"Your customers don’t need more noise, they need filters"
No, I didn’t create that brilliant line, I found it on Daredevil PR's website. (Thank you Inna Gogol for unknowingly leading me there.) It’s a great reminder for all of us, facing yet another young and noisy media year.
The logical next question is of course: Which filters? And, from an advertiser’s point of view, how do you bypass them? Reaching through to your intended audience in a positive, meaningful, respectful manner?
The ridiculously easy answer: You present what the intended buyer wants to know. In the most attractive and engaging way. Easier said than done, though.
As consumers we are all aware of the info-smog surrounding us around the clock … 99 percent of it is totally irrelevant to us. So we instinctively filter out anything that we don’t recognize as applicable and meaningful to us.
Therefore, relevance is more important than anything else to bypass the potential buyer’s first line of defense … the first, all-important filter. More important than ”creativity” and budget size.
From that point of view, traditional used car ads are actually quite OK: Show the product, list the basic facts.
Is it really that simple?
The problem … no, the first problem is the boring, static, low quality of the presentation. The ad doesn’t catch the eye of the browsing buyer. Or grow the appetite to find out more. Or indicate a trustworthy, quality-conscious dealer.
The second problem is about volumes. The most effective way to sell has always been personally, face to face. Because it’s live and interactive. Responsive. If we could only afford it throughout the often long and winding buying journey.
The next best way is by video. That’s why more than 80 percent of online traffic is video-driven these days. But video production is notoriously time consuming and therefore expensive, too.
The third and biggest challenge for a used car dealer is that every vehicle is unique, and generic videos do not promote the very details that would attract the right buyer of each specific car. Customized videos would be ridiculously time-consuming and costly, even for new cars, considering all variables. With hundreds or thousands of cars in stock — forget it. Unless …
Scaling Buyer Relevance
You’d better believe it. Thousands of dealers and dealer groups in 25+ countries are using it, reaping the benefits … leading the way through the new, highly competitive automotive landscape.
Beat the info smog and sell more cars faster. Welcome to 2024.
Rolf Andersson
Phyron Writer and Editor
