According to Google,
“The average car shopper today makes just two dealership visits in the search for the perfect vehicle. That’s because today car shoppers turn to mobile to research models, find deals, and get real-time advice.” (Think with Google)
Car shoppers now conduct much of their research online, and in this increasingly crowded marketplace, its important to understand their shopping process.
Here are the five digital moments that car buyers go through:
- Which car is best for me?
- Is it right for me?
- Can I afford it?
- Where should I buy it?
- Am I getting a deal?
As an automotive manufacturer or car dealership, you need to be present every step along the way, to ensure that your business is one of the two that the customer chooses to visit as a result of their research.
Online, “Content is King”, so let’s take a look at the best performing digital content for car shoppers.
Images and Video
Images and videos play a huge role in enabling auto retails to showcase their products. Online experiences, including immersive car walk throughs, dynamic feature displays and interactive images are great ways to engage, delight and inspire customers.
In fact, online video is such a powerful tool that,
“69% of people who used YouTube while buying a car were influenced by it – more than TV, newspapers, or magazines”. (Think with Google)
Viewership by car shoppers of popular video content such as auto reviews, is on the up. Take a look at the top 3 types of video content:
Mobile
80% of searches for images of automotive brands are on mobile devices (Google Internal Data), making the customer content experience on this device incredibly important. According to the Automotive Shopper Path to Purchase, one in four car purchasers turns to mobile every day to research vehicles. Static or still images have been found to work better on mobile than other devices, due to the smaller screen size. However immersive or 360 car showcases configured for mobile are very successful in educating customers about car features and taking them on that all-important journey down the sales funnel to your showroom.
“Of those that used their mobile devices as part of the purchase process, one in three located or called a dealer on their mobile device.” (Think with Google)
A large amount of mobile content relating to the car buying process is around shoppers searching for local dealership contact details ahead of calling to arrange a test drive or showroom visit. The ease of transition from research to actively contacting a salesperson makes mobile the perfect device for this stage in the buying process.
Key Takeaways
Take control of your customers’ online shopping process:
- Be visible – Ensure your website is appearing in Google’s search rankings for your top keywords. Follow SEO best practice to ensure your website is optimised and appearing in organic searches.
- Be effective – Provide a user-led experience, telling them what they want to know, when they want to know it. Surround them with inspiring images and immersive videos to best display your products.
- Be mobile – With much of a car shopper’s research being carried out on mobile, in addition to searches for vendor contact details, ensure your website and its features are responsive to different device sizes and provides a great mobile experience.
- Be local – With searches for ‘[car brand] dealership near me’ on the up, get your local listings in order. A great place to start is to complete your listing on Google My Business. Also, check your website is optimised for local searches both in the on-page copy and meta data.
Any questions? Get in touch.