One of the biggest weaknesses for many car dealer marketing departments is the lack of connection between departments. Sales people are talking to customers every day, and are asking about their concerns, what they’re looking for, and the kinds of deals they expect.
For many or even most dealerships, there are times when this information doesn’t make it back to the marketing department. If you don’t have the proper communication between your sales and marketing divisions, you may be missing out on some useful dialogue with your customers – and some really robust additions to your overall marketing plan.
Make It Work
If they are not already scheduled, it would benefit many dealerships to arrange a weekly marketing meeting between your sales division and your marketing team. Some common questions that can be asked during the meeting:
- How are customers feeling? Even talking about the weather can start a conversation that gives you an idea of how they are doing. Perhaps there are trends to notice among customers in general.
- What do customers expect? If customers give feedback or complain about service, who do they go to, and what are they saying?
- Online presence – do customers leave feedback for your dealership or sales people on Yelp, Google Reviews, Citysearch or related sites? Do you have a program in place via your marketing department to get this feedback, and give it?
- It’s fine to ask salespeople to directly communicate with customers about what they’re looking for, and share the feedback with your marketing team.
What Do We Do With the Information?
Once your marketing team has collected the necessary info, you can implement what customers are looking for into your overall marketing plan. Using this info in automotive direct mail pieces can ensure that customers who don’t always spend time online will see your promotions.
You can directly tell your customers, “You Gave Us Feedback – and We’re Listening!” Language like this for an automotive direct mail promotion lets customers know you’re listening to their concerns, and you plan to respond and address them.
Make customers feel special with your auto mailers – let them know that you’re paying attention to what they have to say, and the promotions you’re offering won’t apply to every customer that comes in off the street. When customers see that they’re receiving special deals that aren’t available to the general public, greater urgency to buy is created.
Make sure all parts of your organization connect in the middle, and share valuable marketing data about your customers. You don’t want to miss a sale because you weren’t having these valuable feedback meetings.
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