No you’re not dreaming it. It is getting more expensive to attract the same amount of in-market shoppers as last year. What happened? As a digital marketing professional, how is it your budget gets bigger every year but the amount of in-market buyers you attract don’t grow by the same margin?

Actually it’s pretty straightforward - Everyone else is now using similar tactics to get valuable in-market shoppers and the field is getting saturated.

Yesterday your dealership was one of the pioneers in the digital game and you were reaping the rewards of fairly open playing field. Today, anyone who has the budget can easily achieve what you have with a handful of vendors. Dealerships are competing with the guy across the road, across town, and across their own dealer groups and these guys are all using the same tactics you are.

You used to be able to invest a good chunk of your budget into listings sites online, a little bit extra for top spot on SEM and BOOM! your showroom was the top seller in your area and your team thought of you as their “Digital Guru” (PS - don’t ever call yourself a digital guru). But now everyone is using the exact same tactics.

That was then, this is now. You can’t just go out and throw more money at the problem and expect to be back on the top of the heap. Dealership advertising has moved way past the “good ole days” listings and search solving all problems and the sooner you realize these problems the better.

Cookie-Cutter Dealership Websites and SEO won’t separate you anymore.

You have a dealership and you list your cars on your web site. Great! It’s vital to be online, having your inventory online is a big part of the search engine game.

Tell me, does this scenario sound familiar to you?

You decide to spend a whole bunch of your annual budget on SEO optimization so you can be found on the first page of any relevant search and at the end of the year, after you’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars, your competition across town is still ranking higher than you! Crap - better start looking for that new gig.

Let’s face it, there are only a handful of vendors that make really great dealership websites and unfortunately many of you are required by your OEM’s to work with the usual suspects like DDC or CDK. Therein lies the problem. In order to “separate yourself from the pack” you’ve got to find something new but you're forced to use the same vendor that offers the same services to your competition.

How is it possible for your Ford dealership be more competitive than the other two Ford dealers in the same city that use the same vendor for their websites and SEO? Ding Ding! - it’s not.

Listing Sites are Over-Saturated

Many dealerships start their digital marketing here and the appeal is simple: These listing pages are designed to get your cars in front of interested buyers close to your dealership. Exactly what you need! Plus - you’ve been working with the Orange guy and the Purple guy for the last 15 or 20 years, so why not keep doing it?? Right… Wrong!

Don’t forget, that same listing site is making the same guarantee to all the other dealerships that compete with you. If your ads need to be showcased at the top of that listing page, you have to buy the “Premium Positions” which cost more than what a basic listing costs but displays at the top of the list with a minor color splash that says something quipy like “Prefered Listing”.

Worse yet, your Ford Explorer is top of the list with your main competitors Ford Explorer and both of your ads look identical! How does this differentiate you? Once again, you’re back to spending money to maintain the same results rather than increasing results. Double crap!

The Inevitability of Diminishing Returns for SEM

No you’re not dreaming, the average CPC is skyrocketing year over year. A study by  AdGooroo.com has found that the average automotive CPC has increased a staggering 83% from 2012 to 2014. Our own internal study completed at the end of February 2016 has the current average CPC, for Tier 3 Automotive spending in AdWords, at $2.65. This is right in line with that growth figure. Ouch.

This means that you will HAVE to increase your SEM budget next year just to maintain the same returns you saw this year.

When you were one of the only few dealerships in a city, it was easy to stand out in the crowd. As more dealerships moved in and increased their digital savviness, the competitive landscape became more saturated, the ad space became more crowded and listing pages more competitive (and expensive).

What comes next?

As with many things in life, the strategy is straightforward, but the execution is difficult. In order to get ahead of your competition you need to focus on what your competition doesn’t do rather than keeping up with them.

This means experimenting with your advertising and marketing dollars on the new digital technologies and techniques that will not only get your inventory in front of more in-market buyers but also in a channel that isn’t already saturated with the rest of your competition.

