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Car Guy Coffee Podcast: Brewing Solutions with C4 Analytics: Elevating Automotive Marketing feat. Art Pier & Luke Jonas
Car Guy Coffee Podcast: Brewing Solutions with C4 Analytics: Elevating Automotive Marketing feat. Art Pier & Luke Jonas
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About this episode
Exploring the evolving landscape of automotive marketing, this episode features insights from Art Pier and Luke Jonas of C4 Analytics. The discussion dives into the importance of data-driven strategies, the shift towards electric vehicles, and how dealerships can effectively engage customers through targeted marketing. With a focus on education and personalized communication, the guests emphasize the need for dealerships to adapt to the digital age and maintain a strong connection with customers. Listeners will gain valuable tips on enhancing their marketing efforts and understanding consumer behavior.
Topics:
automotive marketing
digital disruption
electric vehicles
data-driven strategies
customer engagement
personalized communication
marketing education
dealership strategies
targeted advertising
consumer behavior
Car Guy Coffee Podcast: Brewing Solutions with C4 Analytics: Elevating Automotive Marketing feat. Art Pier & Luke Jonas
Welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. Kickstart your day the right way and join us as we tap into the brightest minds and most passionate voices across the automotive world to bring you the education, motivation, and inspiration you need to thrive. From the showroom floor to the service lane, prepare to Upshift and Uplift your perspective.
In this episode of the Car Guy Coffee podcast, hosts Lou Ramirez and Fred Lennartz discuss innovative marketing strategies in the automotive industry in the face of digital disruptions. Special guests Luke Jonas, VP of Analytics, and Art Pier, VP of Media Strategy at C4 Analytics, join the conversation to share insights on effective marketing techniques, the evolution of customer needs, and the importance of customized dealership marketing. They highlight the significance of data-driven strategies, the utility of EV education for consumers and dealers, and how C4 Analytics can drive sales by targeting the right audience. This episode emphasizes the need for continuous improvement in sales practices and the importance of understanding market dynamics to achieve cost-effective growth.
📲Stream it. Share it. Let's Brew.
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
carguycoffee.com
certifiedsolutionaries.com
Welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. Kickstart your day the right way and join us as we tap into the brightest minds and most passionate voices across the automotive world to bring you the education, motivation, and inspiration you need to thrive. From the showroom floor to the service lane, prepare to Upshift and Uplift your perspective.
In this episode of the Car Guy Coffee podcast, hosts Lou Ramirez and Fred Lennartz discuss innovative marketing strategies in the automotive industry in the face of digital disruptions. Special guests Luke Jonas, VP of Analytics, and Art Pier, VP of Media Strategy at C4 Analytics, join the conversation to share insights on effective marketing techniques, the evolution of customer needs, and the importance of customized dealership marketing. They highlight the significance of data-driven strategies, the utility of EV education for consumers and dealers, and how C4 Analytics can drive sales by targeting the right audience. This episode emphasizes the need for continuous improvement in sales practices and the importance of understanding market dynamics to achieve cost-effective growth.
📲Stream it. Share it. Let's Brew.
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
carguycoffee.com
certifiedsolutionaries.com
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Hello and welcome to the CarGuy Coffee Podcast.
This brew has been brought to you by Certified Solutionaries.
And if you want to consume more brews or want more information
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Let's brew!
Hey, what's going on, Car Guys and Car Gals?
Welcome to the CarGuy Coffee Podcast.
We're excited for a fun brew with you today.
And we're talking about some marketing that moves.
That's right.
And marketing that moves matters today with the way
that the digital disruption is going on right now
in automotive.
It's crazy.
It's actually happening across the world,
not just in automotive.
Well, we're talking automotive today.
And man, we're going to bring some dynamite today.
We're going to bring some C4 analytics.
We're going to talk about some really amazing things
to be able to bring you solutions, right?
And that's the big thing.
We're not here to brew.
We're not here to percolate problems.
We're here to brew solutions, right?
And so we're ready to brew some solutions
with two dynamite solutionaries ready to bring it.
Yes.
And with that, we are going to talk
about some of the things that you have probably
been trying to iron out, especially
inside of the wide campus, which
is figuring out marketing, marketing strategies, marketing
techniques, and also understanding
how marketing has literally evolved,
much like our customers have evolved,
much like how we're evolving, how
it is that we communicate and take care of those
that have need inside of our community, of our product.
So has our marketing.
And we want to talk to some awesome individuals
about that today.
But we are having fun.
C4 analytics has brought you this brew today.
And we want to make sure that we get as many car guys
and car gals involved in this fun as possible.
So help us out.
Tag a car guy.
Tag a car gal.
And share, share, share, share, share, share.
Let's get this out there again.
We're bringing dynamite with C4 today.
And we're ready to just bring you guys some solutions.
When we're brewing solutions, we like to brew with the best.
And that's what the quest that we're on.
We're on a quest to brew with the best.
When we do that, we bring you guys some really dynamic stuff.
And today, we're going to talk about a few different points,
some great ideas, and some solutions that
can really take your dealership to the next level,
or your business to the next level.
That's right.
And we have some awesome individuals
that are ready to brew up with us.
So we're not going to make them sit in the back
too long, everybody.
