The car market is slowly falling back into its old habits, which means more competition, increased incentives, and bigger automotive marketing budgets. But when it comes to marketing, whether on TV, online, or through traditional mediums, many dealers have fallen out of practice due to the relative simplicity of pandemic-era car sales.
On this episode of Inside Automotive, host Jim Fitzpatrick is joined by Glenn Pasch, automotive marketing expert and CEO of PCG Digital, an agency helping dealers succeed in the era of digital retail. Pasch has played a vital role in helping the car sector modernize its processes and adopt new technologies. Now, he gives his insights into the 2023 auto market and shares the key automotive marketing strategies dealers will need to implement in the New Year.
Key Takeaways
1. Pasch notes that over 2023, inventory began to pile up, cars started taking longer to sell, incentives made a dramatic return, and aggressive sales skills came back in fashion. All these shifts reflect the car market’s rapid return to a pre-pandemic state. To adapt to these conditions and prepare for more normalization, dealers will need to find the right automotive marketing partner for their business.
2. Dealers will need to hold onto the brand equity they built up over the last three years, during which businesses, forced to forego discounts due to strapped supply, competed on customer service rather than pricing. By focusing only on incentives or deals in the post-COVID economy, retailers could lose a vital resource in their automotive marketing toolkit.
3. Pasch worries that dealers may be tempted to cut back on marketing in 2024, partly due to the massive increase in competition with other retailers for consumers’ attention and partly due to concerns that the election cycle will interfere with their advertisements. Instead, he urges retailers to prioritize their marketing in the New Year so they can keep their customers and continue to grow.
4. Data will play a crucial role in automotive marketing strategies throughout the 2024 car market. Dealers will need to learn how to both collect and interpret data and communicate their findings with their teams.
5. Pasch urges dealers to strategically select their marketing investments to find the most effective mediums for engaging with customers and generating leads. By focusing on their strengths and eliminating non-productive initiatives, dealerships can heavily improve the utility of their marketing endeavors without sacrificing their finances.
"I think the biggest key moving forward for 2024 is dealers cannot discount all of that brand equity that they built up over the course of the past couple of years when they didn't maybe have that specific vehicle, but they were selling cars based on how we're going to take care of you, this is our process, this is who we are, this is how we'll treat you." — Glenn Pasch
