The average car buyer is savvy and smart—they research car brands and dealerships before even stepping onto the lot. And while this habit isn’t surprising, it does place more responsibility on auto dealers to attract new prospects, build customer relationships, and ultimately earn sales with a better web presence. Incorporating the right digital marketing techniques is one way to get this done.
Learn which digital marketing strategies work best for car dealerships to boost online visibility, drive web traffic, improve customer engagement, and increase sales.
Setting the Foundation Before You Start a Digital Marketing Plan
An effective marketing strategy is built on recognizing your customers and gauging their interest in your dealership. Once you have a clear picture of your target audience, you can define your marketing goals and align your digital marketing plan to optimize outcomes.
Understanding Target Audience and Market Segments
The first step in this foundational process is understanding market segmentation and your target audience. Market segmentation splits customers interested in buying a car into smaller segments grouped by similar behaviors and characteristics, including:
- Geographic information: where customers live, population density (do they live in an urban center, the suburbs, or a rural setting), and their distance to your dealership
- Demographic data: their age, gender, education, income level, or occupation
- Psychographic information: their values, interests, desires, opinions, and lifestyle
- Behavioral data: how they interact with your auto dealership, their customer journey stage, level of engagement, where they shop for cars, and customer loyalty
Then, instead of one large market with diverging interests, you have smaller, defined groups like young business professionals, budget-conscious families, and rural commuters. Each group has its own automotive needs, wants, and pain points. Some groups are more likely to become your customers than others.
Your target audience is the most interested in buying a car from your dealership and where you should focus your marketing effort for the best return. Understanding your target audience’s preferences, needs, and pain points is essential for personalizing your dealership’s digital marketing strategies, ultimately leading to better marketing performance and a higher return on investment (ROI).
Establishing Clear Marketing Goals and Objectives
Once you’ve identified your target audience, focus on setting SMART goals. These are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. For example, instead of a generic goal like raising your social media engagement, the SMART goal would be raising your social media engagement by 15% by generating 500 more interactions on one daily post across your three social media channels over the next two weeks. See the difference? Clear, actionable goals with attainable and measurable objectives are critical to your digital campaign’s success.
Website Optimization For Car Dealerships
Your dealership’s website is your online storefront, and ensuring your site’s design and content address your target audience’s needs is a top priority. The most essential elements to consider are:
Designing a User-friendly and Responsive Website
People use their smartphones to shop for everything, including cars. Your dealership’s website must have a responsive design that adapts for easy navigation and great user experience on any device. If customers can’t access links, view pictures, or easily read text, they’ll quickly move on to another dealership with a mobile-friendly website.
Implementing SEO Strategies for Higher Search Engine Rankings
Many companies know search engine optimization (SEO) is important but aren’t always sure what it entails. SEO tactics are designed to improve your website’s content and visibility so you appear higher in the search results. Incorporating SEO strategies boosts site visitors and leads, getting more people into your sales pipeline.
Here are a few SEO tactics to consider:
- Incorporate keywords into your blog posts and other content.
- Create content that’s useful to your audience and demonstrates your authority.
- Align your site’s content with your target audience’s search intent.
- Ensure all web pages have meta descriptions and title tags.
12 Content Marketing Ideas For Car Dealers
Content marketing is a cornerstone of an effective digital marketing strategy for car dealers. Generating new, valuable content that appeals to your target audience boosts your SEO efforts. It helps you grow brand awareness, increase leads and customer engagement, and establish your auto dealership as an authority. Use one of the ideas below to start your content marketing efforts.
1. Creating Engaging and Informative Blog Posts
Use blog posts to answer your customer’s most common questions or concerns. Each post should address a single question or concern in a detailed, helpful manner. For instance, “5 Ways to Improve Your Car’s MPG”, could detail tips for drivers to improve their mileage. By sharing valuable information, you build trust with your readers and position your dealership as an authority.
2. Leveraging Visual Content (Videos, Infographics) for Impact
What better way to show what your dealership offers than through video? Use your salespeople (who are comfortable on camera) to introduce vehicles, share car maintenance tips, take customers behind the scenes, or even share video testimonials. Keep your videos short and concise to distribute across your website and social media channels.
