A Guide to Digital Marketing in the Automotive Industry!

With the development of the market environment, digital transformation will be an important hurdle for enterprises if they want to get out of trouble and achieve sustained growth. So, how should enterprises carry out digital transformation and increase the probability of successful transformation? Perhaps, a suitable SCRM system will be the key.

1. Let’s start with a story

There is a county town called Yinan County in Linyi City, Shandong Province, with a population of only 150,000. There is a shopping mall in the county town called Grand Hyatt Shopping Plaza.

In recent years, with the impact of e-commerce, especially during the epidemic, many offline retail stores have been struggling and even faced the risk of bankruptcy.

But this Grand Hyatt shopping mall not only did not go bankrupt, but its business was booming. The secret is that they have established a private community of 100,000 through WeChat groups, which not only greatly reduces marketing costs but also increases repurchase rates.

In this digital age, Grand Hyatt Shopping Plaza is just a microcosm: in the future, digitalization will sweep across the entire economic field, and digital transformation will also become a matter of life and death for many companies.

2. Winter of the automotive industry

According to data compiled by Zhiyan Consulting, China's automobile sales in 2020 were 25.311 million units, a decrease of 458,000 units from 2019, a year-on-year decrease of 1.78%. Sales have been declining for three consecutive years.

There is no doubt that in recent years, China's automobile industry as a whole has entered the inventory era, and the extensive management style of opening the door and waiting for customers in the past is rapidly being eliminated.

Car dealers must take the initiative to reduce customer acquisition costs and increase transaction rates through refined operations. Only in this way can we, like Grand Hyatt Shopping Plaza, not only survive but also live better.

More importantly, while the overall market demand has declined, the preferences of automobile consumers have also changed significantly.

First, as China's per capita GDP (US$11,300) continues to approach the "high-income country" standard announced by the World Bank: US$12,700, the purchasing power of Chinese consumers is getting stronger and stronger. At the same time, their requirements for user experience and personalized services are becoming increasingly higher.

Data source: China Economic Data

As digitalization has fully penetrated into our lives, especially with the arrival of the epidemic, consumers are becoming more and more accustomed to communicating and purchasing online. Offline services are more focused on meeting needs such as experience, vehicle delivery and maintenance.

The changes in the market and consumers have clearly sent signals to car dealers:

Digital transformation - improving customer service capabilities and increasing business efficiency - is imminent.

3. Five keys to digital transformation

The digital transformation of auto dealers requires breakthroughs in the following five key points.

1. Private domain traffic operation

In the era of inventory, it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain leads, and the cost of obtaining them is also increasing.

Therefore, depositing leads into the company's private traffic pool, centralized operations, and repeated contact will greatly reduce customer acquisition costs and improve transaction efficiency.

For example, for leads that are not yet mature, you can patiently nurture them; for leads that are close to closing, trigger the closing through coupons; and for customers who have already closed a deal, promote referrals through high-quality services.

However, private domain traffic operations also need to solve the following problems:

1) How to import the enterprise’s private domain from the public domain?

Each dealer has diverse customer acquisition channels, and the customer information we can obtain is also different. Some dealers will manage leads through phone numbers, but telephone communication is not an "online" communication method, which is not conducive to low-cost and repeated contact.

To manage leads through WeChat, it is necessary to solve problems such as improving the efficiency of adding WeChat.

2) How to operate private domains reasonably?

If you simply create a WeChat group and then flood it with advertisements, this method will not only be ineffective, but will also cause consumer disgust.

How to reasonably operate private domains, provide value to consumers, and achieve the goal of promoting transactions is a topic that we must consider carefully.

3) How to prevent lead loss?

Many companies have worked hard to obtain leads, but customers only add their employees’ personal WeChat accounts. Once an employee leaves, the company loses touch with these potential customers.

Therefore, it is very important to take measures to prevent lead loss from the beginning.

2. User Experience

Consumers are increasingly dissatisfied with standardized services.

When they visit the APP, they hope to see content that interests them. When they have questions, they hope to contact us immediately and get a satisfactory answer. Once they feel the operation is troublesome or feel disrespected, they will vote with their feet and contact our competitors instead.

