As hard as it may be to fathom, a New Year and a new decade are just around the corner. In less than 50 days, dealers across the industry will embark on their 2020 initiatives.
Suffice to say, inbound and outbound marketing strategies will be the ignition to adding net-new business and going deeper into existing accounts. And while several dealers in our state of the industry panel decided to keep plans close to their vests, some provided a sneak peek at the approach they will take moving forward. Clearly, relying on one or two marketing channels is a relic of the past. Integrated, multi-channel campaigns that embody digital and traditional touches—in fun and creatively-engaging ways—will go a long way toward ensuring long-term success.
Impact Networking will be seeking to elevate its digital marketing efforts to the next level. Marketing Manager Karlee Ricks notes the dealership is honing its inbound marketing strategy with a focus on lead generation. The company recently hired a demand generation manager who is working to ensure the dealer’s efforts are driving leads back to the sales reps as well as tracking the touchpoints of leads.
“This focus on lead generation will be seen across all of our digital platforms—in the new website through strategic forms, a chatbot, paid social media ads, video campaigns, email marketing and more,” Ricks said. “The goal will be to provide high-quality leads to sales reps. We already have a few multi-channel campaigns in the works, and we are excited to provide our customers with more value.”
What Works
While Loffler Companies in Bloomington, Minnesota, is still in the planning phases of its 2020 initiatives, Marketing Manager Mary Steffl envisions a renewed focus on Google ads. The dealer also plans to re-optimize much of the content that has proven popular.
Much of the success for Hendrix Business Systems of Charlotte, North Carolina, hinges on the success of its content marketing efforts, according to Tim Manuel, marketing and operations manager. While the campaign is still being hammered out, he noted it will take a more personalized, vertical-driven approach as opposed to the dealer marketing from the position of its own product and service portfolio.
At Benchmark Business Solutions of Lubbock, Texas, a website refresh is planned for 2020. That will see the Xerox dealer realign its strategy around new content and add more focus on its key vertical markets, including education, according to Constance Barbian, director of marketing and communications.
As the New Year gets underway, Blue Technologies of Cleveland will continue to work with Clover Imaging Group’s Amplify to build out its website pages and using SEO to enhance its ability to log high-ranking search results to potential customers.
“With technology, you need to be ever-evolving, adopting new trends and techniques,” noted Cyndi Konold, Blue Technologies’ marketing director.
