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With that in mind, we wanted to provide an outline of how dealers can create an efficient strategy for their online lot, to maintain contact and build trust with prospects and customers, all while respecting the new normal of physical distancing.

1. Clear Transparent Pricing

The top reason consumers use online sources is to compare prices.¹ Regardless of the circumstances, dealers must ensure their pricing is accurate and reflects what is advertised in-store. If a consumer calls or visits the lot, and discovers the price differs from what is advertised online, trust erodes, and, ultimately results in the consumer steering away from purchasing from that specific store. This is true for any sales process, but especially in digital retailing since dealers need the consumer to trust absolutely that buying online as opposed to in-person will not impact their deal in any way negatively.

2. Seamless Connection from Online to Showroom

A key finding from our consumer research studies is the immediate need for a bridge between dealers and consumers, while providing a seamless online experience.¹ This tells us that consumers prefer to begin their journey online and pickup right from where they left off, at the dealership. Dealers should establish line of sight into the specific stage of the buying journey each of their prospective clients has reached, and, furthermore, the intent of their visit or call to the dealership. For example, dealers should at the very least know the exact vehicle within a consumer’s consideration set, their budget, and, if they are scheduled for a test drive. This is particularly crucial for dealerships that have temporarily ceased operations, as tracking and storing this information will be paramount to ramping up follow-ups with these customers once business as usual resumes.

3. Interactive Discussions

A car purchase is a big one, and, while effective online merchandising results in detailed descriptions and an abundance of quality photos, consumers will likely have more questions. They may need guidance on finance or lease options, have questions about the vehicle’s service or accident history, or, request a more detailed, real-time look at the interior and exterior. Dealers should take this opportunity to leverage immersive communications, such as live video chat, to accommodate face-to-face discussion, delivered digitally, with high intent car shoppers. This is a great way to speed up the process as consumers get real-time responses, and needless to say, an entirely new source of leads.

4. Clear Process & Call to Action Buttons

It’s paramount for dealers to make it as seamless and straightforward as possible for consumers to move through a digital retail process. This might include simply UX elements such as a breadcrumb or a progress tracker to show the user where they are and which stage comes next. Dealers should walkthrough their digital retailing setup, from the perspective of the consumer, to get a pulse on usability. If a consumer can follow through a clear step-by-step process, with a logical path to the next step, then they are more likely to complete the action, and favour doing business with that specific dealership.

5. Communication is Key

Dealer’s shouldn’t overlook communication. In a time like this, it’s not something that should be put on the backburner. Dealership representatives should respond to consumers right away and keep track of these conversations, particularly if dealers are using a digital retailing solution. It’s evident that those customers are the most likely to convert at this time, or in the near future, and they are serious about buying a car.

6. Make a Brand Promise

Part of finding success in digital retailing is making it evident that you offer the solution. It’s imperative for dealers to make a promise to consumers about what their dealership can offer, that will resonate with them. A BMW dealer in Colorado has coined the following brand promise to their customers: “One price. One person. One hour.” A message that can resonate with the vast majority of their clients, as shoppers have now come to expect time efficiency and convenience throughout the vehicle purchase process. This is an incredibly powerful brand positioning as it speaks to one of car buyers’ #1 pain points, the time taken to negotiate, visit a dealership, and so forth.

There’s no denying that today’s savvy consumers already know the characteristics of a convenient online shopping experience. Disruption driven by leading e-commerce brands – Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba, to name a few – have reshaped shopping expectations and behaviours from the onset of the process. From buying clothes, to electronics, and now, even groceries, consumers seek ease of use, efficiency, and speed with just about every transaction. Now, it’s up to dealers to respond by providing a superior experience, higher level of service, and allowing consumers to go deeper in the purchase process online, from the comfort of their home.

Interested in finding out how our complimentary tools can help you service customers and sell cars, during these unprecedented times?

Click here to get a detailed view into the gotrader.ca Remote Selling Suite, available to dealers today!

Source (1) TRADER Keystone Research Study August 2018

The post When Life Gives You Lemons: Sell Cars? appeared first on gotrader.ca.

As such, we’ve outlined tools to help you connect with car shoppers and researchers, at each stage of the consumer journey, while providing a high level of online service and maximizing efficiencies for managing your business during this unchartered time. Whether consumers are interested in doing research or finalizing a deal for the vehicle they are truly interested in, these tools and practices are sure to come in handy!

