Future-Proof Your Digital Strategy

More consumers are shopping online than EVER BEFORE. More searches for units and services mean more opportunities to connect with potential customers. In order to find success in today's consumer landscape, dealers need to enhance the site-to-store pipeline by appealing to the needs of modern shoppers.

What are modern shoppers looking for?

• Ability to browse & interact with dealerships on multiple channels
• Correct, reliable information from your business at every turn
• Multiple options to communicate with the dealer ー & receive a rapid response
• Streamlined process of browsing to buying & easy transition to in-store visit

In this article, Dealer Spike will share best practices to help your dealership stand out from the competition and engage shoppers early on in the buying cycle.

Digital Storefronts

Consumers spend 61% of their time shopping online. Make sure your dealership is part of their search!

Is your platform “just a website,” or is it a lead-driving digital storefront? What’s the difference? The former gives dealers an online presence, while the latter provides everything dealers need to engage and convert online leads. In order to achieve perpetually successful digital storefronts, dealers must treat their sites as integral parts of their sales process and continually adhere to best practices.

Best Practices to Future-Proof a Digital Storefront

• Keep your website up to date: No matter how great a website is right now, it will need updates and changes down the road. Keep an eye on the relevancy of website content, keywords and design, and be sure to build future website updates into your marketing budget.
• Add test drive requests to VDP webpages: Instead of creating a separate, obscure Schedule a Test Ride page, add a request feature alongside inventory listings so that visitors can transition smoothly from the website to the dealership.
• Use a good-quality CRM: A good CRM program allows dealers to track every customer interaction, monitor customer relationships and even automate messaging to engage customers at certain stages of the buying cycle.
• Create clarifying content: When customers have sufficient information about price range and quality, they are willing to pay more. Create website content, blogs and videos that demonstrate the dealership’s expertise, quality guarantees and pricing structures.

The average customer visits a website 9.5 times before completing a purchase. Your website needs to be easy to find and worth revisiting!

Digital Marketing

When it comes to digital marketing, do you really need to do it all? Should you invest in organic search optimization and paid ads and social media? Yes ー all of this and more! Why? Because it really works, especially when combined using best practices. Omnichannel campaigns produce a 287% higher rate of purchase frequency than single-channel campaigns. 

Digital marketing provides dealers with a strong presence in the online inventory marketplace, where they can influence online shoppers. Using multiple digital marketing outlets drives two specific outcomes:

1. Larger online presence → more exposure → more leads
2. Streamlining a strategy across multiple channels (ie, omnichannel marketing) ensures shoppers have a consistent, optimal experience no matter where, what or when

Best Practices for Omnichannel Digital Marketing

• Understand your target audience
• View your digital marketing tools as pieces of a whole
• Optimize your tools for mobile
• Personalize your marketing messaging

Eighty-one percent of consumers perform their purchasing research online^. Make your brand easy to find no matter where shoppers are looking!

Search Engine Optimization

Almost 68% of all clicks go to the first 5 organic results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) traffic converts better than other channels because organic rankings convey trust from the search engines. SEO success secures brand elevation on search results pages, and this is an integral component for dealerships.

Best Practices for SEO

• Be the expert online: Consumers are 48% more likely to become customers of brands that deliver educational content. Blogs are an excellent resource for educational content AND better search rankings. Note: 2020 saw a surge in first-time buyers. Bring in brand-new customers by simplifying the buying process ー break it down step-by-step and create how-to videos that answer basic questions.
• Use location-based SEO: "Where to buy" and "near me" queries have grown more than 200% since 2016. You can capitalize on these searches by targeting location-based website keywords, claiming your Google My Business page and ensuring your store information is correct on digital directories.
• Get featured in Position Zero: “Position Zero” refers to suggestion boxes at the top of the search results page that satisfy search intent without requiring a website click. Websites that appear in Position Zero gain greater credibility and exposure.
• Optimize the website for voice search: As much as 58% of people who use voice searches are trying to find a local business⁸. By considering the questions prospects might ask, you can optimize their online content with longer-tail keywords that reflect these questions.
• Exercise emotional intelligence: Create SEO-focused content on relevant topics but be mindful of tone. Consumers are less trusting of sales pitches and instead want to see transparency, integrity and content that aims to educate.

