Your dealership has probably been online for years. In fact, it’s probably hard to remember a time when you didn’t have a digital presence. But if you’re like many dealerships, using online marketing to generate leads might sometimes feel like blindly throwing darts at a board.
These days, it’s not enough to just be online. You need to have a data-backed strategy, and you have to execute that plan with precision. Here are three ways you can boost your strategy and improve its execution:
Dig Into the Data
It’s hard to build a strategy for anything without knowing what you’re up against. In the case of marketing, knowing your strongest lead sources and which ones actually lead to conversions are key components to developing a good plan.
For example, if a paid search term is generating a lot of traffic but you can’t tie that traffic to conversions, you could be making an expensive mistake. Paying to promote a general search term like “Chevrolet Corvette” might get you a lot of hits from people researching Corvettes who aren’t necessarily in a position to buy.
Be sure you have a method of tracking lead sources so you can tie those leads to conversions. If a campaign isn’t generating qualified leads, you’ll know what sources to avoid in the future.
Refresh Your Website
A Website with lots of animations and sounds might be an attention grabber, but it also eats up bandwidth and slows down the browsing experience. Plus, if a customer can’t easily find what they’re looking for, they’ll hit the “back” button and find a different dealership.
Also, be sure you’re keeping your inventory pages updated with your current stock and fresh images of the real cars on your lot, rather than manufacturer-provided stock photos.
Hit Your Targets
Social media is all the rage in dealer circles. However, while I’m a big proponent of using social media as a brand-building tool, there’s one aspect of social media you might not be taking advantage of: using social media to place highly targeted advertisements and promoted posts in front of interested buyers.
With information gathered by search engine traffic and social media activity, targeted social media ads help you make sure the right people are seeing advertisements for your dealership or your specific cars. You can even target prospects based on age, income level and location. Remember those Corvettes I mentioned? A targeted ad can put your latest listing in front of a qualified buyer who’s wanted one for years and might finally pull the trigger.
The important thing to remember is that the Internet is always evolving. How people use it and what gets their attention changes regularly. Your competitors will leave you in the dust if you don’t stay on top of your online marketing. How have you shored up your digital presence lately? Email me and tell me how you did it.