Real Time Chat
Dealers know about the importance of timeliness and efficiency when communicating with consumers. Leverage the tools at your disposal to engage with consumers in an online chat, while they research or shop for their next car. Live chat creates a personalized experience, and a one-to-one connection between dealership sales representatives and prospective buyers. Consumers will appreciate that an actual person is on the other end, willing to help them – in real time. gotrader.ca’s Real Time Chat lets you interact with consumers at the exact moment they want to chat with you. If consumers have more in depth questions about the vehicle they are interested in, you can even record a video at the click of a button and send it directly to them.

Reserve It!
Beyond visits, VDP views and leads, there are additional means to measure and qualify the true intent of a consumer engaging with your inventory listings. At the click of a button, the Reserve It! tool allows consumers to place a deposit on a vehicle, directly from a VDP on gotrader.ca. Backed by an intuitive and straightforward configuration process, dealers can enable this feature to drive confidence with consumers, as they will be assured the vehicle they want is secured for when they are ready and able to see it in person. Reserve It! also helps your sale personnel know how to adequately follow up with consumers who use this feature as they’ll know the qualified prospect is serious about buying.

OTL Events
Demonstrate your commitment to serving consumer needs during COVID-19, by highlighting your service and parts offering, the availability of at-home test drives, and more. This gotrader.ca feature lets you showcase your unique offerings on a dedicated area of your VDP, in addition to the image carousel, in the form of an image. Integrating this level of detail on your VDPs, within your dealership website, in marketing campaigns, and on social channels are all great ways to get the word out.

Home Drop-off
Get vehicles out to the most serious car shoppers, who need them now, by offering the ultimate white glove service – a home drop off service! Dealers should entertain the feasibility of making the necessary adjustments within their business operations to ensure they are able to safely drop off the keys and the vehicle, either for a 24-hour test drive or following a sale. Although we’ve collectively been asked to make serious adjustments to our day-to-day lives, there are still plenty of shoppers who need a car right now and will certainly appreciate your dealership going the extra mile to get the vehicle to them safely.

You can find some of these tools now available in our Remote Selling Suite, which includes intuitive features that allow you to bring the dealership experience to your prospects and customers at home. We will be updating this toolkit with more features over the coming weeks to provide more guidance for dealers actively looking to engage and sell remotely. It’s good to keep in mind that while these tools are helpful right now, you will find yourself continuing to utilize them following the official end of the pandemic, as more and more consumers expect dealerships to provide more flexible and intuitive digital services in the future.

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If the saying ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ is anything to go by, current challenging times definitely call for some innovative steps and out-of-the-box digital marketing strategies. If you’re a car dealer looking for answers on how best to leverage digital platforms during these challenging times that no industry has never seen before, read on some of the best practices that Ray Gill – Senior Sales Manager, TRFFK – outlines in this tête-à-tête with Sparsh Sharma.

SS: Given that people are working from home and likely still browsing inventory or researching for their next vehicle purchase, what is the topmost digital strategy dealers can focus on during these times of uncertainty?

RG: Firstly, no matter how tempted a dealer may be to cut down on their marketing spend, it’s not an approach we recommend as it’s important to maintain some exposure for your inventory. The gotrader.ca marketplace, for example, is still seeing millions of users browsing and researching cars, which shows that the demand is out there, via the marketplace as it’s the most cost efficient source of getting VDP views, and other tactics such as paid search driving highly-engaged traffic to the dealer’s website.

Secondly, dealers need to focus on strong remarketing campaigns. According to research shared at Google’s Think Auto, a typical car buyer’s journey lasts over 60 days, and consumers may end up spending even more time researching online that they are staying indoors. We also expect browsing times on social media, especially Facebook and Instagram to go up.

It is, therefore, important to have a strong retargeting strategy in place to keep your inventory top of their minds. Retargeting ads can be focused on dealer or OEM offers, and TRFFK is able to remarket to users who have viewed your inventory on the gotrader.ca marketplace – a powerful combination.

SS: Those are some pertinent points. Can’t dealers also utilize their CRMs – the gold piles of precious data – towards these remarketing efforts?