We want to make sure that they jump up on here,
because you're used to seeing us.
We want to make sure that you hear from more people
that are making things happen inside of the automotive industry
than maybe you just haven't heard of.
And we're so thankful that C4 propped up
a couple of these awesome guys to come out here,
brew some solutions with us, and talk to you.
So please, make sure that you do give them some love.
If there's something that you have a question about,
please make sure you drop a comment.
Make sure that you reach out to us.
Let us know.
But you can go to CarGuyCoffee.com
if there's any of the other brews that you want to get
and you want to find out how it is that you can team up
with us to take your business to the next level.
Let's do it.
Let's brew.
Let's have some fun.
But right now, it's time to welcome in some awesome C4 power
packed, ready to explode individuals.
First, we're going to bring in the one.
The only Luke Jonas brother.
This is up in here.
We got another Jonas brother?
How do you do?
There's the fourth Jonas brother.
Right here, Mr. Jonas.
What's up, Luke?
How you doing today, buddy?
Good.
What's going on, guys?
Oh, man, ready to bring some dynamite with you, man.
And excited.
And we also brought one of your partners.
This guy's got a really cool name, too.
I love it.
Straight up could be like, could be like almost like a wrestling
name, almost.
RPA!
I like it.
Let's go.
He's like, come on.
Let's go.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
Let's go ahead and switch up that screen.
We all appreciate you all jumping in with us
and taking some time out of the day.
Where are you guys crawling in from, Luke?
I'm calling from Beverly, Massachusetts, just north of Boston.
Oh, wow.
Beautiful area, man.
Beautiful area.
Good food out that way, my friend.
Great plan.
I'm in two ocean.
I'm located about 45 minutes southeast of Baltimore.
So I'm calling in from the eastern shore of Maryland
on Kent Island.
Oh, yeah, it's got both of y'all got great food around you.
It's toast in the house.
It's toast in the building.
Yes, we love it.
We appreciate you all.
Right now, we, Lou and I are actually
in a beautiful Lincoln, Nebraska, right now,
having a great time out here with a couple of our dealers
that we absolutely love.
People who are looking for some dynamite inside their stores.
So we're excited to be able to get some information
from you so we can go share it with them.
So this is going to be a really awesome interview today.
I'm pumped up about it.
Welcome, guys.
Thank you.
Glad to be here.
So thank you that you guys are here.
But for those that don't know or know too much about you,
help us out.
Lead the way, Lou.
Let us know a little bit about what it is that you do
and what C4 does for the industry.
Sorry, let's see.
So I am the VP of analytics and reporting at C4.
I somehow have been here for almost 12 years.
So I've witnessed the journey of C4 from the 38th employee
to somewhere over 275 now.
Yeah.
And quickly, just my team, we essentially
power the reporting and the analysis
that the rest of our client services team does.
We provide that last line of defense
for the really challenging analytics questions that
arise, identifying, diagnosing where
the weird bot traffic's coming from,
and trying to fix it, filtering all that stuff out.
So we do a lot of that and power our reporting platform
and manage a lot of different relationships
with our various vendors.
And Art and I, I've spent a lot of time
working with the stronger partners
and helping get the cool data insights that they have
available in front of our clients.
And then C4, quick 30-second elevator pitch.
We're in a league of our own.
We're extremely high-touch boutique, full digital scale
solution.
And we've been doing that since day one.
Started with basically telling a dealer like, hey,
you might want to consider not spending
$60 grand a month in radio.
I might be exaggerating a little bit.
No, you're not.
We worked at a dealer that did $100,000 in radio a month.
Just so you know.
This was years ago, but we know what you mean by that.
You're doing what you're saying.
Yep, it's crazy.
And that was 2009.
And the founders, Justin Cook and Mike Weiss,
they went to this dealer and were like, hey,
there's this new thing called Google Ads or AdWords
at that point.
And we think we can maybe get that cost down for you.
And maybe decrease your CPA and how much you're selling
cars for.
And of course, the rest is history.
So C4 is the full scale, like I said, full digital solution.
And we're very service focused.
I'm sure we'll talk about it a little bit.
I don't want to overshadow our introduction here, too.
But we invest in our people, and they
manage every facet of our partner's digital sphere
and all the touch points that we all know
that customers are using all the time.
Yeah, that's us.
We appreciate that, Rob.
That was a really good drive by.
I appreciate you.
That's them in a nutshell, if you see awesome powers.
This is me in a nutshell.
You guys know what I'm talking about, right?
But that was you all in a nutshell.
And I appreciate that, man.
All right, we're going to pull you up.
But folks, I want to drop this video really quick
so you guys kind of get a little bit more close.
I love that.
It's just amazing moving, right?
I love that a lot, and we appreciate that.
And that basically broke down what you said there.
And I love that.
That's why I wanted to show that video really quick.
But, Art, man, let's introduce you, brother.
Let's tell everybody a little bit about your history
with the company and what makes you feel like C4 is where it's at,
why it's going to the places it's going.
Yeah, I'm pumped to be here, guys.
Thanks for having me.
My name's Art Peer.
As you guys said, I'm the VP of Media Strategy at C4.
It's a fancy title for a not-so-fancy guy.
I grew up in auto, so I have a background in it.