Google Ads

Roughly 97% of people use search engines to find local businesses. Google Ads is the most popular paid search ad network due to the billions of searches per day that take place on the Google search engine. Note: While paid search produces results quickly, it performs best when paired with SEO strategies, which add credibility to paid ads.

Best Practices for Google Ads

• Identify trending keywords: Know what customers are searching for right now. Paying attention to commonly searched keywords will help dealers adjust to how customers are shopping (eg, “contactless,” “delivery” and “appointment”). Be sure to target these keywords in ad copy to draw in buyers. Note: Target long-tail keywords, too. These offer a narrower focus, causing them to be less competitive, lower in cost and more likely to drive conversions.
• Personalize ad campaigns: Personalized ads achieve up to 30% greater marketing spend efficiency. Segment the target audience based on demographic, purchase history and browsing behavior to get ads in front of highly promising leads.
• Keep online inventory updated: This may seem obvious, but even today we encounter dealerships that advertise little to no inventory listings. Feature all in-stock items online, and include photos (and videos, if possible) of each item.
• Automated online ads: Integrate an automation platform that creates and pauses ads according to the dealership’s online inventory levels. This way, you don’t have to worry about wasting ad spend on out-of-stock items! Note: No inventory on the lot? Create ads to promote pre-orders and drive buyers to inventory that’s “coming soon”!

Facebook Ads

More than 1.6 billion people worldwide connect to small businesses on Facebook. Using hyper-targeted Facebook Ads, you can get in front of highly qualified Facebook leads by appearing prominently in their newsfeeds.

Best Practices for Facebook Ads

• Minimize text on graphics and posts: Facebook users scroll quickly, so the best way to capture their attention is to use more imagery and less text. Image ads that are 20% text perform better.
• Take advantage of the carousel format: Get the most from ad spend by using the carousel format. This allows you to show multiple photos without an additional cost and is a great way to showcase lots of units, parts, services and/or promotions.
• Use videos or animation: Stand out in newsfeeds by adding movement to Facebook Ads. If you don’t have the resources to create a traditional video ad, you can get creative with a boomerang video, timelapse or animated text.
• Create vertical videos: More than 98% of Facebook users are viewing ads on a mobile phone. Since most viewers hold their phones vertically, using a vertical or square aspect ratio will cover more of their screen.
• Boost engagement through calls to action: Facebook Ads offer a range of calls to action to inspire specific reactions from viewers. Choose a CTA that aligns with the nature of the ad (eg, “Preorder Today,” “Shop Now” or “Schedule a Ride”). Experiment with different CTAs to determine which ones drive the most action.

Targeted Digital Advertising

Small businesses earn an average of $3 in revenue for every $1.60 spent on digital ads. Targeted Digital Advertising (TDA) hyper-targets paid ads based on shoppers’ online and offline behaviors, allowing you to create custom audience lists based on desired criteria.

Best Practices for TDA

• Create narrow audience groups: Don’t advertise to shoppers en masse; instead, generate audience lists according to demographics, interests and preferences of shoppers. This allows you to target highly qualified leads and generate content that really resonates.
• Target in-market audiences: Widen the reach to shoppers who have a high buying intent. “In-market audiences” are the shoppers actively researching similar units and services, even if they are unfamiliar with the dealership. These individuals can be identified by past searches, keyword activity and browsing behavior.
• Remarket to website visitors: Website visitors have proven they are interested enough in a dealership to browse its offerings. Because 98% of web traffic doesn’t convert on the first visit, you need a strong remarketing strategy to engage previous visitors with relevant ads wherever else they browse online.
• Embrace geo-targeting: While digital marketing can reach shoppers around the globe, you should ensure you're connecting with local, promising shoppers who will travel to the dealership. Geo-targeting targets consumers within a selected circumference, such as a zip code, trade show even or competing dealership.

Automated Email Marketing

Email marketing generates an average return of $36 for every $1 invested.

Email marketing remains one of the best marketing strategies, due to the high volume of consumers who check their email regularly. Automated Email Marketing is even more successful because content goes out automatically to leads based on their actions. Automated emails generate 119% more clicks than regular emails. 

