It’s crucial to shift your current selling approach. Learn a 5-step digital retailing sales process that is customized to today’s online car shopper, and learn about these topics: the current state of car shopping, what other dealers are seeing and experiencing, an abbreviated selling approach that works virtually, and key examples we are seeing in the market, in this webinar, hosted by Rich Mertz, Sr. Manager of Digital Retailing & Digital Selling Expert.
With government and public health updates being released every day, you may feel the need to follow this lead and share all the steps your dealership is taking to protect and support your customers. You know what you want to say, so the next issue to address is how you say it. How do you communicate this information so that visitors to your digital storefront see it, read it, understand it, and remember it?
One option is to consolidate these updates in a single display ad or a homepage slide, pop-up, or the like, but is this effective? And will your customers read all of it? Most likely, the answer is “no;” they will read the headline, a few more words, then navigate to their next page. This defeats the purpose of using this prime real estate on your website. What is a better alternative?
Now more than ever, it is important to deploy clear and concise messaging to your consumer base. This approach applies to the multiple communication vehicles you may choose from, including Onsite, Online Advertising, Social Media, Email blasts, and more.
Below are two examples of creative: Slide A is what we discussed NOT doing, while Slide B is the clear and concise alternative. Slide A overcommunicates by including lots of copy in a single homepage slide, increasing the risk of reader fatigue or that online shoppers will bypass the messaging altogether.
Slide B breaks down the content of the homepage slide. This approach creates message hierarchy while utilizing best practices and drives the online shopper to a landing page with relevant information that’s organized and digestible. This page can also link to respective pages for the online shopper to act on (Schedule Online, Service Specials, New Car Specials, New Inventory, Digital Retailing Step by Step, etc.). An A/B case study showed 70% of online shoppers clicked on the more refined designs over the content heavy designs.
Slide A:
Slide B:
Now when you layer in your other digital marketing channels, including Off-Site Display Ads, Social Media, Email Blasts, you should retain a consistent creative strategy with clear and concise messaging, as well as a dedicated landing page. The landing page will keep your customers up to date with any operational changes that may impact their customer experience. Equally important, it facilitates engagement between you and your customer.
Knowing that in our current economic climate, 2/3 shoppers are willing to do 100% of their business online, it’s important to utilize technology to effectively and efficiently communicate. With Dealer Home Services, you can bring your dealership to the consumer by helping your customers shop, buy and service their vehicle safely and conveniently from their home.
Digital Retailing &Shop-At-Home Services: Bring the dealership experience to the comfort of home. With Digital Retailing and Shop-At-Home Services, your customers can shop, schedule a test drive, value their trade, pick their payment and have a vehicle delivered safely to their home.
Remote Vehicle Service & Repair: Fixed Operations are an essential part of your business. While they may be a small percentage of total sales, they make up 50% or more of your gross profit.
How do you market Dealer Home Services to your customers? Share clear and concise information on your website and off-site marketing channels that drive traffic to a dedicated landing page for these offerings. Include links to respective pages to inventory, parts, and service so your customers can continue to learn about them.
Take time now to make your website a true digital storefront, and you will see both immediate and long-term returns. Before the start of social distancing, 83% of car buyers wanted to take their shopping experience online. Current events will have an impact on consumer expectations well into the future. With 28% of shoppers delaying their vehicle purchase, the 78% majority are still actively shopping and want to engage with a dealership. Refine your digital strategy and accelerate plans that will drive engagement with your customers. If you need assistance developing your dealership’s creative strategy, please contact your Dealer.com Performance Manager to learn about our Managed Services Content and Creative services.
Video marketing helps Tier 3 dealerships put their messages in front of their audiences, and Dealer.com’s A-team of industry experts is making this easier than ever before. We make this service quick and easy to use by offering video templates, automatically inserting data, and updating videos to match the latest offers and inventory. But our solution isn’t just for Tier 3 dealers. In fact, all our video marketing services are available to the first two tiers of the automotive marketing ecosystem, OEMs and regional dealer associations. By implementing digital video advertising at the brand marketing level, manufacturers and associations can complement and boost the efforts of their dealers. Dealer.com video services support Tier 1 and Tier 2 organizations in three distinct ways:
1. Localization ofB-roll Footage
Manufacturers work hard to develop professional-grade video assets that reflect their core values and differentiators. Using those assets to elevate the brand on a national level is one thing, but it’s an even greater challenge to do the same within each and every locale. We can take a brand’s B-roll footage and drop it into professional templates, then customize by adding dealership names, URLs, and personalized end cards that showcase adjustable offers. This approach to video advertising offers the best of both worlds: brand-level marketing with localized offers and details.