Mom, dad, and son calls on the automotive industry
some over 35, four years.
And I've worked in every industry that was an auto as well.
I come from tons of different backgrounds,
but how I came into C4 was really,
how do we tell the full funnel story
and how do we have full funnel marketing?
Because I think dealers were operating in silos of,
my paid search does this, my social does this,
videos over here off on its own island.
And the only way I know if it's working or not
is if I turn it off and see if my sales go down.
What I've really worked on the last two years
since I've been here is how does video fit in?
And I'm sure we're gonna talk about that today.
And then how does it help push people into the funnel
and get them down into the dealership?
So I work with the VP of Paid Media, Trevor Spiro,
and we work on how do we create a plan
that allows us to create demand and then capture it
and then turn it into sales.
And then show you how it's working
from a dealership perspective.
I love that.
You guys are just trying to bring light
to a dark area, right?
Somewhere that people are just like,
I love what you said there.
You made a really good point.
Somewhere that a dealer would have to turn off before
to find out if it was working or not,
instead of really having true data, real analytics,
analytics that explode in front of you.
It doesn't matter too, right?
Let's give them metrics that matter
from a business KPI standpoint for their dealership,
not my impression rate went up 2%
or there's a 480% ROI on your campaign.
It's like, those aren't real metrics.
So let's give them real metrics.
And as somebody who's been at a spot in the store,
met multiple times where I had to know those numbers,
that stuff does matter beyond measure.
It takes away a lot of stress when you know exactly
where your money is going
and what kind of project you're bringing from it.
Not some fluffed up number
that somebody's just trying to make you see
or assume is where it's coming from.
So that's dope.
I'm really excited about that.
Yeah, so marketing has been dealing
with some real disruption inside of the digital world.
And with that, there's a lot of also just cool new things
that are out there, right?
Trying to make sure that we're communicating
to our customers concerning what it is
that they're looking about
and communicating to them where they are.
There's so many different platforms,
so many different ways.
Have you ever been at a gas pump, folks?
And all of a sudden an ad just shows up
and starts talking to you
while you're in the middle of pumping away, right?
And then you're like, whoa, how are you following me?
What is going on?
How is this chasing me down?
This is crazy.
But being able to actually speak to the customer.
And let's talk a little bit about the EV journey, right?
And about how customers are actually starting
to get some of the information that they're looking at.
In Google data, there's maybe somewhat of a newness
to being able to really connect the data around EVs
to the customers that are looking for it.
And you all are actually starting
to break some barriers down with that.
Who wants to take the lead on some of that info?
I can not kick it off, Art.
You can be the color guy.
Oh, yeah.
Like you said, there's a lot there.
And I think one of the ways
that we've been the most successful in cracking that
is like you said, meeting the customers where they are
and where they're looking.
And a lot of that is just, they're searching
because they don't know, depending on where you live.
Like, again, West Texas or Mississippi somewhere,
where there isn't as much of an infrastructure,
but the OEMs are still pushing allocation for the EVs.
People are just like searching.
Like, hey, what's the range that I can expect out of an EV
or what's the typical service maintenance needs
for an EV, et cetera, et cetera.
And so a lot of that has really been on the organic side,
really working with Google EEAT,
trying to build authoritative content,
getting into the AI summaries and stuff like that.
And that's been, I think, one of the bigger,
obviously there's plenty of email marketing
and stuff like that that goes hand in hand
with kind of that educational journey.
But I think that's one of the,
at least one of the main ways
that we've been really successful
in helping our dealers capitalize on that.
It's a renewed, easy interest and educational journey
that consumers are on.
Education's huge and being more of a point of contact
for information rather than just product
is also how a dealer should be able to do themselves
as that authority.
Heck yeah.
Yes.
Is there anything on that?
Yeah, can't just be like, buy now, buy now.
They have to know about,
and this is something that's, this is not nice.
This is something that's completely different
than an internal combustion engine.
So we have to like, we have to educate them first.
And Luke touched on search,
like how do we get them to search?
We've got to show them the vehicle some way, right?
Through video or, so we have to create the demand.
And then they can, then we have to educate them.
And that's what gets them into,
okay, maybe I can shop for this.
Maybe this is something that I can have, right?
This isn't like some scary thing
because I'm not going to know where to fill up.
Funny story, like I was trying to,
I got an EV maybe last year as a rental
and I was trying to charge it,
but I didn't realize that you can't use
the Tesla charger on a non-Tesla
because it was a BMW.
I had no idea.
So you have to learn all these things to understand them.
And I think that's what we do best, right?
We create the demand and then we educate them
using with our dealers.
We educate them on art.
You can't charge a BMW EV on a Tesla charger.
This doesn't work.
We've been there before.
Side note, we traveled quite a bit.
We stopped at a rental place
and I'm not the biggest EV guy.
I don't know much.
I'm not against him.
I just don't know much about him yet.
I've learned that you got qualified
through the JV power and associates
on Rockhead.
Shout out to Rockhead and JV now.
So I learned a lot more over the last few months,
but at the same time, I didn't realize to your point,
we were driving, I can't remember what model it was.
Was it a Tesla?
It was a Tesla.
We went somewhere that didn't have a Tesla charger thing in it.