The key to surviving in today’s ultra-competitive digital marketing landscape is to be in front of the advertising trends. A savvy digital marketer will know what will be competitive tomorrow, today.  

What have have you seen that not many dealerships are doing? Leave it in the comments.

I’m sorry to have to say this: Your digital marketing is less and less effective every year. That’s not because you’re doing anything wrong, it’s more the fact that there are just more players coming into the game every month and that’s diluting the playing field.

And this isn’t anything new. Even in late 2014, Media Post found that  “... ad budgets are up 17% [for the automotive sector]. Online media accounts for 95% of this year’s increase.”

As digital marketers, it’s your job to attract buyers that are shopping online, and as GMs, you have seen the impact that online media has on sales and the bottom line. However, with new players coming into the fold and existing dealers upping their investments, it will be increasingly difficult to reach car buyers with your dealership’s message.

One way to increase your message reach is to customize your marketing on different parts of the buyer’s path to purchase.

In 2012, Microsoft Advertising had created a report that identified the stages of a car buyer’s journey from the initial realisation of a need (or want) all the way beyond the purchase to ownership.

Each of these stages has a variety of media outlets and online information sources which are useful at each stage. Back in the day (or until just a few years ago) we marketers would have to rack our brains to determine the best time and place to display each ad. Fortunately, in today’s digital marketing age we can get extremely targeted with our messages and our content.

Thus, the ability to move from "educated guessing" to "data driven certainty".

What we found missing from the stages that Microsoft had outlined is that car shoppers aren’t actively engaged in shopping 100% of the time. As a result, we need to add another dimension to these stages.  

1. Active Auto Shoppers
2. Passive Auto Shoppers

Actively Shopping

Simply put, this is when shoppers are actively researching or looking for a vehicle.

Actively Researching

During this time, shoppers are looking at review, research and comparison sites to determine which car best fits their needs and wants.

Historically, one of the only methods to reach these buyers with your dealership message is through basic display advertising. Typically, this is a branding or offers strategy with messages that talk about financing or general dealer incentives.

However, in recent years, new inventory advertising products have been able to provide dealerships with the ability to show live dealership inventory during this stage to entice buyers to visit their website.

Traditionally, the only way to get your dealership’s message out to car shoppers in the research phase was to promote a generic offer.

New inventory display advertisements now allow dealerships to show these buyers their actual inventory while they are researching.

Actively Searching

During this time, car shoppers have selected the car, their car of the moment, and are then looking for where they can find one to test drive or evaluate in person.

Reaching buyers during this mindset is relatively straightforward as people are actively looking for vehicles. As long as you have your inventory listed, and have a decent SEM campaign, you’re in the mix.

Traditionally, this is also where the bulk of the digital budget is spent. As a result, this stage is also where dealerships encounter the highest competition and see the most diminishing returns. As we mentioned above, the more players that come into the game, the less effective per dollar your digital marketing becomes.

Due to this oversaturation and highly competitive arena of listings and SEM, some savvy digital marketers have expanded into Inventory Display and other digital mediums to drive VDP traffic. Similar to listings advertising, Inventory Display feature interactive ads that link directly to your VDP to convert. However, unlike listings advertising and SEM, Inventory Display does not yet suffer from a high level of saturation and competition.

Active car shoppers need a great SEM and listings campaign. 

Inventory Display Ads are effective to attract shoppers at this stage but do not suffer from the high competition found in SEM and listings ads.

Passively Shopping

During this time, car shoppers have stopped actively looking or researching the cars they want to buy. These people are going about their other browsing habits in other environments that are completely non-automotive.

Typically, dealerships rely on retargeting or demographic targeting for this phase. However, retargeting only works if the buyer has gone to the dealership’s website and targeting by demographics paints everyone with a wide brush and may not be as effective as you think.

