Car Dealership Digital Marketing
It’s age old wisdom that “shopping around” is a must when it comes to purchasing a car. Prospective buyers who were smart, would go from car dealership to car dealership is search of the best deals. This was seemingly the only way to make sure that you were getting the best deal. However, today’s car buyer acts much differently than those of the recent past. Today, prospective car buyers make their decisions in the same way they would approach shopping for products such as shoes, shirts and accessories. Nowadays, it is almost guaranteed that car buyers “shop around” online before walking into a dealership. Therefore, the online impression of a car dealership must reflect the wants and needs of the new age car buyer if they want to convert to a walk-in lead. This is why it so crucial for car dealerships to improve their digital marketing and SEO.
Why Car Dealership Digital Marketing Is So Important
The digital age has made online purchasing so secure that brands like Tesla are structuring their whole business model around online ordering. In the near future, most brands will make it possible for you to complete the entire car purchase online. For years now, we have been able to customize the design, color, trim, model, and more using online tools from car brand and car dealership websites. These trends are leading more and more people to spend their time “shopping around” for cars–– online. According to Autotrader, car buyers spend 59% of their time researching online. Typically, people trust the information they find online more than they trust a car salesman.
Furthermore, most car buyers are undecided when they start the shopping process. Many have little brand loyalty and simply want the best deal. Moreover, car buyers have even less or no loyalty to car dealerships. In a scenario with two Volvo dealerships, most buyers would purchase from the Volvo dealership in the next town over if they had a better deal there than at the Volvo in their own town. The power of online shopping makes this even easier, which is why car dealerships have to implement very strategic integrated digital marketing campaigns if they want to beat out the competition.
What is Car Dealership Digital Marketing
In any marketing campaign it is so important to be seamless and succinct in order to yield the greatest impact on customers and other stakeholders. A marketing campaign should be very clearly integrated and have a common theme and message on all of its content. Digital Marketing is no different; and nowadays, all good marketing campaigns include digital content which should seamlessly integrate with all the other content in the campaign. All the same goes for car dealership digital marketing. A car dealership’s non-digital marketing efforts should be very clearly integrated with their digital efforts in order to create a holistic campaign.
Digital Marketing for car dealerships should include the use of social media advertising (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest), web design, blogging, Google AdWords, search engine optimization, video advertising, influencers and other viral approaches. Social media advertising can be very crucial to broaden your reach and increase brand awareness and trustworthiness of your car dealership. This is especially true when you align your dealership with social media influencers. The web design of your car dealership is also very important. Most users visit a new web page for less than 10 to 15 seconds. Therefore, grabbing their attention quickly is so important. If the design of the page isn’t appealing–– people will leave. If the user interface is difficult–– people will leave. If they don’t see options to find what they want quickly–– people will leave.
Furthermore, blogging, Google AdWords and SEO are more useful tools for car dealerships to use in order to promote themselves. The integration of these tools will aid in making it easier for potential customers to find you. The level of competition and buyer fluidness make it extremely difficult for car dealerships to secure loyal customers. Therefore, you need to make it possible for customers to find you first, before they find the competition. Increasing your SEO using consistent blogging and Google AdWords will help optimize your online webpages. In doing this, your webpages will pop-up more frequently in search engine result pages. (SERPs).
Car Dealership Digital Marketing Campaign Content
Check out some great digital marketing content that car dealerships in the area have successfully implemented. Volvo brands itself as the safest car on the road. So it comes as no surprise that they are very popular with families. Typically, the mother of the household has a lot of power in big buying decisions. We found out that 1 out of every 3 customers at Volvo Cars of Santa Monica were moms or expecting moms. Therefore, creating campaign content around mothers was perfectly fitting to yield a great ROI. This Mother’s Day ad reached over 18,000 people on Facebook.
Another example of some great digital marketing content is with the use of an influencer, Morgan Harvill. This Instagram post is an example of a brand collab with Fiat of Santa Monica. This post received about 17,000 likes and certainly reached a whole lot more Instagram accounts. Morgan has 334k followers on Instagram. Influencers can have a strong impact on potential customers because they are perceived as trustworthy. They are seen as separate from the brand; and therefore, people see their endorsement as a positive review of the brand.
Car Dealership Digital Marketing at Vivid Candi
At Vivid Candi, you can be assured that we know how to spot consumer trends, buying habits, wants, and needs. We have done it before, and we will continue to do it again for our existing and future clients. The campaign content displayed above was from our own digital marketing campaigns for some of our car dealership clients. At Vivid Candi, we enhance and promote car dealership online presence, allowing our clients to reach wider audiences within their carefully segmented target market(s), which we help define through test marketing and scaling measurable results. As a full service digital agency, we will not only help your car dealership join the digital age, but thrive within it.