So it was like, how do I charge this
and turn it back into the rental company?
So even not as an owner,
but even just as a person who's renting one,
it was one of my two here.
And so that being said, the education part is massive.
Being able to educate our customers
and letting them feel comfortable
about decisions they make
without really forcing them to, like you say,
don't buy, buy, buy, buy, buy.
Let's learn, let's educate,
let's get you comfortable first.
Let's make sure that you know exactly what you're getting into
or what you're not getting into.
That's not something that fits your lifestyle, right?
We don't want it to go into a lifestyle where you buy it
and then you regret it so much
and then you put your fingers at the dealership and say,
hey, why'd you make me buy this car?
You knew this wasn't good for me.
So that's massive.
Can I add another, just another element too?
And it's also helping on the dealer end too,
because obviously, but like service,
that's a whole realm now that's different.
Like with ICE, we all know what the service is
and we know what your service manager is dealing with.
You know what the problems are.
You know how to work with that.
Now it's like customers have no friggin' idea.
What do I need?
Do I ever need service?
And obviously, yeah, you do need service
and, but it's just a little bit different.
So it's also educating them,
no, you still need to be going back to
then communicating on behalf of the dealers
with email cadences to be like, hey, reminder,
you're still gonna need to get your motors checked out
or whatever it is.
But like that, just keeping that,
we don't wanna lose those customers
because of a lack of knowledge
as lifetime value customers.
Like we were so tuned to on the ice side.
So it's just like another point.
I love that.
That's good stuff.
And the thing is you can quickly lose
a customer's attention
and you can lose anybody's attention.
You can lose my attention right now
if we're not speaking about relevant stuff
to what it is that we're talking about.
And that's a customer's side.
Just like any one of us,
take us out of automotive for a moment.
You are losing our attention
if it doesn't concern what it is that we're interested about
or we wanna learn about.
But you also intrigue us when you give us little nuggets
and little pieces and little different ways
to be able to consume some education
and also help demystify what it means
to be involved inside of jumping into the future.
Which is what we're talking about, right?
We are literally in the future
talking about electric vehicles
and how they're impacting us.
And it's not slowing down from the moment.
They're not flying yet though.
So that's, I've been waiting for that.
I've been waiting till the morning
to start to move back and forth in the future and back.
But at the same time, it is.
If that happens, I'm traveling a lot more.
That's what's gonna happen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're gonna send me on the road a lot more.
That's right.
We're gonna need to fly over there real quick.
Very quickly, quickly.
But it is, the future is here
and it's coming faster than we anticipated
in a lot of ways.
I do know that the mandate changed a little bit,
which I think is good,
especially for our country,
our infrastructure's a little different.
We got a lot of work we need to do
to be able to make sure that it's available to everyone.
But local resources are blowing up.
You're starting to see local businesses
add charging ports to their spots,
superchargers and all these things
because they know that it is gonna happen.
They know if they have those there, people will come
and maybe have a cup of coffee,
maybe while they're waiting,
because there is time.
There's a little time involved
when it comes to up five, 10 minutes.
Full charge could be all night, right?
It just all depends on what you're really doing
and where you're trying to go.
So the more we can educate them on how to do it,
where to get it
and actually the tools to help them find it,
it's massive.
That right there alone will make them come back to you.
That right there alone
will make them ask even more questions.
My favorite thing was to always in sales
was to always talk to somebody
and then get them to start asking questions.
When I knew they were asking questions
about something, I knew I had them, right?
They were interested.
And when they're interested, I'm interested.
And being interested, remember,
people find themselves inside of whatever social channel
that they're in, absorbing and consuming information.
Some of it's random.
Some of it's a dance that they'll never do, right?
Some of it is all of this other random information,
but every here and there, they're gonna drop in
and if a digital piece of content is present
after they consume while they're in the middle
of their scroll, it's very important.
Just like on YouTube, just like on social media channels.
What is it that you guys have been leaning in
or seeing work for some of your clients
and making sure that they're present
where other people are digitally present?
Yeah, it's that beautiful segue.
I'll keep it in the EV kind of sphere,
but, and I'll touch a little bit
on kind of arts wheelhouse here,
but just thinking about the, in the social context
and like the digital tidbits, like reels.
It could be like someone already,
someone, maybe that consumer already saw,
they did some searches like,
yeah, EV, huh, cool.
And then the dealer pops up with the organic pages
that we've optimized for.
They go to that website, they go to that landing page,
they learn a little bit about it,
cool, whatever, I'll go do my own thing,
go hang out with my friends now.
And then remarketing, follow up with a nice little,
hey, did you know, tip on the BMW i5 or whatever.
And just like a fun, fun content in a reel,
that's just like quick consumable content.
That's just like one example of many kind of
follow that person around
by with kind of one-to-one communication essentially.
And he building that momentum until their final,
I like, oh, maybe I will check out
that arts BMW down the road or whatever.
There is, and it's not about,
it's about being there all the time.
When we preach to sell people that we train
inside dealerships is that your social game
should be a daily game.
It's not something we just do sometimes.
It's something that we do daily
because of the instant gratification
that people have with their purchases even now today.
When they make a decision,
they make a decision in that moment.
When they make that moment decision, they want it now.
