How Effective is Your Digital Marketing Strategy?

In the new age of online car sales, your digital marketing is more important than ever, and increasingly so. In fact, traditional marketing like radio spots, TV ads, and billboards, generate just $1,702 in profit per vehicle sold, while digital marketing generates $2,514 per vehicle sold. As your dealership delves into the new age of automotive marketing, ask yourself the following questions to gauge the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy.  

1. What does your digital traffic say about your SEO?  

If your digital traffic has slowed, you may not be doing enough to connect with your target audience. Custom content like blog posts, news articles, vehicle pages, and more can make your website more relevant and return search results for in-market shoppers. Partner with a proven team of SEO experts to optimize your SEO strategy for local search and enhance your site’s visibility.  

2. Does your campaign creative attract quality customers?  

The quality of your digital traffic is just as important as the quantity, if not more important. If few of your website visitors are turning into actual leads, you have may have a problem with the type of customers you’re attracting. Speak directly to your target audience by delivering compelling, strategic campaign creative every month. Review your creative often to ensure that your campaigns are performing to expectations and evolving to meet needs of your customers. 

3. What’s your dealership’s digital reputation?  

Customers sometimes say the darndest things, and your online audience is listening. For better and for worse, customers are persuaded and dissuaded from shopping at your dealership after reading online reviews. Make sure your dealership has a comprehensive review and response plan. Cultivate a steady stream of positive customer reviews and a plan for dealing with the negative ones promptly. Doing so will help you leverage your reviews as a viable marketing tool to boost sales and bottom line. 

4. What does your website say about your dealership?  

You can drive all the traffic to your dealership’s website that you want, if your customers don’t like what they see when they get there, it doesn’t really matter. An overwhelming 76.5% of people say that the look and credibility of a website are among the top factors in deciding to make a purchase. Make sure that your website content is aligned with your overall digital marketing strategy by keeping your creative and content consistent with what’s actually on your site.  

Automotive marketing is evolving. Is your dealership’s digital strategy evolving too? To learn more about how you can keep your digital marketing strategy up-to-date, see our checklist Modern Marketing for Modern Dealers.  

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Give Your Customers Confidence in the Car Buying Process

More and more car buyers are looking for contactless or remote car buying and servicing options. In response to continued reluctance among some consumers to visit the dealership, most dealers (81% of them) now offer a variety of these conveniences.

To help you communicate these capabilities at a critical moment in the digital car-buying journey, Dealer.com has built a customizable new widget that allows your dealership to 1) address your customers’ safety concerns and 2) ensure confidence in the car buying process, right on your digital point-of-sale—the VDP.

By promoting your home services availability and capabilities right on your VDPs, you can build confidence in consumers who are ready to make a decision to move forward with their purchase or lease.

The Digital Point of Sale

The VDP is a pivotal decision point in the car buying journey where a shopper takes that next step—either by submitting a lead, a credit app, or some other retailing activity. It’s also the point where they decide to hold off.  Given the number of shoppers who remain reluctant to visit a dealership, the right information about your home services offerings could make or break that decision.

Knowing that your dealership offers at-home test drives, virtual vehicle walkarounds, and home-delivered vehicles can help many customers overcome a major hurdle in these times—fear.

A Full Suite of Home Services Marketing Tools

As the customer buying journey evolves, we’re here to act as your own personal automotive advertising agency to help you promote your dealership’s home services. Our new VDP widget is our latest effort to actively support your dealership advertising and cater to the preferences of millions of automotive consumers looking for contactless sales and service options.

As you continue to build your home services offerings, let us help you showcase them and stay connected to shoppers in your community. Ask your Dealer.com Performance Manager how to activate this feature on your inventory pages, and customize it based on your services.