Client Case Study: Automotive
We love automotive PR - it’s part of our DNA
“mWEBB’s placement of eLEND Solutions has enabled us to articulate our message to our core audience and helped us gain traction from companies who hadn’t previously understood the full breadth of our offering. The power of great PR should never be underestimated!” —Pete MacInnis, CEO, eLEND Solutions
eLEND Solutions, an automotive technology company specializing in online and in-store credit and finance solutions designed to create a more efficient, faster in-dealership transaction time, has been an mWEBB client since 2014.
mWEBB's task is to generate awareness around the role that the F&I department can play in consumer dissatisfaction with the lengthy, in-dealership car-buying process – and, ultimately, raise awareness about eLEND’s solutions.
To lay the groundwork, mWEBB launched a thought leadership campaign to soften the ground for the product launch. The result was a stream of bylines and interviews that highlighted the ways in which auto financing needs to change to address the needs of today’s educated and empowered car shopper.
Through this, our goal was to make sure dealers understood that eLEND could support and improve their current processes - portraying dealers as than the ultimate “solution” versus the problem in the age-old struggle to reduce transaction times.
To do this, we took the pulse of the industry by surveying dealers to what they themselves think of their current F&I process, building awareness that dealers themselves want the 3-4 hour car-buying process to change just as desperately as consumers do.
mWEBB generated surveys to highlight dealer dissatisfaction with the current car-buying process and gain consensus on how they could improve. The subtext of these survey results? A supported argument, and need, for a connected car buying process that reduces the time consumers spend in store while also streamlining process for the dealership.
mWEBB continues to generate a drumbeat of coverage in the automotive press - and on social media - by underscoring dealer dissatisfaction with sales/finance process, emphasizing the need for vendor cooperation to create a “connected” buying process to eliminate the bottlenecks in F&I, and, ultimately, eLEND has been positioned as the solution to this problem.
The carefully calibrated campaign has resulted in opening up – and driving - conversation around how dealer processes need to change to better serve customers and create in-dealership efficiencies to generate more efficient sales, higher CSI and greater profits. mWEBB has built awareness for the eLEND among high-level dealer executives, website providers, DMS vendors, etc. Doors have been opened at the client’s targets and the brand is known as one of the leaders in revolutionizing the financing side of car buying.