Right?
So if you're not there, if you're not in that place
where they remember or where they can reach out
to a press a quick button,
they're going to find the person who is.
And even if they know you,
I've seen people who know people in our business
but they were just there and they hit a button
and they, and somebody reached out to them
and did a hell of a job.
And that's what we want with the type of data
that we get from people like from C4, for example,
the kind of stuff that you could bring sight to people
knowing when to do it, how to do it
and what's effective.
That can really be a big deal to an individual sales person.
Right?
All the way to the, all the way,
dealership, all the way funnels down.
And when you can be able to give that data to your team,
they're more confident in most,
and the biggest thing is they're more likely
to put out that type of information.
They're more likely to give you educational stuff
that gets people encouraged, right?
So that they're so empowered to come in and say,
look, I know what's up, I'm ready to buy it.
I want to buy it from you.
I want to buy it, I want to buy it from you Luke,
whoever, and that's powerful.
One of the things that we do a lot is we target folks
with ads, like we match the audience
to the content they're consuming
and then lastly to the measurement.
So like for EV shoppers, we want to show them EVs
that we have on our lot.
So with 79% of people holding their phone
while they're consuming television
with connected TV right now,
we can show them the vehicles
that are actually on their lot currently
and it's updated every day.
So we dynamically show them vehicles
that they've already showed interest in
based on like our audience data.
And then we go back to measurement.
Did we get them to search?
Did we get them to go to the site and take action?
Not just two second clicks on the site, right?
And then lastly, did we get them
to actually move metal for you?
Did we move metal?
So we can actually measure using our partners
like with Polk sales and other partners that we have
actually measure if the vehicle is actually moved
from that campaign.
So does somebody see an ad, take action, right?
QR codes, huge by the way, we need QR codes.
Leave them on your video the entire time.
Don't just flash them for five seconds
because I don't have enough time to get action.
So leave them on the entire time
and then show the vehicles that you have on the lot.
Put them on, show them dynamically.
And so we do a lot of wide buy type messaging
with our CTV campaigns, but then dynamically overlay
put on top of here's our inventory.
Like here's what we have.
And then we match the audience to that.
So SUV, truck, whatever it is, we match them.
And then from a measurement perspective,
did we move them or not?
That's what it really comes down to.
That's as a dealer, that's how you're gonna measure us.
Bingo.
You really see performance in the eye of the beholder.
Like that's what it really is.
For the world's okayist guy,
I gotta tell you, you're pretty good, dude.
You're pretty good.
You know what I'm talking about.
I'm pretty mid.
I'm pretty mid to be honest with you.
It's a big deal, right?
You're pretty mid.
I love that, just pretty mid.
Six, seven, six, seven.
You're crushing it, man.
What you just said there is so true.
Here's the thing, people go to your website,
they're gonna click hypothetically,
they're gonna go and they're gonna click,
one car because they don't wanna put themselves
as a lead on the five that they liked.
So there's that one vehicle, but it's a type of vehicle.
It may be a price thing, maybe a SUV, it may be third row,
whatever it is, we wanna make sure
that they don't just see that one,
that we know that, hey, we have others available.
You have options, sir or ma'am.
And when we can give people options,
they tend to pick something.
And that's the biggest thing.
When we hit them with one thing
and it doesn't go their way, it's over.
But if we have options,
then they tend to go different directions,
they tend to have ideas.
But the idea is to isolate those options to one
eventually, right?
If you're a good sales pro,
you should be able to dynamically walk them right
to that one vehicle that works perfect for them.
But again, the options and being able to put that
in front of them until they are ready to say Fred
or Lou or Art, hey, I wanna talk to you, I'm ready to buy.
I think you made a point about options there too.
It's like, they have options for dealerships as well.
Right?
So we need to be there at a consistent frequency
you said about being on to on it all the time
that you need to be around.
So they need to be like,
the OEM creates demand for the OEM,
but we at tier three need to create demand for our brand.
Right?
And so if we do that, like we're there,
then they see us consistently,
then they're like, all right, that's the place I'm gonna go.
Now I need to pick out which option of vehicle.
And that's the great moment that we love.
That's how we're gonna get performance.
Yeah.
And that's interesting, I'm listening to all this too.
I'm gonna try to like distill this point a bit,
but I think one of the things that C4, we've always done
is been almost like,
we pay attention to not just the demographics,
which we have like just an insane amount of demographic data
and all the data available to us
from millions of different sources
and the partnerships we've built over the years,
which enables us to really drive more sales,
share and have it cheaper, more efficiently.
But it's like this one term that,
I don't even know if it's a real word,
but psychic graphics.
So it's kind of like what we're talking about.
It's kind of like what we're talking about.
It's not just, hey, okay, medium household income
and this zip code, okay, target them.
It's more, okay, now what has the journey
of this one customer bin like art?
If he likes outdoorsy stuff,
then here's what he's gonna look for.
Oh, maybe he's an Outback customer.
So then it's following that sort of not just based
on this kind of single data point,
which we see a lot of times a lot in the industry,
but like really that journey of the evolution
that art's gone through to then be like,
oh, wow, you're right.
I do want to freaking out back and et cetera.
So it's following that journey.
