Dealership marketing strategies must be frequently tuned to maintain their effectiveness, lest consumer preferences and technological advances make them obsolete. As the retail automotive community enters into a new year of business, its members must understand the latest headwinds and solutions impacting how businesses attract and retain customers.
On this episode of CBT Now, host Jim Fitzpatrick is joined by Brooke Furniss, founder and CEO of BZ Consultants Group. Furniss is an experienced dealership marketing expert who has helped hundreds of retailers maximize their sales and advertising budgets without falling behind on the latest tools and technologies. Now, she discusses the latest marketing challenges impacting dealers in 2024 and the solutions to overcome them.
Key Takeaways
1. BZ Consultants Group is focused on solving a critical dealership marketing challenge: vendor transparency. Although third-party retail automotive business partners aim to be as transparent as possible, it can be difficult for store owners and managers to identify whether a product or service will work as advertised or integrate with the dealership’s other marketing programs.
2. Furniss’s vendor auditing process and experience in the retail automotive sector gives dealers more freedom to focus on their businesses rather than investing time into learning new technologies or speaking with agents.
3. Another key dealership marketing challenge in 2024 is the release of Google Analytics 4 (GA4). One of Furniss’s first tasks when working with a new client is analyzing their websites to determine if they are optimized for GA4 and making changes as needed.
4. Artificial intelligence has become both a boon and an inconvenience for dealership marketing efforts. While AI has extraordinary benefits for companies in most sectors, many retailers lack familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of different tools, such as chatbots or generative text platforms. Dealers must be sure to educate themselves on software products before implementing them.
5. To prepare their employees for electric vehicle sales, Furniss urges dealers to identify the obstacles preventing their teams from selling battery-powered models. By doing so, managers and store owners can implement solutions, such as FAQs, training videos, or educational meetings, that address weaknesses and enable staff members to approach EV sales and service with more confidence.
"GA4 [Google Analytics 4] is such a big unknown right now. It's changing all the time. That's something that, as soon as a client comes on board, we're immediately getting into their GA4 properties and saying, 'Is this optimized?'" — Brooke Furniss
