s digital effort.  

Shoppers submit a wide variety of information through the forms on your Digital Storefront. Think of all the fields available for them to complete, from the Finance and Lease sections on the Vehicle Deal Page, to the details required for your automotive service appointment scheduling software. The good news is you can easily score customer service points by acknowledging all the work that they’ve done.  

Make it a habit to thank shoppers for investing time to share down payment, trade in value, and other details. Some may expect this show of appreciation from your team, which means there may be more at stake from not doing this than just hurt feelings. If you inadvertently “break” the customer experience, there is a risk you may be punished with lower gross or even a lost sale.  

Adjust your channels and messaging to stay relevant. 

Are you familiar with the term “cord cutting?” This is a topic that deserves its own article, but it refers to the trend of traditional Cable TV subscribers who are ending their contracts (i.e. “cutting the cable cord”) and moving to Connected TV offerings, such as Netflix, HULU, and more. The key here is that what consumers watch and where they watch it is dynamic, and so your advertising strategy should be too.  

Be willing to explore new online channels, including social, and update your messaging on a regular basis. For instance, do your Ads show people standing close together in a dealership and giving high-fives? This image is now outdated due to social distancing guidelines. Demonstrate through words and images to your shoppers that you are paying attention and acting accordingly.  

Above all, keep in mind that your online experience is the store experience. With all of your dealership departments becoming more reliant on digital retailing and scheduling, you need everyone bought in and taking full advantage of what these experiences have to offer. As always, Dealer.com and your performance manager are available to help you explore products and strategies to grow from shifting consumer preferences. 

Clear 4 Digital Marketing Hurdles for Success Today

Posted on

Today’s environment is challenging. The 2020 Cox Automotive COVID-19 Consumer Impact Study reported we’re dealing with tight inventories as well as fewer in-market shoppers — 20 percent of consumers were in-market to purchase a vehicle in March, while early August reported 15 percent in-market. To combat numbers like that, you need your digital marketing on-point and working for you. 

Fully optimized digital marketing will drive in-market opportunities to your website and generate sales and service leads for your dealership. Let’s talk through the digital marketing hurdles you must face head on right now — and how to clear them for your dealership. 

Hurdle 1: Expertise  

Digital marketing is comprised of vast, highly specialized skill sets, and with 49 percent of businesses increasing digital marketing efforts in the wake of 2020, you need experience and expertise stay competitive.1   

It takes a lot of time to read all the marketing blogs, evaluate social media platforms, and anticipate and prepare for algorithm changes. Not to mention, studying your analytics to inform changes to strategy amidst shifting priorities and challenges. You may be able to check some digital to-dos off your list, but if it’s not your primary job, can you give it the time and attention it needs? Look for a partner that specializes in core digital marketing fundamentals, with deep knowledge of the automotive industry, to help you stay ahead of emerging trends and ever-changing best practices.   

Hurdle 2: Resources 

We are all trying to do more with less today. This year has forced you to create necessary efficiencies at your dealership, and an unintended consequence might be fewer digital marketing resources. This comes at a time when you need your sales and service messages to stay relevant in a highly competitive search environment while also creating new messaging to ensure shoppers understand the new digital sales and service processes you’ve put in place in order to help them, and your employees, stay safe. 

The good news? You don’t have to do it all yourself, nor do you have to invest in costly agencies. Look for a digital marketing company that puts a team behind your dealership to work with you and expertly execute your digital marketing strategy.   

Hurdle 3: Multiple Vendor Relationships  

Digital marketing efforts should be connected. If you’re working with several vendors, you may not reap the benefits of a single, cohesive strategy to tie your digital plan together. There may be other pitfalls too, like an unclear ROI for your marketing dollars and differing KPIs that make performance difficult to judge.  

Instead of juggling multiple technology vendor and marketing agency relationships, look for a solution that brings it all under one roof, with one point of contact. You need a single solution accountable to you as a true partner in your success. With a vendor like that, you get time back that was spent communicating across disparate providers and better results because you are more effective when discussing goals and strategy with one person, one time versus multiple people multiple times where important nuances may be missed.   

Hurdle 4: Specialized Skill Sets 

There are several disciplines within digital marketing that work together to create successful, polished campaigns. Most marketing professionals only specialize in one or two disciplines, like copywriting or SEO. It’s understandable the array of skill sets needed to write and design your creative, optimize your SEO, manage social media, create a competitive advantage with your online reputation, or even develop video content may be difficult to find in one person or even across your dealership.   

Put a team behind your digital marketing with all of those skills for a cross-coordinated effort. At Dealer.com, you have one point of contact, your performance manager, whose job is to help you obtain your goals. They do that through coordination with accomplished, specialized automotive marketers with the know-how to help you attract high-quality, in-market shoppers through optimized organic search visibility and a consistent look and feel across all digital channels.  

Your digital marketing success starts with the right team. Let’s talk about stellar results for your dealership. Visit dealer.com/a-team.  

1Digital Marketing Institute Whitepaper: Digital Paves the Way in Response to Covid-19