automotive marketing Archives

Dealership Success: Creating 24/7 Availability

admin | Customer Service | automotive marketing, automotive marketing tips, customer service, dealership customer service

How many times have you found yourself perusing recommended products from Amazon well into the late-night hours? Or calling a business long after closing to leave a message so you won’t have to wait on hold the next day. Better yet, have you opted for a website chat to get information or troubleshoot a problem instead of calling or going to an actual brick-and-mortar store? The internet has vastly changed how we interact with businesses. After all, you can buy a car without ever talking to another human! So, in this digital age of “I know what I want, and I want it now,” how can dealerships be open for business when everyone has gone home for the day? Here are three ways you can improve communication and customer experience while driving dealership success.

Start with the CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems existed long before the actual software was created. They usually required a well-organized salesperson and binders upon binders of customer details. Fortunately, today most dealerships utilize a CRM system that organizes customer data, tracks interactions, and even automates communication processes.

By segmenting leads based on their preferences and behavior, dealerships can tailor their marketing efforts and follow-up strategies accordingly. Automated email campaigns, personalized messages, and targeted promotions can keep leads (and even past customers) engaged and move them closer to a sale—even when the dealership is closed. Overall, investing in a comprehensive CRM system helps dealerships build lasting relationships with customers and maximize their sales opportunities around the clock.

Leverage Technology

Car dealerships can maximize prospective and current client interactions through various methods, even when closed. First, investing in an engaging online presence is a must. Dealerships should maintain active social media profiles, regularly posting engaging content, showcasing their inventory, and responding promptly to inquiries. Additionally, having a user-friendly website with comprehensive information about available vehicles, financing options, and contact details can keep potential customers engaged outside of business hours. Implementing live chat support or chatbots on the website can further facilitate immediate assistance and capture leads even when the dealership is closed.

Second, consider implementing emerging technology solutions like virtual reality or augmented reality on your website or mobile application. Both can offer a more immersive experience for customers browsing vehicles remotely. Additionally, by offering virtual showroom tours or interactive demonstrations of specific car features, dealerships can simulate the in-person experience and generate excitement among potential buyers. Integrating these technologies enables customers to explore vehicles (and your dealership) at their convenience, making it easier to maintain interest and drive conversions outside of regular business hours.

Prioritize Customer Interactions

Unsure where to upgrade your after-hours availability? Don’t worry. While a CRM, website live chat, and virtual showroom tool offer great ways to improve the customer experience without turning the lights on, you can determine (and prioritize) what will work best for your dealership. So, before signing a contract with a new software or outsourced service, take a step back and consider how your customers prefer to interact with you. From the website to email, floor ups to the service bay—and everything in between—your people are interacting with current and prospective clients all day long. But which channels convert best?

Consider vehicle purchases in the past 30, 60, or even 90 days. What are the lead sources for most of these sales? If the majority start out as internet leads, consider offering an after-hours live chat service on your website. Similarly, if a good portion calls into the dealership first, an answering service could be another way to capture more potential customers for those calls that come in after closing or on Sundays.

Remember, your customers are people—just like you! They read product reviews, watch videos on products they are interested in, and choose whether to email, call, or chat based on whatever sense of urgency they may be feeling. The best way to make sure you’re available when they need you is to provide options. They’ll pick whichever option they like best. But if the only option they have is to wait until 9:00 a.m. on Monday, you may never get a chance to talk with them again.

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2024 issue of Fixed Ops Magazine.

About the Author:

Andrea Oelschlager is an Account Executive for Customer Traac®, an automotive call center and BDC that helps dealerships across the country improve performance and profitability. With over 25 years of experience with Customer Traac, her background includes just about every role within the sales team, from manager to assistant. Her vast industry and solution knowledge and skills help her match dealerships with the services they need to reach business goals.