RG: Yes, dealers must absolutely utilize their CRM to target in-market shoppers. The CRM data can easily be used to build audiences to target in our digital marketing campaigns. For example, both Google and Facebook have this functionality where we can upload a dealer’s audience list, and the platforms will match them to Google or Facebook accounts, and these people can be targeted with the right campaigns.

A great way to use these platforms’ customer match functionality is by building a list of past customers whose leases or financing are about to come to maturity. This is a definite moment when someone is likely to come back in-market to get a new vehicle, and these are the type of shoppers who are more likely to make a purchase during the Covid19 situation.

In order to target these users, you can use videos or banners that are highlighting any promotions or offers you have available at the dealership.

SS: Given the need to leverage digital platforms now more than ever before, what are some important steps in a buyer’s journey that dealers can move online with minimum effort?

RG: Dealers can use digital platforms to announce special promos or COVID-19 specific changes they have made at the dealership through ad copies and tastefully done videos or banners. For e.g. if they are offering test drives from home and have video chats available or have eCommerce enabled on their websites, rewriting ad copies to focus on to these elements is critical.
These can be unique points of differentiation that would make a shopper want to come to your dealership versus a dealership that hasn’t changed their sales process for COVID-19.

This should also be factored into their responses to leads. Instead of the focus on asking people to book a test drive and walk into the dealership, asking them to do a video chat or book a test drive from home or conveying how the dealership is taking precautions will work way more effectively than competitors who are still responding with “when can you come in for a test drive?” kind of responses.

SS: You mentioned an interesting topic for a lot of dealers lately: Videos. Can you elaborate on how they can best use this medium most effectively?

RG: Video is a great way to get your messaging out and show how your dealership is taking COVID-19 seriously and changing your sales process. Dealers need to start using videos to get such timely messaging out.

Video campaigns can be run on YouTube and Facebook, and with our audience targeting, can be focused only on users who have shown some interest in your inventory. One of the great benefits of video is a lot of the ad types are based on a cost-per-view model, so you actually don’t have to pay unless the user is fully engaged and watches the whole ad.

Anyone who skips isn’t actually charged to the campaign. This helps maximize your investment since you’re only paying for users who are interested in your messaging.

SS: Social and video are indeed fantastic channels to drive awareness in minds of your potential car buyers. What do you recommend a dealer to do with their strategy for search ads?

RG: Search continues to remain a priority in these times. However, the focus should be on inventory terms. Search is all about intent, and nothing is showing more intent for a new or used vehicle than someone using the model-specific search terms like “used Honda Civic for sale” for example.

Investing in inventory terms for your paid search strategy will help drive these high intent shoppers to your website where you can control the conversion process (unlike when they were to click on an OEM ad) and only show them your inventory.

If you’re deciding what type of campaigns to focus your paid search budget on during the COVID-19 crisis, our advice is to maximize your inventory search. We recommend cutting budget from your brand campaigns, as it is less likely competitors will be bidding on your terms, since they’ll be looking to reduce budget, and you’ll already have strong organic presence to bring that traffic to your website for free.

SS: Are there effective ways for dealers to help out car owners looking to sell in the immediate future?

RG: Absolutely, dealers can run ‘guaranteed trade’ campaigns to help people who are unfortunately in a situation where they need to have more liquidity, and are looking to get rid of their vehicle. If a dealer is using a guaranteed trade product like gotrader.ca’s Instant Cash Offer (ICO), you have the ability to provide customers with a guaranteed trade value that they can receive a cheque for, without actually purchasing a vehicle. This is a great way to provide a service to consumers who are in a tough spot and can also help you acquire high quality used inventory that you can turn when the market does pick back up.

The great thing with ICO is, if you don’t want to keep the inventory, you can just wholesale it without incurring any costs. This gives you a great opportunity to provide value to challenged consumers and start showing them the great service your dealership provides. This is what will help your dealership get more sales when the market recovers.

Another opportunity is digital retailing; being able to complete a transaction completely online. It’s something which has been making inroads into our industry in recent years and I expect the current situation to really accelerate this further. TRADER has invested in Motoinsight, a company that offers this service.

SS: Any other tips in the context of marketing communications between dealers and their clients?

