Most Effective Auto Dealer Marketing Services Explained

.Today, most people will start their car shopping experience online, so for this reason, it is really important that dealers are on their A-game when it comes to marketing. You have a very short window of time to grab someone's interest and ensure that it is your dealership that they wind up at.

In this short guide, we will look at some of the top auto dealer marketing services you can use to help draw the attention of potential customers and keep inventory moving. Let's dive in.

Dealership Goals

When it comes to car dealerships, there are two specific goals in mind. Buy cars and sell cars. Pretty simple, but also not. There is a ton of competition when it comes to car sales. Many people do not want to invest time physically visiting different dealerships and looking over the inventory. Customers want to hop online, find the car they like, and set up an appointment to view it. Once a customer arrives at a dealership, the odds are they are going to buy something there even if it is just to avoid spending more time looking is and traveling to different car lots.

This means that, as a car dealer, a lot of your marketing goals will be focused on digital marketing, social media marketing, and your online presence. In today's automotive market, it is impossible to avoid these three huge marketing tools.

These tools can be used to accomplish both goals; buying inventory and selling that inventory to customers.

Online Presence  

A strong online presence is important for pretty much any type of business in today's economy. The online presence has become so important that today, many people are actually put off and suspicious of businesses that do not have a good quality and easy-to-navigate website that they can explore.

Your online presence will include primarily your website, but it can also include your social media pages as well. These are becoming just as important.

If you have cut corners on your website, it is time to consider seriously investing in this very important marketing tool.

We'll get more into social media marketing in a moment, but don't forget that your social media platforms are an essential part of your overall online presence. You need quality pages that are monitored regularly. For the best results, you need your social media pages monitored and managed by a social media manager. This will help you utilize the best social media tools and trends without taking away any of your valuable time from other tasks.

Optimized Content

Having an online presence, however, is not enough if the content on the site is not optimized for traffic. Simply publishing a website will do little to draw traffic, retain users, and produce the type of customer interactions you want.

To accomplish these types of goals, the content on the site must be optimized for your purposes. Since you are in the auto industry, it is likely that you are not a marketing expert, which is why it is wise to bring on board tools and professionals who are experts in this field to help. Dealers, however, should beware of certain SEO Package platforms that promise much and deliver little when it comes to SEO optimization. It is better to work one on one with a marketing professional who understands the auto industry intimately to get the best-optimized content for your site.

Online Auto Databases

Online auto databases such as AutoTrader are a huge part of the auto marketing puzzle. In fact, AutoTrader specifically has almost monopolized the used car industry. This can be frustrating for dealers due to the fact that AutoTrader has continued to raise its fees for posting inventory. AutoTrader continues to be one of the best online marketing tools, though, to get your inventory in front of potential customers.

Customers want to be able to search their area and surrounding areas for the exact type of vehicle they are looking for. AutoTrader provides extensive filter tools to help streamline the car shopping process and direct customers to the dealers in their area that have the inventory they are looking for.

Google Business Profiles

Google Business Profiles are one of the most popular online marketing tools for businesses in just about any industry, the auto industry included. This tool truly allows businesses to interact with local customers. Best of all, Google Business Profiles are free in their most basic form. You can communicate your company's basic info to customers quickly. Information such as location maps, hours of operation, and contact info is easily available. The true beauty of this tool is that you can also include your website link. This is the quickest way to get people to your website and ultimately onto your lot.

Social Media Advertising

We mentioned social media earlier, but let's look more closely at how social media affects your marketing efforts.

Social media platforms such as FaceBook, Instagram, and even TikTok allow businesses to interact with customers on an entirely new level. Social media is more personal than traditional advertising as they allow your company to interact with individual customers through messages or comments.

Social media is also a great quick, and sometimes free, way to keep your customers in the loop on upcoming deals and special sales events.

There are different ways that you can approach social media advertising. The most economical and simple route is just to set up social media accounts. They are free. You can share relevant content and interact with customers. However, if you want your social media presence to really affect your website traffic and ultimately bring customers to your lot, you might want to consider investing more seriously here. Business owners have many opportunities to tap into better social media advertising tools. Every social media platform has some type of business account you can register for. Most of these will require a fee, but for that fee, your content will get boosted to viewers and you can also enjoy other tools to help your advertising efforts.

Another way to increase your reach with social media advertising is to hire a social media manager. These professionals will know how to best utilize your social media presence to bring in the most traffic and customers.