How can your auto dealership expand its customer base and expand its profits? For years, there has been one basic answer to that question—provide enticing discounts on great automobiles. That strategy may not be quite as effective as it used to be, though. In fact, a recent study suggests that relying on discounts alone won’t drive auto sales nearly as much as dealers might like. It might actually be the worst way for dealerships to focus their marketing efforts!

Significant Findings for Auto Dealers

According to the study—as reported in Media Post—some “19.3 percent of adults online plan to purchase a new car or truck in the next year. The survey includes nearly 16,000 online consumers 18+ in the United States.”

The question is, how can dealers get those buyers to their dealership? The automotive category may be rich in opportunity for technological savvy and marketing prowess, yet many dealerships aren’t quite delivering on either category. They are missing out on key avenues for exploiting psychographic data and improving their own consumer reputations, the study shows.

Understanding Purchase Intent

“One priority should be to pay attention to ‘purchase intent’ of the consumer — their thoughts, emotions and behaviors that influence not only if, when and what they buy, but if they want to buy it from your specific dealership,” reports Media Post.

So why do consumers buy new cars?s The top reason is that they want to buy a new model; that’s where more than 27 percent of all purchases originate. For 21 percent of buyers, though, the motivating factor is that they’re having trouble with their current car. And for 20 percent, the primary concern is acquiring a new vehicle for their family.

The least important reason, cited by just over eight percent of auto consumers? Deals, discounts, and other incentives. Clearly, these things just don’t move units like many dealers think they do.

Implications for Dealerships

“Instead of promotions, automakers should focus their marketing on enticing shoppers with reasons for getting a new model: better technology, increased safety features, and slick body styles,” Media Post concludes, summarizing the findings of the study.

Indeed, rather than focusing on discounts, dealerships are smart to focus on what consumers want, why they are looking at new vehicles in the first place—and really playing up the ways in which they can address consumer needs.

Marketing for Dealerships

This leads naturally to a robust marketing endeavor—one that starts with consumer data and buyer personas, targets buyers based on their purchase intent, and emphasizes the dealership as a place for service and solutions.

That’s not an easy thing to pull off, but it’s something your dealership can do with the help of Get My Auto. Our automotive marketing experts can help you draw from data to position your dealership for success—without the need for ineffective discounts and deals. To learn more about what we can do to help you, contact Get My Auto today.

There is a common misconception about the members of the millennial generation—specifically, that they aren’t much interested in buying cars, perhaps preferring to lease or simply to rely on services like Uber. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

As a recent article from Dealer Marketing points out, “In 2016, [millennials] accounted for 29 percent of new car sales, and that number is expected to increase to 40 percent in 2020. They also made up 36 percent of the lending market in 2016, a number also expected to grow.”

The bottom line: For your dealership to succeed, it has to sell to millennials. And before you can sell to them, you have to get them to your showroom or lot—and that means effective marketing!

How to Market Cars to Millennials

As you seek to engage millennial buyers in your dealership marketing, here are a few considerations you’ll want to make.

Affordability is hugely important to millennials. Younger buyers are not primarily concerned with status or prestige, at least not when it comes to their vehicles. Rather, they want good value. What this means is that budget is often their top concern. A related point is that, compared to older generations, millennials are quite happy to look at used vehicles—great news for used car dealerships!

They do their research. Millennials tend to spend a lot of time—more than three months on average—researching cars before they choose one. More than half of that time is spent doing research online. Having educational resources on your dealership website and on social media platforms is essential to reaching this younger demographic.

Millennials do not want to haggle. The thing they don’t want to do is spend a lot of time negotiating with you over the price—something most young people just find to be frustrating. Emphasizing a straightforward, hassle-free sales process can really help you make in-roads with millennial buyers.

Efficiency goes a long way with millennials. More than anything else, it’s beneficial to have a sales team that is ready to provide a smooth and easy path to car ownerships. You may get millennial customers coming in knowing exactly what it is they want, and being able to accommodate them with minimal red tape is a huge advantage for your dealership.

Marketing for Millennials

Your dealership needs to market carefully and precisely to the people who are most likely to come in and buy a car—and that may very well mean millennials.

For help marketing to people of all demographics, contact our team at Get My Auto. We’d love to help you build your brand and reach out to online consumers.