How to Improve Your Dealership Marketing Strategies

admin | Automotive Marketing | automotive marketing, automotive marketing tips, dealership marketing

Take a look at these five tips for improving your automotive marketing strategy and how Customer Traac may be able to help your dealership grow.

Spend More Time Identifying Your Goals and Needs

Too often, marketers jump right to the strategy without taking enough time to figure out exactly what the problem is and what the goals of the initiative are. This is the best way to ensure your strategy fails; after all, how can you succeed with your marketing strategy if you aren’t even sure what you are trying to accomplish?

Albert Einstein put it best when he said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” In fact, the first tip marketing students learn in business school is that while devising a strategy, spend at least 80 percent of your time identifying the problem and fully understanding what you are trying to accomplish.

So, while devising a marketing strategy for your dealership, be sure to take as much time as possible to fully understand your business problem, business needs, and specific goals.

Take More Time to Understand Your Target Audience

Similarly, while creating your marketing strategy, it is crucial to ensure you understand all aspects of your target audience so you can develop as targeted a message and strategy as possible. This means going beyond the typical demographics of traditional marketing, such as age, gender, income, etc.

In fact, in the digital age where marketing is done primarily online, it is important to understand the digital behaviors of your audience. For example, what are members of your target audience searching for on Google? What are they interacting with on social media? The answers to these questions will allow you to create a targeted digital advertising and marketing strategy that reaches your potential customers where they interact online.

Focus on Automotive Digital Marketing

It’s 2021 and your target audience lives online, which means your marketing efforts must be focused on the digital sphere. This is crucial to keep in mind because not only are your future customers interacting online, but they are also searching for their cars online. So, if you want to keep up, you must build an effective digital marketing strategy.

Building an effective digital marketing strategy involves a diverse range of marketing tactics that aim to capture consumers’ attention online. This involves focusing on search engine optimization (SEO), social media, Google Ads, and much more.

Your Strategy Should Revolve Around Your Customers

As a manager or owner of a dealership, you know that customer service and providing an exceptional customer experience are crucial for a dealership’s success. So, be sure to devise your marketing strategy based on providing the right experience for your customers. While planning your marketing, always ask yourself, “How will this impact our customers? How will our customers react to this?”

Outsource Your Automotive BDC to Enhance Your Marketing and Customer Experience

One of the best ways to ensure a successful dealership marketing strategy is to outsource your automotive marketing efforts to a trusted third party. Outside automotive BDCs can provide expert and objective consulting, while also possessing the resources to create and implement full-scale marketing campaigns. Plus, they can save your dealership lots of time and money, as you will not have to hire and train a team of marketing professionals and spend the time to oversee the campaign.

If you would like to improve your dealership’s marketing by outsourcing your BDC, or if you would like to speak with an expert in the field to learn more, please reach out to us to see how we can help. At Customer Traac, we work with you to understand your specific goals and needs, so we can provide a personalized service that optimizes your dealership’s marketing and communication efforts. We offer a full range of automotive marketing services, including a full-charge contact center, appointment scheduling, outbound calling campaigns, and a full-service automotive BDC. Our agents go through extensive training to make sure they provide the best customer service and help your business grow.

We partner with dealerships across the United States. Please call us at 763-553-2989 or fill out our contact form to learn more.

What is Digital Automotive Marketing?

admin | Automotive Marketing | automotive marketing, digital marketing

Digital marketing is the future of marketing, especially in the automotive industry, where more and more consumers are searching for cars and how to service them online. So, as a dealership, it is crucial for you to be on top of the latest digital marketing trends and how they impact the automotive industry.

While we don’t have the time to go through all trends in digital marketing, this article will discuss three of the most important aspects of digital marketing in the automotive industry, along with a few tips for each. We will also discuss how you can receive outside help on your digital marketing efforts to more effectively optimize your marketing.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an excellent way to reach lots of consumers all at once and for a low cost. In the automotive industry, we recommend using email marketing as a way to engage and follow up with current customers. To illustrate, you can use email marketing to invite customers who bought a new car from your dealership for service check-ups, oil changes, and more. You can also use email marketing as a way to promote service discounts and upsell products and services.

