Automotive Marketers: 3 Tips to grow your Hispanic share

As an automotive marketing professional you need to understand the Hispanic market. Capitalize on this opportunity with a measurable plan that uses critical insights from years of experience and proven tactics from the Northwestern IMC program.

4 key Hispanic marketing predictions for 2015, by Hernan Tagliani, published on Orlando Business Journal, discusses the growing Hispanic market in the US. It suggests methods to market to this group. The author places the information into four key marketing predictions. These predictions could be distilled to say ‘be relevant’ and ‘be accessible.'

corporate.univision.com

David Barkholz, in his Automotive News article, As Hispanics buy more cars, stores add videos in Spanish, reviews a California dealership’s best practice of adding Spanish language vehicle walk-around videos to their website. It highlights the importance of video in the automotive shopping process and describes how using multilingual video can lead to incremental sales. 

Based on these articles and some leanings from Northwestern IMC, here are three guidelines to follow on your journey into this growing market:

Engage the Hispanics - Review your current campaigns to ensure they engage with Hispanic market in a relevant way.

Be Multilingual - Produce multilingual videos that showcase each vehicle in your roster.

Use Tools - Take advantage of social marketing tools that offer marketers new language targeting segments.  

Automotive marketing professional, Multicultural is going mainstream make sure you are there for the ride.

About the author:

Mike FitzGerald is an automotive communications professional and writer who loves motor vehicles and sports. He is pursuing a master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University’s Medill School. Connect with him through Twitter @The_Fitz or Linkedin

Automotive Brand Managers: 3 Ways to Prevent Your Dealerships from Ruining Your Brand

As brand managers, you know how critical it is to interact with your consumer throughout the buying process. It is for this reason that bad dealers yield bad sales. As a Northwestern University student in the Medill IMC certificate program, I am studying how automotive manufacturers must interact with their dealers to create more effective communication with their consumers to increase sales. My research has lead me to the following two articles that highlight several ideas that brand managers should consider when developing their newest strategies.

Chris Fleisher highlights the growing influence women have on the auto industry in his article on Trib Live entitled “Car Dealerships Turn Advertising, Sales Focus to Women”. For years the focus has been almost primarily on men. However, more women than ever before are a home’s primary breadwinner and are playing a more vital role in the car buying process. Last year women accounted for 40% of all new vehicle registrations compared to just 37% five years ago. Realizing this trend, some dealerships have begun to feature more women in their ads. They are not used as sex symbols but are strategically placed to send the softer message that the dealership provides a comfortable, safe and trustworthy environment. It is important to note that women tend to do more online research before walking into a dealership than men. They are less concerned with negotiating sales than getting the right car. For this reason, it is critical that dealerships provide a customer experience that allows women to know they are getting the best deal for the car they want and not the car the dealer wants to sell. 

Source: https://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/cardealership1.jpg?w=480&h=320&crop=1 

Brian Molidor discusses a new trend on TECHi in his article “The Future of automotive marketing: car deals that stalk you on social media”: the automotive industry needs to embrace social media. It is important to note that he does not suggest that manufacturers and dealers should create amazing social media pages, but rather, use social media to hyper-target consumers. Other industries, like retail and consumer packaged goods, have successfully embraced technologies that gather data from all over the web on an individual, identify which products they would be most interested in buying, and place special deals on their social media pages. BLiNQ Media has begun to incorporate this technology in the auto industry with their newest product AutoLiFT, which focuses on amassing data for the manufacturer. On the other hand companies like Dealer Authority have decided to focus on the dealerships. These companies gather information from Polk, a dealer’s email database, and website retargeting pixels to identify whose Facebook feed and what model and lease incentives to place. Hyper-targeting like this has yielded positive results so far, for every consumer that blocks the dealership’s page or hides the post, a thousand clicked through to the website.

