As a car dealer, your bottom line hinges on two key actions: buying and selling vehicles. While the old playbook of Yellow Pages and newspaper ads might evoke simpler times, today’s digital landscape demands a more sophisticated approach. Are you truly leveraging every available tool to market your inventory effectively and stand out from the competition? You might be using online classifieds, but there’s a whole arsenal of marketing tools designed to give you greater control and amplify your dealership’s visibility.
This guide is your roadmap to mastering car dealer marketing in 2024. We’ll explore the most impactful marketing techniques, services, and marketing tools for car dealers, equipping you to navigate the evolving digital marketplace. Beyond showcasing what works, we’ll also highlight outdated methods to avoid, ensuring your marketing budget is spent wisely. Our aim is to empower you with the knowledge to choose and effectively utilize the right marketing tools for car dealers, ultimately driving your dealership to new heights.
Who is Your Guide to Car Dealer Marketing?
I’m Gary Lewis Cheetham, an automotive marketing specialist with roots in Oldham, Greater Manchester, UK. My journey in the car industry began helping my father’s dealership boost sales through website optimization and SEO strategies. This hands-on experience ignited my passion for leveraging digital marketing to propel car businesses forward.
In 2020, I founded GL Digital Automotive Marketing, dedicated to empowering dealerships with cutting-edge digital marketing solutions. My mission is to help independent dealers in both the UK and US unlock their full potential, expand their used car inventory, and achieve sustainable business growth. Having witnessed firsthand the marketing challenges car dealers face, I’m committed to providing you with actionable insights into the best marketing tools for car dealers and how to implement them for maximum impact.
Let Me Handle Your Dealership Marketing
I offer comprehensive, done-for-you marketing solutions across key platforms like Facebook, Google, and TikTok, specifically designed for car dealerships. My services focus on delivering pre-qualified sales leads – local customers with good credit, already interested in specific vehicles, making closing deals smoother and faster. Enjoy transparent, fixed monthly pricing with no long-term contracts, giving you complete flexibility.
Essential Marketing Tools for Car Dealers in 2024
The automotive industry has spawned a variety of marketing tools for car dealers, with many dealerships already utilizing at least one. While experiences and functionalities differ, here’s a rundown of some of the most prevalent options:
AutoTrader.co.uk (and Alternatives)
For many used car dealerships, AutoTrader has long been a primary sales channel. This classified ad website dominates the used car market and undeniably drives sales. However, rising fees have become a major point of contention for dealerships, who often express frustration with their reliance on the platform and its escalating costs. Despite the expense, the sales volume generated through AutoTrader generally keeps dealers engaged.
How AutoTrader Works for Dealerships:
Listing inventory on AutoTrader involves a relatively simple process:
- Dealerships create an account on AutoTrader.co.uk.
- AutoTrader presents various advertising packages at different price points, offering varying levels of visibility. Dealerships select a package that aligns with their marketing budget and goals.
- Dealers access a dedicated portal to upload, modify, and manage their vehicle listings.
While AutoTrader remains a significant player, consider exploring alternative platforms and marketing tools for car dealers to diversify your reach and potentially reduce costs.
ClickDealer (Website Platforms & SEO Concerns)
In today’s digital age, a robust online presence is paramount for car dealerships. Dealers recognize the need for easily discoverable websites on search engines like Google to capture potential customers actively searching for vehicles. This is where platforms like ClickDealer come into play, offering website solutions tailored to the automotive industry.
ClickDealer is a platform widely used by car dealerships for website management. However, it’s important to note that some dealers express concerns about the value of their “SEO packages” offered by such platforms, often citing high fees for generic content that doesn’t deliver tangible SEO benefits. While traditional SEO tactics can be complex, focusing on local SEO strategies is crucial for car dealerships, as most car buyers prioritize local options. Therefore, when evaluating marketing tools for car dealers related to website and SEO, prioritize solutions that emphasize local visibility and targeted content.
Google Business Profile: Your Free Local Marketing Powerhouse
For any business with a local focus, Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is an indispensable Marketing Tool For Car Dealers. Given that car buying is predominantly a local activity, Google Business Profile offers a free and effective way to establish your dealership’s online presence in local search results and Google Maps.
What is Google Business Profile? It’s a free Google tool that allows you to customize your business listing, controlling how it appears in search engine results pages (SERPs) and on Google Maps. Beyond basic listing information, you can showcase your inventory, share updates, and even interact directly with potential buyers. Getting started with Google Business Profile is straightforward, making it a highly accessible and impactful marketing tool for car dealers of all sizes.
Social Media Advertising: Facebook, Instagram, and Beyond
Social media platforms are integral to daily life for a vast majority of your local customer base. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and increasingly TikTok, provide powerful avenues for reaching potential car buyers. Effective advertising on social media hinges on strategic approaches tailored to each platform. While newer platforms like TikTok offer exciting possibilities, established platforms like Facebook and Instagram provide robust targeting capabilities and proven results.
Facebook advertising, in particular, offers granular targeting options, allowing dealerships to pinpoint their ideal audience based on demographics, location, interests, and online behavior, including interactions with your website or competitor pages. Instagram ads, managed through the same Facebook Ads Manager, offer similar targeting but cater to a visually driven audience. Remember that different demographics favor different social media platforms. Facebook tends to capture a broad adult audience, crucial for reaching household decision-makers for significant purchases like vehicles. Social media advertising is a vital marketing tool for car dealers looking to connect with local buyers where they spend their time online.
Are Your Car Dealer Videos Falling Flat?
