15 Innovative Digital Signage Ideas for Automotive Dealerships to Engage Customers
Car showrooms are renowned for providing a luxurious, aesthetic, and digitally-advanced customer experience. To stand out from the competition, they’ve got to keep coming up with new and innovative ways to interact with their customers. In recent years, many auto dealerships have started installing digital signage in their showrooms to display car specs and prices; promote and upsell their services; and strengthen brand loyalty. But what else can it do? Here are 15 more digital signage ideas for automotive dealerships looking to outshine their competitors.
What is digital signage?
Digital signage is a digital installation that uses LCD, LED, or projection technology to display digital images and videos for informational or advertising purposes. These days, it’s everywhere, so even if you didn’t know exactly what it was before, you’ll have seen plenty of examples of it at transport terminals, fast food restaurants, museums, and more.
And with the market value set to reach $29.6bn by 2024, its use cases are only expanding. Digital signage has the potential to transform information sharing and product and service marketing for businesses across a wide range of sectors. Today, we’re going to explore 15 different ways in which automotive dealerships can use digital signage to communicate with their customers.
The automotive dealership experience in numbers
According to the insurance comparison website TheZebra, 61.4% of car buyers prefer to buy from a dealership. However, a staggering 87% of Americans dislike something about shopping at car showrooms.
Let’s take a look at some statistics:
- Negotiations and paperwork are buyers’ top pain points. They spend almost half their time at the dealership negotiating and filling out paperwork when a purchase is made.
- 52% of car shoppers feel anxious or uncomfortable at dealerships.
- 61% of consumers feel like they’ve been taken advantage of by car salespeople.
- But crucially, 72% would visit dealerships more often if the buying process was improved.
Sources: CoxAuto; 2016 Beepi Consumer Automotive Index; Autotrader.
Keep reading to discover how digital signage can help you improve the buying process and drive more traffic to your automotive showroom.
Digital signage ideas for car dealerships
1. Auto dealership promotion
Auto dealerships can use digital signage to show customers their most recent promotions and discounts. Promotions can include new car offers and special services, e.g., oil changes or repair programs that are available. Digital signs are intended to grab the attention of your customers. And they are a great way to promote your upcoming sales and attract more customers.
2. Display service center menu & other information
Many automotive dealerships also provide service for their customers’ cars. Digital signs can display the different services offered by the dealership’s service center. The menu of services can also show other relevant information, such as the cost of each service.
3. Tell customers about the brand's history
The history of an auto brand holds a lot of significance for many car enthusiasts. By displaying interesting facts about a brand’s history on a digital sign, you can bring customers closer and strengthen customer loyalty while they wait at your dealership.
4. Preview current commercials
Auto brands often release commercials featuring new car models or special promotions. You can use your digital signs to give your customers a preview of these commercials while they wait at your dealership.
5. Inform customers about your inventory
You can showcase the cars available in your dealership with detailed information about each model. Include photos, videos, reviews, technical specifications, or even a test drive video. Showing this information will not only be engaging for people waiting but will give people all the information they need for their next buy.
6. Display price lists
This is particularly useful for used cars which may be sold as-is, with no warranty. An additional benefit is that you won’t need to print price lists all the time. Using digital signage at your car dealership helps you keep customers up to date when prices change or when you sell or trade-in one of your vehicles.
7. Provide directions inside your dealership
If you have a large lot with many cars on display, it might be helpful to guide your visitors between sales departments and service areas using digital signs.
8. Customer testimonials
People like to read and compare reviews before they make big purchases. Displaying 5-star Yelp reviews and direct feedback from satisfied customers on digital signs throughout the showroom may convince new buyers to sign on the dotted line while they’re there.
9. “Meet the team”
The human connection is a really important aspect of sales in any industry, and this is also a great way for customers to get to know you and your staff. As well as including a short professional bio and a list of accreditations/achievements, think about adding some ‘fun facts’ to your team screens. Furthermore, this will help customers feel more comfortable and reassure them they’re interacting with a real person (vs. someone who only wants to sell them something).
10. Highlight new features
Automakers are constantly innovating, and there’s something unique about every new car they release. In particular, you can use digital signs in your showroom to highlight specific features and compare different models to help customers decide which is the best fit for them. Depending on the brands you work with, they may have materials they want you to display. For example, new commercials that highlight transformative features.
11. Maintenance tips
It’s important people know how to look after their cars. Not only does proper maintenance reduce the risk of something going wrong with your vehicle, but it can also extend its longevity and save on repair costs. Your customers will thank you for sharing maintenance tips on digital screens as they wait for their cars to be serviced!
12. Waiting queue
If you use a number system in your service center, you can keep your customers updated and show which vehicle is next in the queue or ready to be returned using digital signs.
13. Used car sales
Promote your inventory of pre-owned vehicles by creating a digital catalog of the used cars on your lot. Display vehicle specs and allow buyers to filter by make, model, year, mileage, etc. If you’re running a sale on certain models, you can also highlight the savings on your signage inside the showroom.
14. Entertain your customers while they wait
On average, car owners face a 90-minute wait while their vehicles are being serviced. Digital signage can help keep customers entertained, up-to-date, and engaged while they’re in the waiting room. Try adding news and movie clips into the programming mix to break up the monotony.
Wovenmedia has the largest online library of rights-cleared, third-party, broadcast-quality digital signage content, anywhere.
15. Curated social media wall
Display images from social media from both your and your customers’ feed. And showcase specific hashtags, videos, tweets, etc. on the big screen.