So it's like high funnel, mid funnel,
mid to low funnel, and then you all do your job
and reach out to art quickly
once he's submitted his lead as quickly as possible.
That's right.
And part of building that audience,
part of building that audience is talking to the dealer
on a consistent basis, right?
And we do that before.
You, we literally are a service based company.
Like we talk to the dealers
because we know that they know
which bridges people won't go around
during which days there's traffic.
Like those matter to you being able to purchase a vehicle,
right?
If you're not gonna drive past a bridge,
even though that zip code is only a 10 miles away,
but there's a tunnel and a bridge
and you're not gonna go through that,
then we don't need to target that area.
So if we don't talk to the dealers
and understand their demographic,
like actual demographic data,
you can't build that audience that Luke was talking about.
Build the audience based on like our data,
but then also the dealer's data.
So like consistently talking to them on a weekly basis,
knowing your account manager, like an understanding
like they know each other, they trust each other.
That's huge in this business.
That matters.
And communication breeds trust, right?
And then the walls of mistrust come down
the better the communication gets.
And this is why it is so much of an art,
not funding me, but much of an art
in being able to make sure that we are touching the customer
at with again, with relevant information
about what they specifically searched about
and bringing a message to them.
But like you said, you speak to your dealers
on a weekly basis.
So as boots on the ground, often this week
we're in a whole other part of the country.
Like we said earlier next week,
we're gonna be in a whole different part of the country.
But across the board, we have seen something
be pretty consistent.
And maybe you can tell us some of the best practices
that some of your dealers have been doing.
But sometimes all of these efforts that we're doing
are not known by the person
that is actually communicating
face to face with the customer.
So like you said, a lot of the times
we could be conveying our message to the clients,
to the customer, to the community,
to a person that wants a specific vehicle.
But that message hasn't necessarily trickled down
to a salesperson where before they only had
to be a little bit familiar with the one commercial
that was being posted on a certain channel
at a certain time of the night or a certain radio ad.
And they knew that was what's gonna be played all the time.
Now, sometimes your salespeople don't even know
that this is happening until they're the ones
getting targeted, right?
And saying, hey, I was recently looking at this car
and be like, I was looking at it for a customer.
Why am I?
I look at 700 cars today.
Yeah.
But what are you guys doing to help make sure
that down to the ones that are actually communicating
and actually closing the loop on the marketing
are actually speaking in tandem with what's going out
the first time the customer starts engaging.
So I can, I'll grab it, first at least.
So obviously there's a number of lovers here.
I think, again, it really goes back
to that engagement strategy, that weekly discussion,
which we, if we can effectuate it,
we will get as many stakeholders as we can on those calls.
So oftentimes we'll have like when the group
of like the sales managers, the marketing folks
and say like the service manager,
when they all get on the call
and it's sort of like this like committee environment
where we're touching on all of the profit centers
that typically results in that,
just naturally results in that message carrying down.
But yeah, one of the main, one of the biggest things
is ensuring, and this is just a tip again,
what's a great question is ensuring that,
hey, the salespeople are familiar
with all the specials that we're running this month.
It's hard to do that
when you're just using a like a flashy product
that's dynamically generating all of these specials
just like by using the incentives
that were released on the first.
No, it's like you make some custom desks,
some custom deals, go to the market smart
and then share that with your whole sales team.
So they know, and if we talk about with art,
the GM of this dealership, the fictional dealership,
if we're talking to art and we're like,
hey, this month we really think
that you should consider running this special
or this offer like spring into savings or blah, blah, blah.
It's truck month again
and whatever that specific offer is gonna be,
tell your people.
And then the last thing I'll add on that too
is we also just to ensure that processes are consistent
and there's no issues with piping or anything like that.
We also mystery shop our clients too
so that we can then come to them and say,
hey, by the way, this was a great response.
Here's the text that was sent.
Here's the email that was sent.
Here's the voicemail recording, all that stuff
so that they can then either look,
it looks like art actually didn't get the note,
there didn't get the memo.
That's what we were running this month.
He didn't mention it in the email, et cetera.
So it helps that quality control, helps that process.
And if there are challenges from there,
we also offer this kind of like consultative services
because we've been doing that type of stuff for so long
that we'll be like, here email templates you can use.
Here's a good cadence for a follow up and stuff like that.
So we help as much as we can on that side as well.
Hopefully that answers.
I think one, for sure.
And I think one thing that I do myself
as I was building out our video program
but really as I was like getting into C4
was I started, and just like you guys are,
I started going to the dealership
and going and being there with them
and getting an understanding of,
like I just visited a client out in West Virginia
and shout out to Pam who's worked there for 40 years.
Like she, yeah, shout out to her.
She worked there for, she's a Steelers fan though.
So unfortunately I'm a Ravenous fan
so she doesn't like me too much.
She likes me a little bit.
And there's tons of stories just like this
where you like go into the dealership
and get an understanding of who they are.
And that helps you like empower your marketing
a little bit more.
And I think that's something that we also do.
We encourage everyone and I can do myself
like to go and get inside the dealership
and get an understanding of who they are,
who their salespeople are, who the service manager is,
who their service folks are,
like get an understanding of who they are
because then you can talk about them
in a much better way rather than,
okay, we're on a screen
and we're gonna talk about your social metrics
for five minutes,
like that you're getting with a lot of different,
our competitors to be honest with you.
