Boosting Your Car Dealership's Digital Presence
The automotive marketing industry is changing, and it's vitally important that your dealership stays up to date with the trend. Gone are the days where consumers would call in at various dealerships, hoping to strike up a bargain with the salesman at the door. These days, potential customers are lining up their options over the internet, and when they arrive at your door they know exactly what they want. As such, you have to keep up to speed if you're hoping to outlast your competitors, so here's three ways to boost your online presence:
Target the Correct Audience
Before you start investing in fancy SEO (Search Engine Optimization) initiatives to boost your website's ranking, it's important that you know exactly who you're targeting. Your starting point here should be tailoring your advertisements to people in your surrounding area. There's no point in spending a few thousand dollars driving adverts to the wrong people!
Once you've designated a potential catchment area, it's time to start profiling your likely customers. The majority of car purchase decisions will be based on price, so make sure you know which end of the market you are aiming at. Once you have this nailed down you can start to evaluate what professions your customers will have, how much expendable income they'll be looking to spend and exactly which brand of vehicle they will be looking for. Having this information allows you to deliver the right content at the right time, specifically pitching your product to a particular demographic.
Be Active on Social Media
The widespread use of social media gives auto dealerships a new ground from which to draw consumers. With the vast majority of your target audience being active participants in social media, the opportunity to market your services on a medium they relate to is an opportunity that shouldn't be missed.
Firstly, you have to establish your company's presence on the two pillars of social media - Facebook and Twitter. Both of these websites are hubs of peer-to-peer networking, allowing users to update their whereabouts or thoughts at any given time. The true beauty of advertising in this manner lies in "shares" and "retweets" - pages or status updates that users find worthy enough to share with their friends. Social media users are more likely to trust their friends than an advertising company, so if you can generate a buzz about your dealership then you are halfway there!
Social media also gives you an outlet to track your advertisement campaigns success. As you can track key indicators in real time (such as Facebook likes, Twitter followers), you can adjust your campaign to appeal to a broader audience if necessary. The effectiveness of advertisements is a notoriously tricky thing to monitor, so make it easy on yourself by capitalizing on social media!
Capitalize on Video Marketing
If a picture says a thousand words, then what about a video? This is actually one of the automotive marketing techniques least used, but it can be massively beneficial if utilized correctly. If you visit any popular news website you'll see a high proportion of their content is in video format only, and this isn't just by chance.
Video marketing allows you to capture the imagination of your audience, particularly those who are audio or visual learners. Rather than having to navigate screeds of text, your customers can see your product in action and envision themselves inside it. Although the internet hasn't gone as far as letting your customers touch and feel your product (not quite yet!), the ability to pitch your dealership over video is a huge opportunity that shouldn't be missed.