RG: It is essential to not appear opportunistic during the COVID-19 crisis. This is an unprecedented situation for pretty much all of us, and there is a lot of uncertainty for how the next few months will turn out.

With that said, please ensure your campaigns reflect how potential car buyers can book virtual appointments as the in-store sales activities take a pause. Also ensure you aren’t running any sort of private sale events or offering customers free air trips.

Dealerships have an essential part to play, and you still have staff you need to pay and support, so it is 100% acceptable to still run campaigns, just work with your vendors to ensure they are tasteful.

– Sparsh Sharma – Digital Strategist Manager, TRFFK

The post Best Practices For Dealers Digital Marketing During COVID-19 appeared first on gotrader.ca.

Now, dealers may be wondering how long will consumers be interested in digital retailing? Is it worth the investment? Will consumers adapt to this new level of customer service?

Based on what we know about how consumers shop, and what we’ve observed in other areas around the world, most notably China, the answer really lies in how well a dealership executes their digital retailing strategy, right now.

For as long as people will be at home, they will be online and doing research, if they are looking to purchase a vehicle, trade-in, or renew a lease. There will be two types of consumers shopping; (i) those who are looking to buy a vehicle as soon as we get back to normality, and, (ii) those who want to get a transaction completed as soon as possible – the latter will certainly need to rely on digital retailing, while the former may be more open to it than before.

One car retailer in China claims that after implementing digital retailing to support social distancing, while consumers were isolated in their homes, their online sales have since gone from a few hundred, to thousands. Looking at the trends of Canadian shoppers, we already know they are looking for an alternative purchase process when buying a vehicle, often citing visiting dealerships physically as one of their key pain points, due in part to the hectic demands of modern life. Digital retailing may well be here to stay.

According to a Vehicle Path to Purchase survey conducted by DIG Insights in 2019, consumers only visited 2-3 dealerships before purchasing a car, and, over half of consumers already knew which vehicle they wanted before they visited the dealership. In fact, in that same study, consumers outlined the top activities they would be interested in doing online:

• Calculating the total cost of vehicle ownership,
• Securing financing,
• Arranging for a vehicle to be brought to their home for a test drive; and,
• Calculating the best time to buy or sell a used vehicle based on online deprecation tools

This tells us that consumers aren’t looking to spend a lot of time in the dealership. They want near everything done ahead of time. Their preference is to arrive to the dealership well informed, and, move directly to transacting. Dealers have, over time, begun to add tools that help consumers cut down on time spent at the dealership, namely chats, trade-in solutions, finance calculators, or reserving vehicles online. All are a step in the direction, to keep up with shifts in consumer behaviour.

Now, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a consumer. With digital retailing, your everyday shopper can conduct all of their research online, reach out to a local dealership with the click of a button, have a dealer representative drop off their desired vehicle for a test drive, sign the necessary paperwork, get their financing in order, and have their purchased vehicle dropped off, right from the convenience and comfort of their own home. Of immediate benefit to consumers, the process eliminates the need to commute to a dealership, wait for a representative to talk to, engage in the back and forth of negotiation – ultimately resulting in a smooth, seamless and pressure-free purchase process.

The better dealerships are prepared to execute and deliver an excellent digital retailing experience, the higher the likelihood a consumer will expect the same process the next time they’re in the market for a car. Consumers adapt to change, and, time and time again, dealers have learned to adapt to emerging consumer trends and new market realities. Despite how confusing and challenging the short-term outlook may be, the changes we see today could be start of something remarkable – a shift to offering consumers a service and experience they never knew was possible, or, may have been hesitant to try out in the past.

The post Will COVID-19 Accelerate Digital Retailing Behaviour in the Short and Long Term? appeared first on gotrader.ca.

Below we’ve outlined simple actions and techniques that you should implement within your dealership to instill confidence with both online shoppers and those who choose to visit in person. If your province is in a state of shutdown, it’s likely these measures will be just as important in the eventual months of economic recovery as they are right now.

Maintain a Clean Environment – And Make It Obvious You Are Doing So

• Frequently disinfect high touch areas, such as all doors, keyboards/mouse, pens, faucets, hand railings, phones, chairs, desks and countertops, keys AND vehicles, (door handles, steering wheel, B-pillar, etc).
• Wash your hands frequently and properly! Be sure your co-workers are doing the same.
• If possible, make hand sanitizer available at the showroom entrance(s), in each sales office, at the service/parts department counter(s), etc.