2.LaunchingLocally Converted Tier 1 and Tier 2 Ads at Scale
After combining brand-level B-roll footage with dealer-specific information, Dealer.com has the tools, resources, and expertise to launch video campaigns at scale. Speed to market is essential with digital video marketing, and timely production and activation are two of the biggest challenges that dealers face. Often, delays are so great that many localized OEM video assets never make it into the market at all. With plenty of production resources and expert video capabilities, we’re here to solve that problem for you.
3.Performance Reportingat All Tiers
Through the Dealer.com ControlCenter platform, Tier 3 dealerships can view metrics and reports on their video ads alongside the results of other advertising channels. This allows them to make more informed decisions by comparing channels and evaluating the quality of traffic. And because they don’t have to pull together disparate reports, it’s easy to monitor results and make decisions.
We also provide Tier 1 and Tier 2 levels of reporting. Reports for OEMs and regional associations include aggregate performance reports to help them make more informed decisions about their investments. Armed with accurate information, these groups can clearly communicate the importance of video advertising performance to their Tier 3 dealerships.
Video Advertising from Dealer.com can help dealerships facilitate interactions between their audiences and their inventories and incentives. But it’s also a great solution for Tier 1 and Tier 2 organizations that are looking to maximize their advertising investments, promote brand consistency, and encourage better performance at the dealership level.
Click Here and contact your performance manager to learn more about Video Advertising.
In today’s uncertain environment, it is more important than ever for dealers to be transparent and up to date in all they are doing as a business to support their customers, their employees, and their communities. Whether you have mandated store closures in heavily impacted areas in the country, you are located in an area where the concern is growing, or in a location where it’s business as usual, you need to be digitally present. It is critical that you are communicating with your customers on a regular basis and nurturing that relationship to keep you top of mind for when customers are ready to shop.
Be Relevant
More time at home means more time on smartphones and computers for shoppers, thinking about their future purchases. It is imperative to keep your digital storefront as relevant and current as possible. Relevancy can be created through on-line messaging and creative, SEO content attracting organic traffic, and a strong presence through frequent updates on your social properties. According to data released in March 2020, there has been a +53% increase in Facebook platform browsing and +32% increase in Instagram. In addition, interactions with Facebook posts (likes, shares, comments) are up 3X over the past 60 days.
Nurture Future Customers
Prior to February 2020, over 60% (or an average of 14 hours) of a shopper’s research time was done via the internet. – and we now anticipate this time spent online will only increase. Your car dealer website, and how a shopper interacts with it, acts as a window into the mind of the shopper and buyer. The ability to understand why and how a consumer considers, selects and buys their next vehicle is measurable and actionable. While in the short-term, the number of people test-driving vehicles will certainly decrease, dealerships should seize the opportunity to provide more quality on-line content around their inventory. This allows potential future buyers to become more familiar with their vehicles. Many dealerships already create model-specific pages, but today is the time to get more granular to include images and videos of specific inventory. Dealers should also create assets, such as banners and landing pages, communicating the solutions they can provide around expanded services, delivery of inventory, and even delivery of vehicles for a test drive.
Be Accessible
With fewer people traveling long distances to purchase new vehicles, the recommendation is to continue to focus on your local market. Leverage Google My Business and keep business information up to date. Note any changes, confirm your phone number is accurate, and articulate precautions your dealership is taking during this time. If you’re open, make sure everyone is aware with home pages slides and banners to communicate your open status. Include photos of your clean and spacious dealership and share them on your social media channels. Leverage Google Posts and blogs as your status changes.
Be Prepared
With immediate vehicle servicing and purchases less possible, shoppers have more time to think about potential future purchases and how to take advantage of significant incentives from OEMs. As the health situation stabilizes, we expect the pent-up demand will drive an influx of transactional shoppers ready to buy in their local markets. Maintaining your digital marketing investments now will allow you to reap the benefits of being top of mind with your customers. Keep your foot on the proverbial gas pedal. When demand returns, you’ll want to be highly visible.
At Dealer.com we are committed to our dealers, our team members, and our community. Our A-team of Managed Services custom content creators are available to help you in any way we can. Wishing you all safety and health during this time.
As shoppers follow public health guidelines and practice social distancing, local automotive businesses are experiencing a noticeable shift in consumer behavior. More are turning to online search and news for answers to their questions and solutions to their needs, resulting in increased search volume and media consumption. However, as people are putting their basic needs first, less automotive search and advertising-driven traffic will occur. What steps should dealerships consider?
Adapt digital strategy and creative messaging.
Align personalized experiences with customer
expectations.
Advertise to stay top
of mind and reach local consumers.
Consumers are more locally
focused than ever. They may be more hesitant to convert from shopper to buyer, but
that doesn’t stop them from shopping. Sharing
the status of your dealership and new procedures can leave a lasting positive
impression. Being present will
help your customers keep your dealership top of mind when they are ready to
shift from shopper to buyer.
