30-second summary:
Consumers are bombarded with digital information channels.
Transferring brand awareness to a local purchase requires consistent information.
Non-linear customer journeys necessitate brand and local dealer cooperation.
Brands need an efficient platform to scale effective local lead generation efforts.
In the world of commerce, convincing someone to buy a product isn’t usually the toughest part of a sale. The hard part is lead generation – finding those who are the right fit for the product, those who are likely to be interested in a purchase.
In a pandemic world that’s increasingly more online than in-person, targeting potential customers then leading them through the multi-step journey to purchase a specific brand doesn’t have to be overly complicated but it’s rarely a straight line.
The path to purchase is online search
First, let’s step back and examine how the road to buying a product – especially a high-consideration product – has changed. How do brands reach out to tell people about their products? It’s no secret that the impact of television advertising spots and newspaper ads are both down significantly with reduced consumption.
Channels like YouTube and Spotify have implemented clever ways to insert 15 or 30 second non-skippable ads but generally, traditional ads aren’t overly efficient. Now, it’s an entirely different process. Consumers now have information at their fingertips, on demand.
They pull out their phones, they open up their iPads, and they start Googling information. Maybe it’s not a Google search, perhaps they’ll log into Facebook or Twitter and do a search there to see what their community of friends has done. There are multiple avenues, but consumers are going online for their product research and to find local retailers that offer those products.
That research can still come from the community, but instead of talking with friends and family face-to-face, it’s asking online, “What do you think of this brand versus this brand?” With the click of a few buttons there’s a plethora of data and competitive analysis for almost anything you could hope to purchase.
Instead of hopping in your car, going in and talking to the dealer, retailer or store rep to get information, it’s easy to be hyper informed without excerpting much effort. The consumer can navigate the journey and formulate a decision well before visiting a store or placing an online order.
Brands must invest in local exposure
Those options are great for the consumer, but what has to happen from the brand perspective to ensure a potential customer can find the information that will ultimately drive a purchase? The brand has to provide comprehensive, cohesive messaging through all its brand partners at the local level.
A customized lead generation platform provided by PowerChord can make sure the dealer websites and the specific landing pages all effectively present the key products, promotional information and localized information needed to make sure the local website experiences are as comprehensive as possible.
Whether they’re product catalog sites, product promotional sites, or simply conversion or locator landing pages, it’s imperative to feed that content into a system to give those sites a fair chance to rise in the rankings.
It’s not foolproof, but if there’s enough of that content and the right platform has enough of the sophisticated capabilities to be able to fulfill the requirements necessary for optimization efforts, a brand can reach the right customer locally.
Local dealers are key conduits
Dealer networks that sell on behalf of a brand manufacturer need online reach that’s scalable and sustainable. Creating a localized branded experience for each dealer or retailer drives lead opportunities to a specific business.
The digital lead generation platform works in tandem with anything else the dealer or retailer does from a marketing and advertising standpoint, both offline and online.
When a dealer carries a variety of brands, it’s difficult to get into the specifics of every brand they represent in their store. It’s hard to focus everywhere. With multi-location digital marketing activation at scale, dealers and retailers can play in these channels with turn key programs.
A dealer can invest on behalf of the brands and manufacturers they represent, whether it’s their own dollars or whether it’s a co-op program. There are multiple ways to make it a viable option. It’s an “in addition to” approach, not “in replace of,” that drives those additional revenue opportunities to the dealer store.
It also helps to mature the relationship between a retailer and the brands they represent because the brands are giving back to them, they’re giving back to the brand. A custom digital lead generation platform delivers opportunities for specific brands to really highlight that brand locally.
It’s turnkey for the dealers so they can work on highlighting their business locally and spend their dollars in other ways.
Nikki Vegenski has spent the last 11 years helping her client’s brand-to-local digital marketing strategies come to life. As PowerChord’s Chief Strategy Officer, she understands her client’s long-term vision, her firm’s ambitions, and helps to ensure both sides are in sync. She strives for success in providing thought leadership and strategic guidance across current and future customer adoptions of PowerChord’s SaaS and digital advertising solutions. She is an agent for change within the organization as it relates to product evolution, digital advertising, and cross-department leadership and employee mentorship.
The post A scalable lead generation platform drives local sales appeared first on ClickZ.
Source: ClickZ
Link: A scalable lead generation platform drives local sales
