NORFOLK, Va. -

Marketing the right vehicle to the right buyer — minus large ad spends for across-the-board targeting — is the aim of a new offering by Dominion Dealer Solutions.

On Tuesday, the company announced the first of what it calls a “series of progressive and integrated product improvements” meant to assist dealers with their merchandising and pricing actions, by adding real-time unique vehicle differentiators and likely buyer persona data to the Dominion Inventory suite of products.

“Historically, dealers have lacked an effective tool to understand the real-time, value-driven differences that set vehicles apart,” said Jennifer Ryan, director of inventory solutions for Dominion Dealer Solutions.

“Translating these differentiators into actionable pricing, stocking and merchandising arms the dealer with better vehicle-specific information, superior targeted analysis, and improved inventory results.

“The addition of UVDs to Dominion’s Inventory suite helps dealers start with key selling features of their used vehicles immediately and price and merchandise them appropriately,” Ryan said.  

These VIN-specific features address two key questions in dealer marketing:

What story should I be telling about this specific vehicle to attract online shoppers?
Who are the likely buyers of this specific vehicle in my local market?

Unique vehicle differentiators including inventory manager, Storybuilder and marketing pricing tools, analyze the key selling features of each vehicle.

Also, the addition of likely buyer persona data within the Dominion Inventory suite creates a tool to help dealers identify the right buyer personas for their used vehicles, by combining demographic data such as estimated household income, age, gender and occupation.

These results are then compared to automotive industry purchase behaviors, yielding insight into segments for VIN-specific messaging from dealers. This information can be integrated with CRM, website and other marketing systems to create a custom consumer experience for each online shopper.

“By matching individual demographics against automotive purchase behavior, dealers no longer have to engage in large advertising spends in order to effectively target every type of buyer for every type of vehicle,” said Greg Polen, senior product manager for Dominion Inventory Solutions.

“Dominion Inventory provides a better way to look at inventory and identify likely prospects so that dealers can segment and target buyers with the right messaging.”