With the automotive market changing all the time, it can be difficult to pinpoint key areas in your marketing mix that can help you drive sustainable growth. Simply stated where can you put your marketing dollars to create the largest impact for your customers? Let’s look at the numbers.
Your average car buyer, both new and used, will spend on average 15 hours making a decision and infinitely a purchase. Of those 15 hours, more than half (around 9 hours) are spent on the dealers website or a third party website, seeking out specific vehicle and dealer information.
This data reveals that dealers who don’t market well online and do not play well with third party sites will lose out on a lot of business. For ages, dealers have no doubt been told “Invest in web, social media, etc.” and many dealers have, but in the midst of this huge shift to web driven dealer and vehicle differentiation one key statistic rings true, 80% of car sales happen at the dealership regardless of how many hours were spent online. So while the dealers who are not pushing the digital envelope are losing out on business, those who use their own digital prowess to justify cutting corners on the lot run an even greater risk of losing out on valuable business.
Thanks to the plethora of information available to potential buyers, customers in search of the perfect car are more knowledgeable than ever, not only on the specific make and model they’d like, but on what dealership they’d like to buy from. With car buyers visiting only 1.2 dealerships on average, if a customer makes their way to your lot you can bet that they are already nearing their final purchase decision, and the only things standing in the way of your sale are customer experience and availability of information.
So what does all this mean for you and your dealership? Well it’s simple really, if you had a way to provide up to date, valuable, valid information for every vehicle on your lot, you would improve the customer experience, show your own transparency and trustworthiness and change far more of your walk on customers into lifelong buyers. By replicating the online experience and posting pertinent information and pricing on your vehicles, front and center, you put the customer in the driver’s seat and cut down on some of the more drawn out and uncomfortable parts of the on-lot experience.
Lot sherpa’s Custom Vehicle Merchandising Service is the first step in creating an information rich environment on your lot and in your showroom. With bespoke designs and time tested product offerings, Lot Sherpa is equipped to grow your business and provide a next level customer experience to anyone who sets foot on your lot.
