Marketing to the new age of consumers is changing all the time and dealerships must adapt to generate leads and maintain customers. Here are strategies your dealership can start implementing today.

Customer Reviews

When a possible customer is in the market for purchasing a new car one of the first parts in the consumer journey funnel is seeking reviews. Reviews from previous customers or clients are integral to the success of closing a deal, people seek to trust in the service and the product and the best way to achieve this is by having previous customers detail their favourite parts about their experience when it comes to your dealership or employees.

Google SERP Ranking

According to Kenshoo, 70% of consumers researching cars turn to search engines first. Ensuring your dealership is ranking high amongst Google searches is key to developing leads. Here are some pointers to utilize to achieve your desired ranking:

• Maintain a Google Ads account and ensure it is structured to have 15-20 highly effective keywords per ad group.
• Ensure you are utilizing negative keywords; these are important because they narrow down your results to have your consumers find exactly what they are looking for.
• Allocate your budget and use testing to prioritize keywords and ads that your specific target audience is searching for.

Some bonus tips for SEO are to tap into different search engines such as Bing which maintains a more mature population compared to Google, according to WordStream . Also ensure you are looking into local SEO to ensure people in your geographic location know of your business.

Adjust Campaigns for Car Buying Trends

Buying trends are very prevalent in the automotive industry and ensuring you are aware of these trends that consumers use is important. A good tool to use is google analytics to view consumer habits including time, dates and seasons that consumers enter your website or make buying decisions. Click Here to get the 6 best times to buy a car report published on CNBC.

This tip will take full advantage of ad spending because you will have a better understanding of when consumers are interested.

Targeting Your Audience with The Correct Campaigns

Depending on your dealership’s brand or make you have different target audiences not solely based on price but also specifications and what the vehicle has or offers. This means that you have to narrow down your ad campaigns to align with the target market for your specific audience. If you have a budget vehicle that has features the younger generation may have an interest in then you find out what audience is on what platforms, figure out the keywords this demographic is searching for, what date and time are they more likely to search and many more.

A target audience is not limited to a brand name or average price of a brand’s vehicles but can also be narrowed depending on the vehicle or incentive your company is offering.

Here are some statistics for audiences and what platforms they use provided by Sprout Social, Get the full report here.

• Facebook demographics
  • Highest Age group: 25-30 years old 84%
    • Gender usage Female & Male: 75% Female, 63% Male
      • Highest income bracket: 74% making more than 75k use Facebook
    • Instagram Demographics
      • Highest Age group: 75% of 18- 24-year old’s use Instagram
        • Gender usage Female & Male: 43% Female, 31% Male
          • Highest Income bracket: 42% making more than 75K
        • Twitter demographics
          • Highest Age group: 44% 18-24
            • Gender usage Female & Male: 21% Female, 24% Male
              • Highest income bracket: 31% making more than 75K
            • YouTube demographics
              • Highest Age group: 93% of 25-30
                • Gender usage Female & Male: 68% Female, 78% Male
                  • Highest income bracket: 83% making more than 75K

 You can research the different platforms to ensure you are campaigning on the platform that targets your audience in the best light.

Some bonus tips to improve the reach to your audience:

• Seek out a professional photography setup that includes 3D imaging to provide a virtual tour of your dealership. This could be a very effective method in the future that allows consumers to view vehicles and the dealership through the comfort of their own homes.
• Use video platforms such as YouTube and Instagram TV to display model comparisons for your dealership.
• Interact on social media, your audience wants real-time engagement and conversations so ensuring you are on par with conversations can increase engagement and generate leads.

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