One of the most critical aspects of auto marketing is retaining existing customers. This requires a multipronged approach to leveraging technology.
An excellent place to start is with the customer experience. It’s an area where many OEMs are struggling with customer-focused transformation.
Social Media Marketing
Using social media to market your business is a great way to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. It can also provide valuable customer insights, which can help you tailor your product offerings to meet your customers’ needs.
Providing excellent customer service on social media can lead to positive word-of-mouth advertising and increased sales based on automotive dealership customer retention statistics. This can help you build a loyal customer base and establish yourself as an industry leader.
As a result, utilizing social media marketing for your automotive business can be a cost-effective and efficient way to reach new customers. Creating engaging content, targeting specific demographics, and leveraging paid advertising can all help you build your dealership’s online presence.
The first step to a successful auto shop social media strategy is identifying your target audience. Then, develop a voice that resonates with them and a tone that makes them feel comfortable.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing is one of the most effective ways to retain current customers. Whether through text messaging or a branded app, mobile can help automotive companies build a stronger connection with existing customers.
Auto dealerships can use SMS to send notifications to potential car buyers about sales, special offers, or service reminders. Unlike emails automatically sorted as spam or left unread, mobile marketing can be easily personalized to each customer’s preferences and interests.
Dealerships that embrace a start-to-finish mobile strategy that integrates all their business processes will gain a competitive edge. They can also use mobile to connect with consumers at each stage of the car buying journey and vehicle ownership lifecycle.
Creating mobile marketing strategies that meet the unique needs and intent of people shopping on smartphones versus desktops will keep your brand ahead of your competition and help lift ROI to new heights. For example, location-based services can allow marketers to send messages based on customers’ proximity to your business. And audience targeting with contextual data like foot traffic can help you reach audiences with a message tailored to their needs and interests.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool to help you engage with your customers and build lasting relationships. It enables you to keep in touch with existing customers and encourage them to return when buying another vehicle.
Creating personalized messages is one of the best ways to use emails to drive customer retention. This can include sending out a welcome or activation email to customers who are new to your brand or re-engaging them after they’ve “dropped off.”
The key is to keep your emails relevant and not overtly promotional. Too often, marketers send out promotional emails irrelevant to their audience or cause them to unsubscribe altogether.
Data and segmentation are essential for effective email marketing, ensuring you send the right message to the right person at the right time. This ensures that you’re not wasting time or money on email campaigns that aren’t successful.
Online Reputation Management
Customers who visit your dealership expect to find a convenient, fast-paced experience. They also want to feel safe and comfortable at your business.
To deliver on these expectations, your dealership must have a solid plan to respond promptly to negative reviews and comments. That’s where online reputation management comes in.
A good reputation management team can monitor and alert you when mentions of your brand occur on social media, review sites, or even employer websites like Glassdoor. They can help you respond quickly to unflattering statements and end nasty rumors, positively impacting customer satisfaction scores.
In addition to responding to negative reviews, effective online reputation management can proactively influence what people see on search engine results pages (SERPs). This is important because the top five listings receive about two-thirds of clicks.
Customer Relationship Management
One of the most effective ways to leverage technology for your automotive business is through customer relationship management. This system tracks your customers and leads, including website visits, social media interactions, emails, phone calls, and other marketing material.
Using this data can help you learn more about your customers and how to improve their experiences. This is important because customer experience significantly drives brand loyalty, overall revenue, and reputation.
A sound customer relationship management system will allow your business to collect data about all of its interactions with your customers, so you can track how effective those interactions are and what needs to be improved. It can also help you discover how to price your products and services better or improve customer service.
With the advent of digital technology, it is no surprise that dealerships are exploring the role of mobile apps in enhancing retention. These tools can streamline scheduling, facilitate payment and closing processes, and offer advisors an opportunity to engage with customers personally and upsell or cross-sell vehicles. But to be successful, they must be designed with serious thought and effort to meet the needs of today’s automotive shoppers.
