You hear it all the time... the internet sells the car. With online being the driving force behind the primary stages of customer purchases, your online presence is wildly important to ensure your automotive marketing efforts don't go on deaf ears.

Using Search Engines and Google My Business 

Before they even make it to your site, your customers will be searching for you. Search tools are key, the right keywords specific to your busy, and a mobile-friendly search optimization page is key to a seamless experience to find your dealerships information at first glance. Google My Business with your locations address, directions, and reviews will be one of the things that your customers see first - make sure you have a high Google Rating, you respond to all negative and positive reviews, your information is correct and easy to see, and that a customer can easily find, and view you. 

Your Website 

You've completely lost the game before you started if you don't have a simple, easy to use, mobile-first website. The more you cram your website with drop down options, long, information-heavy homepages, and difficult to use websites... your customer is closing that browser and going somewhere else. Flashy is fine, but it has to be simple, user-friendly, and again, mobile-first.

360 Views 

Ever growing in popularity are 360  views of vehicles in place of the 30+ photos dealers are used to. Programs like "Spin Car" allow a customer to visually see, touch and spin around every vehicle before they see them. This is your best marketing for your buck. Taking them on a visual, yet virtual tour of the vehicle so they can exactly what they want to be is marketing at your customer's fingertips. 

Social Campaigns

We talk a lot about the value of social media, and how it can boost your sales, but social is an easy, relatively low-cost way to drive sales, and the best part is your customers are likely already doing a lot of it! You can get a huge benefit from trial and error in terms of geotargeting Facebook campaigns according to age, and area and easily keep track of where your best leads came from, and what to change for next time. 

Provide Added Value 

Why do you only need to contact your customer when you want them to buy something? Why not share with them the importance of Apple Car  Play, or why you should change your wiper blades? People like subscribe to things that add value to their lives... don't always make it about the next sale. 

Everyone Like's To Feel Special 

Personalized discounts, personalized emails based off what customers are looking at, or when they were last in go a long way... instead of blanket marketing to your database try and go model specific, or sperate out sales vs service... or even better... make it as personalized as possible. No one can deny the emotional attachment of seeing your own name light up on the screen, with your own information offering something specific to you.