4 Effective Digital Trends Dealerships Should Use in 2022

Inventory challenges, labor shortages, and the ongoing pandemic all have effect on the automotive industry. With these factors impacting the industry, you may be wondering how to allocate your marketing dollars. 

The opportunities of digital marketing allow you to get in front of your customers and sell more cars. Ross has a list of the top 4 trends revolutionizing digital marketing for 2022. These marketing tactics will help you focus your efforts and optimize on reaching your customers.

Leveraging Data with Personalization

Consumer expectations for personalized experiences will continue in the New Year. In-market shoppers are looking for personalized experiences through each stage of engagement with your dealership.

With the right tools you can gain vast knowledge on your target customers. Using customer data, artificial intelligence (AI), and customer relationship management (CRM) integrations, customer information can be used to personalize digital marketing. Personalized marketing that is relevant to the consumers’ needs and experience can boost dealership sales.

AI can help dealerships balance customer insights and share the right amount of personalized messaging. Adding too much personalization can lead to the customer feeling overwhelmed. They may also view the marketing as “creepy,” if too much personal information is used. 

Additionally, you’ll want to make sure you are leveraging information that is up to date by cleaning your CRM data. If you don’t maintain this, your personalized marketing will be inaccurate and may see negative results. You wouldn’t want to market trade-ins to someone who sold their vehicle two years ago. Keeping data clean can help to avoid these inaccuracies.

Using the power of information from these tools provides dealerships with advanced reporting and more insight into the consumer than ever before. Now is the time to leverage data to reach car shoppers with personalized digital marketing.

Quality Content

Content will continue to be a big player in your digital strategy in 2022. But not just any old content. You will need to create quality marketing that attracts the right audience and is relevant to their search query. If the right people aren’t finding your web pages, blogs, and social posts, then they might as well not exist.

Search engines continue to prioritize quality content in search rankings. For example, Google sorts through hundreds of billions of webpages to find the most relevant, useful information for the consumer’s search. Google uses algorithms to find websites and articles containing information best matched to the audience conducting the search. Knowing this you’ll want to focus on creating content that is valuable, clear, and informative to help boost sales.

While creating web pages and blogs, consider both visual and interactive elements. The next generation of car buyers is much more visual than before. They consume thousands of images and videos daily which should be taken into account for future content strategies. Video and interactive marketing can help educate consumers on the product and feel more connected. This can be done through interactive 360-degree spin videos. Recent studies show that, 87% of customers find 360-degree spins important when shopping for vehicles online. This type of video allows the consumer to tour the inside of vehicle in the comfort of their own home but still get the full experience.

Cutting-Edge Augmented and Virtual Reality

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) continue to change the way that consumers interact digitally. We have seen both AR and VR rise in popularity across social media channels as they offer both an engaging and unique experience for consumers. In the palm of their hand, they can experience AR and VR through their smart phone. Consumers are loving and engaging with this tech. AR and VR technology is valued at 16.8 billion and projected to jump to over 160 billion by 2023. So, why not consider how your dealership can incorporate it into your digital strategy.

Some examples of how dealerships can use this cutting-edge technology:

• Use of 3D models to enhance customer experience
• Provide visualization of how the latest models look on the road
• Virtual tours of the interior and exterior of vehicle
• Excite shoppers with the experience of customizing a vehicle by selecting colors, finishes, and trim

With the help of VR and AR, your dealership can save money and boost sales. You can cut the costs of filling your showroom with models and sales assistants as AR and VR will supplement these real life experiences. Let your car buyers test and build cars through this interactive technology and see an increase in your conversions.

Website Optimization

For your digital strategy you’ll want to continue to optimize your website. This is increasingly important as it will help your content pull in across various types of searches. As technology advances, consumers are taking advantage of new and easy ways to find information. They are using their phones and smart speakers to search and shop. To rank in those results, you’ll want to optimize your website for both mobile search and voice search. If you don’t focus on these searches, your customers will find answers from your competitor.

Studies show that 51% of car shoppers search for vehicle models, dealerships, prices, and reviews on their mobile device. With this in mind, it is important to make sure your website is performing on mobile. Test it for yourself. Here are some things to ask:

Does the design work on mobile? Or are there aspects getting cut off? 

• Do pages load quickly?
• Does every link work?
• Is the text easy to read? Is it large enough?
• Are call to actions or buttons in the right place? Are they clickable? 

Any errors on mobile can push your customer to leave your website. Explore the above questions as they relate to your mobile functionality.

If you have not yet considered voice search, now is the time to optimize for it. There are over 100 million voice search users, and this number will rise in 2022. Use of key words and long-tail key words can be implemented into your website to improve your ranking in voice search results. 

Consider the questions consumers may be asking and the answers on your website that can be correlated to the search. Remember, voice search users have a conversational tone. It may be worth your time to optimize for generic key words as many consumers don’t include specifics about models, dealerships, brand, etc. in their voice search.

Dealerships that don’t strategize how to optimize for these search methods will miss out on traffic to their website and showroom.

Enhance Your Digital Strategy with Ross

Ross will help create a better digital experience for your dealerships’ shoppers. Keep your brand in front of consumers by showing up where they search. Ross will amplify your digital strategy for 2022 and beyond. Contact us to get started!

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