Why Do You Need Automotive Marketing? a Guide
A recent report from Frost and Sullivan showed that a huge one million cars are set to be sold via online channels in 2020 and poised to rise to six million by 2025.
In this article, we will be looking at why it’s important to make sure you have a great online marketing strategy, how to build trust and target the right customers, how to keep ahead of the game with Google and most importantly where you can get the best tools to drive sales.
Let’s start with a brief answer as to why it’s important to have a stellar marketing strategy for your automotive dealership.
Why do I need automotive marketing? To make sure you are remaining relevant in your industry within the competitive automotive industry, it’s important to have a robust online marketing strategy. Building trust and targeting your customers using online tools, along with understanding and working with Google is essential.
Now that we’ve looked at the brief answer as to why you need to make sure you have your marketing campaign at the forefront of your sales master plan. Let’s start by looking at why it’s important to get the trust of your customers in such a competitive marketplace.
How can I build trust?
Many automotive dealerships know that to have a robust online marketing strategy is the key to keeping relevant in this online marketplace, but how do you begin to make sure your customers have the trust to purchase such a high-value item as an auto online?
One of the most useful ways is to ensure you build in a customer review area on your site.
Build trust with customer reviews
Many customers will go through a few different avenues when purchasing a car. They will, of course, get involved in research which is often, for example, calling local dealerships and making the decision as to whether to lease or buy a used car.
As potential customers only have the day so of salesmen in these scenarios, the chance of getting real-life reviews from previous customers will be a way they may prefer.
So any dealership with a professional website alongside a formal automotive marketing strategy will have a major head start on those who rely on their showroom only.
With the advent of such sites as Trustpilot, Yelp, Google, and others, consumers are currently very much influenced by previous customers’ experiences with businesses and automotive dealerships.
Make sure you enable your customers to add reviews and provide them with a viral platform to allow them to consider such reviews before making a purchase. This will enable you to keep ahead of the game and also give you a competitive edge over showroom only dealerships
Reviews are probably the most effective automotive marketing strategy you should build as an automotive dealership. Going above and beyond your reviews with exceptional service will keep your reviews head and shoulders above your competitors.
Make sure you include Social networking too into your strategy. Good reviews on your website are of course really important, but by taking your communication to potential customers a step further by creating customer success stories in terms of blog articles, videos, and social media lists, you will be able to capture more engagement and potential business. Add this media to your website, paid social ads and newsletters.
Letting your customers speak for you will keep you competitive and help bring more sales into your dealership than simply a showroom and salesmen ever could.
“Reviews are probably the most effective automotive marketing strategy you should build as an automotive dealership”.
Target the right customers
Making sure you target the right customer for your particular dealership does of course, go without saying.
Finding out who your typical customer is can ensure your ongoing sales success. You will need a different marketing strategy for effective marketing luxury brands such as BMW’s, Porsche, etc, then you would need if you sell more affordable brands.
Your prospective customers will, of course, have very different requirements. For example, customers who are looking to purchase a higher-end price bracket will be looking at extras such as leather seats and/or heated seats, whereas the purchasers of lower-end models will be more concerned with fuel consumption and the overall longevity of the vehicle.
As mentioned earlier, Google are a big player in your online automotive marketing strategy, so now that we’ve seen how important it is to market to the right consumer, let’s take a closer look at how understanding Google’s capabilities can drive your online marketing campaign.
Ahead of the game with Google
According to experts, at least 70 percent of those looking to purchase a car, research online in the first instance using search engines.
Of course, there are other search engines but as approximately a huge of 90.46% of the search engine market share worldwide is attributed to Google
Being able to understand and utilize this powerful platform is paramount to the success of any online marketing strategy you employ.
The first few listings at the top of Google are the ones hit first, so making sure you have a solid SEO plan in place to capture this huge audience is extremely important.
Google Ads
To do this your Google Ads strategy needs to be extremely effective. As Google’s algorithms constantly change it’s important to be connected to the right kind of marketing company, who has expert knowledge and can keep ahead of the game. Here are a few tips below in getting started:
● Any keywords used should be structured to closely related to your ad text. Make sure you include 2-3 ads per ad group. Keep keywords tightly related to your ad text.
● Google’s algorithms favor ad extensions and can help efficiently build leads
● Ensure your Google Ads are drilled down in terms of relating to your industry, with well-structured ad groups, aiming to have at least 15-20 keywords per group of ads.
● Keeping on top of who your target audience is, which of your vehicles are the top-selling and also which is the most searched for auto is extremely important to get the best value from your ads. Make sure you bid higher on those keywords that are the most popular.
● Adding negative keywords is a useful technique in making sure you keep irrelevant searches away from your ads. Make sure you regularly check your search query report.
● Although it’s true that Google has the lions share of search traffic, it’s important not to forget about Bing. This is often used by older consumers who are often looking for cars with a higher price tag.
“it’s important to be connected to the right kind of marketing company, who have expert knowledge and can keep ahead of the game”.
Remarketing
Now we’ve looked at your Google ad campaigns, let’s take a look at how to keep your customers coming back for more!
Remarketing is a really important element of automotive marketing. Comparison shopping is an extremely popular way of shopping for cars and is a key component of the whole process, making sure you don’t lose customers who have previously bought from you, will keep you competitive.
Keeping your leads is important and by putting together an email marketing program to get in touch with them occasionally, let them know that you are still offering great service can ensure you will be their number one go-to dealership next time they purchase or know anyone who is looking to buy. This way, your past customers stay in your sales funnel.
Also with remarketing, you can drop your rate of cart abandonment by showing ads to those who have previously visited your sites. Offering ‘deal of the days or another great reason to come to your showroom will make sure you keep a consistent flow of leads.
And finally…
We hope you have enjoyed this article and have found it useful in deciding it really is time to get your online automotive marketing strategy working for you.
If you are looking to put together a solid marketing strategy for your automotive showroom or online store, then make sure you get in touch with us here at..
We will be able to work with you and create a bespoke plan that will fit perfectly with your target customers and make sure your leads keep closely connected to your superstar sales team.