Marketing Tactics to Get Your Dealership Back to Business

The automotive industry is working hard to minimize the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and maximize business in an unexpected version of 2020. It’s imperative for dealerships to be aware of the trends affecting the industry today, how to adapt to these changes, and adjustments they can make now and in the near future to ensure long term success. 

Recent Changes to the Auto Industry

The auto industry has been deeply affected by the coronavirus pandemic. According to Experian’s automotive industry trends reports, every week since the beginning of March 2020 has seen a negative trend compared to year-over-year comparisons, hitting as low as -69 percent. And while dealership sales are down compared to 2019, web traffic has seen sizable gains during the summer of 2020.

Google reports a similar trend. Auto interest in Google searches has been steadily increasing for weeks, aligning with sales trends. Initially, 2020 year-over-year sales near the beginning of the pandemic were down; however, in the summer, search interests were up around 20 percent over prior year. Additionally, month-over-month trends for searches of terms like “is it a good time to buy a car” were up 900 percent in March 2020. 

While the automotive industry initially took a hit as buyers exercised caution, demand for cars is rebounding strong. With less reliance on public transport and more on personal vehicles, Google found that 93 percent of car owners claim they are using their vehicle now more than ever. Capitalizing on that demand, dealerships can get back to business with a number of guidelines to adapt to the new normal. 

Adapting How to Measure Success

Given the colossal changes in the automotive industry compared to 2019, it’s imperative that brands adapt their metrics for measuring success. For example, sales will likely be down compared to last year, but it would be a mistake to rely solely on that data — most of your competitors are experiencing the same thing.

Instead, utilize your data to measure relative success during the pandemic. One valuable KPI is market share in a depressed market rather than sales growth. It will provide relative details in your market for the current times and can give a more holistic view of your efforts’ success. Focus on digital metrics, such as web traffic, that showcase high-value, web-based conversions. 

Fining Success Moving Forward

Understanding trends and adaptations is useless if dealerships don’t take action based on these insights. In the immediate term, dealerships must ask themselves, “What do my customers need right now?” Update your Google My Business hours during COVID, include new service offerings, lay out precautions the dealership is taking, enhance your listings with rich media like street view or interior photos — keeping your online presence up-to-date is imperative while many businesses may still be assessing their operation plans.

Another immediate priority should be to re-engage those customers who display purchase interest. Remarketing to customers that have visited your site is crucial if you don’t want them to stray to a competitor. Connect with them across a number of channels such as search, Youtube, display, and social with messaging that is empathetic and informative about what you can offer and how you are addressing the changing climate.  

Over the next three months, you’ll want to focus on your marketing goals and spend. Prioritize your budget to heavily favor channels that are relatively low-cost and create engaging experiences for your customers online. Marketing channels such as SEO, content creation, website customer experience, data hygiene, tracking changing media habits, and reputation management are key in the short term. 

If you aren’t already, utilize video to maximize engagement while more eyeballs than ever are online. Create a virtual showroom, highlight your inventory, and showcase your social distancing adaptations through video. This creates memorable experiences for your customers and if done well, is more likely to be shared which can organically help your social strategy. 

When assessing your strategy for the next year, dealerships should assess the key elements of their ecommerce experience. Define and diagnose your online purchase process — are there any issues? Be sure that it’s transparent about the key features of the vehicles and communicates clear pricing. 

Consider full digital retailing — speak with your website provider as well as your DMS and CRM provider to work on codifying as many aspects of your business as possible to adapt to the new retail world that COVID has created. Much of your process can be digitized, such as virtual trade-in appraisals, online loan approvals in real-time, online financing options, paperwork, and at-home vehicle delivery. FCA is a leader in the space — they recently launched DriveFCA, an online retail program digitizing the car-buying experience.

Work hand-in-hand with your OEMs, many of whom provide the resources and coordination to execute an ecommerce strategy on behalf of dealerships, and most importantly, they do so at scale. Consider what your OEMs are doing today and planning for the future and find any ways your dealership can get involved and optimize your digital efforts.

Continue to monitor auto industry trends and adapt to them. Analyze your data and use it to make the most informed decisions and optimizations possible based on the online metrics mentioned above. Measure KPIs that track digital touchpoints and how they help attribute sales. 

By following the digital trends that are happening in many industries, dealerships can stay ahead of the curve compared to their competition. While the industry may be down, you can still optimize your dealership to take advantage of the digital trends that the pandemic has accelerated. Dealerships can respond and adapt to these changes to get themselves back to business quickly.

For more information, be sure to watch our webinar Getting Your Dealership Back to Business.