It’s been a long time coming, and there is no going back now: your dealership website merits just as much attention as your showroom floor.
Businesses are leaning more heavily on their digital presence, and for an ever-widening range of functions. With sophisticated data enabling a highly personalized experience, the best approach is to meet the expectations of consumers wherever they might be in their car-buying journey.
Here are some tips for leveraging your website and automotive advertising to reach consumers with the right message, no matter where they are.
Keep Things Simple
Your website can help you achieve many things, but only if it’s built intelligently and purposefully. Take steps to make it as easy as possible for consumers to do business with you.
- Create easy click paths. You have probably heard the expression “time is money.” Does your automotive web design meet consumer expectations? Aim to make it quick and painless to reach the core content.
- Link targeted ads and experiences. No one likes a dead end, either while driving or after clicking on an ad. Ensure your digital advertising points to specific landing page experiences.
- Support every profit center. In addition to promoting new and pre-owned inventory, actively manage your automotive service marketing to keep revenue flowing through your fixed ops.
Showcase Your Brand
Your website is an extension of your brick-and-mortar dealership. Just like showroom visitors, digital foot traffic should be guided through the shopping experience to help build a sense of connection.
- Design with purpose. To feel authentic, your website needs to be representative of what they would expect in store from the ownership and brand. Whether your dealership is sleek and modern or colorful and casual, the presentation and messaging should be consistent.
- Keep your audience informed. At the most basic level, your website is a communication tool. Leverage this real estate to inform customers and consumers what is going on with you in your individual market.
- Get the whole team involved. Support inclusion by asking team members to lend ideas for features. This may range from homepage slides, to dealer promotions marketing, or to ways they engage in the community, such as volunteering and other good works.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Consider ways you can squeeze more value from resources you already have, including the ones that are working behind the scenes. By investing time to assess and optimize your existing assets, you can put systems in place that net higher-quality traffic and increase efficiency.
- Leverage first party data. When it comes to car dealership analytics, nothing beats the data from consumers who have already visited your website. These digital touch points represent an audience that is already identified as likely to buy.
- Build feedback systems. There’s a lot more to performance measurement than Google’s data and impressions share. Bolster your data set with real, on-the-ground metrics for your market. Digital advertising generates a wealth of data that can improve the quality and the effectiveness of audience targeting.
- Leverage local data buckets. If your first party data isn’t cutting it, or you’re ready to take your advertising to the next level, consider the benefits of external data sources. Partnering with companies like Kelley Blue Book and AutoTrader means your ad campaigns can benefit from zip code-specific data. As a bonus, it’s flexible and fluid, so options abound for trialing, testing, and adjusting.
In today’s market, it’s important for car dealers to pay just as much attention to their websites as their showroom floors. As consumers spend an increasing amount of time online, optimizing your website to improve their experiences has never been more important, and this movement is here to stay. By meeting consumer expectations, wherever they are in the car buying journey, your dealership will gain a competitive advantage.
Visit Dealer.com to explore more ways you can leverage data to personalize marketing initiatives and increase consumer engagement through your Digital Storefront.