Automotive multi-channel marketing sluggish

A Navigator Customer Management product story

Edited by the Marketingservicestalk editorial team Jun 17, 2008

Navigator Customer Management's 2008 report on the UK automotive sector discovered that only 23 per cent of brands are offering customers and prospects comprehensive multi-channel communications.

Though this marks a slight improvement from a figure of 20 per cent in 2007, investment in the area is still modest compared to the vast sums invested in above-the-line advertising.

Well-executed customer contact management allows automotive marketers to inject much greater transparency and accountability into their hitherto unmeasurable above-the-line spend, making a real commercial difference.

Although the report located some good practice, for example in the 11 per cent of firms that display phone, web and SMS contacts in their advertising campaigns, it also uncovered plenty of examples of bad practice.

Astonishingly, a quarter of car advertisements provide no telephone number for prospective customers to ring and a third of automotive marques still do not offer the capability to book a test drive through their website.

In another surprising trend, the proportion of manufacturers displaying a contact email address on their website dropped from 44 per cent in 2007 to 15 per cent in 2008, and the number of brands that offered an SMS response in their print advertisements halved from 22 per cent to 11 per cent in the space of a year.

This suggests that many manufacturers are failing to fully integrate new media channels into their existing communications facilities.

On the positive side, engagement with existing customers is improving more rapidly.

Owners' clubs are now clearly accessible on the website in 26 per cent of cases (up from 15 per cent the previous year) and 39 per cent of marques now offer a newsletter or e-bulletin.

Also, 57 per cent of manufacturer websites now offer a feedback/enquiry form, an increase from 27 per cent in 2007.

To understand the true picture of multi-channel communication in the UK automotive market, Navigator commissioned independent research into the subject.

The activities of 46 marques were analysed during the period April-May 2007, along with those of 42 top dealerships.

In particular, the study examined the channels of communication offered by the company's website, as well as response channels promoted through the company's above-the-line advertising campaigns.