The average automotive customer starts their shopping experience online. It starts with searching for vehicle dealerships in their location, looking over different makes and models, and narrowing down their decision. Once they feel comfortable, they move forward by calling a dealership or, in most cases, going in person to speak to a salesperson.
The buyer journey is not always linear, meaning dealerships and vendors need to find innovative ways of marketing and reaching customers when it’s time for them to purchase. Ultimately, the dealership that best speaks to the customer's needs wins.
The cost of dealership advertising
According to NADAs 2023 mid-year report, total dealership advertising expenditures reached $4.28 billion. The average dealership advertising spending per new unit sold rose to $693 USD. This total includes sales and promotional materials minus advertising rebates.
Regarding ad spending, dealerships must consider several marketing channels, including social platforms, paid ads, radio, newspaper, television, direct mail, and more.
Marketing and advertising are a large part of a dealership's expenses, making it extremely important to make the right decisions and allocate funds to the right avenues.
Make vehicle marketing worth it
Because it takes a great deal of ad spending to reach a new customer, it’s important to make the right decisions. It’s best to set advertising objectives early on and understand which methods are best suited to the local area.
Marketing, in the end, is about building customer trust. The customer must trust you enough to give over their information. Trust is built through education: having the right information on their website, including vehicle and pricing details, and contacting customers how they want to be contacted.
Getting the right information and setting the right objectives will often come down to data. Dealerships must assess their own data from previous years and analyze larger collective datasets to stay ahead of trends and customer spending habits. Without such data, dealerships risk biased decision-making and costly marketing mistakes.
Authenticom, hailed as the business behind the automotive business, is a dealership's greatest data partner. DealerVault allows dealerships to bypass DMSs and get straight to the verified data they need in minutes. It means dealerships have control and ownership over their data and access to secure customer information, all accessible even on a mobile device.
The best way to contact potential customers
After careful consideration, dealerships should see a healthy flow of new leads if the marketing goes as planned. During the process from prospect to full-fledged customer, the buyer will provide the dealership with their information (name, address, phone, email, etc.) – and after purchasing, the dealership will have the vehicle information for that customer.
All of this information is valuable to the dealership itself.
If the information is incorrect during this process, the sales process will not go as planned and will ultimately cost the dealership time and money. To ensure this doesn’t happen, Authenticom assists dealerships in verifying customer information.
With Record Recharge, dealerships can verify vehicle owner information and customer contact information such as phone, email, and address. It helps to fill in any missing phone numbers and verify leads so there are no dead ends. Plus, dealerships will be able to rest easy knowing their text and call campaigns are effective by obtaining the type of device associated with each customer's phone number, such as cell or landline.
ContactVia makes reaching customers by their preferred contact method easy so dealerships can build trust and stay compliant. Customers can opt-in to text, call, or email contact, and leads can be verified – all saving precious time.
With dealerships spending billions each year to reach new customers, it’s a no-brainer that they should have the right data to back up their purchases. With Authenticom, dealerships have a better chance of contacting leads, spotting trends, and knowing the next step their prospects will take.
Don’t waste your marketing efforts; contact Authenticom today.
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