Yep.
I love that you said that
and talking about who they are,
what they want, what they're concerned about.
And it also flows very well for a salesperson,
especially when it comes to their confidence
when they understand how much information
this customer has probably already digested
about this particular vehicle of interest
and how their interest is at a high level at this point.
By the time they're probably speaking for them,
we've already sifted out a whole lot of sell me on this car
or sell me on this concept.
And that has made sales so much different,
but part of the overall evolution of the customer
that we've been seeing happening,
which actually is making things easier for us
and a little less salesy.
We're marketing in a way that makes the industry
have to be less salesy.
And that's something that I think a lot of car guys
and car guys will appreciate.
And it is actually very inviting to people
that are considering even coming in automotive
is how precise all of this digital communication
and these techniques have been
to making sure we're talking to the customer
about what's relevant to them.
Salespeople, your confidence should be at an all time high
when a person is even connecting with you
about what it is that you have on your lot.
You guys have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I couldn't, that was awesome,
but I think it is interesting.
It's like this distillation of this evolution
of the worldwide web and the ability
that customers now have to do their research.
And if you're setting yourself up in the right way
to be a part of that journey,
then naturally the salespeople, when those opportunities come,
those opportunities are like,
I know I want the metallic gray, super outback.
I'm a super guy, maybe that's why I keep using
super references, but you know what's,
and so this really natural nice sort of evolution
that's taken place.
And the other thing is it works so perfectly well
with our kind of like mantra,
which is sales up, share up, cost down.
And because if you're, if you're,
instead of just spraying and praying,
like doing a whole bunch of like broadcast
or whatever else, you're actually dialing in
to finding Art Peer, who's interested in this and this.
And in three days, he's gonna buy this car.
You're able to do that cheaply
and you can reduce that cost per sale
because you're targeting so well
and you're knowing the audience
and then you're driving them to a place
where you optimize for conversion.
So then Lou, the sales guy, like the lead comes in
and Art says, hey, I want this,
I can be there on Tuesday.
And you're like, great, I'll help you out.
And how important is it that you see
that a dealership doesn't or takes the time
to customize it to them, customize the strategy
to their store?
Cause I can say, I can be up in Massachusetts
and have a Honda store and say, man,
the Honda store over there in Nebraska is smashing.
They're killing it.
They're number one in volume.
I want exactly the same thing that they're doing.
Give me their package.
And then you have to have the, hold on a second.
Whew.
Yeah, that's right.
You gotta use your data.
You have to use your data.
So looking at your sales by zip reports,
looking at your pump and pump out reports,
looking at your market master reports
and understanding who your audience is,
but also who your competitors are.
And then diving into the data
and seeing your impression share
versus your competitors
and who is actually competing
the same keywords that you are.
So every audience, and I think I've heard this
like a million times,
but every dealership is a snowflake.
So we have to get in.
We have to understand who you are,
who you're trying to talk to.
What are you trying to say to them?
And then we'll figure out all the tools
because there's tons of them.
We'll figure out the right tools
to build you what you want.
Because every, if you want a house,
you need a hammer, right?
If you want to dig a hole,
you don't need a hammer for that.
You need a shovel.
So like we have to figure out which tool is there
or which set of tools or mix of tools
is the right tool for your dealership.
Get an understanding of the audience
of who is gonna be talking to them.
To go back to your last point too,
one thing I wanted to mention was
I think from a sales perspective,
I know I'm shopping for,
and now I'm gonna get pitched a bunch,
but I'm shopping for a third row, right?
With a nice big screen
and captain shares in the second row.
And so if I'm shopping for that
and I come to the dealership,
I want to talk to somebody
who's super knowledgeable about that product.
Because we can get them interested.
We can get them to like that car looks pretty,
but when they get into it,
let's be knowledgeable about all the features,
like maybe like I know in the 2025 expeditions,
they have like self-driving almost now.
I just rented one.
So like understanding how that works
and all those things, that stuff matters.
It goes back to like how it used to be,
like do the features, options, benefits, walk them around.
That's the key.
Don't skip steps at the dealership
once we've gotten them in.
Like they're gonna be ready to buy
if you can walk through those options with them.
That's such a good point, though.
And that's something that we lost a couple of years ago
when we had the shortage of inventory.
Everybody was just buying because you had it.
So a lot of ourselves people have lost that touch.
Our leadership even lost the touch
on how to manage that and coach that.
And that's a big part of what we train on these days too
is we train on walk-arounds,
even doing virtual walk-arounds for customers now
because people want their pace all differently.
But the more we practice on that,
understanding that it's not just,
hey, this car has this,
you got to also give it the benefit.
It's a feature benefit
and make sure that you're understanding it
and being educated and understanding your product knowledge
is more important now than ever
because the technology has changed so much
in the last five years too.
It's not just the inventory's back.
It's the fact that it's so different
for the self-driving, all the things,
dynamic cruise control.
I can keep going on in different features
but we're gonna get more and more.
Wait, you see five more years.
Gotta stay up on your game.
I love that we talked about every dealership to Snowflake.
You said it dead on.
