Have you ever been in a marketing meeting and heard the question, "well, tell me what the other [OEM] dealers are doing? What success are they having?" Sounds all too familiar, no? And while vendors might oblige with the question - offering what campaigns their other clients with the same OEM are doing - what value does this offer your dealership? 

If this is how your dealership approaches marketing meetings with your vendors, you have to step back and take another look! Instead of asking about what the other same OEMs are doing - ask your vendor what your dealer can do to help you out! 

Think about it for a minute; most dealers (seriously, there are a few out there that do not do much digital advertising!) spend money doing some form of digital advertising. So, in an overly crowded space, why do you want to mix in with the white noise? You don't! Instead, you ought to inquire about what your dealership can do differently to be more visible - digitally - but more importantly, what your dealership can do to be more successful! 

Here are two things to consider when coming up with a game-plan on advertising spend! 

Think Outside the Box. What Are Some of Your Dealerships Pain Points? Over-Aged Inventory? Losing Sales on A Specific Model? 

The sole purpose of online advertising is to help increase your sales. To increase your sales, however, you have to make the most of your digital ad spend. Simply spending money on an ad campaign does not, by any means, offer that you will have any success! Instead of casting a wide-net - hoping for the best - work towards identifying key areas of opportunity. In doing so, instead of the conversation being "what are the other dealers doing" the conversation becomes "I have to move more of this [model]. We are losing three out of every five sales on it!" With a clearer goal, you can then go back and look at how many leads you are getting on that model, what your traffic is on that model, and more importantly, ask the right questions to increase your chance of success! 

Having the Right Landing Pages With Strong Call to Actions is Everything. 

Running a digital ad campaign is one thing. Having the right landing page with strong call-to-action's is a whole other element that can make or break your campaign. All too often, you see dealers running an ad campaign only to have their customer land on the home page! (huh?). Think about it, if you are searching for a specific model, and you literally land on a home page - having to do the searching yourself - are you going to put that extra effort in? Probably not. 

Even if you have the customer land on the targeted model of interest, does it all look the same? Your landing page needs to stand out! The idea that if your OEM is running a specific special for that model, take the extra time to build out a new page with strong call-to-actions. By having a landing page that is specifically made for that campaign, you not only get better insights into the customer's behavior but you also increase keeping the prospective customers interest by having relevant content. Content that lends itself into increasing their chances of converting into a lead! 

Bottom Line: Asking what other dealers are doing is not going to help you much in the long run. So while you might be selling the same OEM, each dealer has its own unique challenges. And by strategizing a relevant campaign that is both relevant, and more importantly, aligning with your dealers' areas of opportunity, you increase your chances of success. To make it happen, however, you have to know what those areas of opportunities are! This process starts by taking the time to review OEM detractor reports, CRM Lead vs. Sold Reports, and Dealer Website Analytics to name a few. By taking the time to strategize with your digital vendors, it will pay off when you see a stronger return on investment!

What struggles and or areas of opportunity have you turned into a successful campaign?