Drive More Sales with Automotive Marketing

Based on the latest records, around 95% of the car sales are done through the dealership. However, the journey of the buyers will usually start in the online world. More than 95% of car purchase starts by searching online. It is not a secret to most dealerships that digital advertising will help bring in fresh and valid leads into their business. Nonetheless, online automotive marketing comes with several challenges.

Top Automotive Marketing Strategies

Perhaps one of the significant challenges that you will have to face would be how to gain the trust of your new leads. We understand how people are skeptical when dealing with the dealership. Moreover, with a highly competitive industry and a situation wherein the consumer needs to make a substantial investment, it will not be simple to convince them that you are the right choice. So how do you overcome this? You should be clever with your online automotive marketing.

Build the Consumer’s Confidence

Think about the first day that you are leasing or buying your car. You probably know how nervous you are and doubtful of every word coming right out of the mouth of the car dealer. Perhaps you are already aware that you are choosing a reputable and reliable dealership, but you are still afraid to decide. You need to put yourself in the shoe of your prospects.  One way to do this, according to the top automotive marketing agency, is through customer reviews. You should have a healthy collection of online reviews where the customers can gather information about your dealership. People highly trust user-generated content. Your customers will spend weeks researching the best dealership; they will read reviews on Yelp, Google, and other listing sites.

Why Should You Focus on Reviews?

Customer review is one of the most effective digital automotive marketing assets. As someone working in this industry, you need to find ways to encourage your customers to leave you a review. Moreover, you will have to ensure that your glowing reviews are located on different review and listing sites. You should also be active in social media and keep your audience engaged. If possible, you may want to share some of the success stories of your loyal customers. According to the study, reviews help businesses in the car market shorten the consumers’ buying cycle. Through reviews, dealerships can also collect valid and live leads. These are leads that are ready to be converted. Therefore, it doesn’t take much to generate profit from them. It reduces the cost per acquisition and conversion.

Monitor Your SERP

When customers are looking for a car, they will heavily rely on Google. Based on the research released by Skai (Previously Kenshoo), 70% of the consumers who are planning to purchase a car will use the search engine first. Treat Google as your top automotive marketing tool. Be sure that you can find yourself on the first page of the search result of major search engine sites. Not a lot of people will go to the second page of the search result. Therefore, you will be losing several potential clients if you don’t stay on top of your SERP.

How to Increase the Probability of Appearing on Top of Search Result

One way to do this is to manage your Google PPC strategy properly. You want to make sure that it will drive traffic and customers to your site without costing you an arm and a leg. You can also employ SEO strategies. We understand how complex online automotive marketing is to some, but this is necessary. Google tends to favor websites that are using Whitehat methods. Here are some tips that will help you get started.

• Refine your Google advertising account. Create an adequately structured ad group with at least 15 keywords each in every group.
• The keyword focus that you will choose should be closely related to your content marketing campaign.
• Be sure to include an ad extension. Here’s a secret, Google loves them. It will help you gain more interaction with your prospects.
• Make use of negative keywords. It will help you block all the unneeded and irrelevant searches that will only increase your marketing expenses. You should also make it a habit to monitor your query report.
• Be sure to adjust your marketing budget accordingly. Determine the keywords that your targeted audience will likely use. You need to capitalize on this and be ready to bid higher on these keywords.

Also, do not neglect Bing, just because they are receiving lesser searches than Google. They still account for a significant number of searches, and they mostly attract older demographics. People who are more financially independent will likely use Bing.

Bidding on Your Competitors Keyword

When talking about automotive marketing, it is essential to remember not to bid only on apparent keywords. You need to upgrade the competitiveness of your marketing by attacking the keyword focus of your competitors. We understand how fierce the competition is in the dealership industry. You need to show up on keywords where your competitors are showing. Use subtle promotion yet persuasive ads that will compel your leads to choose you over your competitors.

Managing Your List of Competitive Keyword

You may not be aware that your name can appear on searches that are irrelevant to your business. However, you will still pay for them when people click on your PPC ads. If you are bidding on a broad keyword, there is always a potential that your ads will show up in unrelated search terms. While bidding on the ‘exact’ keyword will seem to be an excellent solution, it could also be inhibiting the full potential of your business. Therefore, the process of identifying the negative keywords should be included in your digital automotive marketing.