Is your dealership website simply a placeholder, occupying space on the Web—or does it actually work for you? A really good dealership website can be nearly as valuable as a full-time employee. (Indeed, your website works for you 24/7/365!) But what are some of the specific things your website should be doing? Here are some suggestions from the automotive marketing professionals at Get My Auto.

Your Dealership Website Should Rank

First and foremost, your website should be discoverable by local customers; after all, if nobody can find the site, it might as well not exist. This means having a site that ranks well in local Google searches.

You can go a step further and invest in AdWords, too—ensuring that your website truly canvases the Google search engine results page (SERP), and that it’s highly visible to local buyers at each stage of their search journey.

Your Dealership Website Should Inform

Once buyers find your website, they’ll expect it to provide them with some valuable information—about your dealership and about your inventory. But remember that this content isn’t truly about you; it’s about your customers, and the value they will get when they buy from you.

Ensure that your website is a true hub of information; this entails solid content writing, blogging, how-to guides and other evergreen content, and more.

Your Dealership Website Should Capture Information

As readers seek information from your website, you can also harvest information from them—and use it to follow up later, moving these warm leads through your sales funnel.

There are many ways to capture information. One of the simplest is to have an email newsletter sign-up, where your website visitors can input their contact information in exchange for regular updates from your dealership.

Your Dealership Website Should Convert

Ultimately, your dealership website is meant to move the sales needle. It’s meant to prompt your visitors to either pick up the phone and call for an appointment, or simply come down to your showroom to browse.

A good website is sales-oriented, and that means offering a clear value proposition as well as a strong call to action. Make sure you have a call to action on every single page of your website!

Your Dealership Website Should Convey Authority

Finally, remember that your website is a direct reflection of your dealership’s reputation. It should convey your professionalism, and make you out to be a truly trustworthy place for consumers to buy automobiles.

This requires good content, but also a sleek and professional design. Basically, it requires you to remember that your website is the virtual storefront for your dealership—and it’s critical to make a strong first impression.

What is Your Website Accomplishing?

Bottom line: Your dealership website should be working for you—and there are a number of things it ought to do. Make sure your website is pulling its weight. Reach out to the marketing team at Get My Auto right away.

Even at a used car dealership, there is such a thing as a vehicle that’s just too old. Aging inventory—cars or trucks that languish on the lot past the 60-day marker—take up space, eat into profit margins, and only grow harder and harder to sell. Here are some tips for independent auto dealers looking to address their aging inventory issues.

Always Collect Data

First and foremost, remember that your inventory provides you with some important data points. Which cars sell quickly? Which ones seem to sit on the lot for 45 days, 60 days, or beyond?

Always keep tabs on current sales trends, and be aware of which cars do and do not work well with your buyer demographics. If there’s a car that doesn’t seem to be capturing anyone’s eye, well, that tells you something for the next time you acquire inventory.

Think About Craigslist

Far too many dealers overlook the selling power of Craigslist. Not only is it a powerful driver of website traffic, but Craigslist customers tend to convert fairly quickly. They are ready to buy, and often, what they really want is a great deal—something your older car or truck can likely afford them. If it’s not selling in the showroom, put it on the Web! Use Craigslist to your full advantage.

Keep Them Looking Nice

It goes without saying that an old car won’t sell if you confine it to a back corner and allow it to collect dust and cobwebs. Here’s a good policy: Ensure that the vehicles in your lot are washed, polished, and detailed every 15 days or so. Even a car that’s been in your inventory for a while needs to be kept looking its best.

Rotate Your Promotions

Along the same lines: Consider giving your older inventory a chance to shine—even alongside your newer cars. Yes, you obviously want to put the flashier cars on prominent display, but leave a little room in your showroom or along the side of the road to rotate in some older vehicles.

Eventually, You’ve Got to Discount Them

You may be reluctant to discount your aging inventory, knowing that it will erode your margins. Then again, when you buy inventory with floor plan financing, every day a car stays on your lot it’s losing you money—and eventually, it’s better to just cut your losses and move on.

How Will You Handle Aging Inventory?

Every independent auto dealership has to contend with aging inventory. The question is, how will you market and promote your cars—even older ones—to turn them into profits?

Get My Auto can help you brainstorm some solutions. Reach out to our automotive marketing experts today, and ask about our services in Facebook Ads, Craigslist, and beyond. Contact Get My Auto right now!

One of the most basic tenets of marketing is that you have to know your audience—and you have to be able to tailor your message to address their particular pain points and consumer needs.