Take Social/Physical Distancing Seriously – Your Customers Will Appreciate It

• Greet and acknowledge customers with a smile, wave, or nod. Don’t shake hands.
• Whether in your sales, service or parts department, communicate with your clients at minimum distance of 6 feet, (2 meters). Do the same with your colleagues.
• Make the necessary adjustments to your waiting area, ensuring a 6-foot buffer is placed between chairs. Eliminate seating as you see fit.
• Refrain from having staff meetings in close proximity to each other. Leverage virtual conference environments of conference bridges where available.

Have a Top Notch Virtual Showroom

• Ensure all your vehicle options are available for consumers to browse online. Descriptions, features, accurate pricing and detailed photos are more crucial now than ever.
• Offer practical services online to decrease time spent in the dealership. You likely already have trade-in options, finance applications or calculators, and the option to schedule test drives.

Now it’s one thing to fulfill the tasks associated with keeping good hygiene at your dealership, but what’s more is making your potential customers aware, and your staff. Let them know that you are constantly cleaning and disinfecting the dealership multiple times throughout the day. Add a banner on your website, create a social post and add signs in the dealership outlining the steps you are taking. This will allow them to feel more confident about coming into test drive or purchase a vehicle.

Keep in mind though, consumers are not looking to leave their homes and are spending this time browsing online. They have the time to do the research and may find a vehicle they can’t pass up. Having the above items checked off your list will help encourage them to make a purchase because they feel comfortable knowing your dealership is taking the necessary precautions. This also is a good time to experiment with new options for consumers such as dropping off vehicles at their house to test drive, bringing papers to their house to sign and then dropping the vehicle off for those who make a purchase.

Please check with your local health officials’ guidelines for additional steps and advice they deem necessary.

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We wanted to take this opportunity to break down the methodology behind big data and how it lets us interact with consumers. Previously, we would try to reach consumers through mass marketing: a billboard, radio or TV ad. Trying to get as many eyes and ears on it as possible. Now, we can now dig into exactly who consumers are through data, insights and analytics. *s1

Data is the key to getting the right message at the right time in front of the right audience.

Where does this data come from?

This data is pulled from consumer behavior online. Every search, every click, and every profile–every time someone enters their age or shows a preference for a luxury vehicle over sensible SUV–that information gets pulled into a database. At GoTrader we use Adobe Audience Manager, but there are many that do the same. These databases then distill all of this information and sort it into segments based on user behavior and preferences.

How do you reach the right audience with your advertising dollars?

Most advertising budgets are limited and you want to get the most possible return on that investment. So the question becomes: where do you spend your money in order to sell cars? The most important consideration is data. This is why the subject has been such a hot topic. You want data pulled from consumers who are online looking at, researching and interested in cars. You want to ensure that your ad for a Jeep Cherokee isn’t being shown to someone who would only ever buy a Lexus or someone who came online to look at air conditioners.

What about your data?

By now you may have asked, what about your own data? Your website is also pulling this information. However, you may not have the resources available to you to have a database or an aggregator organizing it and the data may not be diverse enough to give you information you need to find consumers in market outside your site. Therefore, it’s important to find a partner who has this information.

How do you choose a partner?

The Internet has a wealth of consumer data from online searches from all over the Internet; many companies offer access to this data. Something you want to consider in a data partner is a company who has proprietary data specific to your industry, and who’s database pertains directly to your consumer. This data would then drive your advertising to quality, qualified and in market shoppers.

Ask your advertising partner where their data is coming from; is it being pulled from a general audience? Is it Canada specific or all of North America? Or is the data coming directly from auto-intenders at varying stages of the car buying process?

The key to using data effectively is figuring out who you can partner with that will help you get the most out of your data, and your money. Then, using this data, you can be assured that your ad will be shown to exactly the right person at exactly the right moment in their consumer journey – meaning more impactful advertising and in the end, more sales.

For more information on how GoTrader is using data to power advertising, please contact us at B2Bmarketing@trader.ca.

Source 1: https://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/blog/data-driven-advertising-market-2017/)

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