automotiveMastermind, which offers a marketing automation and solution platform for dealers, has launched add-ons to its offerings designed to assist dealers with inventory challenges to not only engage with but also retain buyers. 

automotiveMastermind's predictive marketing campaigns help dealers stay in communication with loyal customers and prospects and acquire preferred pre-owned inventory from "untapped" sources in their market.

The company said its new campaigns can encourage dealers to foster ongoing engagement with individuals by: 

• Acquiring in-demand pre-owned vehicles by leveraging Polk Audiences by IHS Markit to help identify consumers within their loyalty and conquest portfolios who are most likely to sell their vehicles. 
• Proactively engaging and retaining customers through pre-orders.
• Maximizing the service drive by identifying service-to-sales opportunities and driving incremental service revenue.

Further, the platform helps dealers to send predictive marketing campaigns with personalized messaging and offers for customers to sell their vehicles, allowing dealers to bypass the auction lanes while keeping quality, used inventory on their lots. 

The product expansion is also designed to help dealers stay ahead of the game with buyers returning to the market and help them find customers earlier in heir purchase cycle to create a pipeline of pre-orders and reservations.

Via the platform, dealers can offer customers the opportunity to purchase vehicles that have not yet arrived at their dealership. 

Ultimately, these ramped up offerings from automotiveMastermind, a subsidiary of IHS Markit, allows dealers to find more buyers across their "service, conquest and loyalty portfolios," and came about as a result of shifts in the auto retail landscape that are putting pressure on dealers. 

For example, according to IHS Markit forecasts, inventory constraints are forecasted to extend through at least the third quarter of 2022, if not longer, due to the microchip shortage.

"Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been proactive and flexible with our product offerings to do what we do best – help dealers sell vehicles," said automotiveMastermind CEO and co-founder Marco Schnabl, in a news release. "The goal of our latest production expansion is to help dealers easily secure the inventory they need by leveraging our reliable and accurate data to reach the right people, at the right time and with the right messages. We’ve heard from several dealer partners that the strategies we’re providing through our technology have proved to be the difference in their ability to continue selling cars amid inventory shortages."