Long gone are the days of guessing what your audience is interested in. The past few years have resulted in new technologies that let marketers expand their reach and learn more about their audiences. These tools are especially critical for marketers in the automotive space.

For automotive consumers, there’s so much to know about them: what car are they interested in? When was the last time they purchased a vehicle? Have they gotten their vehicle serviced at your location before? Are they due for an oil change?

Now, think back 20 years. How would you have learned all that information? If you were lucky, the customer in front of you was a regular to your shop or dealership and you happened to remember all the information above. Then, 10 years ago, you might have had a spreadsheet with some of the information you need stored in it sporadically – depending on how accurate your staff was.

And, back to present day. Marketing automation platforms are now available and make knowing your customers much easier and more streamlined. These platforms can record information about your customers automatically. Want to know who opened your latest newsletter and offer them 15% off their next oil change? With a marketing automation platform, you can do just that.
You can also tailor your messages to appeal to each individual user’s preferred vehicle. For example, if a user has been viewing your web pages on SUVs and another has been looking at hatchbacks, you can customize the communications you send them to reflect their interests.

The best part is that the information used in both of the above-mentioned scenarios is automatically tracked and recorded through a marketing automation platform. This means that without adding extra work to your day-today operations, you’re able to increase your knowledge about your customer base and, in turn, increase the personalization you are able to offer them.

Essentially, there are several different options for using marketing automation to learn more about your audience. First, you can use tracking pixels on your website that record in your CRM what each web visitor is looking for. Then, in all of your automated marketing campaigns, you can add tags or scores to users automatically based on how they interact with your messages.

Being able to do this builds brand loyalty and trust with your customers. And, we all know that brand loyalty and trust are two of the biggest factors when it comes to attracting and retaining clients.