A better method would be to combine retargeting from the dealer’s site and behavioural targeting based on the shoppers actual online auto browsing history, learned by a Data Management Platform (DMP) in the Active Stage. By doing this, you can deliver advertising that is relevant even in an environment that is not automotive specific.

Your message must be relevant to the consumer to be effective in the Passive Stage. Relevance can be achieved with behavioural targeting if they have not visited your website and retargeting methods if they have.  

By having tactics to reach buyers at every stage, you will be able to increase your chances of attracting more car buyers to your website and ultimately help increase the sales of your dealership.

Are there any other ways you have been able to attract buyers through these three stages? Let us know how in the comments section.

I’m sorry to have to say this: Your digital marketing is less and less effective every year. That’s not because you’re doing anything wrong, it’s more the fact that there are just more players coming into the game every month and that’s diluting the playing field.

And this isn’t anything new. Even in late 2014, Media Post found that  “... ad budgets are up 17% [for the automotive sector]. Online media accounts for 95% of this year’s increase.”

As digital marketers, it’s your job to attract buyers that are shopping online, and as GMs, you have seen the impact that online media has on sales and the bottom line. However, with new players coming into the fold and existing dealers upping their investments, it will be increasingly difficult to reach car buyers with your dealership’s message.

One way to increase your message reach is to customize your marketing on different parts of the buyer’s path to purchase.

In 2012, Microsoft Advertising had created a report that identified the stages of a car buyer’s journey from the initial realisation of a need (or want) all the way beyond the purchase to ownership.

Each of these stages has a variety of media outlets and online information sources which are useful at each stage. Back in the day (or until just a few years ago) we marketers would have to rack our brains to determine the best time and place to display each ad. Fortunately, in today’s digital marketing age we can get extremely targeted with our messages and our content.

Thus, the ability to move from "educated guessing" to "data driven certainty".

What we found missing from the stages that Microsoft had outlined is that car shoppers aren’t actively engaged in shopping 100% of the time. As a result, we need to add another dimension to these stages.  

1. Active Auto Shoppers
2. Passive Auto Shoppers

Actively Shopping

Simply put, this is when shoppers are actively researching or looking for a vehicle.

Actively Researching

During this time, shoppers are looking at review, research and comparison sites to determine which car best fits their needs and wants.

Historically, one of the only methods to reach these buyers with your dealership message is through basic display advertising. Typically, this is a branding or offers strategy with messages that talk about financing or general dealer incentives.

However, in recent years, new inventory advertising products have been able to provide dealerships with the ability to show live dealership inventory during this stage to entice buyers to visit their website.

Traditionally, the only way to get your dealership’s message out to car shoppers in the research phase was to promote a generic offer.

New inventory display advertisements now allow dealerships to show these buyers their actual inventory while they are researching.

Actively Searching

During this time, car shoppers have selected the car, their car of the moment, and are then looking for where they can find one to test drive or evaluate in person.

Reaching buyers during this mindset is relatively straightforward as people are actively looking for vehicles. As long as you have your inventory listed, and have a decent SEM campaign, you’re in the mix.

Traditionally, this is also where the bulk of the digital budget is spent. As a result, this stage is also where dealerships encounter the highest competition and see the most diminishing returns. As we mentioned above, the more players that come into the game, the less effective per dollar your digital marketing becomes.

Due to this oversaturation and highly competitive arena of listings and SEM, some savvy digital marketers have expanded into Inventory Display and other digital mediums to drive VDP traffic. Similar to listings advertising, Inventory Display feature interactive ads that link directly to your VDP to convert. However, unlike listings advertising and SEM, Inventory Display does not yet suffer from a high level of saturation and competition.

Active car shoppers need a great SEM and listings campaign. 

Inventory Display Ads are effective to attract shoppers at this stage but do not suffer from the high competition found in SEM and listings ads.

