Attracting Potential Car Buyers by Giving Them What They Want
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
BMW of Freehold Attracts Potential Car Buyers by Giving Them What They Wan
BMW of Freehold wanted one thing out of their website—leads. Unfortunately, this was the one thing they were not getting. Weighed down by more frills than a pricey wedding dress, the original website was difficult to navigate, slow to load, and incredibly short on useful information. BMW of Freehold saw an opportunity for improvement. Ready to amp up their web presence and attract true, valid leads, they sought out the unparalleled help of Internet marketing consultants, Single Throw Internet Marketing.
The difference between the website Single Throw developed and the previous BMW of Freehold website is the difference between the incredible, all new BMW Z4 convertible and a 1988 VW Vanagon. They each have their place in the world—one in your garage, and the other on cinderblocks in your neighbor’s. Let’s face it: you attract more flies with sugar than you do vinegar, and potential car buyers, while brighter than flies, still follow the same principle.
For decades, car dealer websites existed to blow the potential lead away—literally. They operated under the simple principle that the buzzier, brighter, more annoying their website, the more customers they would have. Clearly, like children, car buyers are easily taken in by strange and wondrous gadgets. Wrong. Consider the 1958 Ford Edsel. One of the most infamous car flops in American history, it proved that people simply weren’t willing to pay for silly buttons. Websites work much the same way.
The most important feature of a website is pertinent information. A web visitor doesn’t want to be dazzled by your Flash-savvy introductions. They’d much rather stare at a screen of text than sit through a 30 second website introduction. Single Throw’s expert Internet Marketing consultants rerouted BMW of Freehold’s energies—they built an interstate highway system of information through an old fashioned, streetlight littered state route.
One of the first discoveries the Single Throw team made in regards to BMW of Freehold’s website was that the site itself was not browser friendly. Visitors using an old web browser or with high security settings were incapable of accessing the site. Immediately, this cut out a large chunk of potential leads, especially when it is considered that 73% of people do their personal shopping at work where browser security settings are consistently set to high. Single Throw designed the site so that it would be easily accessible from all browsers and for people shopping at work. As a bonus, Single Throw also helped attract an additional 200 visitors per month to the NJ BMW dealer’s website by insuring the dealership website was accessible through a bevy of mobile Smartphone’s.
Single Throw also optimized the dealership website so that the NJ BMW dealer now comes up on page one in the search engine results for hundreds of search terms in Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Impressive enough considering the thousands of websites out there somehow involved in BMW, it is more impressive to realize that potential car buyers nationwide were finding cars they wanted at BMW of Freehold just by searching for the specific make and model. Two different buyers from Ohio found their dream car at BMW of Freehold in New Jersey. Still not enough? The parts department at BMW of Freehold was also benefiting from the search engine optimization work done by Single Throw. BMW of Freehold parts department was regularly coming up on the top page of Google when specific BMW parts were entered into the search bar. Single Throw Internet Marketing understands that no matter how good your website, it does you no good if no one can find it.
In today’s day and age, it isn’t enough to have an information packed, easily searchable website. People absorb information not only through reading, but also through watching and listening. To cater to every personality type, Single Throw developed the Bimmer Blog and walk-around videos. Single Throw also helps the NJ BMW dealer to manage their social interactions through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These made the BMW of Freehold site an interactive venue for information exchange between potential buyer and car dealer—they increased face time, and therefore upped conversions.
Still, despite all of the incredible ideas and imaginings that went into crafting the perfect car dealer website (or, if you must quibble, an almost perfect car dealer website), some people still want to see the results. Fittingly, these speak for themselves…
- BMW of Freehold experienced a 1,000% increase in visitors to its new dealership website.
- Some of the top pages viewed are the Used Inventory, New Inventory, Request a Quote and News and Events pages.
- Average time spent on the website was up to a whopping 11 minutes per visitor! This means that more people are spending time with the brand and that kind of brand face time is invaluable.
- Car buyers were reading the newly created “Bimmer Blog” and listening to the newly launched podcasts which all led to more face time and eventually more contact requests.
- The NJ BMW dealer has tracked vehicle sales through interaction on Facebook and Twitter.
Ready for some results of your own? Contact Single Throw today.