After analyzing these two articles, and based on my studies in the Northwestern Medill IMC program, here are three actions that all automotive brand managers should consider before developing their next strategic plan: 

• Be Respectful:
• It is imperative that you to teach your dealers to provide the best consumer experience possible that is congruent with your brand.
• Women Matter:
• Do not be afraid to create advertisements and a consumer experience specific to women. They possess much more buying power in the industry than in years past.
• Hyper-Target:
• Social Media is a valuable tool to not just identify potential new customers, but also begin a conversation with your consumer and your dealership.

As you know, in the United States it is illegal for auto manufacturers to sell directly to the consumer. Therefore, cars do not get sold if dealers are ill equipped to identify potential consumers and alienate at least 40% of their market. Also, since many times the only face-to-face interaction consumers have with your brand is through dealerships, the worse they are treated, the less loyalty they will feel towards your brand. One bad dealership experience is enough to permanently turn off a consumer to your brand, while a great one can lead to lifetime loyalty.

My name is Craig Maynard and I am a student in the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Certificate Program at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Previously I studied Cognitive Science at Northwestern to learn why people do the things they do. I am interested in developing marketing strategies that see the target market for what they are, humans. Please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Automotive Marketer: 3 Ways to Leverage the Millennial Consumer

As an Automotive Marketer, you have probably heard that Millennials have money and want to spend it, specifically on cars! In this marketplace, it is essential to understand the Millennial consumer and begin tailoring marketing messages to this newly financially powerful group. As an Integrated Marketing Communications graduate student at Medill Northwestern, I’m constantly learning about new marketing trends, especially in digital marketing, and I have identified two articles that can help you understand this consumer.

In a news release published by Automotive News, TrueCar: New Vehicle Purchasing Power of Millennials Will Reach $135 Billion in 2015, Millennials are out in full force. TrueCar recently stated that the economic situations of Millennial consumers are improving, which translates into more purchasing power, especially in the new vehicle market. Contrary to previous beliefs, Millennials like cars and enjoy what they symbolize (independence and freedom). Millennials also drive more than their predecessors and are well represented (24.9% in 2014) on TrueCar’s mobile marketplace. Their presence is expected to grow in 2015 and TrueCar equates their new vehicle purchasing power to $135 billion in 2015.

www.thetruthaboutcars.com 

Dan Schawbel, in his article for Forbes, 10 New Findings About The Millennial Consumer, also examines Millennial purchasing. Based on his article, the "Millennial profile" would look like this: there are 80 million Millennials in America and traditional forms of advertising are no longer effective. Millennials are not influenced by advertising because they do not find it authentic; they need to trust the source of information. Essentially, individuals win over brands. Millennials enjoy looking for reviews and consulting with blogs before making purchases, again authenticity is king. However, they are not abandoning brands, but rather, want to connect with brands over social media and be responded to. 60% say that they would consider themselves brand loyal to the brands they are currently purchasing. However, one of the most important statistics for you is that 71% of Millennials want to buy a car. They also want to be part of the creative process and co-create products.  

So what does all this mean? After reading these articles and with my marketing experiences from the Northwestern Medill IMC program, I came up with 3 action items that I feel would really allow you to connect to this consumer. 

• Get Social - Having a social presence is not enough, you need to engage with your consumers on a personal level; be authentic, not an automated robot.
  
• Protect Your Reputation- Any social media mishap can go viral, manage your platforms well and give the bloggers something good to talk about.
  
• Avoid Assuming Homogeneity- A 20 year-old Millennial and a 30 year-old Millennial are not cut from the same cloth; understand their needs and tailor your messages to the audience that you want.

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Millennials have enormous buying power and understanding how to leverage that power is important for any marketer. Millennials want vehicles and by using the three suggestions above you can better understand this very powerful market.

Agnes is an IMC student at Northwestern Medill School of Journalism specializing in digital marketing. She has duel bachelor’s degree in Media Communication Studies and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences from Florida State University. Contact Agnes through Twitter @Agnes_Wasilewsk or Linkedin.