3. Generating Car Buying Guides
Buying a vehicle can be overwhelming, so sharing comprehensive car-buying guidance with customers is incredibly helpful. Cover every aspect of buying a new or used car, including your top 10 cars, trucks, or SUVs of the year, what must-have features to look for, how to compare vehicles, how to get a car loan, where to check trade-in value, and how to negotiate a deal.
4. Sharing Vehicle Reviews
Potential customers want to know everything about a vehicle before making their purchase. Create posts reviewing all aspects of the most-asked-about models in your showroom. Start with a summary of the driving experience and include information about its safety features, style and design, engine specifications, and other technical details.
5. Offering Maintenance Tips
Create educational content around basic vehicle maintenance that applies to all makes and models, like when to change your oil, how to check your tire pressure, or how often to rotate your tires. Also, consider model-specific maintenance tips for your most popular vehicles.
6. Leveraging Customer Testimonials
One of the quickest ways to build trust with potential car buyers is by sharing testimonials from satisfied customers. Ask customers to share their genuine experience through email, Google Reviews, or Facebook reviews. Include details of their car buying experience, why they chose your dealership, or other feedback through your website and social media platforms.
7. Creating Comparison Articles
Sometimes, buyers find it challenging to know what sets different models apart. Make it easy by creating content comparing key vehicle features. Infographics, bulleted lists, and other visual aids can help customers quickly compare the information and make an informed decision.
8. Developing Behind-the-Scenes Content
Give your audience a glimpse of your dealership’s daily activities, sharing the human side of your business. Use pictures or videos to document what goes on in your showroom, your service team hard at work, a customer picking up their new car, or a “day in the life” post of your sales team. Being relatable helps build and strengthen your connection with customers.
9. Producing Car Technology Explainers
Technology offers more safety and convenience to car buyers, but the many different components can be confusing or frustrating to learn. All potential customers benefit from informative posts that break down complex car parts and technology into easy explanations. Create posts that share how car systems work, how to operate displays or features, and what tech to expect on new models.
10. Sharing Local Driving Guides
Create a local driving guide for your city. What do drivers in your area have to be aware of? List out toll roads and speed limits for major highways, or warn drivers about accident-prone intersections. Share tips on how to avoid heavy traffic, where to find free parking, or the best scenic routes around town. A driving guide shows you’re involved in your local community and care about more than car sales.
11. Offering Finance and Insurance Tips
Customers may be so focused on finding the right car they overlook other car-buying aspects, like financing or car insurance. Create informative content around financing options, defining insurance and finance terms, and what buyers need to know so they’re prepared for their purchase.
12. Boosting Events and Promotions
Share information about upcoming dealership events, seasonal sales, and other limited-time customer offers to reward your target audience and encourage better engagement.
Social Media Marketing For Car Dealers
A social media strategy is a requirement if you want to reach new customers and increase your dealerships’ visibility. More shoppers are researching dealerships and reading buyer reviews through social media, so meeting them where they are can help your dealership grow.
Choosing the Right Social Platforms for a Car Dealership
Each platform offers advantages, and it is important to select one that aligns with your overall marketing strategies. Also, consider the type of content you already have and what you plan on creating. Do you need a video-based platform, text, or one that can handle both? Finally, determine which platforms your competitors are using when making your decision.
Crafting Compelling Social Media Campaigns and Ads
You’ll want a dedicated team to handle your social media campaigns. If your dealership is already on social media, evaluate your existing posts. What types of posts received the highest engagement? Are there common customer questions you can answer? If you’re starting fresh, research your competitor’s profiles for popular topics.
Understanding Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is an important component of any digital marketing strategy for auto dealerships, bringing more traffic to your site. Here are a few ways your company can utilize it.
Google Ads and PPC Strategies for Car Dealerships
Target local keywords for your Google Ads and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, like the name of your city or neighborhood, so car buyers in your area will see your ads in their search results. You can also tailor your keywords based on the preferences or lifestyles of your target audience. For example, an Arizona dealership with an eco-friendly market could use the keywords “hybrid cars Phoenix.”
