Automotive Digital Marketing for Car Dealerships

Quick answer: Automotive digital marketing is how a dealership or auto shop reaches car buyers online through local SEO, reviews, video, social media, paid ads and a fast website. Measure showroom visits, test drive bookings and service appointments, not just website traffic.

Most car buyers research vehicles, inventory and prices online before they visit a dealership or book a service. Automotive digital marketing helps your dealership or auto shop show up during that research. This article explains why it matters and covers six strategies. For help, see our local SEO services and our automotive SEO guide.

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

The more potential customers see your dealership’s name online, the more familiar it becomes, and over time buyers may think of your dealership first. Social media does not directly raise rankings, but it widens your reach.

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. Our social media management service can run your accounts.

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 Business Profile: Start by creating and verifying your Google Business Profile (GBP). It lets your dealership show its name, address and phone number in Google Search and Maps. Your NAP information (name, address, phone number) is the most important detail to keep consistent online.
• 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.

Videos of your inventory can show specs and features better than images with text. Video also helps buyers discover cars they were not already looking for.

Marketing on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook puts your dealership in front of car shoppers where they already watch video.

4. Online Reviews

Both the quality and the number of reviews matter. A dealership with a few five-star ratings may look less proven than a competitor with hundreds of good reviews, because buyers use reviews to judge what to expect.

Reviews show buyers what to expect before, during and after the purchase. Ask past and present customers for reviews by sending a link to your Google Business Profile or other review sites such as Yelp. You cannot force customers to review you, but you can make it easy. Do not offer rewards for reviews, because Google’s policy does not allow it.

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. See our website development service.

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. Our technical SEO service can find and fix speed problems.

Leverage greatinflux’s Digital Marketing Expertise

GreatInflux is an online marketing agency that helps small and medium-sized businesses with SEO, ads, social media and websites. Our team has over 15 years of digital marketing experience. Read more: how to get more showroom visits with marketing. Related: service department marketing.

See our local SEO, SEO content, PPC consulting and display advertising services, or read our guides to automotive SEO and automotive display advertising.