Passively Shopping

During this time, car shoppers have stopped actively looking or researching the cars they want to buy. These people are going about their other browsing habits in other environments that are completely non-automotive.

Typically, dealerships rely on retargeting or demographic targeting for this phase. However, retargeting only works if the buyer has gone to the dealership’s website and targeting by demographics paints everyone with a wide brush and may not be as effective as you think.

A better method would be to combine retargeting from the dealer’s site and behavioural targeting based on the shoppers actual online auto browsing history, learned by a Data Management Platform (DMP) in the Active Stage. By doing this, you can deliver advertising that is relevant even in an environment that is not automotive specific.

Your message must be relevant to the consumer to be effective in the Passive Stage. Relevance can be achieved with behavioural targeting if they have not visited your website and retargeting methods if they have.  

By having tactics to reach buyers at every stage, you will be able to increase your chances of attracting more car buyers to your website and ultimately help increase the sales of your dealership.

Are there any other ways you have been able to attract buyers through these three stages? Let us know how in the comments section.

Happy post-Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you were able to spend time with your loved ones, watch some amazing football and of course, eat as much turkey (or Celebration Loaf/Tofurky in my case) as possible.

I’m not sure if it was my third helping of Tofurky, the belly full of wine or the fact that I’m just a total workaholic, but I couldn’t help draw some similarities between Thanksgiving and the world of automotive dealership marketing. (Yes, seriously.) 

You see, my mother-in-law cooks a mean Turkey (or so I keep hearing), and as I watched all the magic in the kitchen, I couldn't help but draw some interesting parallels:

Keep a constant eye on your turkey/digital marketing performance

Presentation is everything

Get some help

It’s not about you. It’s about them!

By taking some pragmatic lessons from a Thanksgiving Day dinner and applying them to your dealership marketing, you can help improve your dealership's marketing performance, attract more buyers, and ultimately eat more turkey… er, I mean sell more cars.

Perhaps it was the wine. Anyone else find a connection between Thanksgiving and automotive marketing? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Before signing off, I want to take a moment to thank all of our amazing customers and agency partners. This has been an amazing year for Speed Shift Media, and we are thankful for your continued support of our business.

Happy post-Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you were able to spend time with your loved ones, watch some amazing football and of course, eat as much turkey (or Celebration Loaf/Tofurky in my case) as possible.

I’m not sure if it was my third helping of Tofurky, the belly full of wine or the fact that I’m just a total workaholic, but I couldn’t help draw some similarities between Thanksgiving and the world of automotive dealership marketing. (Yes, seriously.) 

You see, my mother-in-law cooks a mean Turkey (or so I keep hearing), and as I watched all the magic in the kitchen, I couldn't help but draw some interesting parallels:

Keep a constant eye on your turkey/digital marketing performance

Presentation is everything

Get some help

It’s not about you. It’s about them!

By taking some pragmatic lessons from a Thanksgiving Day dinner and applying them to your dealership marketing, you can help improve your dealership's marketing performance, attract more buyers, and ultimately eat more turkey… er, I mean sell more cars.

Perhaps it was the wine. Anyone else find a connection between Thanksgiving and automotive marketing? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Before signing off, I want to take a moment to thank all of our amazing customers and agency partners. This has been an amazing year for Speed Shift Media, and we are thankful for your continued support of our business.

Marketing vehicles (or anything for that matter) can be broken down into four parts: message, creative, distribution channels, and measurement. Of course, what is typically implied in all of this is execution and the money that fuels this execution.

You can have all the greatest plans and strategies in the world but without the funds to execute, that’s all they’ll ever be: plans. As we’ve all found out while growing up, money doesn’t grow on trees. Raise your hand if you’ve ever buried a dollar bill in hopes that a money tree will sprout. I even went so far as to buy a “Money Tree” – I call it Ben. (Yes, Franklin)This can especially be troublesome for smaller dealerships or groups that are starting out where advertising dollars are sparse.

