How do you persuade a potential customer that your car dealership is the best option before the buyer sets foot in your store? In a saturated automotive digital marketing space, there’s a great deal of competition which makes it harder to be seen online and secure customers.
More and more people spend their time researching vehicles, inventory, and other purchase decisions before they take the step to find a dealership and schedule a test drive. Automotive digital marketing allows you to reach a wider audience. Without utilizing digital marketing for your dealership, you’ll miss out on big opportunities to reach potential customers. In this article, we will discuss why digital marketing is important for your dealership or auto shop, as well as go into 6 digital marketing strategies your automotive business can utilize.
Why is Automotive Digital Marketing Important?
Whether your business specializes in auto repair, or auto parts, or is a car dealership, there are many benefits of incorporating digital marketing in the automotive industry. Digital marketing can come at a lower cost than traditional marketing and advertising, all while providing a greater reach to your desired target market. There are many places online where you can market your auto business, and as the digital world continues to rapidly expand, year after year you can find new ways to market your business online and continue to rise above competition.
6 Automotive Digital Marketing Strategies to Consider Using
Luckily, with the right tools, you can improve your online visibility, and in turn, outperform your competitors. There are many digital marketing tactics that should be taken into account in order to elevate your dealership’s online presence and bring in more customers. Here are 6 top automotive digital marketing strategies for your automotive business to consider:
1. Social Media
When your social media shares increase, so does your website’s credibility and authority. Even more, the more potential customers see your dealership’s name online, the more familiar they become with it. In turn, this will result in potential car buyers thinking first of your dealership over other dealerships in your area.
Leveraging social media for automotive digital marketing provides your dealership with a dynamic tool to share aspects about your dealership through photos, links, video reels, and live videos. You can create simple content for your dealership’s social media page like how-tos, explainer videos or captions, questions, and polls, and even share company values and humor on there.
Connecting with current and potential customers is the way to build loyalty and trust for your brand. Because of this, incorporating social media into your automotive digital marketing strategy is something worth diving into more.
2. Local SEO
Optimizing your website for local SEO (search engine optimization) is critical for dealerships. Local SEO allows your business to be seen online based on searches happening in your geographic area. Whether you serve a few cities, a certain region, etc., your automotive business can be a top dealership option in a user’s search if you’re properly utilizing local SEO. Here are a few key things to keep in mind when looking to incorporate local SEO for your automotive digital marketing.
- Google My Business Profile: First thing first, if you haven’t already, is to create a Google My Business Profile (GBP). A Google Business Profile allows your dealership to get your business’s name, address, and phone number online when a user comes across your website on a search engine. Your NAP information (name, address, phone number) is the most important thing to have online for your automotive business. For more information on everything you need to know about GBP.
- Business Description: Your dealership is unique in everything it offers from its service to inventory and should be showcased online as such. It’s important to have your business description present online to help better set yourself apart from competitors. You can describe your dealership’s quality service, the number of cars on your lot, etc. Any unique information you know you bring to the table as an automotive dealership should be shared online.
- Images: Adding images of your dealership, your employees, vehicles, the building, and offices inside, are all things that can help a potential customer get a better idea of your business and what they can expect from your dealership. It also helps give customers some familiarity with your dealership before they come in to work with you.
3. Online Videos
Automotive videos can have a significant influence on a car purchase. Along with that, buyers can learn a lot from a short online automotive video.
Online videos for your dealership’s inventory can provide a great deal of information on specs and features of the vehicles you sell than images with descriptions. AutoFi, a dealership site states, “According to a Google study, 64 percent of people who used YouTube while buying a car were influenced by it.”
Video is a great way to shine light on cars that potential customers weren’t already aware of. It draws them in through engaging content. Marketing your dealership on sites like YouTube, and other video-enabled platforms like Instagram and Facebook, allows your dealership to be seen in places where automotive digital marketing drives leads.
4. Online Reviews
Quality over quantity isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to online reviews. Let’s say your dealership has a few five-star ratings and one of your competitors has an overall good rating, but has hundreds of reviews. Chances are a car buyer will choose the dealership with more reviews overall rather than your dealership with a few 5-star reviews.
This result likely happens due to reviews providing context as to what a buyer should expect before, during, and after the car buying process and experience. You can work to gather more quality online reviews from past and present customers. One way is by sending your customers a link to your review and listing sites such as Google Business Profile, Yelp, and greatinflux. From there, they can decide whether or not they want to leave a review there. You can’t force customers to leave a review of your business. However, you can suggest and create easy opportunities for them to do so if they feel inclined to.
5. Optimize for Mobile
Clear images that load quickly are crucial for automotive digital marketing. As vehicles are such a big purchase in a person’s life, it’s important that potential customers are able to view auto content with ease when searching on any device. With most searches happening on mobile devices today, optimizing images for automotive business websites and car listings helps create a user-friendly experience for a potential customer’s auto shopping.
6. Quality Website Content
High-quality website content for an automotive dealership is something that can always be improved. From an automotive digital marketing standpoint, aspects such as product descriptions and having a user-friendly website design can have a big impact on whether or not a buyer will use your services to purchase a vehicle.
Slow site speed and slow-loading images deter any online user from a website. A potential customer being able to maneuver around your website with ease allows them to fully gather every bit of information you provide online.
Leverage greatinflux’s Digital Marketing Expertise
greatinflux is a results-driven online marketing agency that focuses on helping small to medium-sized businesses succeed online by incorporating effective digital marketing strategies.
greatinflux has helped businesses grow online throughout the years as its team of digital marketing experts work with businesses and create customized plans tailored to their specific needs. When it comes to your automotive business, check out greatinflux’s local SEO services and SEO content writing services to help become more successful online.
