For Auto CMOs: 3 Recommendations to Grow Your Sales in Today’s Digital World

As a CMO, you know that digital is transforming marketing. As a graduate student at Northwestern University in the Medill School of Journalism's Integrated Marketing Communications program with an interest in digital marketing, I have found two articles highlighting the digital trends in the automotive industry.

The first article, titled “10 Digital Marketing Trends and Innovations For 2019” by Alex Membrillo published in Cardinal summarizes some coming trends and innovations for 2019. In addition to AI and AR/VR that marketers may be familiar with, other technologies and tools such as Email and Marketing Automation, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are also mentioned. The article also includes the benefits and importance of these innovations and why marketers should apply them into their digital marketing portfolio.

Image from Urjja Digital Transformation in the Automotive Industry

The second article, written by Chanell Turner and titled, “Five Digital Marketing Stats Dealers Should Focus On”, from CBTNews narrows digital marketing to the automotive industry. In this article, Turner gives five statistical facts, for example, “forty-two percent of car buyers search inventory on a dealership website as a result of watching online video”. Turner hopes to get automotive marketers started to understand the landscape and develop a digital marketing strategy by looking at these statistics.

Drawing on these two articles and my experience as a graduate student of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, I come up with three recommendations that may help you grow more sales in today’s digital world.

l   Be everywhere: You should create a seamless omni-channel experience - online, offline and everywhere in between at every stage of the automotive consumer journey.

l   Be personalized. Personalization is the key in making customers spend more and it can be applicable to all your marketing efforts.

l   Embrace the power of videos. Video is a powerful marketing tool that can bring more immersive scenes to shoppers, and thus prompt them to take real-world actions.

Next time when you are thinking about developing your digital marketing strategy, remember these three recommendations as a way to grow your sales in this changing digital world. Take these digital marketing trends seriously, otherwise you will get left behind. 

My name is Jane Chen and I am currently a graduate student at Northwestern University studying Integrated Marketing Communications from the Medill School of Journalism. I am graduating in December 2019, and looking for full-time employment in digital marketing and data analytics. Feel free to reach out or connect with me at LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

CMO's: 3 Recommendations for Personalization Done Right

As a CMO, you know that the power of knowing your audience is only valuable if you know how to target them through specific messaging. As an Integrated Marketing student at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, I’m sharing my take on AdAge’s and Impact’s ideas for how to use personalization the right way. 

In January of 2018, Jim Rund shared AdAge’s predictions for the future of personalization. He incorporated findings from Epsilon’s study that revealed consumers are 80% more likely to do business with a company when given a personalized experience. CMOs and senior marketers from Cracker Barrel, Walgreens, and GIA contributed with their projected personalization plans for 2018. Among their strategies were identifying and connecting with the right people, building persona profiles, tailoring messaging according to data, and measuring impact over time. 

(Image: Source)

While these efforts have been shown to improve the customer experience, Impact writer   Ramona Sukhraj identified the down side of personalization. Using research from Forrester, Gartner, Infosys and more, Sukari reveals some of marketer’s pain points. One of the biggest possible risks is that many brands use large segments to break up targets, resulting in a less customized experience. They also find it difficult to achieve a clear view of customers, admitting to their lack of relevant technology. Finally, she shares that personalization can only be successful once brands have gained a true knowledge of consumer’s specific affinities and preferences. 

From these two articles and my own experience as a Northwestern marketing student, I have developed three recommendations for developing your personalization strategy. They are:

·     Use Personalization Wisely

If you are going to tailor your messaging, craft it based on the actual needs and interests of your customers, not empty demographics.

·     Know Your Target Markets

Understand what is actually important to each segment you want to target without clumping them too broadly together.

·     Create Data-Driven Content

Analyze your data regularly and adjust your messaging strategy accordingly, even if it means reorganizing segments. 

Keep these items in mind to develop killer content that your customers will love.

Teresa De Pinto is a 4^thyear Communications and Marketing student at Northwestern University. She is passionate about creative marketing strategy, positive psychology, and travel. 

You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Digital Marketing Managers: 3 Ideas to Increase Revenue with Social Media Advertising

As a Digital Marketing Manager reaching your high value customers is becoming more difficult in the disrupted marketplace. Likewise, thanks to digital and new media, audiences and channels are more fragmented than ever before. As a graduate student in the Northwestern University Medill’s IMC program, I have been researching social media advertising and found two articles that will help you understand and use social media in a strategic way.

In the article, “Social Media Advertising: The Complete Guide”, Christina Newberry discusses how online and digital media advertising are growing, especially social media advertising. The most used platform is Facebook covering 35.4% of the total display advertising in the United States. Companies are switching their advertising spending from traditional media to digital at a fast pace. Therefore, Christina Newberry decided to share some tools and recommendations to easily create ads in six of the most used social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Snapchat. However, it is important to choose which platform is ideal for your organization and create unique content strategies that will engage your target market.  

-Christina Newberry @ckjnewberry, Hootsuite Blog

-https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-advertising/

Source: www.zeemo.com.au

Even though social media advertising has proven effective to reach a company’s target market, many consumers find targeted ads to be annoying and disagreeable. That is why ad blockers have become increasingly popular and this represents a problem for marketing communications. That is why Kevin Jennison enumerates in “Ad Targeting is failing users”, some recommendations that companies can implement to deliver a better targeted ad experience for consumers. His three recommended actions are to let consumers decide which ads they want to see, target users based on their actual context, or simply wait for advertising technology to improve with the hope that new algorithms will resolve this problem.

-Kevin Jennison @JennisonKevin, Ad Exchanger

-https://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/ad-targeting-failing-users/

Based on my review of these two articles and relevant studies I have done in Medill’s Integrated Marketing Communication program at Northwestern University, I have developed three ideas you should consider when planning social media advertising strategies.

·      Symbiosis increases results-

Traditional media advertising is not dead; investing in it can help support your company’s social media advertising strategies.

·      Divergence engages consumers-

Creating unexpected, “outside the box” social media strategies will make you successful and attractive in a world full of options where customer loyalty is slowly disappearing.

·      Embrace change fast-

Customers adapt to changes in technology and social media platforms faster than marketers and companies; you must react quickly, but accurately to stay relevant with your target market.

If you take into consideration the three ideas mentioned before, you will be one step closer to successfully plan social media advertising strategies for your company that stay in your target market’s minds.

About the Author:

My name is Alexandra González. I am a graduate student in Medill’s IMC program at Northwestern University with an expected graduation date of December 2017. I am looking to increase my knowledge in Digital Marketing and Brand Strategy. I have previous experience in communications and digital film production. Contact me at Twitter @asg1616 or Linkedin.