Best Practices for Automated Email Marketing

• Humanize the message: An automated email should never sound automated. Create natural-sounding copy and take steps to personalize the message using merge tags (these are unique labels tied to the information leads submit to generate personalized copy such as their name and email address).
• Create multiple campaigns: Each shopper is on their own unique journey, and a singular email campaign won’t resonate with everyone. Create multiple campaigns based on actions (eg, visited the website vs. made a purchase), and keep the workflows dynamic so that a lead can be tipped into a different campaign if their behavior or interests change. Note: To avoid spamming inactive audiences, create a re-engagement campaign that encourages leads to re-engage after a series of unopened emails. Be sure to include the value of WHY leads should connect with the dealership.
• Routinely optimize campaigns: Automated email campaigns will continue to run as long as their conditions are met, so it’s a good idea to review the content, audience and triggers to ensure everything is optimal and up to date.
• Make campaigns accessible: About 15% of people live with some form of a disability, which can impact the accessibility of email content. We encourage dealers to make design choices accordingly, such as using a font size and weight that can be viewed on mobile at arm’s length.

Social Media 

DataReportal reports that 75% of consumers use social media to learn about new products and services. More than half have purchased a product they first heard about on social media. Having an active social media presence can help your dealership stand out from the crowd, differentiate your brand and connect with specific groups of shoppers.

Best Practices for a Strong Social Presence

• Automate your social calendar: Many dealers have little time to post consistently across social media channels. Using an automated posting tool allows you to schedule posts in advance and ensure your content goes live at the optimal time for each social channel.
• Exercise social listening: “Social listening” means tuning into what your prospects and customers are saying on social media. Follow relevant industry pages, discussion groups and hashtags to stay in the know on shoppers’ wants, struggles and evolving interests. Note: What are shoppers saying about your competitors? Knowing where competitors are lacking allows you to step in and fill the gap, driving more buyers to your dealership instead. 
• Optimize your customer service: The quality of a dealership’s online customer service can boost or break page follows. More than half of customers expect brands to offer customer service via social media, and 42% expect a response within an hour. Dealers should regularly monitor their comments sections and direct messages and respond quickly to any inquiries.
• Sell on Social Media: Social commerce is on the rise, especially following the launch of Shop features on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Selling directly on social media significantly shortens the customer journey from search to conversion.

Digital Customer Service

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, 68% of consumers have much higher expectations for businesses’ digital capabilities. With online shopping now more popular and mainstream than ever, many customers are shifting toward digital channels for customer service needs. As a result, businesses are taking strides to personalize the online customer experience.

Shoppers connect with your brand online long before they set foot in the dealership. Providing digital communication channels creates sustainable communication that begins the moment a prospect interacts with a business and continues through the entirety of the shopping journey.

Best Practices for Digital Customer Service

• Provide a variety of digital communication tools for two reasons:
  • Shoppers can use their preferred channel to connect with the dealer.
  • Leads can contact the dealership at any stage of the buying cycle.
• Gather user data across your channels to analyze and identify preferred channels.
• Connect online and offline experiences ー make sure your digital channels provide a clear path that leads shoppers to the dealership.
• Choose communication platforms that are optimized for mobile, as many shoppers are communicating on their phones.
• Utilize channels that provide real-time responses, such as website chat and texting.

Texting

Seventy-five percent of consumers want to receive text messages from businesses. Texting has become one of the most popular communication channels thanks to the high level of mobile phone users. Brands have begun using text to engage with customers throughout the buying cycle.

Best Practices for Texting Customers

• Set a friendly and casual tone: Texting is more personable than other communication channels, which means team members should adopt a relaxed tone. Simple sentences and common vocabulary keep the conversation moving forward toward a resolution.
• Keep content short: Texting is an ideal medium for short, concise messages. If dealers need to share a large amount of information, we recommend using links to deliver more content (eg, directing leads to a unit listing).
• Use a professional texting solution: To maintain professionalism and privacy, we advise against texting customers from personal phone numbers. A professional texting platform ensures security for customers and team members, improves the dealership’s image and creates a singular source to maintain any customer data.
• Choose a dynamic text tool: The potential of text messages goes beyond conversations. Dynamic text platforms allow dealers to send appointment and service reminders, notify customers of unit pickups, collect payments through digital links and receive feedback on the customer experience.

Driving long-term success in today's ever-changing consumer landscape requires your brand to identify and adapt to modern shopper behaviors.  A strong digital marketing campaign can help your dealership get in front of customers wherever they're browsing online, without requiring a heavy lift from your team.

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