Therefore, when carrying out digital transformation, we must think repeatedly:

• How to get closer to users?
• How to create and deliver content that interests users?
• How to continuously obtain user feedback?

Only by starting from the user's perspective, providing them with valuable content and warm services, and facilitating them to obtain and provide feedback, can we gain user recognition and promote transactions.

3. Digital insights

The digital age has given us a huge opportunity: through user behavior data, we can gain insight into user needs.

In 2017, after Hillhouse Group acquired Belle for RMB 53.1 billion, it equipped the shoes in its stores with smart chips to monitor customer preferences based on data such as the frequency with which a pair of shoes was tried on.

When they discovered that a pair of high heels was tried on 30 times in a store in one day but only purchased once, further analysis revealed that although the shoes were beautifully made, they were uncomfortable to wear.

It was precisely because of Belle's digital transformation that two years later, Belle's opening market value reached 75 billion yuan.

The same is true for car sales. If a potential customer reads articles about a certain car model several times, he is likely to be interested in it. If he also receives a coupon, he may have a certain willingness to buy it.

To achieve digital insights, the following issues must be addressed:

• How to obtain user portraits?
• How to collect user behavior data?
• How to understand users’ car purchasing preferences and intentions?

It is not enough for us to collect data by ourselves, and it is difficult to train an effective algorithm model. We must rely on the platform to collect user portraits and user behavior data in an all-round, comprehensive and compliant manner, so that we can judge users' car purchasing preferences and intentions in a timely, effective and legal manner.

4. Refined operations

No matter how good the ideas and plans are, if they are not implemented in every daily communication and service, the effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

We can analyze outstanding employees, extract the "best practices" for serving customers and promoting transactions, and then organize them into SOPs (standard operating procedures) for promotion. Excellent companies will also integrate SOPs into digital systems, which will greatly reduce the difficulty of execution, improve execution efficiency and accuracy, and implement refined operations.

Therefore, refined operations require answering the following questions:

• How to establish SOP?
• How to implement SOP?
• How to evaluate operational performance?

A good SOP must be a "best practice" that conforms to the characteristics of the industry and the actual situation of the enterprise. SOPs that rely entirely on human execution are prone to problems such as high execution costs and distorted execution. The evaluation of operational performance requires us to have a data analysis system to support rapid performance evaluation and improvement.

5. Automation improves efficiency

Business operations also follow the logic of more, faster, better, and cheaper, that is, pursuing maximization of efficiency and minimization of costs while serving more customers, faster, and better.

The premise of "having your cake and eating it too" is the automation and intelligence of operations.

With the support of digital tools, we need to achieve the following two goals:

1) Efficiently reach and serve users

For example, after a user adds WeChat, a small red envelope or coupon will be automatically sent.

For example, when using the mini program, users can directly establish a conversation with customer service staff without adding the customer service staff’s WeChat.

2) Efficient store management and employee motivation

For example, when an employee completes a task, the system automatically generates a statistical analysis report. On the one hand, store managers can understand operational dynamics in real time; on the other hand, employees can also keep an eye on their performance and rankings at any time, thereby achieving dynamic feedback and incentives.

If we can achieve the following in the above five aspects:

1. Private domain traffic operation;
2. User experience;
3. Digital insights;
4. Refined operations;
5. Automation improves efficiency.

If we can achieve breakthroughs in all of these areas, we will be able to catch the express train of the digital age and stand out from our many competitors.

So, how can we break through these five key points?

4. Breakthrough Key

The essence of digital transformation is to actively adjust the company's business ideas and strategies when the market and business environment undergo tremendous changes.

Therefore, the key to the successful transformation of auto dealers is actually:

Successful transformation = new ideas + new methods + new tools

The so-called new concept is to be user-centric, promote marketing through content, and promote sales through services.

The so-called new method is private domain traffic + digital operation, which focuses on cultivating every lead and providing better services to every user.

The new tool is an SCRM tool that connects the entire process. It not only helps us better reach and serve users, but also effectively improves operational efficiency and reduces operating costs.

It needs to be emphasized that concepts, methods and tools should be a "trinity": that is, tools need to support the implementation of concepts and methods, and concepts and methods need to be integrated into the specific scenarios of the tools.

