5 basic personnel management mistakes related to your online marketing activities

Published in Autojournal in July 2017

1. I am not familiar with internet advertising, so I will hire an inexpensive inexperienced candidate to manage it

This trend is on the rise. We are seeing more and more dealerships develop their own in-house marketing teams, often with candidates who have no operational experience. Achieving success in internet advertising is two-fold: 10% strategy and planning and 90% operational execution. A candidate who has just graduated from university with a marketing degree has mastered the 10%. But the 90% is learned with experience. Believe me, I graduated with a B.A. in Marketing and thought I knew everything. My first job set me straight. :)

So my advice is to proceed with caution, as the digital advertising industry is changing very quickly and your employee will need a lot of training and coaching and as a dealership manager your expertise is often geared towards managing the sales, service and purchasing departments.

2. I will assign the position of online marketing manager to my sales manager or a sales rep who "knows it."

Online marketing and sales work hand in hand in a joint, not parallel, universe. Marketing generates leads and sales people make the sales. However, the task of reaching the goal is completely different! Salespeople have a single goal, to make the most sales at the highest profit while giving a customer an exceptional experience over the phone, in email communication or in face-to-face meetings. The online marketing manager must generate as many online visitors as possible who are interested in the products and provide them with an exceptional web advertising experience so that they decide to finally contact a salesperson, while not knowing exactly who that visitor is and what they really want
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This is where the art of analyzing a user's navigation path to become a potential customer who contacts the sales team comes into its own. It is also at this stage that the discrepancy between the talent and skills of the salesperson and the marketing manager is the greatest. It is important for the dealership manager to understand this difference. The basic organizational psychology concepts of positioning the right candidate in the right position to perform at their peak are extremely important. Online marketing has become a complex mathematical concept that has its own expertise, just like sales, service and customer recovery. Who wants their manager or sales rep to spend 70% of their time trying to understand the concept of online marketing? No one does! We need to optimize our customer acquisition channels to the max in the next decade!

3. I don't know anything about online marketing, so I hire the experts who handle all the dealerships as well as my competitors and I drive the business myself without really following what is going on

There are dozens of online marketing firms that have mastered internet advertising and data analytics. You have to be careful! Are you, as a manager, but also as a human resources person for your company, able to make a decision on how to wisely evaluate what an online marketing firm can offer you? Is their expertise real or just a sales pitch?

As a business manager, do you have the precise and technical knowledge to be critical enough when internet advertising is made an artificial intelligence machine more complex than a postgraduate engineering course? Is doing what your competitors and peers are doing the path to victory or am I just putting off a very real problem?

4. Social media! Let's talk about it! All social media is contracted to a firm that promised me 2 publications per month

For this portion of Online Marketing, I have to lean towards having an in-house resource. The social world is increasingly complex and requires a constant presence connected to operations. Posts on social media can range from a simple promotion or clearance sale to prizes won by your dealership to the hiring of a new team member. The communication presence is so constant that having an external is very complex. If your package includes 2 posts a month by an outsider and a bad comment crisis explodes in the middle of the night, who's going to handle it? Yes, it's rare, I grant you, but the issue is real!

A word of advice, the best candidates for the social networking position often display more of a public relations manager title. They are very versatile in their communications skills and are able to write powerful press releases, thought-provoking blog posts or newspaper articles, take inspiring photos and also handle what's going on in your social networks.

If you decide to outsource this service anyway, for financial or HR policy reasons, why not ask your firm to have the resource come to work for you during their hours and guarantee a crisis management service? When it comes to your personnel management, it is much easier to control your publications and online reputation regarding your dealership and brand when the resource is just a stone's throw from your office.

5. My computer programmer is a genius, he takes care of programming my website, managing my online advertising campaigns and the social networks of my dealership

The best mechanic in the world is not the best salesman and the opposite is also true! The person who runs your computer system or programmed your website may be extremely competent in his or her field, but that is no guarantee of success in other disciplines. To make an analogy, your dealership hires salespeople, technical advisors, administrative staff, mechanics, etc. All of them work in the field of technology. They all work in the automotive field, but with their own expertise that is not necessarily transferable. It's the same thing for the web! Although many people improvise themselves as "Jack-of-all-trades", no one is specialized in all segments of the web. Even less capable of administering your computer system, programming your website, making your graphic elements, managing your internet advertising campaigns, and optimizing them to maximize your results, as well as managing your public relations and social networks with a masterful hand. Just like your internal operational structure, success lies in having a competent complementary team that communicates effectively with the main objective of promoting your dealership.

In closing, here's my advice: as opposed to wasting hundreds of hours trying to find a "one-hit wonder" who does everything right. Why not put your HR Marketing efforts into finding a great marketing project manager who knows the industry well enough to think critically, but above all has outstanding project management and communications skills. Put this resource in charge of making you win in online marketing and give them the latitude to find great strategic partners for the various specializations in the online marketing industry. Whether outsourced (web advertising, analytics, IT, programming) or directly employed (social media and PR), a good project manager bridges the gap between marketing, sales, service and the overall corporate vision to deploy a consistent message. You have a great VP of Marketing and a coalition ready to win!