An effective or so-called ‘sticky’ website – one that generates traffic and ensures that visitors return – is a core element of any business development and digital marketing strategy within the automotive industry. This is the viewpoint of Mynhardt Oosthuizen, executive director at eliance, a national provider of comprehensive business solutions targeting the automotive sector.
Technology, spearheaded by online presence to initiate and sustain customer relationships, is the backbone that continues to support ongoing efforts to develop and satisfy customer expectations in the industry says Oosthuizen.
“The incorporation of the latest systems and software, together with high capacity hardware and infrastructure, underpins the rapid growth rate and development of mission-critical operations within the automotive landscape. A website is the first point of departure for dealerships to implement their digital marketing plans and engage effectively with customers in realtime,” he adds.
eliance considers the website to be a strategic business tool that allows the customer to interface directly with dealerships. It facilitates information dissemination, automated industry updates, details on the dealership, price and vehicle data and much more.
“Eliance is at the forefront of designing and developing creative, innovative solutions from the development stage, right through to cutting-edge digital marketing,” Oosthuizen continues.
According to eliance the development of a website forms part of the ‘action stage’ of a company’s marketing cycle, and the company advocates a creative front-end and dynamic back-end system that it has developed and continues to host and maintain.
“We have identified what we believe to be several key steps involved in the development of a website,” says Oosterhuizen.
The eliance roadmap to effective online presence includes: defining the objective; conducting a thorough inspection of the websites of competitors; evaluating the most suitable and functional solutions; identifying the best hosting solution for the website; determining the need for ‘phased development’ if required and developing content.
“Once the website’s objectives have been developed, our next aim is to assist in the design process. This incorporates many facets, including look and feel, as well as functionality, but the basic premise that we advocate is that good design should support factors such as identity, business message, products & services, and contact information,” says Oosthuizen.
If one takes into consideration that more customers interact with the Internet year on year, it makes good business sense to invest in effective presence Oosthuizen concludes.
