MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR BEST MARKETING ASSET
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR BEST MARKETING ASSET IS?
As a dealership you may have a lot of different answers. And it’s true, there are a number of marketing assets available to an auto dealer. Now you may be thinking Google Adwords, strong SEO rankings in searches or those leads you purchase.
But you’re only part right.
No other marketing asset is more beneficial, readily available, or effective as your inventory.
That’s right; your inventory! It’s been right there in front of you this whole time. The way you list your inventory online can make or break lead conversions and sales before your customer even steps anywhere close to your dealership.
So before you go ahead and start throwing money at Adwords or SEO, consider your inventory.
This is mostly because the way people shop for vehicles has shifted dramatically over the last decade and a lot of dealerships are scrambling to catch up. In a lot of cases, they haven’t even started to evolve in order to adapt to how car-buyers now shop. Many still use outdated inventory management techniques – duplicating content from their DMS onto their website and then onto all the sales channels they want to sell to.
If you’re one of those dealerships then you can guarantee that it’s already impacting your bottom line and it is time to get with the times.
WHY IS INVENTORY MANAGEMENT YOUR BEST ASSET?
I’m happy you asked. Out of any other marketing asset you have at your disposal, whether it’s your sales team, your flashy showroom, that giant inflatable waving man on your lot, or the ads that you place in different sales channels your inventory is the first thing that everyone sees and, most importantly, it’s what they use to start evaluating their level of trust with making a purchase from you.
Your inventory is distributed to various sales channels as part of your marketing strategy. This is a base foundational marketing method employed by auto dealerships the world over. Your inventory is displayed on your website, on Trader, Kijiji, and various other auto classifieds listing resources. It represents the backbone of your online advertising, it’s constantly updated, and it’s the perfect showcase for your product.
It’s important that you’re managing your inventory effectively because this reflects across your sales channels.
While there are many tactics with the amount of information to supply about a vehicle; too much information and your prospective client may not inquire, too little and they will pass it over to find a listing that has the specific information that they are looking for. But regardless of the tactic, if you’re not managing the listing correctly, if you have too few or no images, if you have an too many images, if the descriptions are incorrect, if your details are wrong, if your images are upside down . . . all these things will break trust with your prospects. These things will make customers move on to your competitor’s listings and you have just lost a potential sale. More disturbingly, that customer never even made it as far as the edge of your dealership lot. They barely got out of their recliner.
Now that you know your best marketing asset is your inventory, what do you do about it? In our next article we share with you how effective inventory management can help you sell more vehicles.