Does Your Dealership Drive Conversions? Add Online Lending Options!

Website conversions depend on the experience you are able to give to the modern shopper. Brochures are not the tools that drive conversions. It’s your website.

Gone are the days of attracting attention with giant inflated toys, green gorillas, and colorful flag strings across your inventory lot. Today’s car buyers want to do their tire-kicking online, at home or while commuting to work. The new generation of consumers may not respond to traditional techniques. This is true for the younger generations. Even baby boomers, trained by there smartphones (and grandkids) are less likely to have confidence when old sales tactics are used.  

If you’re experiencing difficulty getting visitors to convert to customers, you could be breaking these essential rules.

Make Conversions Happen: Streamline Your Website

Lightning-fast and agile web development not only improves your search engine rankings, but it reduces visitor “bounce.”

Your website infrastructure should be sleek, quick-to-load, easy to navigate and responsive to mobile devices. The longer it takes for your visitors to access the information they want, the more likely they are to leave your site and go to your competition. 

“We dug deep into a wide range of sectors from finance to travel. Pages from the automotive, retail, and technology sectors, on average, take the longest to load. And they also have some of the most bloated pages on the web.” —Daniel An at Google.

Ease back on autoplay videos, dynamic animations, and page transitions. Your audience has already seen the flashy TV spots. If they’ve come to your dealership’s website, they want information—not blockbuster film production.

Improve Conversions: Personalize Your Message

How many models and packages does your dealership offer? Your customers likely know what they want; let them go there first before you pitch the upsell. Intuitive navigation and landing pages developed for specific search strings establish trust in your brand. Pushy landing-page pop-ups recommending top-tier upgrades? Not so much.

Here are a few useful features that let your customers feel they’re at the wheel:

Clearly Categorized Options: Allow your visitors to choose from models but don’t overwhelm them with various click buttons and pathways that take them away from your sales funnel. They might love your brand but aren’t familiar with your current models. They might be looking for their ideal light-duty truck, but they’re not yet committed to any manufacturer.

If all they find are large images promoting your top-of-the-line, fully-loaded luxury sedans or intentionally misleading menus, you’ll break faith with a potential customer.

Suggested Pages: These are subtle links (usually with photos) that appear based on a visitor’s navigation actions, and may include product features, relatable click-to-play videos, and blog posts. These “nudges” can guide your viewer down the sales funnel, or connect them with useful, actionable, and shareable content that relates to that individual’s search data. For example:

• Video tutorials for using vehicle features
• Informative blog posts about vehicle maintenance
• Region-specific road trips
• Tips for preparing trade-in vehicles

Even if your viewer is at the entrance to the sales funnel, he or she will have had a positive experience with your brand and will be more likely to come to you when they’re ready to sit down and deal.

“Build-Your-Own” Demos: With the right site framework, you can enhance your customer’s experience with features that allow them to construct a visual model of their ideal vehicle and make side-by-side comparisons built with user-defined data. At this depth in the sales journey, the “bells and whistles” make the most impact.

Once your customer knows what they want, they can use e-commerce tools developed specifically for auto retailers to generate accurate quotes for out-the-door prices and monthly payments. With AutoFi, they can shop and qualify for the auto loan that’s right for them… without leaving a dealership’s website.

Make it Easy for Your Customers to Convert

Imagine what would happen if your shoppers could experience a digital retail solution right on your website. If the customer could price, structure a deal, value trade-ins, include your protection plans, and select a car conveniently from a mobile device or in-store, how would that change your business? What would happen if your website could also convert those shoppers to buyers with an integrated lender decision? As in, the customer can choose from several financing solutions and ta-da, the deal is done. All that is left is to come into the store and pick up their car. Now we’re talking real conversion!

I’m not done yet!

Ah, but your thinking, wait, but what about my sales guy, won’t this cut him out of the process?

Not really. Here’s why.

Your sales team gets customized tools that help intact with the shopper in real-time. Contextualized leads help them know where customers are in the sales process. If they are at the top or bottom of the funnel the ability to interact and send real-time offers is .. well … incredible.

The 2018 Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey Brochure — data compiled from a survey of more than two thousand consumers who either bought or leased a vehicle “within 12 months of September 13, 2017” —confirms the increasing demand for integrated custom e-commerce within dealer digital marketing strategies. Here are some quick quotes and facts from the report:

• “More than one-third of buyers feel the total and monthly price are equally important, highlighting the need for dealers to provide both options in their online merchandising.”
• Customers list “negotiating” and “signing paperwork” as the two activities on which customers want to spend less time while they’re at the actual dealership location.
• Car shoppers are far more likely to purchase finance and insurance products when they’ve learned about them before visiting the dealership.

Whether your goal is to bring quality leads to the showroom or close a deal online, your website needs to adapt to rapidly changing consumer trends. Gain the edge over your competition and empower your customers with confidence to convert using AutoFi. We developed an industry-specific e-commerce and lending solution so you can give your site visitors the purchasing experience they demand.

Learn how Social Media can help with website conversions?