Luckily, OEMs are there with co-op programs. These funds are available for your dealership to advertise the brand’s vehicles. Typically OEMs will reimburse you back with a percentage of the cost to run the advertising. In some cases, they will cover the entire cost of the program.

So, if you’re not taking advantage of your OEM’s co-op programs, you’re leaving money on the table. My guess is that 95% of you know that there are funds available, but it’s the co-op process that gets in the way. This time, raise your hand if you have a stack of co-op affidavits/tear-sheets that need to be submitted. I’ll bet that the total annual unused co-op funds are in the 10’s or 100’s of millions annually.

Here are some tips on how to take advantage of co-op programs for your brands:

Brand standards will change from time to time and OEMs will typically send you new guidelines when this happens. It’s important to fully re-read the documentation as small details may change that will affect the approval of your ads. 

For example, in May of 2015, Volkswagen changed their corporate font from “VW Utopia” to “Volkswagen Text” and more recently, Volkswagen has decided to remove "Das Auto" from the logo completely. After a grace period, any ads with the old font and the tag line "Das Auto" will be rejected from co-op funding. 

Remember, it’s in the OEM’s best interest that you sell more of their cars. Co-op is another tool that they provide you to do that. By taking advantage of this tool, you’re able to stretch your advertising dollars, reach more buyers and sell more cars.

What are some other interesting things you have learned about co-op funds? Or, challenges you’re facing. Share them in the comments.

Marketing vehicles (or anything for that matter) can be broken down into four parts: message, creative, distribution channels, and measurement. Of course, what is typically implied in all of this is execution and the money that fuels this execution.

You can have all the greatest plans and strategies in the world but without the funds to execute, that’s all they’ll ever be: plans. As we’ve all found out while growing up, money doesn’t grow on trees. Raise your hand if you’ve ever buried a dollar bill in hopes that a money tree will sprout. I even went so far as to buy a “Money Tree” – I call it Ben. (Yes, Franklin)This can especially be troublesome for smaller dealerships or groups that are starting out where advertising dollars are sparse.

Luckily, OEMs are there with co-op programs. These funds are available for your dealership to advertise the brand’s vehicles. Typically OEMs will reimburse you back with a percentage of the cost to run the advertising. In some cases, they will cover the entire cost of the program.

So, if you’re not taking advantage of your OEM’s co-op programs, you’re leaving money on the table. My guess is that 95% of you know that there are funds available, but it’s the co-op process that gets in the way. This time, raise your hand if you have a stack of co-op affidavits/tear-sheets that need to be submitted. I’ll bet that the total annual unused co-op funds are in the 10’s or 100’s of millions annually.

Here are some tips on how to take advantage of co-op programs for your brands:

Brand standards will change from time to time and OEMs will typically send you new guidelines when this happens. It’s important to fully re-read the documentation as small details may change that will affect the approval of your ads. 

For example, in May of 2015, Volkswagen changed their corporate font from “VW Utopia” to “Volkswagen Text” and more recently, Volkswagen has decided to remove "Das Auto" from the logo completely. After a grace period, any ads with the old font and the tag line "Das Auto" will be rejected from co-op funding. 

Remember, it’s in the OEM’s best interest that you sell more of their cars. Co-op is another tool that they provide you to do that. By taking advantage of this tool, you’re able to stretch your advertising dollars, reach more buyers and sell more cars.

What are some other interesting things you have learned about co-op funds? Or, challenges you’re facing. Share them in the comments.

Here’s a reality check. You have the same new cars as your brand competitor, and you are all competing for the same car buyer’s attention. How can you differentiate yourself from the competition and convince that buyer to come to your dealership?

In large cities, there can be as many as ten dealerships selling the same new cars. For example, the small city I live in has four BMW dealerships. Los Angeles area has eight, Atlanta area has three and New York City area has nine. If a car buyer lived in any of those cities and wants to buy the same black M6 Grande Coupe with red Nappa Leather, which one of those dealerships should they visit?

