Todd Sumamno
The job of a car dealership marketer (or marketing team) is to bring potential customers through the door. That’s where the salespeople can try and sell them a vehicle. The hardest obstacle a car dealership marketer encounters is turning potential leads into trusting clients. The automotive industry is wildly competitive. You can’t blame people for being cautious or trepidatious about making a giant financial choice. This is why car dealerships must make smart decisions when it comes to their marketing strategies. Much of the approach will deal with online advertising since consumers start their research on the web. This article will look at some effective marketing strategies that a car dealership can implement to ensure that leads will turn into sales.
Customer Reviews
Don’t underestimate the power of online customer reviews. As stated already, people will begin researching online when they’re interested in purchasing a vehicle. Many people read the reviews to get a sense of what you can expect at the dealership. How was the customer service? Were they pushy? Were they helpful? You can easily find reviews on Google or Yelp to get a better understanding of the experience of others.
Your customer reviews will have to be good. Bad reviews repel people, and you won’t get the business. Ensure that your glowing reviews can be found on your website, social media platforms, Yelp, and Google. They should be accessible. Is there anything else you can do? Of course! Make videos of your top-rated customers talking about their time spent at your dealership. It adds a more personal touch for people to view and connect with.
Google SERP
Numerous people use the search engine Google to find information online. You need to make sure that your car dealership appears first in Google SERP (or search engine results page). Consumers usually don’t scroll very far down the page after receiving their online results. The listings at the top are the ones that garner the highest number of clicks. To be successful make sure your Google Ads strategy is top-notch.
At the same time, you shouldn’t disregard other search engines like Bing. Yes, seriously. Although Google dominates online, Bing still has people using it daily. A lot of the time, the online users for Bing are older and more established in life. They’re the ones who might be looking for a luxury vehicle.
Keywords
With “search engine marketing,” you’ll need to bid on appropriate keywords that make sense to your dealership. However, you can’t forget about dealing with your competition as well. What is bidding exactly? It’s where you bid an amount of money for your advertisement to rate for a unique keyword. It’s essentially a digital auction for advertising space. Pay-per-click or a keyword bid places your ad into the auction.
Having amazing ad copy and thwarting your competitor is the goal. You can accomplish this by rating high in the search engine results (like your competition does). Stay positive with your ads and don’t speak ill of your competition. Besides, Google will penalize you if your ad copy puts your competition in a negative light. The point is to get consumers to click on your website and not your competitors.
Along with this, maintain your dealership’s negative keywords. Your advertisements can pop up in online searches that have nothing to do with your dealership. Remember, you will have to pay when people click on them, regardless of where the results show up. You can’t bid on keywords that are too broad, but exact matches won’t work either. You want to reach as many consumers as possible so although you won’t want to look at your search query report – do it! People will lose trust in your company if your ads show up in unrelated search places. So, set up negatives to sidestep this problem. Your credibility will remain, and it will also help you spend less money.
Adapt Your Budget
There are certain days when buying a car is popular. It could be on Black Friday, Fourth of July weekend, or some other holiday. Adjust your budget for your campaigns based on market trends. When is your dealership the busiest? The slowest? This will help you adapt your online ad budget.
Also, make use of ad scheduling. When do clients come into your dealership the most? What time? Do you get more traffic during the week or on the weekends? Study this information and create an ad schedule. An ad schedule lets you show your ads (or alter bids) during specific times that you set. This will ensure your key demographic will see the ads, nudging them to come to your dealership.
Special Offers
What will make you stand out from your competition? Can you offer your customers something special if they come into your dealership? It’s vital that your marketing strategies persuade potential customers to come to your dealership and not your competitors. Give out incentives to your clients. Make them for a limited time only. This will make people want to visit your store because they don’t want to miss out on the opportunity or offer.
In Conclusion
Other marketing strategies include remarketing ads to send customers a friendly reminder that you’re here and ready to serve them. What is remarketing? It’s a way to display your ads to ideal customers who have visited your website or social media outlets before. You can set up these remarketing ads through social media platforms and Google Ads. You can also create emails, newsletters, and mailers to attract new clients.
Marketing for a car dealership has its share of challenges. However, with proper research and analysis of important data, you can send leads to your sales team. When you do visit auto dealerships, you’ll typically find stickers installed on the side windows of the vehicles. These stickers display important information about the vehicle for sale, such as the warranties, mileage details, and features. These labels are often personalized with the dealership’s logo, name, hours, company colors, and contact information. The dealership purchases the labels preprinted and then runs them through their laser printers to print the information about each vehicle for sale. If you operate a Car Dealership and are looking to purchase Custom Printed Laser Window Stickers, consider MBR Marketing: https://mbrmarketing.com/dealer-supplies/dealer-laser-window-stickers.
The strategies in this article are examples of effective marketing methods for car dealerships. It’s great to receive guidance about how to improve sales, but don’t be afraid to use your imagination and be innovative when it comes to your marketing strategies. You want to appeal to people positively. This will translate to leads. Then it will become sales, which will then become profit.
Brittany