From this perspective, the "Yikelian" released by Yiche today is the SCRM system in the Chinese automobile industry that is most likely to achieve the "trinity of concepts, methods and tools".

Why do I say that?

1. A leader in digital automotive marketing

In the past 12 months, Yiche has generated a total of 128 million sales leads for the automotive industry, ranking first in the industry.

This means that "E-Link" SCRM is naturally integrated with the largest lead platform in China's automotive industry, which will not only help increase the approval rate of adding customers via WeChat (customers may refuse to add WeChat friends from unfamiliar sources), but also "E-Link" customers will obtain the most accurate and comprehensive lead data, which is an advantage that other SCRM systems cannot have.

More importantly, as a technology company driven by data, technology and content, Yiche has been deeply involved in the automotive industry for 21 years and is a well-deserved leader in China's digital automotive marketing.

Only such a leader can create digital marketing software that has both industry-leading concepts and is feasible.

For example, although every SCRM software can provide SOP (standard operating procedure) function, what is the SOP that is most suitable for car dealers? If problems arise during the implementation of the SOP, how should it be adjusted? If the SCRM manufacturer does not have rich industry experience, it will be impossible to answer these questions well.

2. Based on WeChat for Business

"Yikelian" is a software developed based on WeChat for enterprises, which ensures its long-term vitality.

Many companies are still using personal WeChat accounts to manage customer data, which can lead to the following two serious problems:

1) Once an employee leaves the company, customer WeChat information may be lost.

Although it is possible to equip employees with company mobile phones, this not only increases costs, but also brings inconvenience to employees at work. After all, one more mobile phone means one more trouble.

2) It may lead to account suspension.

Tencent has always opposed using personal WeChat for marketing activities. A company once developed marketing management software based on personal WeChat, but the result was that not only was the software ordered to be taken offline, but the users of the software were also blocked.

Screenshot source: WeChat Open Community

3. Big Data Capabilities

As a leader in the automotive Internet industry, Yiche has an industry-leading user base.

At the same time, as China's largest social platform and a major shareholder of Bitauto, Bitauto has also accelerated its integration into the Tencent ecosystem. So far, it has connected the Tencent system to establish a vertical automotive ecosystem.

This means that "E-Commerce" SCRM can provide car dealers with comprehensive user portrait data, which plays a key role in gaining insight into users, improving service quality and increasing transaction rates.

4. Massive high-quality content

Content is marketing.

In the process of private domain operations, the most important thing is to provide customers with valuable content.

First, high-quality content can increase customer stickiness and enhance the sense of value of private domains; second, high-quality content can increase the frequency of interaction with customers, increase brand exposure, and improve transaction rates; finally, high-quality content can also record customer behavior and enhance our insight into customers.

For example, if a potential customer pays close attention to articles related to driving safety, it means that he may pay close attention to the "safety attributes" of the car, so we can consciously recommend relatively safer models to him.

As Yiche has been deeply involved in the industry for many years, it has rich industry information and vehicle model data. These contents and data can empower car dealers and help them produce higher-quality and more targeted marketing content.

5. Strong product capabilities

When we have advanced concepts, abundant resources and practical strategies, we still need to implement them through powerful tools in the end, so as to provide customers with better services, improve work efficiency and reduce operating costs.

And "E-Link" is such a powerful product.

For example, it can create automated tasks. When a customer reaches a specific stage (such as completing a test drive), a task is generated for the corresponding salesperson to execute. At the same time, because the platform provides rich content and automation capabilities, it is very convenient for employees to operate, which can greatly improve work efficiency.

For example, "E-Commerce Link" provides a rich mobile dashboard that can not only greatly improve store management efficiency, but also better empower and motivate employees.

V. Conclusion

Digital transformation is an inevitable trend. For auto dealers who are still in the "industry winter", active transformation is not only a necessary means to escape the crisis, but also a great opportunity to overtake others and become industry leaders.

When carrying out digital transformation, we must adhere to the idea of ​​"the trinity of concepts, methods, and tools" and choose an SCRM system that understands the industry, understands digital marketing, and has successful experience. Only in this way can we greatly increase the probability of successful transformation.

Author: Saas Planet

Source: Saas Planet