Moreover, sending these emails is easy, as you only need to create one email template that you can send to as many people as you’d like. You can also create different email campaigns for different types of customers to better target your messaging.

To create effective email marketing campaigns, we recommend using email marketing software companies such as HubSpot, Constant Contact, or MailChimp. These platforms allow you to organize customer data and create easy-to-use email marketing templates. We also recommend seeking outside help from experts in the field who can help optimize your campaign based on industry best-practices. We’ll discuss this further at the end of this article.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Paid advertising is a huge aspect of digital marketing and usually comes in the form of Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or other online advertising platforms. This is referred to as “pay-per-click” advertising because as the advertiser, you usually only pay for ads on which consumers click. In other words, your ad could be shown 10,000 times, but if it is only clicked on five times, you only pay for those five clicks.

Pay-per-click advertising can be effective for two main reasons. First, because you are paying for exposure, it is much easier to reach consumers who may be interested in your products or services. Secondly, it is easy to target your ads to a specific audience to ensure that only certain people see them. To illustrate, with Google Ads, you are able to target your ads to people who search for specific phrases (or “keywords”) on Google.

For example, as a dealership, you may decide to advertise a discount for oil changes. If you do, you can target your ads to Google searchers in your specific geographic area and only show your ad to people searching for “oil change near me,” “cheap oil change,” and other related keywords.

Social Media Management

As you are well aware, social media is everything in today’s world. All of your customers and potential customers live and breathe Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more. So, it is crucial for your dealership to be active on social media to reach customers where they interact the most.

While managing your dealership’s social media, there are many things to keep in mind. Here are three of the most important tips to remember:

Respond Quickly: Social media is all about communicating with your customers. So, if a customer asks you a question or interacts with a picture or post, you should respond right away to keep them engaged.

Employ Different Strategies for Each Platform: Not all social media is the same, as each platform has different guidelines and ways it operates. For example, Instagram is entirely picture-based; Facebook has almost no organic reach; and Twitter is about being as brief as possible. We won’t go through the ins and outs of each platform here, but be sure to study each platform before you use it and employ unique strategies for each that are tailored toward that specific platform.

Commit to Your Social Media: If you are going to be active on social media, be sure you devise an all-out strategy that will allow you to take advantage of each platform. In other words, don’t “half-ass” it. Either spend the time and money to fully optimize each platform, or don’t bother wasting your energy. We highly recommend the former, as social media is where your customers are most active.

Enhance Your Dealership’s Digital Automotive Marketing with Customer Traac

If you are looking for digital automotive marketing help for your dealership, or if you would like to speak with an expert in the field to learn more, please reach out to us to see how we can help. At Customer Traac, we work with you to understand your specific goals and needs, so we can provide a personalized service that optimizes your dealership’s marketing and communication efforts. We offer a full range of automotive marketing services, including a full-charge contact center, appointment scheduling, outbound calling campaigns, and a full-service automotive BDC. Our agents go through extensive training to make sure they provide the best customer service and help your business grow.

We partner with dealerships across the United States. Please call us at 763-553-2989 or fill out our contact form to learn more.

Automotive Marketing Best Practices

admin | Automotive Marketing | automotive marketing

Automotive marketing can be challenging and time consuming, but we’re here to give you some best-practices so you can optimize your marketing efforts and increase your ROI. The following are four automotive marketing best-practices, followed by how Customer Traac can help your dealership grow.

Prioritize Customer Experience

Providing an excellent customer experience is crucial for any type of marketing, especially in the automotive industry where direct competition is fierce. As a dealership, you sell a lot of the same products as your competitors, so it is important to find a way to differentiate yourself from the competition. And one of the best ways to do this is by providing the best experience for those looking to buy or service their vehicles.

