Memorial Day weekend, the much-anticipated kick-off to the summer automotive sales season, is right around the corner. For most auto dealers, it’s the busiest, most lucrative time of the year. This means it’s time to roll out the red carpet for your top prospects and customers. But before you can offer your best summer deals, you need to know who’s ready and able to buy, and the best way to engage them. 

Connecting with the Best Potential Buyers Before the Competition

Here, we’re sharing ideas to help auto marketers find and connect with the best potential buyers—before the competition finds them—during this hectic sales season. 

Identify buyers with the ability to pay—it’s never been more important. With unemployment peaking at more than 14% last year, 2020 was a tough year for a lot of folks. Their credit scores may not yet reflect it due to loan accommodations and forbearance measures, but many consumers are struggling. On the other hand, many others sailed through the pandemic no worse for the wear. Some actually grew their wealth during nationwide lockdowns by saving money normally spent on dining out, recreational activities and vacations. 

The thing is, it’s your job as a marketer to figure out who’s who in the aftermath of 2020. 

Wealth and Lifestyle Insights can Help

This is where expanded wealth and lifestyle insights come into play. By looking beyond basics like credit scores, you can quickly pinpoint buyers with the ability to pay for a new vehicle based on:

• Estimates of household wealth, including income and assets, based on directly measured data from trusted financial institutions.
• Discretionary spending ability, which includes a household’s spending power after accounting for the fixed expenses of life.
• Credit capacity, including the estimated ability to obtain credit to purchase a car.

When you better understand the bigger picture of a consumer’s financial capacity and capability, you can strategically focus your marketing dollars on “bankable” audiences. These audiences can likely afford a new car and qualify for financing.

Engage in-market consumers online—it’s a fast-track to more and better deals. Effective digital advertising is mission-critical today. This is due to the massive shift to online auto shopping in recent years (especially last year). Simply knowing which ad to show your website visitors can mean the difference between them further engaging with your dealership, or moving on to another dealer’s website within seconds. 

Digital Targeting Segments can Help

Industry-specific digital targeting segments can help auto marketers capitalize on this split-second opportunity. By leveraging proprietary automotive and lending data, marketers can acquire the insight needed to instantly recognize online consumers interested in purchasing a vehicle. You can even gauge their likelihood of buying a certain type of vehicle. Example types of vehicles include, domestic or import, family or luxury, eco-friendly and more. 

In fact, the remarkable level of details available to auto marketers extends to propensities to purchase specific makes and models of vehicles, even possible interest in specific loan products.  

Imagine knowing enough about a consumer’s propensity and preferences — in seconds — to show them a personalized ad for the exact or near make and model they’re looking for, along with their preferred financing terms. The incremental revenue potential is exponential, while the potential marketing ROI is a no-brainer. 

Roll Out the Red Carpet

Find your sweet spot and roll out the red carpet. When auto marketers can do all of the above—identify financial capacity, ability to pay, propensity to buy, preferences around vehicle make and model, interest in a loan product and more— you’ve found your proverbial sweet spot. This is your ideal target audience, the buyers who get the “red carpet treatment” this summer, or any sales season. You’ll know who they are, what they want and how to speak their language. This will all you to make the right offers to the right audiences at the right time. 

If you’re ready to engage your best prospects and customers during this year’s summer sales events, Equifax Automotive Solutions can help. Get in touch to explore the many expanded data and insights available to you today.