We understand that this could be a tedious and time-consuming task, but this is absolutely essential to manage your automotive marketing expenses and connect to the right leads. Once you notice that your ads are appearing on negative keywords, your website’s credibility and engagement rate could be affected. Therefore, you need to make it a habit to monitor the negative keywords constantly. For instance, you could be bidding on the ‘cheap cars,’ but you realize that you also appear on affordable toy cars. It is a waste of your time and money.

Controlling Your Ad Campaign Budget During Specific Period

You always need to assume that your prospects are doing their homework before visiting the dealership. For instance, there is a chance that they know that they can save as much as 8% when they are strategic in their buying. Therefore, it is only expected that they will choose to purchase their car during the period that will help them save some cash. It is your job to figure out the slow and peak season. You will have to adjust your automotive marketing strategies accordingly. Be sure that there will be enough window of time, and this will require planning. Luckily, Google allows you to conveniently and immediately alter your PPC campaign.  Google Ad comes with ad scheduling, which makes it easy for you to schedule your campaign. You want to make sure that your ad runs right before your leads visit your car lot.

Targeting the Right Audience with Automotive Marketing

Some dealerships in the market will focus on specific makes of the car. Therefore, automotive marketing agency often recommends that they need to adjust their strategies. You need to develop the persona of your targeted audience. There should be different marketing techniques for a dealership selling Porsche from those selling luxury BMW. Moreover, it would be different from those marketing more affordable vehicles like Toyota or Honda. Understand that your prospects will have other wants, concerns, needs, and questions about purchasing a car. For instance, customers looking for Mercedes will be more concerned if they are getting a luxury leather interior and a heated seat. The Honda buyers care for reliability and gas mileage.

Customers in the high-end market will be focused on keeping their social status; the standard car buyers buy due to necessity. To refine your automotive marketing technique, you need to perform lead segmentation. Categorize your leads and create different methods to target them. The message that you will craft could be based upon their unique needs; it will help in improving your conversion rate. Running different campaigns can guarantee that you are using the proper method to the right audience. This method was used to be complex and time-consuming, but different platforms today now offer targeting options like Facebook.

Automotive Marketing Must Invite Shoppers to Visit Your Car Lot

Think carefully about why your target customers will choose to visit you over your competitors. Perhaps someone is close to them and offers a better deal, how can you persuade them to visit your showroom? Knowing the answer to his question is a crucial part of your automotive marketing strategies. If you can’t provide them with an apparent reason, such as getting the best review or offering the best price, you should find a unique incentive to deliver to your prospects. For instance, you can give the new customers 5% discounts; you may offer them free oil change for their first 2 or 3 years. You can also add a sense of urgency to your incentives. For instance, offer a 5% discount for your first ten buyers this month. Your prospects will certainly don’t want to miss this. You can offer them during the slow season.

Take Advantage of all the Call Features

Google Ads comes with different call features that you need to use fully in your automotive marketing; it is a shame that some marketers ignore these options. Understand that phone calls are pretty standard in the car dealership market. Moreover, it would be easier for you to convert these phone calls into sales.

• Call Tracking- It is pretty crucial to track the calls you’ve been getting to get a better view of the source of your ROI.
• Mobile Bid Adjustment- Your customers will most possibly call you using their mobile phones. With Google Ads, you can easily adjust your mobile bid through this feature. You want to bod higher on mobile traffic to guarantee that you will be getting more calls.
• Call Extensions- With this, you are enabling the audience to visit the website and make that phone call. You can adjust this depending on your business hours to guarantee that your people will answer their calls.
• Call-Only- With this, you are paying the ads to receive calls rather than the regular visits to your website.

Finally, remarketing is a crucial part of your automotive marketing strategies. Since the competition in this market is so stiff and the consumers will have so many options to choose from, and sales is an essential component of your dealership; you need to remind them from time to time that you are the better option. Try to offer them a fantastic deal to invite them to visit your store.