In an extensive interview with Jure Miklavec and Branko Vitasovic from RAAC avtomobili, d.o.o., we talked about the importance of digital advertising for gaining customer trust and how the money spent on marketing presence always pays off in the long run. Since RAAC is the pioneer of our Virtual Salon, we also devoted part of the conversation to how important it is that we provide a tool through our service that brings vehicle dealers direct contact information of future customers.
You were the first to start digital advertising with us and use the Virtual Salon. How come you “jump in” where others were holding back?
We also do all our other services differently than others, because we don’t want to be the same, but better. We always look for additional opportunities, how you can advertise better than your competition, more transparently. We look for other channels that your competition doesn’t use. This way you also have an advantage over them. We always want to compare ourselves with those who are better than us, not those who are worse. If we are better than the rest, we will automatically have a larger market share than the rest, we will have more satisfied customers. Digital advertising and social networks are the future and that’s why you have to keep up with it, whether you like it or not.
And so the option of advertising through AutoBrief and a virtual salon appeared, we said to ourselves that we had to try it. Why not try it when you can only gain? You set a budget for the campaign and then see where you are. The best thing is that you have tangible proof that it was because of this advertising that customers came who might not have otherwise.
Some say the risk or stake in this is too high.
We look at it this way: money spent on marketing is never wasted money. Even if you have a billboard somewhere on the side of the road, some people will definitely see it. Surely not all the biggest brands would advertise to the fullest if it were irrelevant. Someone who doesn’t advertise will definitely sell less. We believe that if you are transparent and stand behind what you sell, you have nothing to fear in digital advertising, you can only profit, but you can’t lose.
In our case, we saw that we got a lot of customers from Facebook. With other things, you can’t measure the direct effect of advertising, but the fact is that with every advertisement you appear somewhere and therefore people definitely notice you.
Presence alone is probably not enough. For some trust, it is necessary to connect everything into a whole?
When a customer comes to buy a used car, they come with the idea that there is something wrong with the car, that it was broken somewhere, that it has moved kilometers … And at this point you have to change this with the customer. Steps to trust are also a good and transparent website, if they see a smiling colleague on Facebook who bought a vehicle from us, a transparent vehicle in a virtual showroom with as much information as possible.
That is why we are going to redesign the website, because the current one is no longer sufficient. We do not want a customer who came to the website from Facebook, for example, to leave and look for a vehicle elsewhere because they do not like our website. We want to be professional at every step, the stakes are high, but we are convinced that this is the only way to success.
We want to remove all distracting factors for the customer. Have a good Facebook that will convince the customer to come to the website. And they must like the page so much and feel trust that they are willing to leave their contact information on the form.
You definitely have to invest something in it, but you have to look at this investment in the long term.
I would like to address this, because it seems to me that some people only advertise fully in the months that are good in terms of sales, and not in the other months. But you do the exact opposite.
For us dealers, when the time is right for customers and the conditions are right, we all sell. But when the crisis comes… They’ve been talking about poor sales for the last 3 or 4 months, but we had record sales in November, December and January in general. We don’t know the drop. We’re convinced that this is a combination of a lot of marketing activities and because, on the other hand, we stand behind our vehicles. And that’s why the money you put into promotion is definitely not wasted money.
We advertise constantly, because we know that after good months, when everyone sells well, there will also be months when sales won’t be so good. You have to be aware that when advertising, you’re working for the future. It doesn’t even matter how you approach it, but rather that you’re consistent. Customers see that.
That’s why we’re also going to hire an additional marketing person who will deal only with those customers who leave us their data, because these are the customers who are golden customers during the crisis. We can say that it has started to happen to us that customers who bought a vehicle from us in 2021 bring their vehicle to us for exchange and take a newer one. This would not happen if we did not inform customers, the customer must not forget about you.
What role does our Virtual Salon play in all of this?
At the beginning, we lacked direct marketing measurement to see the direct results of advertising, but now that you have prepared the option of forms for direct lead acquisition through various campaigns through the Virtual Salon, we know exactly that such a customer came from, for example, Facebook and left contact information on such a form.
Which is great, because you can call the customer directly. We have found that customers do not like to communicate via email, but if you also have a phone number, there is a high probability that the potential buyer will expect your call. However, you also have to make an effort to have interesting campaigns all the time so that you can get leads.
It will be interesting to see the reports that we will receive directly from your Virtual Salon, to see the exact numbers of which vehicles our customers were interested in. These are the great advantages of your Virtual Salon.
Is this also reflected in the numbers? Do you get real customers through the Virtual Salon?
I am sure that such a customer is worth much more than a few calls to the showroom a day, because she is so interested in the car that she was willing to leave her contact information.
Which is also shown by the numbers. If we look at the numbers of vehicles sold directly from these leads that we are talking about, out of 10 leads from the Virtual Showroom, we definitely sold three vehicles. Which is a high ratio and shows that the Virtual Showroom is that additional channel that brings in customers who we would not otherwise address.