Online Advertising Tools that Go Beyond Your Website

Your website is your dealership’s online headquarters, where you can manage your inventory, connect with virtual shoppers and grow your online presence, but it shouldn’t be the only real estate you leverage on the internet. It's important to diversify your online marketing strategy and branch out beyond your website platform to expand your online prominence, drive more traffic back to your website (and your dealership!) and build up your brand.

If you’re not already marketing your dealership online, you may be wondering where you should start and which tools you should use. Every dealership is different, and you can choose the digital marketing tools that will be most beneficial for your business. As a starting base, Dealer Spike offers the following insight into some of the most effective options:

Social Media 

Social media has become a key marketing tool due to the high number of consumers who use platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more to interact with brands. In fact, millennials demonstrate a strong preference for social channels over a brand’s website. To build your dealership’s prominence on social media, it's important to blend engaging organic posts that “humanize” your business with paid social ads that get your dealership in front of qualified leads.

Online Business Listings

A lot of customers use “search engine browsing” to find the information they’re looking for directly on the search engine results page without clicking on a website link. This is especially common for online users who are looking for a dealership’s location and/or contact information. By ensuring your business listings are correct and streamlined across all third-party platforms, you are actually increasing the visibility of your dealership information while helping online leads connect with your sales team.

E-Newsletter Services

E-newsletters keep your customers engaged with your dealership by providing an outlet with your latest news and promotions. With a dynamic e-newsletter tool, you can target select groups of customers based on interests and then track the clicks and conversions to determine the efficacy of your messages. Based on the data, you can optimize your content and focus on customers who are most likely to make another purchase.

Geo-Targeting

With geo-targeting, you can target online ads to specific locations, down to the zipcode, to increase the efficacy of your ad performance. This ensures that your ads are only seen by leads who can easily access your dealership, minimizing unnecessary ad spend on leads in distant locations. You can also target your ads around a competitor’s dealership so that customers who have expressed an interest in similar units will see your inventory when they browse online.

Remarketing

When an online shopper visits your website and then clicks away without making a purchase, you don’t need to chalk them up as a lost lead. Remarketing ads will show the shopper similar content to what they were searching for on your site, inviting them to return to your platform and complete the purchase.

While creating your digital marketing strategy, it's important to take note of what is and isn’t working for your dealership so that you can adjust your marketing strategies based on your customers’ needs and continue to grow your results over time. If you are eager to speak with a professional about kickstarting your marketing campaign with strategies tailored to your dealership and optimized to reach more qualified leads, we invite you to contact Dealer Spike to discuss our premium digital marketing tools. Our services are designed to benefit every dealership, and our team will work directly with you to analyze your business needs and create a strategy that drives more qualified leads to your dealership.