Every dealership, it's not even auto groups.
Not auto groups or Snowflakes because they are
but inside of an auto group,
every dealership's a Snowflake too.
They have different leaders, different people,
different brands, they have different locations,
different data.
So it's important that we look into that
and know that, hey, you just got to do the best
that you can with what you have.
And if you guys go out there
and maximize every opportunity,
your salespeople will be better at what they do
but you still have to keep them
on top of what product knowledge is.
So it's not just always technology working for you.
You do have to have people working for you
because C4 can bring you guys 100 leads.
They can walk in your door right in front
but if your team does not know how to help people,
you're gonna just waste your time.
So it's all the way around but I'm gonna tell you one thing.
As a salesperson, as a leader,
as anybody inside of a store,
if I have great leads that has great data behind it,
I'm really excited.
My team should be excited and they will be.
They'll be more likely to call,
more likely to reach out,
more likely to step up their game
to be able to be ready for somebody
to show up with the EV question
or any type of new technology.
So as we up the capabilities of our technology,
as we upgrade what it is that we do
to communicate with the customer,
we stress to you all heavily,
upgrade how it is that your individuals
utilize the opportunity they have
with the attention of the customer.
All of this is a big fight to make sure
that we keep the attention,
keep the eyes of the customer
and keep them lead to your desk,
lead to your dealership,
make sure that we don't let that muscle go dormant
or go dead by not being the best
at what it is that we do.
We know the vehicle,
we know the information about the vehicle
and if we don't know it,
figure it out, learn it and guide them
because at the end of the day,
when all of the marketing is complete
and they're face to face with another human,
you want a professional
that knows what they're talking about.
So if you've been targeted
in a super awesome technological way,
make sure that the person that you're talking to
or you at least want the person that you're talking to
to help guide you in this new investment
that you have in the same type of manner.
So we do definitely encourage everybody
to be consistent out there.
But speaking of being consistent out there,
we wanna make sure that you all do
consume this information and also make some moves.
So we got a little call to action for you all
and it will be on Art or Luke to say
how it is that you can get a hold of them
and find out a little bit more
or see what it is that you can do
to get a demo with these guys.
Who wants to take that?
And I wasn't prepared for this question,
but yes, c-4analytics.com.
You can read all about us and submit a lead
and we'll get back to you quickly.
Can I just add one last little piece here too?
The other tip I wanna send out to the audience
is know your market too
and make sure that you're having this,
you should be reviewing your market data,
like your market share by zip, pump in, pump out,
all of that stuff on a regular basis
with whoever's running your digital strategy.
If you wanna increase your share
and do it in a cheap, cost-effective way,
that should be like the number one thing.
And if they're not asking you for your OEM reports
or getting any of that registration data,
then that's probably not the right partner.
That's why I meant it.
And then for sure.
And for me, you can hit me up
the world's most okayist guy on LinkedIn, right?
Or you can find me at my wife and her friend's coffee shop.
It's called Herbal Brew Bar.
It's on Can Island.
You can find me there.
I love that.
I love that you've got coffee in the blood.
That's what I'm talking about.
We're all here.
We gotta have you guys out for a coffee, man.
You guys gotta do a live show there or something.
Both yours in Bruin Solution,
so I'm sure that's what's happening over there
at the coffee shop.
I love that that you go there and you have family there.
That's amazing.
Cheers to that.
Shout out to that.
If you're in his area, you're involved more,
go check out that coffee shop.
Get you some of that stuff, right?
But what I gotta say is that folks,
if you're looking to get your showroom exploding,
just filled up with just dynamite customers
that are ready to buy, reach out to C4.
They're gonna make sure that it happens.
I'm excited about teaming up with them.
We've been teamed up with them
for this past month and a half
and just really learning a lot about what they're doing.
What I could say is that
they're bringing it to the next level.
We've known this company for years
and we know what they've been doing.
We've been seeing them grow in the market
and we've seen what they've done with dealers.
I highly recommend them.
One thing we know for sure about this company
is that they're 100% CGC approved.
And we wanna make sure you all recognize
that they are 100%.
That's right.
That is the stamp of approval, everybody.
They are Bruin Solution.
Nice.
Folks, get out there.
As streaming has become more,
people don't watch cable television anymore.
It's not radio anymore.
It's about stream TV and inside stream TV.
You could be reaching your customers when they're watching.
They know when it's happening.
They can make it happen for you.
They can explode their living with your data.
So let's go.
Let's go.
We appreciate you taking the time
to spend with us today.
Car Guys and Car Guys, Art and Luke.
Thank you so much for taking the time
to hang out with us
and upgrade your quality of this brew.
I am Lou Ramirez, the Car Guys.
I'm Brethren Arts subprime hero.
And you've been Bruin Solutions
on the Car Guys Coffee Podcast.
We're so thankful that C4 Analytics
is bringing you this brew.
Make sure that you do check them out on the podcast.
Reach out to them.
If you do like this, make sure that you comment.
Ask them a question.
If you want us to help them get to you
about something that you want to brew, let us know.
We got your back.
We're all here to brew solutions for you all.
But Art, Luke, thank you so much for tuning in with us.
Again, Bruin Solutions out there.
And keep enjoying all that great brew on the heat.
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