A Light At The End Of The Tunnel…Preparing For The Return Of Dealer Inventory

There’s no question that the last year and a half have been difficult for Dealerships in terms of inventory. COVID-19 caused many factories to shut down and had a huge impact on the production of microchips. If that wasn’t enough, the Panama Canal incident with the Ever Given happened and WHAM – manufacturing and logistics came to a screeching halt. 

In a previous blog post, we shared tips on how to drive traffic to your Dealership’s website regardless of low inventory. With heavy-hitters like GM declaring positive projections for the second quarter, it’s safe to say we can start preparing for inventory to make its comeback. 

So, how do you shift your Dealership’s plan to prepare for the return of inventory?

Sell the future

Although they may not dominate your lot at the moment, the demand for new vehicles is still high. OEM marketing machines are pushing out new vehicles left and right and vehicles like the FORD Maverick and F-150 Lightning are pre-selling like crazy. 

By creating dedicated landing pages for these new vehicles on your website, you can build a list of qualified leads by collecting in-market shopper’s contact information. This list can then be used to pad your CRM for cold calling, direct email marketing and “look-alike” audience creation on ad platforms.   

Reduce exposure on used vehicles

What do people do when they need a car but there are no new ones available? Turn to used vehicles. While capitalizing on this trend has been successful for Dealers lately, it’s important to remember that the new vehicle inventory shortage is temporary and is seemingly coming to an end. 

Paying top dollar for trade-ins that can be turned and sold quickly at a premium is fine, but as new vehicle inventory begins to increase, beware of paying too much for used vehicles that may take a while to sell or have a limited market.

Increase your search presence with SEO

Unlike advertising where the traffic is directly affected by the ad spend, SEO’s traffic generation effects are cumulative. Increasing your presence with SEO now while inventory is slowly returning to normal is an effective way to keep your Dealership top of mind and ahead of your competition. 

There are two major ways that you can improve your SEO. 

First, ensure that you keep your Google My Business up to date with offers, promotions and news with GMB posts. Keep adding items to the GMB and Google will reward the constant updates. 

Second, start creating landing pages for specific keyword combinations that you want to rank better for. The easiest way is to do this is to segment your vehicle categories and combine them with a localization term.

For example:

• Used SUVs (vehicle segment) for greater Toronto (localization).

On this page, ensure to have a quick description of your used vehicles along with the same keywords (“Used SUVs” and “Greater Toronto”) along with your inventory that matches that description.

Next repeat for all your segments combined with all of your local areas.

Deep Breaths…

Nothing has felt normal in the past year, but every challenge presents an opportunity to grow and be better. If sharing the tactics above can help you be well-positioned and ready for the return of that elusive new vehicle inventory, then we’re doing our job. There is light at the end of the tunnel.