Is one of your goals to make your website traffic count?

Aggressive distribution and promotion of your inventory to many in market auto shoppers is paramount to increasing your sales. 

Boosting your website traffic alone will not garner the results which you desire.

Visitors that look at Vehicle Description Pages (VDPs) are in market shoppers. The better experience they have - the more cars you will definitely sell.

Spending advertising dollars on inventory marketing is a proven way to track website visitors back to a specific lead; therefore, understanding the value of setting up a goal for visits to a vehicle description page in your Google analytics will validate the correlation between Vehicle Description Pages (VDP) views and your auto shopper that is deep into the sales cycle contributing to your success and ultimately your bottom line.

In short - increasing traffic to your VDP page moves more metal. 

How may I digitally merchandise my inventory to impact SEO while creating an experience that my customer will love?

It’s well documented that video traffic will account for over 80% of all consumer internet traffic, and having video on your site will impact your website’s SEO ranking, so adding clips of your inventory would be an obvious conclusion.

In this digitally dominated age, anyone with a mobile phone is a content creator, or at the very least, they may record their own vehicle walk around when necessary. 

Whether you shoot your inventory in-dealership or prefer using a lot service, it’s important  to understand the difference in video content especially when it comes to getting your inventory seen by your potential customer before your competitors while assisting them with the purchasing process in the manner that they'd actually prefer.

Google reports that changing behaviors and a rising demand for a frictionless auto buying experiences are revolutionizing our one-hundred-year-old industry.  

Innovative video merchandising and messaging tools are available which are specifically created for retail automotive dealers.

Today's consumer has far lot more information than ever with infinite choices at their fingertips and it’s taken some time for auto retailers to come around to offering more meaningful, engaging experiences with their brands.

Once the proper technologies are implemented, assisting throughout your customer's journey, the final result will be game changing.

Alistair Rennie, a research lead on Google’s market insights team contributed to a recent published report "Decoding Decisions, Making Sense of the Messy Middle" - this 98-page document explores how behavioral science principles apply to the purchase decision process. 

The 'messy middle' is the latest of many buzz terms used to describe the period of your shopper’s journey during the time between trigger and purchase. 

The customer is either in exploration or evaluation mode.

Customers looping in and out of these two modes inevitably will make their decision during this process. 

How effectively your brand performs during this state will be determined by how successful you are with closing the gap between trigger and purchase.

Rennie’s team’s research reinforces what we’ve found within our partnering dealers’ analytics with regard to Dealer Video Inventory Merchandising and Marketing – reporting Dealer Inventory Videos are preferred 4 to 1 over inventory photos, significantly increasing time on your site by your customer resulting in more delisted vehicles.

In this article we will match three of Rennie’s recommended approaches with strategies, designed with the goal to provide consumers with the information and confidence they need to make their ultimate decision to buy from you.

1. Ensure brand presence so that your product or service is strategically “front of mind” while your customers explore their options.

This may be achieved with a three-track approach to drive your potential customers directly to your website - increasing engagement, generating SEO and in the end, having you moving more metal.

In order to attain this, you must grow while nurturing a robust library of your inventory on YouTube that is fully optimized as well as properly maintained.

This will present your inventory first at the top of the web's most desired search engines.

Draw local in market shoppers by adding 'Google My Business' vehicle posts. Make the car the star by creating a “video site map” to bring shoppers directly to your VDP from Google, while your potential buyer is searching for make and model - in the decision phase of their buying journey.

2. Employing behavioral science principles intelligently as well as responsibly to make your proposition compelling while consumers evaluate their options.

Offering a readily available 360-degree, full motion, high-definition walk around video to customers complete with a voice-over vehicle description gives your shopper a transparent view of the car that they’re researching.

3. Close the gap between trigger and purchase, so that your existing and potential customers spend less time exposed to your competitor's brands.

YouTube is the largest video sharing website on the internet, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best option when it comes to hosting your inventory videos online.

A video player embedded within your website, is your best option - especially when if it offers a high-definition view of the vehicle and interactive features.

A high-quality presentation, gives your customer valuable resources that resonate with them, and this video player be uniquely shareable right back to your VDP.

Google reports that simply giving the shopper the option to choose their second option brand was enough to entice 30% away from their initial choice. Sending your customer away from your site is not ideal with regard to keeping their attention on your brand.

With the above in mind, video messaging tools are the new norm since stay-at-home orders and have been adopted as the way to your overall success. Video conferencing will remain long after the impact and restrictions of covid have all lifted.

A 360-degree view of the car with personalized messages within a vin-specific vehicle walk around, can close the gap between trigger and purchase, so that your existing and potential customers spend less time exposed to your competitor's brands and more time building a report with your dealership.

 A customizable experience and personalized message that exemplifies frictionless car buying, designed to close that gap between trigger and purchase.

This process offers non-intrusive, direct, concise, transparent communication and views of your inventory as well allowing the customer to become familiar with you and your brand in a non-defensive environment with the advantage of having multi-point contact tools that your customers will love having at their fingertips, making their buying process as convenient as possible.

The video messaging technology available today allows us the ability to remove the element of intimidation from the car buying process and will put everything your customer desires in one place which they may view without interruption and share with their friends and family.

Did you know that an email accompanied by a video receives a CTR increase of 96%?  

It's a fact that 54% of email subscribers prefer emails with videos and 90% of users say that video helps them make their purchase decision easier.

Making your potential buyer feel comfortable by giving them control over when and how they view the information they desire with a personalized and meaningful experience that offers easy to find answers to all of their questions will build solid brand loyalty that will go beyond the sale of the car.

The days of only using still pictures of your inventory to entice your potential buyer are long gone and video technology goes on so far beyond just placing a YouTube link to a moving picture on your website.

As a full-service digital partner, we believe your inventory should do more for you than sit on your website awaiting visitors.