Back in the day, people used to walk from one auto dealer to another in person. But today, in the digital world, people do all their research online since there is more information available online than you can get in a showroom. So, the customers like to gather all the information before they physically step into a showroom. 

According to a study by Google, 53% of shoppers do their research online before purchasing anything to ensure they're making the right choice.

While researching, most customers land on third-party websites, which means just having information about your business on your website isn't enough. This means you cannot survive without having a digital marketing strategy. Otherwise, the customer might likely land on a website that gives a negative review of your business, and just like that, you will lose a potential customer. 

5 Marketing Ideas For Your Car Dealership Business

1. Get Active On Social Media

Social media is a platform where you can market your brand to a massive audience and get quick engagement if done right. 79% of the USA population uses social media – how can you miss out on using the platform to get an audience and build customers for your brand. 

The best part about social media marketing is that you can target your audience through SMO. There's a lot you can do – make a youtube video and share it on other social media platforms, take polls, use hashtags for a campaign, etc. 

You can use brainstorming tools in group sessions to help you get more creative ideas for your social media campaign. 

1. Make Your Website SEO Friendly 

When your potential customers search you online, they expect your website to show up at the top. To increase the visibility of your website and rank it at the top or at least on the first page of the search engine, you need to make your website SEO-friendly. 

Your website doesn't need to be fancy with a killer website design. Of course, that can help you make it more engaging, but that is not part of making it SEO-friendly. If you want to make it SEO-friendly, you need to ensure that it is loaded with the right keywords related to your business. 

Moreover, it should be easy to navigate, responsive, and have all the information that addresses every query that the customer might need answers to – your address, phone number, and other contact details. You can post regular blogs on your website that cover different aspects of your business. 

1.  Use Your Email Database

One of the most prominent, effective, and affordable ways of marketing your car dealership business is email marketing campaigns. For example, you might have an email database of your previous or potential customers, which you can use to reach out to them. 

However, you need to make sure you don't just start bombarding your subscribers with random emails. On average, every user receives 121 emails per day, so they will instinctively start avoiding your emails or maybe even report them as spam. Hence, start a properly planned email marketing campaign to promote a new car, sale announcement, offer incentives, etc. 

Besides that, you can also send your customers feedback forms to get details on how you can improve and identify the areas of problem. This type of email marketing can build your brand reputation and help you retain your customers. 

1. Manage Online Review

One tangible way of getting more customers has always been word of mouth – online reviews are just a more modern form. People do their online research hoping to find what other people have to say about your brands. This makes managing your online reviews a very vital element of marketing. 

Whenever your customers buy from you, encourage them to post an online review for it so that more people can see how happy your customers were with your service and come to buy from you too. 

1. Plan Your Campaigns According To Trends

One way to ensure the success of your campaign is by following the trends. If people can relate to you, your posts will get more attention, and more people will know about your brand. Besides, notice trends of things triggering more sales – a specific day, time, act, etc. 

You can also schedule your paid campaigns according to the trends so that it gets maximum attention. For example, this will remind your customers if they are planning to buy a car. 

Conclusion 

Just like any other industry, car dealerships businesses also need to market themselves to get more customers. This will, in turn, help them in growing their business and generating more revenue. The more traffic you get on your online platforms, the chances of increasing your sales increases too.