New car buyers are more educated now than ever before. There are many sources of information available when researching a new car purchase and this poses a new challenge for car dealers – how do you make this information available to customers on your website and still create an opportunity to generate an enquiry?

The inclusion of new car data for your specific franchise is a great way of giving customers access to this information within your dealership website, and preventing them from looking elsewhere. Making new vehicle data available on your website demonstrates your understanding of customers’ online purchasing behaviour. No doubt you have worked hard to promote your dealership website and drive traffic to it. Now that visitors are browsing your site, ensure they stay there.

There are a number of suppliers who provide new car data for the very purpose of plugging it into dealership websites. If you currently subscribe to a new car data service, when was the last time you reviewed it to check how accurate and up to date it is? If you are a franchise dealer who does not have new car data on your website, then review your nearest competitor’s website. If they provide this service, there is a good chance you are losing business to them.

So what should you be looking for when reviewing the new car data on your website? Here are a few questions to consider when reviewing this service:

1) How accurate and up to date is the information provided? Is the information referring to a previous model rather than the newly launched model?

2) Are there photos of the vehicle? A picture speaks a thousand words, so to add real value to the information the customers needs to be able to see the vehicle.

3) Is the information laid out in an easy to read format? As a potential customer do you have to search through lots of information to find what you’re looking for, or is the information presented in a format that is easy to read?

4) When you click to access the new car data are you taken to another website (for example to the manufacturer site)? If yes, keep searching… are you able to find the details of other dealerships? Remember this information should be accessible through your website and is an easy way of losing potential customers to other dealers if it isn’t.

5) Does the data include a form for the customer to send an enquiry? How easy it to locate? How easy is it to complete?

6) Finally, and most importantly, where do the enquiries generated by this service go? Are they captured in one place for easy prospect management?

Including more vehicle information on your website can enhance customer experience and generate more enquiries to your dealership. However the value in the service is only measured by what new business it brings your dealership. The questions raised above are some of the key points in ensuring the new car data in your website is really working for you.

Contact DataMotive today to discuss the recently launched New Car Data supplied by The Red Book. This service was piloted on CarPoint.com.au and within the first ten days of going live the number of page impressions grew by 60% per day and the number of enquiries generated grew 150% per day.

DataMotive’s new service delivers high quality New Car Data which includes two enquiry forms. The first enquiry form sits beside the vehicle data while the second has been built into the image gallery. Multiple enquiry forms provide more opportunity to generate an enquiry for an online buyer. And, as with all DataMotive website plug-ins, the enquiries generated are sent to Autogate for effective prospect management. If you want to find out more about DataMotive’s New Car Data, please call Nina Weeks on 1300 308 690.