You have a new client! Or maybe a client who’s been around the block a few times. Or maybe just a client who’s wanting to “shift focus” without any real idea what they want to shift to?

As Dealer Spike Marketing Automation reps, we to help analyze the client's business and consult on a plan of action. There are a few ways to approach the plan and that approach will vary from client to client. However, here are some guidelines to help you as you create your first few and learn what works and what doesn’t.

Remember the main goals of marketing automation: Nurturing leads and helping automate dealership processes.

Each campaign focus should fall under one of those two goals.

What does lead nurturing look like?

Lead nurturing can be many things. Typically, we are attempting to get a user to take a specific action- visiting the website, filling out a specific form, going into the dealership, etc. Nurturing campaigns can also be informational campaigns. There should always be a goal we’re trying to get a user to take.

What does automating dealership processes look like?

This is also a wide range of options. Look at your client’s intake answers to get a better idea of how their business is run and where we could automate processes. Some options could be (but not limited to) automated lead assignments, automatic “thank you” emails, event promotion drip campaigns, etc.

But wait, isn’t an “Event promotion drip campaign” technically a nurture campaign?

You are correct! There will be some overlap and that’s fine. As long as your campaign is trying to satisfy at least one of the marketing automation goals, it should provide some value to your client.

How to pick campaign focuses

With our campaign goals in mind, let’s look at a good process for making sure our proposal is beneficial to the dealership. There are a million different approaches, and there’s no one “right” answer, so consider all of the following info as you’re developing your strategy proposal.

Some questions to ask yourself:

Is any of the inventory more important than others?

Does any of the inventory tend to convert more than others?

Is there any inventory that doesn’t move that they dealer wants to sell more of?

Are there new units releasing at any point during this campaign proposal?

Are there manufacturer segments that are important to my client?

What do the user segments tell me about where users spend their time?

What is the dealer doing manually that we could automate?

Types of Campaigns/ Campaign Examples

A way to get a “quick win” is to nurture leads for well-converting segments. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but even a well-converting segment has people who aren’t quite ready to buy or don’t know exactly what they want. A small push could set the ball in motion. That inventory sells well for a reason but just because it sells well doesn’t mean it can’t sell even better!

After that, look at other inventory segments that are a high portion of the inventory.. If they have a lot of the same units/manufacturer in stock, it’s likely that the dealership will want to move those first.

Now that we’ve spent some time leading users to a purchase, we can focus on the post-sale follow-up!

Any segment you’ve created a nurture campaign for will probably need a post-sale followup campaign.

Cross-selling campaigns are a great way to get a user who is already making a purchase of parts or service to purchase the other. Getting service? Check out new parts! Getting parts? Have someone install it for you!

Feedback campaigns allow us to help increase the client’s online reputation through automated emails asking for reviews

Informational campaigns might seem like they don’t fall under “lead nurturing”, but they do. How? Because we are trying to get a user to take an action like clicking to the website to view new units or filling out a form to see the new units in-person. Or maybe the client is offering a new service? The goal of that campaign would be to get people to request that new service.

Informational campaigns can cover new dealership offerings, new product lines, new releases from existing manufacturers, or anytime you’re just trying to get new info in front of a user.

You aren’t limited to these campaigns, but they cover the bulk of what we do and are widely applicable to almost every user segment no matter how large or small.

How do I prioritize focuses?

This is entirely subjective and will vary from dealer to dealer. Typically, if a client has expressed desire to focus on a particular aspect of their business or inventory, start there. From there, look at what will have the biggest impact. If you’re having trouble, ask a lead or manager for guidance!

How targeted is too targeted?

There’s no such thing as “too targeted” unless there are broader user segments you can focus on. If you have an entire vehicle category without a nurture campaign, it’s probably not the best idea to dive right into a specific model nurture campaign.

Be careful with how broad you get as well. If a segment you’re looking at has a ton of possibilities (like if you’re working with a Harley dealer, you probably don’t need a generic “motorcycle nurture campaign”), then you won’t actually accomplish anything with that campaign. Instead, look at how targeted you need to get before you see value.

Nurturing “RV Trailers” as a whole MIGHT be valuable depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. But nurturing travel trailers, fifth wheels, and toy haulers individually might be a better focus. It all depends on your dealer’s inventory and their current goals. If you’re unsure, ask a team lead or manager for guidance.

What’s after 6 months?

Well, you likely won’t get through all the different user segments by the 6-month mark. So you’ll have plenty of other inventory and user segments to target with nurture campaigns. There are always new units being released and informational campaigns are just as important.

Additionally, you will want to circle back to work you previously did to analyze the performance and make adjustments to best optimize your various automation campaigns.

In month 6 of your campaign, create a plan for the next 6-12 months. This plan should include some new focuses in addition to revisiting specific campaigns to add emails, remove under-performing emails, adjust email layout, and change the workflow to allow the best performance.

No like, really, I have no idea what else to focus on.

Follow this flowchart to help you find a focus! This is not exhaustive and is only meant to help jump-start some ideas