The time is now to
refocus your marketing needs. Where can you start?
Prioritize your marketing needs
“What’s the best use of my
advertising budget?” You need to ensure you’re capturing your most qualified
shoppers and helping customers obtain the information they need. With budgets
in flux, it is important to adhere to your advertising hierarchy of needs to
maximize performance. Fund strategies that will maximize your retargeting
efforts, targeting in-market shopping audiences on Facebook, video messaging to
the right audience and most importantly top converting keywords on Search.
Create relevant
messaging to your customers
While every dealerships
situation will be unique, it’s important to remain present for your qualified
consumers. It’s imperative that all your digital touchpoints, from ads, posts,
website and all communications are consistent and reflect the same message and
offers. Does your current messaging reflect your dealership status or OEM
revised incentives?Are there differentials you can broadcast to help
shoppers identify you can meet their needs, both from new vehicle shopping and
service?
Know your Customers
The data on a
dealer’s existing customer is one of the most valuable assets a dealership has,
and now is the time to really leverage it. Segment target customers into
different audiences and target across the media universe with a clearly defined
ROI goal. These steps help dealers avoid
spending advertising dollars on customers who are not in your market. For customers now choosing to delay making a long-term
investment like a new vehicle purchase, can they instead become new service
customers?
Be measurable
It’s time to ask
some hard questions about how exactly your media spend influences your customer
base. How are all your media channels – including traditional – impacting
your business? Can you measure them all using the same methods to compare
efficiency and ROI from each media type? Excellent digital alternatives
to print and TV exist now and are 100% measurable. This is not the time for
broad media sources with ambiguous ROI. Do you have access to a multi-channel,
diverse product to confidently move advertising funds into relevant digital
properties?
Be Agile
We are in a rapidly
changing situation with state, federal and OEM interventions. Shoppers are increasingly
digitally focused across multiple media types.
To come out ahead, you need an unparalleled solution that enables you to
try new channels and deliver the message of your unique differentiators – car
delivery, service valet pickup, OEM Incentives, and more.
We are committed to our dealers. Our A-team of performance managers, industry leaders,
and digital marketing experts are ready to help you showcase your vehicles and dealership services to
shoppers at all stages of the consumer journey.
From the industry’s earliest days, dealerships have had the
same singular goal: sell more cars.
And, while increasing sales is probably still at the top of
your priority list, the goal has shifted in recent years. Now, you want to sell
more cars while maintaining or, better yet, reducing your advertising budget.
Enter digital video advertising.
Digital
Video Advertising is Underpriced
A good advertiser is always on the lookout for under-valued
channels that meet the client’s needs, and digital video platforms do this
while also being seamless and scalable to execute. Those channels deliver
qualified leads because they meet shoppers where they are. Advertise to the
right people, at the right time and in the right place. You can buy an audience’s focused attention
through digital channels for far less than is possible through established
channels like television. Digital video advertising campaigns built using
the Dealer.com platform are achieving $.02 and $.03 cost per 15-second video
view, getting your brand and inventory in front of someone on a channel they’re
already using. And you never pay for shoppers that watch less than 15 seconds.
Shopper Behavior
is Changing
Of course, an advertising channel is only as good as the
audience that’s consuming it. You could have the best marketing message in the
world, but if you advertise it on a channel that encourages skipping or
grabbing snacks during commercial breaks, you’ll be hard-pressed to drive
results.
Fortunately, we know that shoppers are consuming video
content on channels like YouTube and Facebook. In fact, they are using video to
educate themselves at every step of the buyer journey. There are 4 million
in-market auto videos viewed on YouTube every single day. Digital test drives
now outnumber in-dealership test drives two to one. After all, watching
3-minute walkarounds on YouTube requires less time and energy than reading
articles or visiting showrooms. This
combines with the fact that we can target better with in-market audience data
based on past search history, so we know they will actually watch the ads.
A
Content Shortage and the Dealer.com Solution
Okay, so you’re bought into digital video advertising as an
undervalued channel with the power to reach quality audiences that actually see
your videos. But where will you get all that video content?
You guessed it—Dealer.com can
help.
We built an automated video solution that incorporates the
vehicles and offers you want to showcase into existing video templates. You can
even customize them with branded taglines and information. Then, from within
the platform, you can launch your videos at scale across YouTube and
Facebook. And if you decide you want something more personalized, we have
premium custom packages that incorporate footage of your dealership, custom
graphics, custom animations, and more.
The
Time is Now
Like all advertising channels, digital video advertising may
get more expensive as demand grows. Don’t miss your opportunity to get into
digital video at the right time. With Video Advertising from Dealer.com, you
can incorporate this exciting channel seamlessly into your existing advertising
effort to improve results and increase sales.
