Dealer Forward – Marketing Edition: Shifting Consumer Preferences

Welcome to a special marketing edition of Dealer Forward. For years, dealer and technology partners have been working to bridge the ‘online to-in-store’ experiences. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the in-store experience changed significantly, and has forced the question: why are there still separate experiences? Here today to answer that question is Wayne Pastore, VP of dealer marketing solutions for Cox Automotive, and Jeff Ramsey, eCommerce and marketing director for Jones Junction.

To begin this process, dealers must first access and understand how to gather and interpret consumer data. Before COVID-19 hit, Jones Junction had historical data track consumer insights. However, there is no historical data for a pandemic. So, Ramsey and his team are using recent, live data and the backend analytics from Dealer.com, Google Ads, and Facebook insights. This allows the dealer group to adjust how they engage with consumers quickly and efficiently.

Consumers are savvy and are seeing these shifts in the market adjust to their new expectations. When it comes to these new implementations, it’s vital that automated marketing creative is accurately and effectively communicating to consumers. For example, Jones Junction has changed its marketing messaging from shop your vehicle online, to shop your payment online. Customers have responded positively to this change.

To hear more great insight from Wayne Pastore and Jeff Ramsey, be sure to watch the entire Dealer Forward episode above. You can also download Cox Automotive’s free Marketing Playbook at DealerPlaybooks.com to find out more about their holistic and tactical digital retailing strategy.

Did you miss the last episode of Dealer Forward? Catch up on the series here!

We want to hear from you! Please share your thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this topic with host Jim Fitzpatrick at jfitzpatrick@cbtnews.com.