The auto-industry is in the midst of a change. The values, expectations, and behavior of car-buyers are shifting. On top of this, the products for sale are becoming iteratively more advanced, the manner in which new cars are developed marches ever forward, and the ways in which manufacturers get everything they need for a finished product is like never before.
Automakers will need to pivot to keep pace with this bold new landscape. In particular, the methods of marketing to consumers have been (and will likely continue to be) in a state of flux. Today, we’re going to look at the new standard for quality marketing and explain how catering to these customer experience expectations may help auto sellers thrive like never before.
Where The Automakers Have Been Lacking
While there’s little doubt that some, like the lemon law attorneys at Conn Law, would tell you that automakers have been falling short when it comes to quality checking their products, a more readily recognizable way they’ve been dragging their heels is when it comes to delivering personalized and engaging customer experiences. Info shows, however, that there exists a great deal of untapped potential here in the auto industry, as we’ll soon see.
Thanks to the so-called “new normal,” the shift in behaviors brought about by the COVID-19 crisis, many of the stages that car buyers would undertake in person on their road to owning a new vehicle now take place digitally and online. Researching what car they want—happens online. Finding a dealer who sells said car—happens online. Even buying a car, in some cases, can happen online—marketing the sale of said automobiles is undergoing a similar change.
Where in the past, a singular, offline experience was the way to go, the modern approach should be emphasizing a comprehensive customer experience throughout an evolving customer journey. That journey can start from multiple points online and even end with customers deciding they want to purchase online, at the dealership, etc. Remember that customers can weave between online and physical counterparts on each stage of their decision-making process toward buying a vehicle, and marketing has to account for this.
Delivering On The Marketing Dream
As such, each of these customer touchpoints should be memorable and the experience should serve to drive the customer further down the path of making a purchasing decision. It should also, in addition to leaving an impression through sheer “wow” factor, be informative enough that customers feel even more confident in the car-buying decisions they are making.
There is now, in this new world of intertwined online/offline experience, even more opportunity for manufacturers and car dealers to become more cooperative in their marketing efforts, with each supporting the other to boost customer satisfaction and accommodate customers through whatever means make them feel most comfortable as they advance through their journey.
This approach gets results too. More than half of current car-buyers (a percentage that’s sure to grow) say that convenience and clarity throughout the process would make them more apt to pull the trigger on a deal, so for automakers, the new approach to selling cars should be clear.
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