By Chris Lentz, President, AutoSweet
Most automotive dealers know that marketing inventory is important, but not all of them understand that shoppers need different messages depending on where they are in the buying process. A shopper who just started researching vehicles yesterday shouldn’t receive the same marketing messages as someone who has been looking at the same vehicle multiple times a day, and is almost ready to purchase. But a lot of dealers are still using a one-size-fits-all approach to inventory marketing.
To drive leads and sales, dealers need to align their marketing to the buyer’s journey, using different tools and marketing messages to move shoppers through the “funnel,” from awareness, to consideration, to purchase.
The concept of the marketing funnel isn’t new. Marketers have used the funnel for decades to think about how customers’ behaviors and needs change as they move from considering a product to buying it, a process that can take more than three months. And it’s a helpful way of thinking, because the framework reminds marketers to tailor their messages to a customer’s specific needs, with the intent of moving them through the funnel towards purchase. For automotive marketing, I like to streamline the process into three simple stages:
A dealer’s inventory should be the backbone of their marketing strategy. Let’s look at how inventory marketing aligns with each of these stages.
The awareness stage includes consumers who may not be actively shopping today but could be in the market soon.
The Audience: This group is large, and includes people for whom a new vehicle may only be a passing thought. These are casual browsers who are simply seeing what’s out there.
The Goal: At this stage, your goal is to become visible. That means branding. You want potential customers who learn your dealership is, and become familiar with your inventory. The key is to introduce yourself before a shopper starts comparing dealerships and their inventories.
The Tactics: A couple key tactics work very well at in the awareness phase, including:
The content of your ads can center on storytelling content that talks about your dealership, your values, your community ties, what you stand for, etc. The awareness phase is not the right time to advertise specific inventory. Shoppers aren’t ready to evaluate inventory just yet. The goal is simply to make them familiar with your dealership, your reputation, and your market presence so that when they’re further down the funnel, they recognize your name. Dealers who invest in awareness marketing usually save budget later, because shoppers already recognize their name.
Once shoppers enter the market, your marketing should focus on inventory.
The Audience: The audience in this phase narrows from the awareness step with fewer shoppers getting serious about their searches. Potential buyers spend 7 out of 14 hours researching online before they contact a dealership. They compare vehicles, photos, features, pricing, reviews, and availability.
The funnel also narrows here because consumers who aren’t in the market for a car drop out. Someone who lives in a city may see your Chevy branding ad, but they don’t advance to the consideration phase because they take public transportation and don’t need a truck. Consideration is where you’re talking to consumers who are actually interested in a vehicle purchase.
The Goal: The goal during the consideration phase is to help interested shoppers find the right vehicle while keeping your dealership in front of them throughout their research. So you want present information that helps the customer decide if you’ve got something that meets their needs or suits their interest.
The Tactics: In this phase, you need to keep your advertising as specific to your potential shoppers’ interests as possible. Here are some tactics that we usually recommend for the consideration stage:
For example, if a shopper has only clicked on your ads for sedans, keep showing them ads for sedans and run those ads on the channels they use every day. Digital inventory marketing outperforms traditional advertising here because the messaging is highly relevant to a potential customer’s searches.
Now it’s time to convert, and your advertising needs to do the heavy lifting here.
The Audience: At the bottom of the funnel are shoppers who have made their decision.They’ve identified the vehicle they want to buy, and maybe even which dealership they want to work with. They’re looking for the right price and a smooth experience, so your job is to remove friction on their path to purchase. That’s why these are the most expensive leads to get, and the hardest to acquire. But they’re ready to make a purchase soon, so they’re gold.
The Goal: Your marketing in the consideration phase is about urgency, convenience, and removing friction (anything that might throw a shopper off course or send them to another dealership.)
Dealers need to stay visible to shoppers who have visited their website or viewed specific vehicles. That means retargeting. The goal is to keep showing up while a buyer is online by raising your hand with ads that say “hey, remember this car?”
The Tactics: Effective tactics that get buyers to convert include:
Click-to-call and click-to-text ads also work beautifully in this phase, because any ads you run should make it easy for the shopper to take the next step. Whether that action is scheduling a test drive, checking availability, valuing a trade, or contacting a salesperson, every marketing touchpoint should move the customer towards a purchase decision.
One of the most common mistakes I see is dealers over-investing in bottom-funnel tactics while neglecting the rest of the buyer journey. Everyone wants immediate results but the risk is focusing only on shoppers who are ready to purchase.
The problem is that those shoppers represent only a fraction of the market. And if you’re only focusing on the bottom of the funnel, you’re competing with other dealers for the same limited audience.
Dealers that consistently grow market share invest across all three stages. They build awareness, nurture consideration, and create efficient conversion opportunities. The result is a healthier pipeline of future buyers and continued leads and sales!
Successful marketing strategies don’t rely on a single channel. They integrate inventory, audience behavior, website activity, and advertising performance into one system, effectively moving customers through the marketing funnel on the path to purchase.
At AutoSweet, our team works with dealerships across the country to help align inventory marketing with the buyer journey. What we’ve found is that the dealers generating the strongest results aren’t necessarily spending more. They’re delivering using the marketing funnel strategically to deliver the right message at the right time to the right shopper.
V20 Group LLC
P.O. Box 10066
Raleigh, NC 27605
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