Advertisement feature from CitNOW

The Web Effect

By Carol Fairchild, commercial director, CitNOW

A web-first marketing strategy has dominated the past decade, yet never has it been so influential for car buyers. With 51% of car buyers starting their car purchase research online, making a stand-out virtual showroom is a necessity for today’s car buyers.

Finding a way to streamline and accelerate your forecourt-to-web processes provides massive advantages – particularly given the average holding cost of a used car in the UK is more than £100 a day. The faster used cars are uploaded online, complete with all related digital assets, the faster sales enquiries come through to a dealership.

A new report from Google* says streaming video content has increased 28% year-on-year, with 50% of shoppers saying online video helped them decide which brand or product to buy. Meanwhile, two thirds of drivers feel it’s important to see high-quality interior and exterior imagery of their purchase – further highlighting the importance of compelling digital assets in an ever-competing marketplace.

Tripling content output – images, 360-degree views and video – in one streamlined process, with a solution such as CitNOW Web, means retailers can upload rich assets as soon as vehicles are retail-ready. Vehicles can appear on the physical and virtual forecourt virtually simultaneously, with no waiting for the photographer to arrive. This can easily save a week or two between a vehicle that is retail-ready and sales enquiries arriving.

The time saving of a week or more provides a huge competitive advantage to those dealerships that embrace technology platforms. Capturing high-quality assets, and making distribution of those assets easy and seamless, helps customers and dealerships to connect even quicker. Rich assets, including video and 360-degree views, allow customers to learn about the car in their own time, enabling a faster sales process – as conversations can move to the deal stage faster.

We will demonstrate how a less than two-hour turnaround of a vehicle from physical to digital forecourt can boost sales at our Automotive Management Live workshop on November 7. You can also find out more at our stand, C14.

* https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/advertising-channels/video/video-streaming-trends/

 

For more details

Email: reply@citnow.com

Call: 01189 977 748

Visit: www.citnow.com