These days, many customers start online when they are looking to purchase a car. To ensure you reach your consumers where they are shopping and develop the most positive impression before they visit your showroom, here are five digital marketing ideas you should consider at your dealership. 

4 Car Dealership Marketing Ideas to Get Your Vehicles Selling

1. Source & Share Positive Customer Reviews

The importance of online reviews can’t be stressed enough. Customers want to know more about your business before they commit to a transaction. In fact,  93% of consumers use online reviews before coming to a buying decision¹.  The coveted demographic of 18- to 34-year-old consumers value online reviews as much as a personal recommendation¹. 

So, how do you get good online reviews? First, you have to give your current customers a good experience. Ensuring you go above all expectations when a customer visits the dealership or asks a question over the phone should be the first place you start. 

But you need to ask for reviews, too. Get happy customers to fill out a simple review on your Google My Business profile or Facebook page. You can ask them after they had a good experience with your dealership. Nothing beats asking personally, but there is software available  that can send customers an email or text message after they have done business with you. 

If you have great reviews, make sure your prospective customers can see them by adding them to your website. Create success stories from your own customers. A short-form video is also great as capturing content like this is ideal for social media, websites, and email newsletters².

2. Optimize Your Website for Search

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a common buzzword for websites and marketing. Ultimately, SEO means you are trying to get your website to be more visible in search engines (i.e. Google, Bing). The websites that get the most site traffic are usually the ones that have keywords that appear first on Google search for common searches customers are looking for³. As it stands, 95% of vehicle buyers use digital means as their way of searching for information on their next purchase⁴. 

How do you improve your visibility so customers can find you online easier?. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Start a blog to become a resource for customers’ online searches. Anything from used car buying guides to the difference between two car models or how to replace wiper blades would be a good place to start.
• Add your current inventory to the website. Often customers search for specific make/models and Google can serve customers your page results. 

3. Use Your Own Email Database

It's likely that your dealership already collects email addresses from customers. If your dealership does, consider sending a weekly or monthly email to your existing customers.

With relevant information from blog posts on your website, email marketing can blend in useful advice with various promotions to drive business back to your dealership. You could even offer incentives, such as a 30% discount on their next service or a free detail when going in for their next major service³.

Keep in mind that email marketing frequency has a fine line between right and wrong. That said, a study from Statistica proved that 49% of consumers prefer receiving brand emails once per week⁵.

4. Take Advantage of Social Media

A massive 82% of the US population has some form of social media which equates to 220 million active users across America as of 2020⁶. 

One simple way you can use social media is to focus on the inventory you currently are selling. You can post each day about one of the vehicles on your lot and feature interior and exterior photos as well as a short description on what makes this vehicle unique. 

YouTube is now a huge space with billions of viewers. A series of videos that gains the trust of users and makes your dealership renowned in the industry goes a long way in landing new customers. As almost 70% of car buyers watch YouTube reviews and walkthroughs when looking at their next purchase, video is more important than ever³. 

Dealership Marketing Ideas to Boost Your Retention, Sales, and More!

To get more customers, online marketing is the biggest space nowadays. SEO, social media, and email are digital marketing tactics that can help your dealership grow and sell more inventory. Using these automotive marketing strategies today will set you on your way in expanding your reach to interested consumers. 

ACV Auctions is here when you need to secure more inventory. We can’t wait to work with your dealership at ACV Auctions! Begin your journey and source amazing inventory by registering with ACV.

Sources

1. D. Kaemingk, “Online reviews statistics to know in 2022,” 30 Oct 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/online-review-stats/.

2. M. Whitney, “Automotive Marketing: 9 Strategies to Drive More Sales,” 8 Dec 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2019/04/03/automotive-marketing.

3. Podium, “Car dealership marketing ideas: 5 ways to get your vehicles off the lot.,” [Online]. Available: https://www.podium.com/article/car-dealership-marketing-ideas/.

4. D. Anderson, “35 Statistics Automotive Marketers Need to Know in 2023,” 16 September 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.invoca.com/blog/automotive-marketing-statistics.

5. M. Mohsin, “10 EMAIL MARKETING STATS YOU NEED TO KNOW IN 2022 [INFOGRAPHIC],” 25 Feb 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.oberlo.com/blog/email-marketing-statistics

6. Dixon, “Share of U.S. population who use social media 2008-2021,” Statistica, 27 Jul 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273476/percentage-of-us-population-with-a-social-network-profile/.