A well-delivered owner's section could provide a serious competitive advantage. iPerceptions' VP of R&D reveals why you should focus on getting your current customers to do your branding work.

I'd like to take this opportunity to revisit an issue I wrote about last summer. In an article I published on Driving Interactive, I claimed, "owner sections of websites will be the next big marketing opportunity for automotive manufactures." I had picked up on a fundamental disconnect between the desire among current owners for some sort of forum in which they could interact with the vehicle vendor --a virtual owner's garage, an owner's microsite, etc. -- and their satisfaction level with what they had experienced onsite. I suggested that companies should move beyond just simply posting information on services plans, parts/accessories and maintenance schedules. There were more lofty goals to shoot for. The brand building opportunities were there for the taking, and the potential for cultivating brand fidelity was huge. I challenged automakers to consider the fact that a well-delivered owner's section could provide a serious competitive advantage.

Knowing that I have a history of writing on this issue, one of our analysts recently forwarded me the following verbatim comment from a survey respondent (as always, the name of the brand has been changed):

"Add a current owners section on specs, history, 'this day in Grand Auto history' etc. ... Don't forget about current owners. People don't have to buy a Grand Auto, they want to. There's no tie in to the BRAND as a whole. Just seems like you're moving cars off lots." 

After reading this, my dismay was palpable. I could see that the issue I had explored last summer was still resonating in visitor commentary, and that one current owner in particular had drilled down right into the heart of the matter. I felt it was time to return to the data.

In last summer's piece, I mined the results from five different automotive manufacturers' websites. I found that 50 percent of visitors indicated that an owners' section is an important aspect of the site experience, but only 12 percent were very satisfied with what they had experienced onsite. Now that loyalty marketing is as ubiquitous as it ever will be, common sense would tell us that the differential surely would have improved over the last year. In revisiting the issue, I took a slightly different approach. This time, I filtered by relationship to the brand, choosing to study only the response patterns of those who owned one of the brand's vehicles. I culled a dataset for the first six months of 2007, which comprised 3,800 unique automotive website visitors. 

iPerceptions' data revealed that the importance of an owner's section had become even more acute, and demand for it even more resounding than it was last summer. Over the first six months of this year, between 55 and 60 percent of the filtered response set had consistently indicated that an owner's section was of some degree of importance to them. The opportunity to brand and re-brand to the converted was still front and center, waiting to be capitalized on. But as the other trend line demonstrates, top tier satisfaction with owners' sections had only once cracked the 20 percent threshold.     

Source: iPerceptions data collection, January 1, 2007 – June 30, 2007

There is, therefore, a worrying gap -- one that exceeds 30 percentage points -- between what current owners deemed to be of importance and what they had experienced onsite. This is an especially cogent demonstration of the fundamental disconnect that still persists between the automaker and the car owner once the inaugural purchase transaction has been completed. 

Certainly, your website must be in-step with current marketing initiatives and your web designers must never lose sight of the ultimate goal: increasing the number of your cars on the road, preferably at the expense of your principal competitors. Yearly sales figures, however, can only tell us so much about a brand's long-term viability and health. Listening to your visitors and embodying the values of loyalty, fidelity and retention -- in short, marketing to your own -- are just as important to your unique value proposition as new bodies browsing a showroom floor. General Motors continues to innovate in this respect with its OnStar service, particularly with the OnStar Vehicle Diagnostics platform, which consistently grades out highly in the eyes of customers. 

iPerceptions' Automotive Industry Satisfaction Report for Q2 2007 shows that 35 percent of site visitors were owners of a car manufactured by the company whose site they were perusing. This is a weighty and crucial segment, especially since current owners can be a vehicle's best ambassador, or its harshest and most deleterious critic. Returning again to the visitor comment cited above, it is fascinating to look at how quickly this visitor made the link between website delivery and brand building opportunity. If he or she has made this link, then doubtless many more also have and will. 

While sites will always be measured for their value as prime sales and marketing channels, de-emphasizing after-sale support and loyalty building is perilous. The relationship formed when the customer completes the paperwork at a dealer and signs on the dotted line is sacrosanct. It shouldn't be left to languish; it should be cultivated and taken to new levels. It remains one of the most obvious weapons at your disposal to differentiate your brand from the rest of the pack.

Duff Anderson is VP of R&D at iPerceptions. Read full bio.