All dealerships can order the same new cars from the factory and all vying for the attention of this car buyer. So the question is:

What can you do to make sure the buyer comes to your dealership and not your competitors?

Successfully differentiating your dealership can make the difference between selling more cars, or losing valuable market share to the competition.

Let’s go over how this can be done.

Find out Exactly how you’re Different

Driving to work, I heard countless advertisements on the radio about dealerships talking about the best selection or lowest prices, and I think to myself “They can’t all be right”. And when this happens, people tune out or – worse – they completely mistrust this message. In that case, you’ve lost.

What you need to do is some customer research and find out why they come to you and why they buy from you.

After a successful sale, make sure to do a win analysis. Get your team to ask these questions:

• Why did you come to this dealership?
  Is it location? Is it selection? Was it a referral from a previous buyer? Did we have the best reviews on Google? OR, are you just in a part of town that’s next to the lottery corporation and all the winners see your dealership first after picking up their big bag of money?
   
• Why did they ultimately decide to buy from our dealership?
  Did they like our salespeople? The service? Was it the lowest price they found? What was compelling enough for them to drop thousands of their hard earned dollars on your lot versus the other guy?

Keep in mind that your sales team may, or in many cases may not be, the right people to ask these questions. You may want to ask these questions by way of a follow-up phone survey. Do this as part of the call that you make a few days after the sale – you know, the call that you are making to ensure your customer had a great experience and that they are not suffering from buyers remorse (you are making that call – Right?). If you have a marketing team member on staff, they are likely the best candidate to carryout this process.

Once you have about 30 or more responses you’ll be able to find trends in the answers provided. These trends will provide you with unbiased input on why people like your dealership and will provide you with differentiators based on what the market actually feels about your dealership.

This gives your message much more resonance than something simply made up in a board meeting, and will attract more people like the ones that have already bought cars from you.

Construct the Message

Now that you have found out why people truly come to you, it’s time to distil those findings into a succinct message that buyers can relate to. When creating a message, try to keep these things in mind:

• Use unlike statements
  Using "unlike" statements is the quickest way to show you’re different from the rest. For example, your Toyota dealership is in the suburbs, try: Unlike many other Toyota dealerships that are clogged up in the dense city, we are located right off the highway for your convenience. Or if your dealership opens on the weekend, try: Unlike many other Ford dealerships, we are open the entire weekend, so you can find the car you want without taking time off work.
   
• Message on benefits not just features
  Frame and explain the benefits of your differentiator to the buyers. As with the examples above, if I had simply stated that I was off the highway, I could have been met with a “so what?”. Once the statement "being off the highway" is framed as being convenient, then it will resonate with buyers who value convenience. Likewise, if you simply stated you are open all weekend, people may just be thinking you’re promoting your hours, rather than understanding the value you are open later or longer than your competitors.
   
• Avoid inward facing statements
  I get it, you’re the biggest dealership in your county. Or you’ve sold more cars than your next three competitors combined. As much as this is something to be proud of inside your dealership, this doesn’t hold as much weight with a buyer. Frame your message from the perspective of the buyer and ask “What’s in it for me?”. So, if you’ve moved more inventory than your competitors, try “More GM buyers have trusted us to deliver the car they want” rather than “We’ve sold more cars than any other GM dealership.” 

By creating the right message, you’ll be able to communicate your strengths in a way that resonates with more car buyers. This in turn, will attract more shoppers and – ultimately – help you sell more cars.

Here’s a reality check. You have the same new cars as your brand competitor, and you are all competing for the same car buyer’s attention. How can you differentiate yourself from the competition and convince that buyer to come to your dealership?

In large cities, there can be as many as ten dealerships selling the same new cars. For example, the small city I live in has four BMW dealerships. Los Angeles area has eight, Atlanta area has three and New York City area has nine. If a car buyer lived in any of those cities and wants to buy the same black M6 Grande Coupe with red Nappa Leather, which one of those dealerships should they visit?