So, when coordinating your marketing efforts, always prioritize your customers’ experience. You must build their trust and make them feel as though you are their best option. You should also always communicate your messages to your customers in ways that are best for them and that will lead to the best experience for them.

Optimize Your Web Presence for SEO

In today’s world, many consumers begin their search for buying or servicing their vehicles online. It is sometimes as simple as searching for “buy a car near me,” “best Toyota dealership near me,” “service my car in New York,” or something similar. If you want to stand a chance at being recognized by the thousands of potential customers searching for vehicles online, you must build a web presence that is optimized for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). In other words, you should tailor your online marketing efforts toward ranking highly on a search engine result page when consumers search for terms related to the products you sell and the services you provide.

To illustrate, if you specialize in repairing Honda CRVs, you want to rank close to the top of a search engine result page when someone searches for “repair Honda CRV near me.” For more information about SEO and to learn some best-practices for improving your dealership’s search rankings, read this article about SEO and how it works.

Focus on Customer Retention

Customer retention is vital in the automotive industry because the lifetime value of a customer can be astronomical, seeing as one customer may purchase numerous vehicles and service each one multiple times throughout his or her life. In other words, one customer can be worth up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue over the course of that customer’s life.

One of the best ways to focus on customer retention is to “play the long game.” In other words, while creating your marketing strategy, don’t only focus on short term revenue goals. Rather, focus on how your marketing actions may affect how a customer thinks in the long run. To illustrate, while taking a certain action may seem appealing in the short term and may provide an increase in revenue now, if it could hurt your customers in the long run and possibly impact customer retention down the line, it may not be the best idea to implement.

Partner with an Automotive BDC or Contact Center

Speaking of customer retention, one of the best ways to increase customer retention is to partner with an automotive BDC or contact center. So, we recommend doing so as a part of any automotive marketing strategy.

One of the biggest ways dealerships lose customers — and especially prospective customers — is by having low call answer rates. It is often difficult for service advisors to answer calls for a number of reasons: sometimes they are working with customers at the store and cannot pick up the phone; sometimes they are on the other line; sometimes they are on a break; and sometimes they choose not to answer, especially if it is late in the day and they want to leave early. Regardless of the reason for missing calls, each missed call is a missed potential customer for life, or a current customer who is now upset and impatient and may look elsewhere to buy or service his or her vehicle.

Outsourcing your inbound and outbound call management will ensure you miss fewer calls and fill your service calendar with appointments. Partnering with automotive BDCs or contact centers will ensure trained agents answer nearly every call, schedule more appointments, and keep your customers satisfied, thus increasing your customer retention and ROI. Moreover, BDCs and contact centers will streamline your marketing activities and ensure everything is done properly, so you can focus on selling and servicing more vehicles.

Enhance Your Automotive Marketing with Customer Traac

If you would like to improve your dealership’s marketing efforts and customer experience, or if you would like to speak with an expert in the field to learn more, please reach out to us to see how we can help. At Customer Traac, we work with you to understand your specific goals and needs, so we can provide a personalized service that optimizes your dealership’s marketing and communication efforts. We offer a full range of automotive marketing services, including a full-charge contact center, appointment scheduling, outbound calling campaigns, and a full-service automotive BDC. Our agents go through extensive training to make sure they provide the best customer service and help your business grow.

We partner with dealerships across the United States. Please call us at 763-553-2989 or fill out our contact form to learn more.

Outbound Campaigns: The Secret to Increasing Dealership Revenue

admin | Automotive BDC | automotive appointment scheduling, automotive bdc, automotive marketing, customer satisfaction

Continuing the conversation with existing customers is key to maintaining that relationship and customer retention.

Outbound campaigns can be highly effective for improving sales and service revenue in that it puts the power back in the hands of the dealership. Online and print advertisements promoting special offers leaves the decision making to the customer, who may not take the initiative to call the dealership to schedule. That’s why it’s so important for dealership business development centers to proactively engage with customers to drive business.

