Category: Uncategorized

Burlington, Vt., October 16, 2019 – Dealer.com, a Cox Automotive brand, recently teamed up with Cartender, a provider of digital marketing technology, to announce a new opportunity for dealers to leverage video advertising to more effectively communicate and engage their car shoppers. With the growing shift away from television toward smartphones and tablets, Dealer.com and Cartender deliver high quality video advertisements to an engaged audience at scale for dealers across these digital platforms.

Video advertising is a consistently undervalued channel, especially given 20% of the population is no longer reachable through television as people continue to obtain information elsewhere and find other forms of entertainment[1]. A major hurdle for dealerships is finding a scalable creative solution, to turn over new video assets every month. With this enhanced technology, Dealer.com seamlessly provides the details that dealerships want to highlight, such as their incentives, vehicle imagery and branding. Cartender will then take that information and transform it into compelling video templates.

“Dealer.com takes pride in finding undervalued modes of advertising channels for our dealers and removing barriers of entry to those channels,” said Mark Bernstein, associate vice president of advertising, Dealer.com. “We’re thrilled for this new venture, as video advertising gives dealers the ability to build brand and inventory awareness by connecting Facebook and YouTube audiences with their dealership in a dynamic and engaging format.”

Dealer.com works with dealers to identify their specific goals, build creative, and automate monthly video updating to alleviate the time burden for dealers managing video assets.

“Video advertising is an effective way to communicate and engage with customers, but getting the content to market in a timely manner has been a major challenge until now,” said Collin Davis, CEO and co-founder of Cartender. “Working with Dealer.com is the perfect combination of video production expertise, technology solutions, and the most comprehensive vehicle dataset in the industry. Dealers can now target automotive shoppers with a video solution that saves them time and resources by getting their brand to market ahead of the competition.”

Nearly half of auto shoppers who used online video for research said that it helped them discover a vehicle they weren’t previously aware of or considering[2]. However, many automotive dealers have been slow to invest in digital video. The typical dealership lacks digital video assets for content, or they have not previously invested in television or video advertising due to its high cost of entry.

Digital video should be considered an essential component for dealers’ digital advertising strategies because 97% of consumers either visit a dealership, search for inventory or conduct further vehicle research after watching in-market video content[3].

Dealer.com continues to provide multiple creative solution options to help deliver the highest quality and scalable creative content to dealers. For dealership seeking custom video content, Dealer.com also offers an Advanced and Premium level video solution that combines store footage, branding, running vehicle footage and monthly offers allowing dealers to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

To learn more about Dealer.com’s video advertising capabilities, visit https://www.dealer.com/products/advertising/video/.

About Dealer.com
Dealer.com is the premier digital marketing solution for the automotive industry. Providing an integrated platform of Websites, Advertising, Digital Retailing and Managed Services, Dealer.com allows OEMs, dealer groups, retailers and agencies to leverage advanced digital technology, data and insights to deliver the shortest, fastest and most personalized path to customer engagement. The company practices a deep commitment to its culture of progress, with a focus on community, health, and wellness. Based in Burlington, Vermont, Dealer.com is a Cox Automotive brand. For more information, visit www.dealer.com.

About Cox Automotive

Cox Automotive Inc. makes buying, selling, owning and using cars easier for everyone. The global company’s 34,000-plus team members and family of brands, including Autotrader®, Clutch Technologies, Dealer.com®, Dealertrack®, Kelley Blue Book®, Manheim®, NextGear Capital®, VinSolutions®, vAuto® and Xtime®, are passionate about helping millions of car shoppers, 40,000 auto dealer clients across five continents and many others throughout the automotive industry thrive for generations to come. Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately-owned, Atlanta-based company with revenues exceeding $20 billion. www.coxautoinc.com

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[1]   Business Insider Intelligence, Future of TV Report 2017.

[2]   Ipsos/Google, U.S., “Digital’s Influence on In-Market Auto Consideration” study, Aug 2018.

[3]   Business Insider Intelligence, Future of TV Report 2017.

Are you ready to give your customers an all-access pass to your service lane? Watch the video to see how Service Tracker, available as an add-on to Inspect, can improve service lane efficiency and reduce the number of phone calls to your service advisors.

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How do your customers view your dealership? Do they consider you a trusted advisor, ready and willing to help with any automotive question, concern or need? Or, do your customers think of you as a retailer, facilitating a transaction and nothing more?

Today, consumers are shying away from businesses that take a self-centered approach to customer service. Instead, they seek out companies that are willing to create more consultative relationships with their customers.

In this whitepaper, which includes new research from the VinSolutions Technology and Transformation of Retail Study, you’ll learn how new artificial intelligence and automation technology can help you build those consultative relationships and boost your dealership’s bottom line.

See how artificial intelligence and automation technology can benefit your dealership.

Consumers are constantly bombarded by mass marketing, and many are frustrated by being inundated with messages that don’t apply to them. Personalized digital marketing and sales, however, provide an opportunity to set yourself apart with customers by treating them like the unique people they are.

Customers are tired of one-size-fits-all retail experiences, including car buying. According to the Cox Automotive Future of Digital Retail Study, 90 percent of consumers prefer a unique, personalized car buying journey. Additionally, customers’ expectations of the buying process have changed significantly. Nearly two-thirds of car buyers want to complete more of the purchase steps online than the last time they bought a car, according to the 2020 Cox Automotive COVID-19 Consumer & Dealer Impact Study.

