You should also build upon your product display pages (or VDPs) with digital validation to grow the value of each vehicle, with market reports, video trade testimonials, transparent pricing, price validation tools, and third party reviews. To make a product or piece of inventory shine, it involves lighting, a high quality and quantity of pictures, video proof, well-written descriptions, and unlimited data assets to influence shoppers’ decisions.
5) Getting Creative and Consistent with Video
This falls between the tangible and the intangible. More videos are consumed than emails are opened and this trend is not going to change. Google recently released data showing that, for vehicle shoppers, the three most sought after video content are:
- Video Test Drives
- Product Feature/Option Explanation Videos
- Walk-around/Product Demonstration Videos
Those need to be on your video agenda for 2017, but you mustn’t stop there. Video throughout your website with assets such as personnel bios, customer testimonials, value propositions, how-to videos, service walk-throughs, and sales process explanations. This takes time, planning, and a team to execute, film and edit. But it has amazing impact to your time on-site, customer engagement, and winning online shoppers over. Don’t stop there. What videos do you like watching online? Funny videos? Videos about human-interest stories or your community? Why not bring in someone who can create unique videos that will breed that theatrical type of goodwill with the viewer? Don’t stop at the necessary vehicle videos. Think cinematic and people will believe your dealership is a theater they want to attend.
6) Caring More for Your Own than for Strangers
You have a book of business stored within the databases of your technology that are worth vastly more than the contact info of a potentially new client. I’ve long said great organizations recognize they need to dedicate twice the time to retaining past customers as they do attempting to conquest new ones.
Open up your CRM and develop processes, marketing, and messaging that continually builds the relationship between your loyal customers and store. Something as simple as a phone call on birthdays and anniversaries should be standard. Following up via email and text every time they’re due for service is necessary. Ensuring you leverage this past customer base to garner positive reviews for your business, and then promoting those reviews across social and web channels. You can go so far as dedicating marketing budget to a “thank you department”, as I’ve detailed with some of our clients, as a means to make long-lasting impressions in an effort to build lifetime loyalty with your most worthy clients