Isobar helps Mitsubishi Motors Australia drive a new car-buying journey
Over the past twenty years, digital has transformed how we shop for everything from groceries and electronics to insurance and mobile phone plans. Even shopping for a car has gone digital. People shopping for a new car are increasingly rushing online to read reviews, compare specs, and apply for finances. But not everything can be done online.
According to a 2020 McKinsey report, 70 percent of car buyers still consider a visit to the dealership a necessity. People want to see a car in person, get a feel for the interior, and test drive a vehicle before making such a big purchase.
Mitsubishi Motors Australia jumped at the idea of digital transformation to create a more customer-focused experiences online. The company developed a digital transformation roadmap built around data: gathering data about customers and their online behaviors, developing insights into their needs and preferences, and then personalising messaging to get customers excited about buying a Mitsubishi vehicle.
But Mitsubishi Motors didn’t forget the importance of its dealer network. To truly improve customer experiences, the company wanted to bridge the digital and physical gap by extending personalisation and data to dealerships. By providing dealerships with more information about customers and their preferences — vehicle model, color, accessories — they can help sales representatives provide better recommendations to customers and help them drive away with the car they’ve been looking for.
Starting the digital transformation journey with Isobar
After looking at a number of digital platforms, Mitsubishi Motors chose Adobe Experience Cloud. The integrated solutions work together to provide a full digital experience, from gathering data about customers to creating personalised, visually rich messaging across all digital channels.
To get the digital journey off to a solid start, Mitsubishi Motors decided to work with a partner that could provide expert advice for the digital transformation.
“Isobar really stood out from other agencies because they understood how our goals of digital transformation and personalization ultimately need to support dealerships,” says Trish Ind, national digital marketing manager at Mitsubishi Motors Australia.
Isobar started the digital transformation journey by rolling out Adobe Analytics, followed by Adobe Audience Manager. By pulling together real-time data from Adobe Analytics with third party data from Channel 9, Isobar creates a hub for all audience data and provides a more complete, 360-degree view of Mitsubishi Motors customers.
Exploring new ways to attract customers online
The next step for Mitsubishi Motors was to design a new website that would draw customers in and get them excited to visit a dealership. Isobar stepped in, using its Invent, Make, Change framework to refresh the website in a matter of months.
- Invent
During the Invent phase, Isobar met with stakeholders from across Mitsubishi Motors, from consumer and business sales teams to dealerships, to better understand what everyone needed from the website.
Mitsubishi Motors needed a highly visual website that both informed and inspired. The website needed to be highly visual to draw customers in. Interactive elements, from dynamic colour pickers and interactive feature display to full-fledged vehicle configurators, get customers even more invested in their dream vehicles. But just as importantly, Mitsubishi Motors wanted to make sure that it captured all of this information. If a dealer knows that a customer spends a lot of time looking at safety features, then the sales rep can emphasize features such as all-wheel drive or lane departure warning.
- Make
During the Make phase, Isobar spent five months working in agile sprints to build the templates, components, and experience fragments needed for the new website on Adobe Experience Manager. Isobar easily integrated the website into the broader Adobe Experience Cloud, adding detailed tagging with Adobe Analytics and integrating Adobe Commerce to bring more than 20,000 accessories online.
One of the most important Adobe integrations came with Adobe Target. Adobe Target uses the Adobe Audience Manager segments to create more personalised experiences through the website. For example, website visitors who identify as business customers are quickly directed to business and financing offers.
“By strengthening our business messaging on the website, we increased business-related leads by 3,000 percent,” says Ind. “It shows what a difference understanding our customers could make to the bottom line.”
- Change
Isobar continues delivering services for Mitsubishi Motors as part of the Change phase. This includes rolling out new functionality, driving new digital experiences, and working with stakeholders to connect with customers successfully.
“Ultimately we want a salesperson in a dealership to look at someone coming in for a test drive and know what models, colours, and features the person has been looking at online,” says Ind. “This should make it easier for sales teams to make suggestions, highlight vehicles in their best light, and close sales faster. With Adobe Experience Cloud, we’re speeding through our digital transformation roadmap and creating a stunning new car-buying journey for our customers.”