If you’re ready to give your customers the kind of car buying experience they want (and increase profits for your dealership), here are three steps to personalize your automotive digital marketing and sales efforts.

Step 1: Collect Your Customer’s Data

When it comes to collecting customer data, automotive CRM systems really matter. With robust customer data stored in your dealership CRM, as well as other software platforms, you can start the process of segmenting your customers based on individual interests. From there, you can tailor a sales approach that is more likely to capture each individual customer’s attention. This approach to marketing helps prevent miscommunication between dealership and customer. And when your customers receive information (sales-related or not) that is relevant to them, it increases their trust in your dealership.

If you’re part of a dealer group, it is also important that you’re able to view customer data across stores. Wouldn’t it be good to know if the customer you’re speaking with just came from a sister dealership? This cross-rooftop data sharing enables you to identify possible brand defections and maximize profits with better visibility into a customer’s negotiations with other stores. 

Again, this all hinges on the type of data you have. Real segmentation that leads to real personalized messaging comes from moving beyond basic demographics. For example, paying attention to your customers’ online browsing history and recording it in your CRM, like the VinLens integration between Connect CRM and Dealer.com does, can help you segment audiences based on key behaviors.  

Step 2: Know the Buying Signals

Reading your customer data can sometimes feel like a foreign language. Not only do you have to collect the right type of data, you have to interpret that data to deliver the right marketing messages. And once again, technology comes to the rescue. CRM artificial intelligence tools like Connect Automotive Intelligence can quickly analyze huge volumes of customer data, identify trends and flag customers that may be ready to talk. Then, you can take a more proactive sales approach to deliver both timely and relevant marketing that will catch your customers’ attention.

You can learn a lot about your customers based on the equity they have in their current vehicles, for example. But unsurprisingly, some of the most insightful buying signals come from your customers’ browsing behavior, including their budget, the makes/models they’re interested in and the frequency/timing of their browsing.

Step 3: Hit the Mark with Your Marketing  

Automated technologies like website analytics and your CRM can give you insight into customer behavior — especially when the two technologies are integrated like they are with VinLens. But now that you’ve used those tools to gather and interpret data, it’s up to you to make a personalized marketing offer. Know your customers’ interests. And deliver messaging that’s warm, welcoming and lets them know you know where they’re coming from and what they want.

Naturally, you’ll use the data you’ve gathered about your customers to guide you through the process. Is a group of customers looking for similar prices, vehicle sizes and features? This information will help you customize pricing and vehicle options and make relevant product suggestions. And it helps you develop authority and rapport with your customers.

With the right technology tools, you can take a more personable and proactive approach with your marketing efforts. And when your customers see that you’re trying to give them information and offers they actually want, they’re more likely to value your suggestions and remain loyal to your dealership.

Serra Honda Grandville built a successful dealership based on the fundamentals of good old-fashioned communication (like greeting every customer at the door) and working hard to develop and maintain healthy customer relationships. 

And while these fundamentals will always remain a priority, the dealership is also deeply committed to staying on the cutting edge, including efforts to improve with the help of new technologies. Serra Honda Grandville has used VinSolutions Connect CRM to boost employee performance and maintain a competitive edge. Specifically, Connect CRM has helped: 

• Increase data collection and utilization, including customer driver’s license and email capture rates.  
• Improve lead-to-appointment ratios. 
• Incentivize employees to boost sales through the use of technology.  
• Improve communication with customers.  

See how VinSolutions Connect CRM helped promote constant improvement and drive long-term success.

Oklahoma City Volkswagen isn’t run by a bunch of old school car guys. Its forward-thinking management team is always looking for ways to enhance the value of their investment. And when Robert Lackey was offered a position as the dealership’s service director, he immediately saw ways to apply that philosophy in the service lane. Many of his most immediate concerns were related to service lane employees and their engagement levels.

“On the surface level, you would see employees and technicians walking around in plain clothes or in shirts from other dealerships,” Robert recalls. “There was no pride in the atmosphere. And on the service drive, you’d see service advisors writing customers up that were stuck in the early 90s with literally a particle board clipboard…and a carbon-copy multipoint inspection sheet. There was zero pride, zero process from front to back.”

Based on his experience managing other service departments, Robert knew that our solutions had the power to increase employee engagement by improving processes and ensuring accountability. He got the employee buy-in necessary to fix the dealership’s obvious challenges with a little help from us.

Real-World Results

Service lane metrics have shown the wisdom in Oklahoma City Volkswagen’s investment in our end-to-end solution. The dealership has achieved:

• 2x increase in gross profit in the service department
• 441+ average additional sales per check-in
• 5-point increase in customer service numbers
• 90% multipoint inspection rate
• $831k+ in additional service recommendations captured in one quarter

A Full Suite for Full Satisfaction

While we offer various solutions for improving different areas of the service lane, Robert implemented the full Spectrum Suite because he knew it could help every single fixed ops employee.

As he sees it, “there is no tool in the industry—and you try to piece them all together—that does everything that Xtime Spectrum does.”