Waste. The most dreaded word in business. Whether it’s time or people or money, every business tries to optimize its resources and cut the waste. As with most industries with similar sized companies, automotive dealerships have a difficult time identifying waste in their advertising budget. That, however, doesn’t have to be the case in 2017 — due, in large part, to much more sophisticated data and targeting.
And with just 0.4% of the population in the market for a new vehicle each month, it’s important that you aren’t average. That you don’t allocate the majority of your budget for traditional media because television, radio, newspapers, direct mail, and other traditional avenues is wasted on the majority who are not in-market.
Meanwhile, there is a tremendous opportunity to decrease total spends and target the highly coveted now buyers.
The now buyer is part of that 0.4% actively searching for a new car, interacting with 24 different touch points and spending nearly 17 hours online to come to a decision on what to buy and where to buy. And you want to be sure that you meet them in this process.
There are a few things you can do to ensure that you’re competitive with the now buyer:
- Update your website
- Learn how to drive traffic to it
- Have a good content marketing strategy
- Implement effective paid search
- Utilize third-party sites
- Use social media and other efforts to stimulate interest
By making these six efforts a part of your 2017 marketing plan, you can create unique and personalized experiences. It’s time for you to stop accepting average and build your 2017 marketing plan around the now buyer.
Join me in my session “Building a Budget Around Today’s Now Buyer” at the 22nd Digital Dealer Conference & Expo to learn how to eliminate marketing waste by using data to drive shoppers.
