Benefits of Going Digital – Why the Showroom isn’t Enough

In an increasingly digital age, it’s quickly become more important for companies to reach out to their potential customers online. In other words, the products need to be brought to the screens customers interact with. It’s not quite enough to just rely on customers to come to you anymore when they can find information online. The key for dealers is to be the source of the information so if someone decides to go for a test drive, it’s with you.

Let’s say John Smith saw an advertisement for an all new sedan that came out. John searches online for more information and Google notes this activity. For the next few days or weeks, John’s AdSense catch is suggesting he wants to see automotive advertisements. While he’s on YouTube and Facebook, the ads are now shifting to meet his interests. He of course notices if a dealership is bringing him content versus a corporate ad. With those dealer ads, they pop up in his mind when he decides to take a test drive.

So given the above scenario, we can simply break it down as a funnel.

1. John is interested in bringing home a new car.
2. He starts to notice the billboards, movies, and TV spots featuring sedans and a few in particular stand out to him. This is corporate doing their job of pulling John into their brand vs another.
3. Going down the funnel, his online ads start to push automotive ads. Some dealers will have targeted banner ads running.
4. Eventually he looks at his local dealers for a few brands he’s comparing.
5. We know the rest of the story as he zeros in and the funnel comes to a point of sale. This is the typical point where individual dealers put their efforts in making a sale.

The particular point where dealers need to be proactive is right after corporate finishes their job of getting people interested in their products (#3). It’s now on the dealers to pick up the baton and finish the sale. Instead of waiting for customers to reach out to you, why not bring out everything straight to them? The typical marketing efforts stop at Google Ad banners, however, it’s perfectly possible to go in full force and expedite the funneling sale.

Keep up the targeted banners (or get started), add in some YouTube/Facebook ads, and present a “digital showroom” to everyone that might be interested in a new vehicle. Get yourself solidly positioned in #3 right after corporate’s job finishes, and keep it up all the way to #5. The best way to keep it up is to include the digital showroom with follow up emails and also when the customer requests more information online; instead of a “Thanks for your inquiry” page, imagine bringing them to a digital showroom and keeping them plugged into your website instead.

To see our demo showroom, visit www.showroom.directorscut.film and use pass-code “demo”