* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download how digital marketers and salespeople can collaborate
Customer experience wikipedia , lookup
Affiliate marketing wikipedia , lookup
Marketing research wikipedia , lookup
Ambush marketing wikipedia , lookup
Target audience wikipedia , lookup
Social media and television wikipedia , lookup
Marketing communications wikipedia , lookup
Product planning wikipedia , lookup
Social commerce wikipedia , lookup
Guerrilla marketing wikipedia , lookup
Integrated marketing communications wikipedia , lookup
Marketing plan wikipedia , lookup
Neuromarketing wikipedia , lookup
Marketing strategy wikipedia , lookup
Sales process engineering wikipedia , lookup
Social media marketing wikipedia , lookup
Target market wikipedia , lookup
Customer relationship management wikipedia , lookup
Marketing mix modeling wikipedia , lookup
Youth marketing wikipedia , lookup
Street marketing wikipedia , lookup
Global marketing wikipedia , lookup
Multi-level marketing wikipedia , lookup
Multicultural marketing wikipedia , lookup
Advertising campaign wikipedia , lookup
Green marketing wikipedia , lookup
Viral marketing wikipedia , lookup
Services marketing wikipedia , lookup
Direct marketing wikipedia , lookup
JordanBentley marketing solution HOW DIGITAL MARKETERS AND SALESPEOPLE CAN COLLABORATE TO CREATE MORE VEHICLE BUYERS By the end of the year, eMarketer predicts that the auto industry will have spent $6.56 billion on digital advertising — an increase from $5.85 billion in 2014. Sure, traditional advertising methods such as newspaper ads, direct mail and billboards have their role in a dealership’s overall marketing strategy, but digital marketing is now in the driver’s seat. It’s changed the way dealerships reach buyers, because buyers aren’t just looking for a vehicle anymore. Today, consumers are looking for an experience that’s cohesive across multiple touchpoints — social media, pay-per-click (PPC), video advertising, the test drive, etc. To give your customers what they’re looking for, the sales and digital marketing teams need to collaborate. In a study by CSO Insights and Velocify, 89 percent of companies that aligned their sales and marketing efforts saw measureable increases in conversion rates. The Roles of Digital Marketers and Salespeople The need to create an integrated car-buying experience is blurring the lines of digital marketers’ and salespeople’s roles. But before talking about how these teams can work together, let’s consider the unique skills and responsibilities each group brings to the table. With digital marketing opening the floodgates to big data, marketers can know what types of vehicles consumers are searching for and discern prospects’ preferred communication methods and devices. And, in exchange for this value-added content, digital marketers can gather information such as an email address, name, address and phone number. Digital marketers are skilled at taking full advantage of all the information sources available to them and creating actionable strategies and targeted messaging based on what the data shows. By knowing their audience, marketers can communicate in a voice consistent with the brand while providing customers with the experience they desire. By the time a salesperson interacts with a prospect, a marketer will have already laid the groundwork for the customer experience. It’s the 42 autosuccessonline.com salesperson’s job to perpetuate that experience all the way through to — and after — the sale. Ways Marketers and Salespeople Can Collaborate By maximizing digital marketers’ and salespeople’s unique skills, your dealership can blow your customers away with a highly personalized and relevant digital marketing strategy. Below are three examples of ways marketers and salespeople can collaborate. Monitor Social Media and Review Sites Chances are, your dealership is already on social media, but just being there isn’t enough. You have to post interesting, relevant content to keep prospects and customers following you. Social media isn’t just about being heard, however. It’s a conversation. Marketers can find out what customers want by searching for posts about your dealership specifically or about the type of vehicles you sell. Marketers should know what people are saying about you on review sites, as well. By responding to each and every post involving your dealership, positive or negative, you’ll be able to foster relationships, maintain customer loyalty and maybe fix a few problems. If your marketing team sees an opportunity for a salesperson to respond to a prospect or customer personally, they should get the salesperson involved. For example, if Bob tweets about how Tim helped him find the perfect car for his needs, have Tim respond personally. Make It Easy for Smartphone Users to Communicate With Your Dealership Thanks to smartphones, phone leads are shaking up marketing. Now, most marketers (66 percent, according to BIA/Kelsey) consider phone leads their highest-quality lead source. When smartphone users hit the search engines looking for information about their next vehicle and come across your dealership — thanks to your search engine optimization strategy, well-placed PPC ads and heavy social media presence — a good strategy is to place clickable numbers in your PPC ads and on your Website. Mobile users love having the option to place a call at the click of a button rather than having to manually dial a number or complete a form on their phones. If they do prefer to submit a Web form, your salespeople need to be ready to respond within five minutes. You can work toward this target by designating a specific employee or team of people to monitor and respond to Web submissions. If that’s not feasible, some call tracking and measurement providers offer technology that sends notifications to a salesperson’s cell phone when a new Web form has been submitted. This gives them the option to call the prospect back. Use Your CRM to Track the Purchase Journey To get the complete picture of a caller’s purchase journey, you need to minimize discrepancies in your CRM. With an up-todate CRM, marketers can do their jobs better, which helps salespeople get more leads. The problem is that the burden of CRM updates typically falls on salespeople, who don’t want to deal with data entry when they have sales to focus on. The key is to automate data syncing between your CRM and other dealership systems when possible. When integrating your CRM with a thirdparty platform, just remember to make sure data imports are happening when they should and that all data is being properly imported. Otherwise, data discrepancies could affect a marketer’s ability to attribute leads to the correct source, track customer interactions and create relevant digital marketing campaigns. In the future, digital marketing will continue to change the way marketers market, salespeople sell and customers buy. By having marketing and salespeople join forces, your dealership can create a consumer experience that turns prospects into customers. Jordan Bentley is the national sales manager for Callbright. He can be reached at 866.865.3175 or [email protected].