Utilizing Display Ads and Retargeting for Maximum ROI
Display ads are text, video, or gif-based ads that appear on third-party websites, social media channels, or apps. Tailoring these ad campaigns to groups that have previously interacted with your website helps drive conversions. Ideally, you’ll leverage existing customer data for greater insights into your audience’s behaviors, preferences, and demographics for ad targeting. Then, once your campaign is over, analyze your results and use that data to further refine your audience to increase clicks, conversions, and ROI.
Email Marketing For Car Dealerships
Automotive brands use email marketing to strengthen customer relationships, drive traffic to their website, motivate shoppers to take action, and boost sales through upselling. Your dealership can send out:
- Welcome emails introducing your company
- Promotional emails announcing new inventory or service deals
- Surveys and reviews
- Appointment reminders
- Recall information
- Monthly dealership updates
Building an Email List and Segmenting Subscribers
Build your email list by having visitors opt-in to your dealership newsletter. Once your email list is large enough, you can segment your audience by demographics, purchase history, past conversions, or other interests. This process allows you to send messages to different groups based on specific filters, like new or returning car shoppers.
Crafting Personalized Email Campaigns for Lead Nurturing
Email marketing is effective because it allows dealerships to reach out to customers more personally, encouraging engagement. Setting up automated email flows that send sequential emails to every new lead ensures new signups return to your site and eventually become buyers.
Analytics and Optimization
Your car dealership’s digital marketing strategies are in place, but how do you know they’re working? That’s where analytics comes in. Measuring and tracking key marketing metrics gives you insight into your performance, allowing you to see what’s working and which strategies need adjustment.
Tracking Key Metrics to Measure Marketing Success
To measure marketing performance, choose metrics that impact your efforts. Then, monitor your metrics over time to gauge whether your digital marketing campaigns deliver your desired results. Consider metrics such as:
Impressions
Impressions measure the number of times your content is viewed or engaged with to track awareness of advertising campaigns and organic search.
First-page Keyword Rankings
Keyword ranking indicates your SEO performance, and measuring first-page keyword rankings is essential to understanding your online presence and tracking awareness.
Social Media Engagement Metrics
Each social media platform has specific metrics to track awareness and engagement, such as likes, comments, shares, or video views per follower.
Second Stage Meetings
The second meeting your sales team has with a lead occurs after an initial meeting—like a test drive—so there’s a greater opportunity to make a sale. This is a key metric to measure and track the effectiveness of your efforts.
Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
SQLs measure the number of leads that show they’re a good fit for your products. SQLs are more likely to become customers, and an effective marketing strategy will drive more SQLs.
Deals Closed from Marketing
This metric measures the number of closed deals initiated by your marketing efforts. It shows whether you’re targeting the right audience and the effectiveness of your tactics.
Pipeline Progression
This measures the efficiency of your sales team using the average length of time it takes to move from prospect to sale.
Conversion Rate
It tracks the rate of users who take your goal action, like signing up for an offer, divided by the number of total interactions with your marketing campaign.
Value per Visit
Measures the value of your site traffic based on how visitors interact with it. To calculate this metric, divide the number of visits by the total value created.
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)
An MQL is a potential customer who’s taken a marketing-based action like commenting on a post or clicking a link. The more MQLs you have, the better your marketing performance.
Cost per Lead (CPL)
The average cost for each new lead you acquire through your marketing efforts. Calculate CPL by dividing your marketing spend by the number of new leads.
Marketing ROI
Your marketing ROI is the profit or revenue generated from a marketing campaign divided by its costs.
CLV/CAC Ratio
Your customer acquisition cost (CAC) details how much it costs your dealership to acquire a new customer. On the other hand, customer lifetime value (CLV) shows a customer’s worth to your dealership over their lifetime. The CLV/CAC ratio compares the two and is a critical measurement of your performance.
Making data-driven decisions for continuous improvement
Marketing analytics isn’t a one-time process. For best results, you need to track and evaluate marketing data continuously and use evidence and insights from it to make informed decisions.
Improving Dealership Marketing with Podium
Marketing for auto dealers involves many moving parts, from developing content to performing outreach and optimizing campaigns. Fortunately, more and more marketing tools are incorporating AI technology so you can work smarter instead of harder.
Are you interested in how these tools can boost your efforts? Try Podium’s AI BDC, which can respond to your leads faster, suggest helpful information, schedule test drives, and much more.
