By Kathi Kruse, Founder, Kruse Control Inc.

The list of skills a dealership marketer needs to succeed continues to grow and evolve.

Every dealership needs to make deliberate decisions with their marketing strategy, but the increasing complexities leave many wondering which way to turn… and how to allocate their limited resources.

We don’t live in a siloed world anymore.

A dealership’s reputation follows it everywhere, online and off. Everything is connected throughout the consumer’s shopping process. Dealership marketers must possess the skills to map that process and deliver the right content (at the right time).

Marketing continues to challenge.

According to the Mailchimp Dealership Marketing Trend Report, 62 percent of small business marketing decision-makers agreed that they want to try new things and adhere to current best practices, but they simply don’t have time to figure out what those best practices are or how to implement them. Given that data, it’s no surprise that 31 percent of business owners cite marketing as their number one challenge.

Time, lack of resources or maybe too many options continue to hinder dealers.

• Many don’t particularly like doing marketing themselves or have a lot of experience with it.
• Some dealers hire in-house but have difficulty determining what constitutes good results other than how many more cars they’ve sold.
• Others outsource, which brings on more challenges as dealers try to decide where to spend and why (often guided by an eager vendor who may or may not prioritize the store’s best interests).

This is the conundrum many dealers find themselves in. As my long-time client once said, “Half my marketing is working. I just don’t know which half.”

Today’s dealerships have more marketing options than ever.

The number of marketing solutions designed for dealerships has skyrocketed. From automation and social media management to customer relationship management and analytics, the increasing amount of information and capabilities is powerful.

But with power, an array of tools and apps to choose from, and rapid changes in marketing trends, comes complexity and uncertainty in knowing which methods and tools are effective and deliver results.

Marketing is evolving. Dealership marketing often is not.

Social media, search (including local search and Google My Business), content, Facebook ads, digital ads, and the strategies that bring everything into focus, have all advanced to a level that many marketers struggle to keep up with.

It’s very difficult now to achieve good outcomes without a specialized group of skills. While some marketers may be incredibly talented in some of the more traditional skills, in the past few years, those traditional skills have become the baseline.

It’s no longer possible to just ‘figure things out,’ and that kind of approach can hurt your business reputation and future revenue.

Is your digital marketing strategy ready for 2020?

The skills every dealership marketer needs have never been more diverse. Mastering the complexities of today and the ones to come, means upping your skills game.

Take control of your store’s growth by learning more about what it takes to succeed. Insist that your marketers possess the skills to take you where you want to go.

9 Skills Every Marketer Must Have in 2020

Dealerships may be rethinking their approach to marketing and possibly considering a different approach in 2020. Here’s a list of diverse skills every dealership marketer needs in order to survive (and thrive) in 2020.

1. Web Design

Your website is your digital storefront and often the first thing customers come in contact with when they’re researching a vehicle purchase.

• Does your website represent your offerings well?
• What’s the user experience like? Does it flow through to the sale?
• Is the site structure solid and secure?
• Is it optimized for search engines?
• Does the content answer a user’s questions?
• Is your site converting visitors into customers?

A basic understanding of site structure and user experience is crucial.

2. Comprehensive Writing Capabilities

Writing skills, including copywriting, are vital in today’s marketing and will continue to grow in importance in 2020.

Writing for the web requires two separate sets of skills:

1. Ability to create content that attracts, engages, and converts customers.

2. Search engine optimization techniques to achieve site authority.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of good copy and content.

3. Strategy Development and Deployment

A dealership recently reached out to me for marketing advice. They had been bootstrapping it for a year and were at a point where a digital marketing strategy was sorely needed. A few months back, they tried Google ads but said, “Because we didn’t have a strategy, we spent a lot and got very little.”

Goals are at the heart of strategy development.

Some marketers jump to tactics first, simply acquiesce to the boss’ demands, (“Get me more sales!”), and rarely inject their own expertise to uncover the specific metrics to achieve success.

