The phrase digital marketing is often thrown around casually. Usually, the heaviest emphasis is placed on social media, but this ignores some of the most exciting and worthwhile aspects of digital marketing. Far away from Facebook and the Twittersphere, here are you can kickstart a full-scale digital marketing effort and increase your ROI in 2017. 

1. Replace (Some) Direct Mail With Marketing Email

Direct mail is a mainstay of dealership marketing. However, it has two major drawbacks: it is expensive, and its ROI can be very difficult to measure. Email, on the other hand, has strong advantages in both of these categories. 

Email is cheap, and with proper branding and design can deliver a consistent, impactful message. Email can also be rigorously monitored, allowing you to see exactly which customers open your email and click your links. 

While you may not want to ditch your direct mail campaigns entirely, you can certainly save a significant amount of money by shifting your efforts to targeting email campaigns. 

2. Consider Text Messaging for Service Features

Before we dive into what is considered a frontier of digital marketing, consider one fact: 80% of text messages are opened within the first three minutes of deliver. That's some powerful reach! While most dealers will approach mass text messaging with trepidation, it has the potential to differentiate and have the highest ROI of all digital media platforms if used properly. 

For example, service offers are a prime place within your dealership for text marketing. Offering oil changes or other services at a discount via text can drive business into the shop, creating customer loyalty, upsell opportunities, and future sales. 

3. Capture Your Leads For Re-Targeting

At the end of the day, the above suggestions are very difficult to implement if you don't capture your client data effectively! After all, what good are Facebook likes if you can't directly reach out to every lead?

Lead nurturing is a key part of your everyday sales process--you expect that your sales staff is calling leads who expressed interest but didn't buy--so why wouldn't you incorporate follow up into your digital marketing? Why not augment those phone calls with targeted emails, saving time for your sales staff? 

These three ideas, if taken and considered, can lead to significant impacts in your marketing efforts. Good luck!