All dealerships can order the same new cars from the factory and all vying for the attention of this car buyer. So the question is:

What can you do to make sure the buyer comes to your dealership and not your competitors?

Successfully differentiating your dealership can make the difference between selling more cars, or losing valuable market share to the competition.

Let’s go over how this can be done.

Find out Exactly how you’re Different

Driving to work, I heard countless advertisements on the radio about dealerships talking about the best selection or lowest prices, and I think to myself “They can’t all be right”. And when this happens, people tune out or – worse – they completely mistrust this message. In that case, you’ve lost.

What you need to do is some customer research and find out why they come to you and why they buy from you.

After a successful sale, make sure to do a win analysis. Get your team to ask these questions:

• Why did you come to this dealership?
  Is it location? Is it selection? Was it a referral from a previous buyer? Did we have the best reviews on Google? OR, are you just in a part of town that’s next to the lottery corporation and all the winners see your dealership first after picking up their big bag of money?
   
• Why did they ultimately decide to buy from our dealership?
  Did they like our salespeople? The service? Was it the lowest price they found? What was compelling enough for them to drop thousands of their hard earned dollars on your lot versus the other guy?

Keep in mind that your sales team may, or in many cases may not be, the right people to ask these questions. You may want to ask these questions by way of a follow-up phone survey. Do this as part of the call that you make a few days after the sale – you know, the call that you are making to ensure your customer had a great experience and that they are not suffering from buyers remorse (you are making that call – Right?). If you have a marketing team member on staff, they are likely the best candidate to carryout this process.

Once you have about 30 or more responses you’ll be able to find trends in the answers provided. These trends will provide you with unbiased input on why people like your dealership and will provide you with differentiators based on what the market actually feels about your dealership.

This gives your message much more resonance than something simply made up in a board meeting, and will attract more people like the ones that have already bought cars from you.

Construct the Message

Now that you have found out why people truly come to you, it’s time to distil those findings into a succinct message that buyers can relate to. When creating a message, try to keep these things in mind:

• Use unlike statements
  Using "unlike" statements is the quickest way to show you’re different from the rest. For example, your Toyota dealership is in the suburbs, try: Unlike many other Toyota dealerships that are clogged up in the dense city, we are located right off the highway for your convenience. Or if your dealership opens on the weekend, try: Unlike many other Ford dealerships, we are open the entire weekend, so you can find the car you want without taking time off work.
   
• Message on benefits not just features
  Frame and explain the benefits of your differentiator to the buyers. As with the examples above, if I had simply stated that I was off the highway, I could have been met with a “so what?”. Once the statement "being off the highway" is framed as being convenient, then it will resonate with buyers who value convenience. Likewise, if you simply stated you are open all weekend, people may just be thinking you’re promoting your hours, rather than understanding the value you are open later or longer than your competitors.
   
• Avoid inward facing statements
  I get it, you’re the biggest dealership in your county. Or you’ve sold more cars than your next three competitors combined. As much as this is something to be proud of inside your dealership, this doesn’t hold as much weight with a buyer. Frame your message from the perspective of the buyer and ask “What’s in it for me?”. So, if you’ve moved more inventory than your competitors, try “More GM buyers have trusted us to deliver the car they want” rather than “We’ve sold more cars than any other GM dealership.” 

By creating the right message, you’ll be able to communicate your strengths in a way that resonates with more car buyers. This in turn, will attract more shoppers and – ultimately – help you sell more cars.

The Great Photos, White Space, and 2 Other Ways to Keep Your Ads from Sucking.

There really is just one way to mass broadcast your vehicles to potential buyers. Luckily it’s also very effective. Yes, I’m talking about inventory advertising.

