Big Tex Trailers is renewing its commitment to dealer success with the new Dealer Advantage program, a three-part offering featuring digital marketing tools, salesperson training and exclusive consumer finance options.
The biggest component of the Dealer Advantage program, in terms of marketing, is the Web Connect dealer website.
Big Tex said it spent the second half of 2017 preparing this new solution for trailer dealer websites, which is hosted on Amazon Web Services servers and intended to leverage modern best-practices for website design.
“We’ve successfully launched websites for Big Tex dealers at more than 170 locations on the Web Connect platform in the first six months of 2018, at no cost to the dealers,” said Pearl Ponthieux, web connect program manager.
“The key to the program – and the reason it took so long to prepare last year – was a focus on scalability and long-term support. We wanted to leverage all of Big Tex’s size and experience on behalf of our dealers.”
For just the month of June, 2018, Ponthieux reports more than 235,000 visits to Web Connect sites, resulting in more than a million page views.
“No other manufacturer has that kind of reach, that kind of insight into the market,” said Matt Guilford, marketing vice president. “We’re currently building out activity reports for dealers on the platform that will give them exclusive insights, not just to the performance of their website, but what’s going on across the country.”
As an example, Guilford reports more than 70 percent of page views at the dealer site level are inventory-related.
“If we think about consumer behavior in other categories, I don’t think it’s that surprising,” he said. “Consumer research often starts with OEM websites, category websites and publications. By the time the consumer makes it to their local dealer site, they generally have two questions: What do you have in stock and what does it cost?”
To help trailer dealers address these questions and ensure inventory is up to date, the Big Tex Web Connect platform integrates an inventory management system (IMS). All products ordered from Big Tex – and a few related sister companies – are automatically loaded on behalf of dealers when it leaves the factory.
Each listing automatically includes professionally written descriptions, photographs, specs and three-dimensional renderings, though dealers can modify any part of the listing to their preference, the company said.
“Craigslist used to be the wild west of trailer marketing,” Guilford said. “It seemed like whoever could find ways to post more frequently would win. However, in the last 12 months, Craigslist algorithms have shifted significantly, focusing on relevance over recency. Frankly, it’s become much more like a traditional search engine.
“That means your product data has to be formatted and optimized, something our Web Connect IMS does really well.”