Stop creating videos that get lost in the digital noise! Learn to make videos that actually drive sales with our guide on:
- Video Do’s and Don’ts: Best practices for engaging video content.
- Sales-Driving Content Ideas: Video concepts that convert viewers into customers.
- Strong Video Examples: Inspiration from successful car dealer video marketing.
Innovative Online Advertising Platforms: Expanding Your Reach
Beyond social media giants, the online landscape offers diverse platforms to capture potential car buyers. People spend significant time engaging with online media like music and videos, as well as various apps. For dealerships already maximizing social media ads, exploring innovative platforms can unlock new customer acquisition channels.
- Spotify Advertising: Spotify, the leading music streaming service, offers advertising opportunities to reach a vast audience. Crucially, advertising on Spotify targets free subscribers, as premium subscribers experience ad-free listening. Free subscribers often listen to ads to earn uninterrupted listening time. Various businesses, including car dealerships, are finding success in reaching Spotify’s engaged listener base.
- YouTube Advertising: YouTube is the dominant online video platform, used for everything from tutorials and entertainment to reviews and news. Similar to Spotify, YouTube’s free users encounter ads interrupting their content consumption. YouTube advertising presents another compelling marketing tool for car dealers seeking to explore diverse online ad formats and reach a broad audience.
Google Ads: Instant Visibility in Search Results
Think about your own Google search behavior. The very top results are typically paid advertisements – these are Google Ads.
What are Google Ads? Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising system that allows car dealerships to instantly position their ads at the top of Google search results. It’s a shortcut to achieving high visibility without relying solely on time-consuming organic SEO strategies.
Want a comprehensive guide to Google Ads for car dealers? Explore our Ultimate Guide to Google Ads for Car Dealerships
The PPC model means dealerships only pay when someone clicks on their ad, making Google Ads a highly targeted marketing tool for car dealers aiming to reach local, high-intent customers actively searching for vehicles. Through keyword targeting and location settings, Google Ads ensures your ads reach the right potential buyers at the precise moment they are looking for what you offer.
Here’s how Google Ads works for car dealers:
A potential car buyer in your area searches Google for “used Ford F-150 for sale.” If your dealership has Google Ads campaigns targeting these keywords, your ad can appear prominently at the top of the search results page, directly in front of this motivated buyer.
Effective Car Dealer Marketing Strategies
Beyond specific marketing tools for car dealers, strategic approaches are crucial for maximizing sales and inventory turnover. These strategies can be implemented using a combination of digital and traditional tools. Here are key marketing strategies for car dealerships:
Emphasize Monthly Financing Options
While car salespeople sometimes face a stereotype of being pushy, the reality is that used car dealerships often operate on relatively thin profit margins per vehicle. A significant portion of dealership revenue comes from financing options.
For in-depth guidance on this strategy, see our guide: How to Generate Finance Leads for a Car Dealership Using Facebook Ads.
Therefore, prioritize marketing strategies that highlight monthly financing plans over cash sales. Financed vehicles often yield greater long-term profitability. Allocate a larger share of your marketing budget and promotional efforts to financed vehicles, featuring them prominently in ads and listings.
Focus on Local Marketing
A significant majority of car sales – over 50% – occur within a 30-mile radius of the dealership. This underscores the importance of geographically targeted marketing for car dealers. Concentrate your marketing and advertising budgets on your local area. In addition to utilizing marketing tools for car dealers like Google Business Profile, explore local service directories to enhance your SEO and local online visibility.
When running advertising campaigns on platforms like Facebook, refine your targeting to a roughly 30-mile radius around your dealership. This ensures your advertising spend is focused on reaching customers within your primary service area.
Simplify Your SEO Approach
Digital marketing specialists often make SEO seem overly complex. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essentially about improving your website’s ranking in search engine results.
However, for car dealerships, SEO can be simplified. The most crucial SEO step is to effectively utilize Google Business Profile, ensuring local customers can easily find you online. This local focus is often sufficient for car dealership SEO.
For a comprehensive guide to car dealer SEO, read our article: SEO For Car Dealerships: Everything You Need to Know.
Outdated Marketing Methods for Car Dealerships in 2024
While digital marketing dominates, some traditional offline advertising methods remain effective. However, certain outdated approaches are no longer relevant, particularly for car dealerships.
Paper-Based Advertising: Flyers and Newspaper Ads
In the past, flyers and newspaper ads were standard marketing tools for car dealers. However, print newspaper readership has drastically declined. UK national newspaper circulation dropped by over 50% between 2010 and 2018. As news consumption shifts online, car dealership marketing must follow suit. Investing in print newspaper advertising is now largely ineffective and a misallocation of marketing resources.
Traditional Television Commercials
While traditional TV isn’t declining as rapidly as print media, changing viewing habits diminish the effectiveness of TV commercials. DVRs and streaming services like Netflix allow viewers to skip commercials or avoid them altogether. Streaming services, increasingly popular, often eliminate commercials entirely.
Automotive commercials are expensive to produce, and their impact is significantly reduced when viewership is fragmented and many viewers actively avoid them. For car dealerships, directing marketing budgets towards digital channels offers a far greater return on investment than traditional television advertising.
GL Digital Marketing: Your Partner in Dealership Success
The most effective marketing strategy for car dealerships involves a blend of the digital tactics outlined above. GL Digital Automotive Marketing partners with dealerships to create seamless car buying and selling experiences through user-friendly online forms, targeted Facebook Ads, and strategic Google Ads campaigns. We handle the complexities of digital marketing, allowing you to concentrate on the core operations of your dealership. Discover more about our digital marketing solutions for the auto trade.
