Great thread Steve and Jeff!
Creating, distributing and managing vehicle incentives/offers has always been a huge problem for dealers. (And a limitation of website platforms)
Everyone who's ever created specials for their store knows it's a pain and takes a lot of time to update. New OEM offers are delivered several days into the month; used car offers are often displayed simply because they're aged units. Those are special to the dealer, not the buyer.
In-market car shoppers want specific information. New car buyers are looking APR's, discounts from MSRP, and lease offers/payments. Used car buyers are looking for APR's, payments, price as compared to market values and other value-driven items.
- Automatic solutions can't solve this
- Manual processes take too much time
- Agency-driven solutions (even some in-house solutions) provide static images which provide zero search value and poor visibility to Google
Plus, the bigger issues aren't being addressed: Distribution and relevancy. Your process needs to be a virtuous loop, consistently distributing relevant offers to all three of your marketing channels:
- Earned (SEO/Organic)
- Owned (Email campaigns)
- Paid (PPC/SEM)
Updating a specials page isn't a marketing process; it's barely a tactic at this point - a dead-end marketing effort.
In our
used car stores, we show as many of these key elements as possible via DealerTeamwork's
Launch Control (Full disclosure: I'm also part of this company)
New car stores can also create the most contextually relevant Adwords campaigns, powered by their offers.
Leveraging the transactional data creates a significant competitive advantage - easier and faster than any other method.
I know our agency isn't thrilled with me most months since I request to have creative designed for just about every New Vehicle model we have in stock.
Jeff - this is a serious pain point within the entire process. This must take so long and cost so much more than necessary. One of the most important factors in marketing is speed.