For used car dealerships, a big part of the buying audience is made up of women—and the dealerships who don’t market specifically to women are doing themselves a disservice.

That’s because, in most families, women drive the purchasing decisions. A recent Dealer Marketing article elaborates: “More and more studies show that the decision-maker is female. Women drive 70 percent to 80 percent of all consumer purchasing, whether through their direct buying habits, or perhaps more importantly, their influence over friends’ and family’s buying habits.”

Marketing to Women Requires a Multi-Faceted Approach

Women matter to auto dealerships not only because they are influential over family purchasing decisions—but also because they tend to play complex roles within that family. Indeed, women are often the ones most active in the day to day care of children, in considering the needs of the extended family, and in ensuring that major purchases—like a new car—are beneficial to the family as a whole.

What Dealerships Can Do

Given the important role that women play in informing used vehicle purchasing decisions, dealerships need to do everything in their power to make the buying journey more welcoming to the ladies—but how?

One important step is to put some women on the sales team. Dealer Marketing explains why: “Women feel more comfortable buying from women. If women make up more than 80 percent of influencers, it should be no secret that females need to be well-represented across your sales and management teams.”

Another important step that dealerships can take? Enhancing their customer service offerings.

“Women tend to have higher expectations when it comes to customer service, and several technologies are popping up in the automotive business to help with the instant response these buyers expect,” says Dealer Marketing.

These technologies include text-based appointment reminders, online scheduling for test drives, and more.

The Reward of Marketing to Women

It may take some work for dealerships to improve their outreach to women—but in the end, the reward can be quite significant. Women, after all, tend to be loyal customers—at least, to the businesses that strive to earn that loyalty.

“A Frost and Sullivan survey that used responses from 1,500 male and female vehicle owners in the U.S. revealed that women tend to be more loyal than their male counterparts to both dealers and independent aftermarket technician,” says Dealer Marketing.

How will your dealership strive to earn the loyalty of women? Get My Auto can certainly provide you with some marketing strategies to brand your dealership as service-centered and welcoming to all. To learn more, we encourage you to contact the Get My Autodealership marketing team today.

When you post to Facebook from your dealership account, you’ll have the option to “boost” your posts—basically helping you get more views and greater reach for the post in question. On the surface, this might seem like a great way to advertise your dealership. And it’s true: There are some real benefits to boosting your posts. With that said, there are also some significant drawbacks to this practice—enough that we actually don’t recommend you use the boost post feature. In this blog, we’ll try to explain why.

What Happens When You Boost a Facebook Post?

For starters, let’s consider what actually happens when you hit that “boost” button. Basically, this function was rolled out so that business owners can advertise without ever having to leave their Facebook page—that is, without having to actually go into the Facebook Ads control panel to fine-tune their campaign.

As such, boosting posts is certainly easy and quick. You can start getting more views on your post more or less right away. The downside is, you’re also sacrificing a lot of the customization and functionality that Facebook offers—so while it’s an easy route to take, it’s by no means the most effective way to advertise on Facebook. In fact, it can really be a waste of money.

When you boost a post, you get four basic choices to make—choosing your CTA, your audience, your budget, and the duration of your campaign. But when you actually use the Facebook Ads dashboard, those four options expand into something like 30—offering you much greater control over your campaign.

What You CAN’T Do When You Boost Posts

There are a lot of options that your Facebook Ads control panel gives you that simply boosting posts will not. Here are just a few of them:

-Retargeting your website traffic
– Creating “lookalike audiences” to expand your Facebook reach
-Preventing people who have already taken the desired action from seeing the post again (something that can save a ton of money)

Your options are really hampered, whereas actually creating a new ad campaign in the Facebook Ads platform allows you to go much deeper and to create a much more effective and affordable campaign.

So Why Do So Many Business Owners Still Boost Posts?

Still, the reality is that boosting posts is pretty easy, even for the Facebook Ads novice. Using the full Ads Manager is a better option, but it requires a higher level of knowledge and strategy.

But lack of knowledge shouldn’t keep you from using Facebook Ads to its full potential—not when you have Get My Auto on your side. We have unparalleled experience in running effective Facebook Ads campaigns for dealerships—and we can deliver real results for your dealership, far more than what boosted posts can offer.

Take advantage of our expertise. Don’t boost your posts anymore; instead, contact Get My Auto about the rich range of options we can provide.

