Car dealerships must balance traditional and modern tactics to generate leads and provide an excellent car-shopping experience. They should use automotive social media marketing, optimize their Google Business profile, and implement a lead nurturing system.
Customers check dealership reviews online before they decide to visit a dealership. Getting positive reviews and responding to negative ones helps build trust with prospects.
Ensure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly
If a dealership’s website isn’t mobile-friendly, it’s missing out on potential customers who prefer to shop on their smartphones. To check whether a site is mobile-friendly, try opening it on your smartphone and shrinking the browser window until it fits. The website should automatically shrink to fit the screen without requiring you to scroll left or right to see the full content.
A mobile-friendly website is also essential for ensuring the site’s navigation is intuitive on all devices. If the website is too hard to navigate on a smartphone, potential buyers will get frustrated and find a competitor’s site that’s easy to use.
Strategy for digital marketing for car dealerships can optimize their websites by using keywords that identify the type of vehicle they sell and targeting those search queries. This boosts their visibility to people looking for that type of vehicle in their area, resulting in more organic leads and sales opportunities. A reputable SEO agency can help with this process if necessary. They can also ensure that the website’s schema code is set up correctly so that the vehicle information (such as pricing, location, and images) is visible directly in the search engine results.
Invest in Local SEO
Car dealerships not investing in something other than local SEO are missing out on a significant opportunity to increase online visibility and accelerate sales. By conducting keyword research, implementing local SEO strategies, enhancing user experience, and engaging in content marketing, dealerships can maximize their return on investment (ROI).
Local SEO is optimizing a website for a specific geographic area. Car dealerships can implement local SEO by including relevant keywords in their content, meta tags, and GMB descriptions. Keyword research allows dealerships to identify the terms potential buyers seek, such as “affordable used cars” or “best-used car dealerships.”
Another important aspect of local SEO is ensuring that your business’s information is consistent across online directories and platforms. Additionally, obtaining citations from local organizations and community events can help improve a dealership’s credibility in search engines. These off-site signals are part of the “off-site” category, including links pointing to your website.
Get Social
Car dealerships have several options for boosting their online visibility. They can use SEO to rank higher in search engine results pages or invest in a PPC campaign on Google and Facebook to reach more targeted audiences. They can also use social media to stay in touch with customers and promote their events and services.
A rock-solid website is one of the most essential factors in boosting car dealerships’ online visibility. Dealerships can upgrade their websites by adding photos and videos beyond manufacturer-issued content. For example, they can offer videos of cars on unique backdrops — like the lush beauty of snow. They can also provide up-close and detailed photos of every model.
Getting social on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat is another way dealerships can boost their online visibility. These platforms can share information on upcoming models, lease and service specials, dealership events, etc. They can also use these platforms to interact with current and potential customers by asking for reviews, answering questions, and promoting deals.
Create a Lead Nurturing System
Car dealerships can tap into this potent marketing channel by providing a variety of content that caters to customers’ needs at each stage of the buying journey. This can include blog posts, comparison articles, video clips, and more. In addition, using CRM interfaces that provide a clear path for sales reps to connect with leads will ensure your team can meet each customer’s needs and provide them with an experience that builds trust.
Today’s consumers are more discerning than ever. Purchasing a vehicle is often one of the largest and most significant purchases they will make in their lifetime, so they need to know that they can rely on their dealer for transparency and support before and after the purchase. As a result, buyers are likely to do their research before deciding. This includes checking out online reviews and ratings. This is why your team must have a robust review-monitoring strategy in place, so you can respond promptly to any customer concerns and show them that you are dedicated to improving your dealership’s process.
Build Trust
Car buyers reach out to multiple dealerships online during their shopping journey, and quality content can set you apart from competitors. Whether it’s answering frequently asked questions, highlighting new vehicle models, or sharing helpful car reviews, this type of content can boost the trust factor and convert leads into buyers.
A solid email marketing strategy can also help. However, it’s important to avoid bombarding your leads with sales promotions. Overdoing it can turn off potential customers, who might be attracted to the dealership but overwhelmed by constant emails.
Instead, create engaging and informative articles with relevant keywords to boost website visibility. You can even target local search queries by writing articles about the best restaurants, parks, and coffee shops in a city near your dealership. Encourage satisfied customers to share their experiences via positive reviews—they are more likely to do so if they know the dealership will amplify those recommendations. You can ask for reviews in person, by phone or text, or through a digital survey platform.