You can argue that word of mouth or some other methods are more efficient (when measured by cost per lead), but you simply can’t beat the volume of leads that inventory advertising brings. Honestly, that’s why it’s still around - Transitioning from the inventory ads that were prevalent in the local papers to the state-of-the-art behavioural-based programmatic digital ads that hover in cyberspace.

All things being equal, it stands to reason that the more effective your inventory ads are, the more likely they’ll attract the right buyers and turn over cars on the lot.

And therein lies the problem - as with many things in life, not all inventory ads are created equal, and the "less equal" ones perform very poorly at attracting auto buyers.

Previously, we chatted about how to create a compelling and competitive message to differentiate your dealership, but those words or phrases don’t magically arrange themselves into beautiful ads ready to attract prospective car buyers, they’re just words.

Now, I’m a data guy, a marketing guy, a sales guy, and most definitely a car guy, I even fancy myself to have a little design skill, but those skills pale in comparison to our own super design juggernaut!

I’ve interviewed our own Creative & Co-op Advertising Manager, Danielle Borisoff, about what makes an ad attractive to a car buyer, and as a result, effective.We also talked about what not to do… like the age old giant Starburst!!

Here’s what she said:

Ian Cruickshank (IC): So Danielle, throughout your career you have created thousands of  ads and designed the creative behind all of our customers’ ad templates. What is the single biggest piece of advice that you would give regarding inventory ad creative?

Danielle Borisoff (DB): I believe the phrase “The car is the star” sums it up very nicely. It’s important to remember that people choose cars before they choose dealerships, so advertisers need to be aware and play on that fact. By making the car the focus of the ad, you can better attract and pique the interest of the buyer thus making the ad more effective.

IC: I like that, “The car is the star”, so what are some ways to make that happen?

DB: The easiest way is to use real photos and not stock photography. This applies to both new and used cars. Car buyers now are so inundated with information that they gloss over stock photos. Even if the stock photo is of the same car and same color, people won’t trust the stock photo. Incidently Doug Demuro - a columnist for Jalopnik.com wrote a great piece specifically about the annoyance of stock photography (Attention Dealers: For God’s Sake, Take Pictures Of Your Inventory).

IC: Any tips on how to take the right photos?

DB: The quality of photography of the car is vitally important. To resonate with the buyer, you need to capture what the buyer wants to see. Almost all buyers want to see the car as if they are about to pick it up for delivery. This means a clean front quarter shot and without any distractions such as a busy background or dealership brand graphics placed over the frame of the image.

IC: Why are dealership graphics on the image not recommended?

DB: Two reasons actually.  First, graphics often obscure the top or bottom of the vehicle preventing the buyer from seeing the full picture. Second, and more quantifiable, you run the chance of not passing the Co-op or Compliance program guidelines of the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) compliance agencies. For example: if your dealership sold Ford and Lincoln, and the photo of your new Ford F150 has “Ian’s Ford and Lincoln” banner on it, the Lincoln logo would violate Ford's branding guidelines and the OEM agency would then refuse reimbursement for this particular ad.

IC: Wow, that’s great advice. What about the ad creative itself? Are there ways to design the ad to further complement the car?

DB: An effective way to stand out in the actual ad creative is to embrace white space on your inventory ad. Many dealerships that we work with will, understandably, want to maximize the number of vehicles they can have on their ads. However, this doesn’t always work in their favor. Many automotive ads are placed on busy, high traffic websites. Having a busy ad on a busy site detracts from the experience. Like a piece of art, including some white space in an ad will give the inventory some room to breathe and will draw more eyes to it.

By framing the ad in white space, you give the ad room to breathe and allow it to become more noticeable.

Danielle’s guidance dives into the actual art of marketing and is particularly useful as we live in a world where all dealerships have access to the best technology.

All else being equal, the art of the message and the creative can be the edge in a hyper-competitive industry where we all want to attract new buyers and sell more cars.

What kind of creative rules does your team adhere to? Add them in the comments.