Always map out a strategy as you would for anything else. Just like GPS on your phone, you need to know where you’re going and the best route to get to your destination on time and in great shape.

4. Data Analysis

There is a massive shortage of marketers that are skilled in the art of data analysis. A recent study found that only three percent of marketers are competent in analyzing data!

In digital marketing, every visitor, view, click, and share is tracked. Sifting through the mountain of data to review each month can be exhausting.

Of course, while marketing creative and execution are important, measuring and analyzing results are too. They go together like peanut butter and jelly; One without the other only gets you halfway there.

5. Social Media Savvy

Social media has grown up, graduated college, got married, had kids and is staring down the barrel at middle age.

Every dealership marketer in 2020 should be a regular user of social media personally, as well as professionally, which requires being savvy in the social environment.

To remain competitive, marketers should possess social finesse, be able to tell stories well, and maintain a working knowledge of storytelling components.

It’s also important to manage the community you’re building. The bigger a dealership’s presence gets, the more important to integrate community management into daily job duties. People are commenting, sending messages, and writing reviews – replies are expected.

6. Adaptability

The art of business is the constant readjustment to our customer’s needs.

Digital media has transformed all facets of modern lifestyle and culture. There’s hardly any aspect of modern society that has remained untouched by the digital media revolution.

Navigating this can be treacherous. How can you continue to build your business while at the same time, make sure you’re utilizing the latest and best solutions? Be flexible and ready to adapt to new, uncomfortable ways to attract and engage customers.

Stay on your toes and be willing to respond to new information as it arises. To create a truly flexible digital strategy, you need to incorporate adaptability into your marketing structure.

7. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for dealerships to more effectively market on multiple channels online and automate repetitive tasks.

According to the Deloitte’s Connecting Small Business in the U.S. report, 80% of U.S. small businesses aren’t taking full advantage of digital tools such as data analytics and more sophisticated online tools.

The marketing automation space grows exponentially each year. As marketing automation tools continue to improve and multiply, it won’t get any easier to navigate in 2020. Shrewd marketers command the use of specific tools while also investigating and re-evaluating to discover new and enhanced solutions.

8. Decisiveness

Humans are predictably irrational, readily sidetracked and constantly making decisions. And the more decisions we make in a given day, the worse we get at it.

Decisiveness is an element of great leadership.

In today’s marketing, it’s not only what you put out there to attract customers that counts – it’s what you do once they see it and start interacting with it.

I see so many dealerships still trying to keep a veil up between themselves and their customers. Most of it is habit from the old days of advertising and PR. Those dealerships who work decisively at removing this barrier will be positioned for success in the long-term.

Dealerships that connect with consumers on a human level will win in 2020.

It’s a skill to interact with customers and to do it well demands decisiveness. Often that interaction requires thinking on your feet, which calls for confidence, patience, empathy, gratitude, and courage. All those skills make for better decisions and happier, engaged customers.

And speaking of empathy…

9. Empathy

Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and seeing things from their perspective helps a great deal with understanding customer needs, creating meaningful marketing, and ultimately satisfying their queries enough to get them to act.

Empathy is also the key to outstanding customer experience. As social media has become more integrated with how we communicate, and how your customers prefer to communicate with you, dealerships must develop protocols to successfully address customers’ needs and inquiries (ie: lead process).

In tense situations, when there’s a comments/online reviews section and there’s an audience watching, a marketing manager may not always deliver a solution, but she/he can always deliver empathy.

When you put yourself in your customer’s shoes, it gets easier to acknowledge struggles and think critically about the best solutions.

About the Author

Kathi Kruse is an automotive social media marketing expert, blogger, speaker, coach, author, and founder of Kruse Control Inc. Born in the heart of Los Angeles to a family of “car people,” Kathi’s passion for the car business spans a 30-year career managing successful dealerships in Southern California. Kathi is the author of “Automotive Social Business – How to Captivate Your Customers, Sell More Cars & Be Generally Remarkable on Social Media.”