Search engine optimization is something that every used car dealership should be concerned with, and for a simple reason: SEO determines how easy it is for interested customers to find your brand online. Without strong SEO, local shoppers won’t be very likely to locate your dealership website through a Google search, which means you could potentially lose a lot of business to your competition.

The challenge with SEO, of course, is that it’s always changing; technology evolves, and with it, so does the behavior of search engine users. One thing your dealership should do is simply keep up to date with the latest SEO trends. Here are four that we believe to be significant as we head into 2018.

AMP

Accelerated mobile pages, or AMP content, are pieces of online content that are coded to load quickly, especially on mobile devices. Because they offer fast access to the desired information, AMP sites are prioritized by Google.

When AMP was first launched, it was primarily offered to news venues—but it’s expanding, and we believe it will become more widely used in 2018. Dealerships will want to seize on this technology when they are able to.

Voice Search

The way in which people seek out online content is ever in flux. For example, by 2020, it is anticipated that a majority of Google searches will be done via voice—i.e. through services like Alexa and Siri.

This has implications for your dealership’s Web content development. It’s crucial to use long-tail keywords that reflect the conversational way search engine users input their queries. It’s also smart to present information in bulleted lists or in question and answer formats, wherever you’re able.

Localized Content

Search engine optimization is increasingly trending toward the local. For dealerships, this is especially noteworthy. After all, if you own a dealership in Orange County, it doesn’t especially matter whether your website is discovered by buyers in Vermont. What matters is connecting with the people who wish to buy automobiles right in your backyard.

In 2018, we predict that developing highly localized content will become more important than ever before, not least for independent auto dealerships.

AI and Machine Learning

Google employs machine learning to help it understand the content of your website, and to determine how valuable it is to human readers. This technology is getting much better as time goes by—and thus, harder to trick.

Simply put: It’s never been more important that your website offer a positive user experience, and plenty of good, valuable, high-quality content.

Planning Your 2018 SEO Efforts

Are you ready to tackle these SEO trends head-on? If you’re unsure of where the marketing landscape is headed, we urge you to call us. Get My Auto can provide you with support and assistance as you navigate these complexities.

Learn more about the state of SEO, and what it means for your dealership. Reach out to the automotive marketing pros at Get My Auto today.

In recent years, automotive assembly lines have grown increasingly complex; the process of assembling a vehicle has become so technically intricate that many auto plants now require workers to have advanced technical degrees.

And that’s not the only aspect of the automotive industry that has grown more methodological and compound.

Dealer marketing, too, has hit a new peak—one where it is increasingly challenging for dealers to accommodate the varied consumer needs found in the digital marketplace. Certainly, it’s no longer possible for auto dealers to compete online without strong displays of technical skill—including SEO, website design, content marketing, and more.

The need for a robust online presence is so pronounced that a recent Ward’s Auto article encourages dealerships to view their sites like miniature versions of Amazon.com—and if that sounds like overkill, we’d contend that it’s actually right on point.

Understanding the Online Sales Environment

What’s important to understand about today’s consumers is that they are more likely than ever before to spend many hours researching vehicles online before they ever get up and go to a showroom. And when they do arrive in your showroom, they’ve typically made up their minds about what they intend to purchase.

What this means is that your dealership website has to provide an easy and intuitive way for potential buyers to browse your inventory, educate themselves about your products, and ultimately make a decision they feel comfortable about—just like they might on Amazon.com.

And just as Amazon is laid out to escort shoppers to the checkout page, your dealership website should provide just the right push for consumers to call you and set up and appointment for a test drive.

Beyond the Website

The dealer’s online marketing duties don’t stop at the website, either, though that’s always going to be a dealer’s primary online hub.

Just like Amazon does, dealers must connect with consumers throughout their search journey. Amazon does this through paid ads and retargeting, and dealers might consider those tools, as well. Additionally, and in our view more significantly, dealers should use Craigslist to bring traffic to their showroom. And finally, targeted Facebook ads can be a powerful way to enhance the website’s efficacy.

Seamless Experience

What’s key is that your dealership be there to engage with consumers at different touch points along their journey—and that you brand yourself consistently each time.

This requires much more than a casual relationship to digital marketing. In fact, it requires a rigorous and holistic strategy that connects the dots between website, off-site marketing, and more.