Start at the beginning

Leads that come in through your website are the best gift you can receive. These leads are customers who are actually interested in working with you and need to be captured or converted. Many salespeople may follow up on these leads via email or phone, but if they play phone tag or don’t get a response in a week or two, they end up forgotten. Chances are, customers who are reaching out via your website are early in their search for a vehicle, and they aren’t in a hurry to make a decision. But by being a resource for them during their car search can put you above the rest.

Pro Tip: If a customer leaves a voicemail or a phone number, call them back around the time they initially called you. That may be the time of day when they are free at work or are available to accept calls. If you don’t reach them the first time, try a call just outside of work hours between 4 and 5 pm, or around the lunch hour. Chances are, if someone reached out recently they are expecting the call and will be to hear from you! It can sometimes be forgotten how much people want a warm voice over the phone. It gives a personal touch in a world that is so much online and impersonal.

Those with vehicle equity

A good business development center will have a vehicle equity calculator that can effectively track timelines of vehicles purchased within their dealership, and pair that with ones that have left the lot. The amount of years owned, miles driven, and the make or model all determine a vehicle’s equity. Following up with these customers can sometimes lead to an upgraded purchase or a service appointment.

If the customer’s car is worth considering as a trade-in towards a new vehicle, you can help guide them through the process and get them into an upgraded vehicle faster. If that is not what they want, you can offer service incentives and, when the time comes, incentives for when they do want to purchase a new vehicle, to do it through your dealership.

Customers who bought but never came back

According to Snapcell, 76% of car buyers bought their next vehicle from the dealership that performed their regular maintenance. But only 13% of those car buyers had maintenance performed at the same dealership they bought the car from. Yikes! That’s why, after a customer buys a car, the sales team should follow up quickly to ensure satisfaction and answer any questions or concerns the customer may have after their purchase.

Setting a schedule to follow-up one, three, and six months after the vehicle purchase with customers can be some of the most effective outbound campaigns your dealership can run. Because we know there is one thing they will absolutely need with their new car—service maintenance. Reaching out to customers who bought a car through your dealership but haven’t utilized your service bay is an incredible opportunity. It’s possible these customers aren’t aware of the service incentives through the dealership and just need a helping hand to get there and get their car taken care of by the team who already knows them.

Customers who visited over six months ago

Run an inquiry of all your customers you saw six months ago or longer and begin an outbound campaign offering a percentage off service if they come in during the next six months. Chances are they either haven’t serviced their vehicle at all or they went to a different shop.

Pro Tip: Run these outbound campaigns right before winter, when people want to winterize their cars, and again before summer when people are planning road trips and vacations. These incentives can reignite a desire to come back to your dealership and they are great for customer retention!

Customer who recently received service

Customers who were just in for service should also get a follow-up call within seven days. Be sure to ask if they were satisfied with the service and how their car is running overall. This can be a good opportunity to schedule their next service appointment, like oil changes and tire rotations. This also presents an opportunity to catalog the mileage of their vehicle and discuss their plans for when it comes time to trade-in. Pro Tip: Create incentives based on future resale value if customers continue to get service through your dealership.

Outbound campaigns for potential and existing customers are one of the most important tools at your disposal in increasing sales and improving customer satisfaction. Customers want to feel important and cared for, and maintaining that relationship throughout the weeks, months, and years after they’ve worked with you can significantly improve your sales and service revenue as well as your dealership’s reputation.

Outsourced business development centers like Customer Traac can help ensure your customers never go without a follow-up call, email, or a pre-scheduled service. On top of service appointments and sales equity mining, our team can work with your dealership to create custom outbound campaigns based on current or future sales trends, and continual efforts to retain customers. It’s what we’ve been doing for over 30 years!

Contact a member of the Customer Traac team to how we can help your dealership reach profit goals today.