Are your Online Vehicles “Consumer Optimized”?
If you ever saw the movie Men in Black, then you no doubt remember when Will Smith’s character - Agent J - first put on the trademark black suit and sunglasses and quipped to Jones’ Agent K, “You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good."
While not likely intentional, in delivering this witty one-liner, Agent J has encapsulated the fundamentals of good advertising.
The most essential concept in advertising – the reason why dealers hire advertising agencies to create TV, radio and full-page newspaper ads – is to optimize every ad to win over the consumer. This concept of “Consumer Optimization” of advertising boils down to the advertiser’s ability to answer two key questions:
- What is it about your product that is uniquely appealing vs. the competition?
- What do you need to do to ensure that your differentiation points resonate with your target audience?
Despite the billions of dollars spent by the automotive industry each year on advertising and billions more spent on the internet, this most fundamental and profound concept in making advertising effective has yet to make its way into online vehicle ads.
Why does this matter? Go online to any major advertising website such as AutoTrader.com or Cars.com and search vehicles. What you will find is the four most common vehicle attributes listed in the first line of too many dealer vehicle ads are “power locks,” “power windows,” “power steering” and “air conditioning” – all features that have not been vehicle differentiators for decades and are not the unique features that online shoppers look for.
Dealers have long known the value of Search Engine Optimization to draw consumers to their websites. However, the majority have not spent the same effort trying to win the online vehicle ad battle for the consumer. By optimizing an online vehicle ad for the consumer (Consumer Optimization), a dealer can turn online vehicle ads into a powerful funnel that drives traffic to their stores.
Online Vehicle Advertising: Then (Internet 1.0)
When the internet first became prominent, dealers suddenly had the option of moving their individual vehicle advertising beyond the two inch newspaper classified ad. Dealers began by transferring their newspaper classified ads into online repositories and advertising sites such as dealership associations, third party classified sites (such as Autotrader.com and Cars.com) and OEM-certified sites as well as consumer driven sites such as eBay. In the first generation, online vehicle ads typically involved:
- Including a Price – In the early internet era, the question of including a price for a vehicle in the online ad was hotly debated by dealers. However, over time that debate was quieted when consumer behavior demonstrated that without a price on the vehicle ad, consumers were far less likely to visit that dealership.
- Filling Out “Seller Notes” – Seller Notes, a concept used a great deal by consumer sellers, offered dealers a chance to highlight the unique selling points of their vehicle. Because of the time and labor involved in managing a large online inventory, this “highlight” field was typically populated by dealers with vehicle data from a generic VIN explosion. While this did include a lot of data, it tended to bury important features in a mountain of VIN data and omitted important data that was not included in the VIN.
- Inserting a Photo – Vehicle photos were included, but sometimes included only a single, low-quality photo.
What all this tells us is that the first generation of online vehicle advertising was the equivalent of “showing up.” Dealers met the bare minimum of qualification – posting hundreds and even thousands of vehicle ads online – but they did nothing to effectively appeal to consumers and beat the competition.
That was then. This is now. (Internet 2.0)
Today’s consumers have gone from “internet savvy” to “internet empowered.” In fact, over 80 percent of consumers shop online before ever setting foot in a dealership. And unlike the old days of going from store to store, today the average consumer only visits 1.5 dealerships in person.
While consumers are doing their part to stay on top of online vehicles, dealers are earnestly working to make sure that those consumers have plenty of ads to review – posting inventory on five different websites and often as many as 10 or more. Let’s examine a dealer I recently encountered in Minnesota. The dealer had over 200 pre-owned vehicles in inventory, posted on 12 websites, adding up to over 2,400 individual vehicle ads online. While, the dealer is certainly doing a good job ensuring that his vehicles are seen in all the right places, if those ads are not appealing to the consumers who view them then the dealer becomes vulnerable to competitors who are ready to capture his customers in an online battle for attention.
Given the changing dynamic of both the internet empowered consumer and dealer fervor for online vehicle posting, it is more critical than ever for dealers to win online in order to drive store traffic. How? The answer lies in Consumer Optimizing your online vehicles.
Moving from “Click Past” to “Click Through” - Consumer Optimizing your Online Vehicles
With the multitude of vehicles that can come up in any given search, the optimized ad can mean the difference between “clicking through” and prompting the consumer to visit the dealer, or “clicking past” and prompting the consumer to move on.
In order to Consumer Optimize online vehicles, dealers must address the following factors:
- Price: While you won’t necessarily win on price, you can lose on price, so dealers must first ensure that their vehicles are priced to be “in the game” since Internet vehicle shoppers are likely to click right past overpriced vehicles. At the same time, underpriced vehicles start a “race to the bottom” and offer little opportunity for a dealer to run a profitable business. In fact, dealers who Consumer Optimize their online vehicle ads can achieve the “Hat Trick”: 1) drive more traffic from the Internet; 2) hold or even enhance gross profit; and, 3) improve closing rate and CSI.
- Description: If you are “in the game” on price, consumers will likely look to learn more about your vehicle and you can set up your “Hat Trick”. During this critical time, the key is to highlight the unique attributes or benefits that set your vehicle apart from the competition including:
- Equipment and options (heated seats, rear seat entertainment, leather, etc.)
- Lifestyle features (family car, sporty, fun, tough utility, etc.)
- Vehicle history (Carfax one owner, original warranty, low mileage, etc.)
- Certification program features (extended warranty, etc.)
- Value (price compared to sticker, Kelly Blue Book or previous dealer price, etc.)
- Photos: Because consumers visit fewer dealerships than ever, they need to have confidence in your vehicle to be willing to choose your dealership over others. To optimize ads, dealers must create a virtual experience for the consumer by posting an array of quality photos or video. While one or two photos may seem sufficient, the most successful dealers post 40-60 photos. While this may seem like overkill, posting an abundance of high-quality photos has a powerful two-fold effect. First, by showing every nook and cranny of the vehicle, you are helping the consumer feel confident they truly understand your vehicle’s strengths and weaknesses so that they can feel confident choosing your dealership over another. This ‘transparency’, from an abundance of photos also gives your dealership a “halo effect” on quality and integrity – an important differentiator given the stereotype of car dealers for many consumers.
Now is the time for dealers to empower themselves with ads that are compelling, interesting and fully Consumer Optimized. Just as Search Engine Optimization transformed the industry by optimizing web pages to rank higher on online searches, now Consumer Optimization of online vehicles marks the next generation of how dealers will win customers online. Ads that are fully optimized will rank higher with consumers and thus be more likely to be chosen versus your competitors’ online vehicles. In the end, dealers who leverage consumer advertising optimization will drive more traffic to their stores and achieve higher gross profits by best connecting with what appeals to consumers.
Pat Ryan Jr. is the co-founder and chief executive officer of First Look by INCISENT Technologies, the leader in automotive retail performance solutions, which was ranked as the #4 Fastest Growing Software Company in the United States in Inc Magazine’s 2008 Inc500 as well as the #1 Fastest Growing Company in the Automotive Sector. Pat is widely followed as a thought leader and speaker and will be a featured speaker at the 2009 Digital Dealer Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas. Pat can be reached at pat@firstlook.biz.