The automotive marketing experts at Get My Auto can help you achieve this Amazon-like marketing flow—and we can do so while respecting your budget. We encourage independent auto dealers to contact our team today. Reach out to learn how you can become the Amazon of your market.

Facebook recently announced version 2.2. of its Messenger app—complete with some business-friendly features that auto dealerships will want to take note of. Among the changes, Facebook Messenger now offers a customer chat plugin, which lets businesses integrate Messenger into their own websites.

Improving Customer Communications

The aim of these new features is to enable business to maintain clear, fluid, and flexible communications with their customers—turning the business website into a true customer service hub.

A recent article from ZDNet lists some of the features this upgraded Messenger introduces. “As customers move across platforms, the plugin ensures their conversation history with a brand is maintained,” the article says. “The plugin also supports Messenger capabilities like payments, natural language processing (NLP) and rich media.”

And that’s just for starters. The new Messenger also boasts a media template, allowing businesses to share images and videos more directly and interactively. Businesses sharing images, GIFs, or video content can insert Call to Action buttons, as well.

Additionally, a feedback feature has been added to Messenger, letting businesses see exactly how customers rate this interactive experience—a good way to bring accountability to the customer service team.

Key Considerations for Dealerships

These are all features with broad applicability to businesses everywhere—but is there anything that makes this new Facebook Messenger particularly useful for auto dealerships?

We think the answer to that question is a definite yes—and for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s a natural complement to dealership CRM platforms. The ability to cross-reference CRM entries with Facebook chats could prove invaluable. What’s more, there is potential for highly targeted advertising—specifically, retargeting ads to customers who have already engaged with the dealership on Messenger.

In short, it’s another way for your auto dealership to personalize its services and pair them to individual customers—and in an era where user experience makes all the difference for consumers, these added personalization options shouldn’t be ignored.

Get Started with Facebook Marketing

Facebook Messenger is just one of the digital marketing tools auto dealerships should be using to provide a cleaner, more individualized customer journey for their buyers. Of course, it’s important to take advantage of these tools within the context of a holistic marketing campaign—and that’s something Get My Auto can offer.

Get My Auto provides data-driven, goal-oriented marketing services to independent auto dealerships throughout California—and we’d love to help you take advantage of the latest marketing technologies. Reach out to Get My Auto today for a consultation.

Buying an automobile is always a big financial decision—and as such, it’s only natural that consumers would approach it with due diligence. Much research goes into the auto buying decision—and now, more than ever, that research happens at home, via mobile devices.

That’s the finding from a recent GroundTruth survey, which reveals that roughly 59 percent of auto buyers do their research from home—using Google, Craigslist, and other online resources.

By contrast, about 17 percent do their research while at a dealership, 10 percent do it at either work or school; and 13 percent do their auto research while they’re commuting.

What Does This Mean for Dealer Marketing?

These are compelling statistics, to be sure—but what are the practical takeaways for dealerships?

Here’s some commentary from GeoMarketing: “The primary conclusion GroundTruth came to is that the focus on online conversions forces auto marketers to be more reliant on less strategic tactics like proximity targeting, reaching people as they are at or around businesses.”

Indeed, research shows that the average buyer makes around two visits to a dealership before making a purchase—meaning that, by the time they click on an online ad, they’ve probably more or less made up their mind about what they’re going to buy, and from where.

What your dealership should be aware of is that consumers are doing their homework and making their final purchasing decisions long before they actually set foot on your lot or in your showroom. To remain competitive, then, your dealership needs to be highly visible even at the top of the sales funnel, the beginning of the consumer journey.

There are different ways in which dealerships can cultivate this kind of visibility. Providing educational content across a variety of platforms, including blogs, can help you cultivate brand awareness, authority, and trust—and while that may not immediately lead to a sale, it does guide the consumer further down the funnel, closer to an actual visit to your dealership.

PPC and highly targeted Facebook ads can also be important ways to build brand recognition, even among consumers who are simply gathering data and have not yet made a specific purchasing decision.

More than anything else, a paradigm shift in dealership marketing is needed: GeoMarketing recommends a focus on “cost per visit,” which is a good metric for evaluating dealership marketing efforts. More than clicks or anything else, actual foot traffic through your dealership is the best way to determine whether your marketing efforts are paying off.

Get Visits to Your Dealership

In the end, that’s what dealer marketing is all about—getting visitors into your showroom. For help achieving this goal, we invite you to contact us. Reach out to the dealership marketing experts at Get My Auto today.