Smart Advertising Can Help You Weather the Potential Auto Industry Downturn
The majority of those working in the automobile sector
What authority do you have as a dealer to maintain your company’s profitability and good sales?
There are a lot of techniques at your disposal to help you run an effective marketing budget that catches as many sales as possible and ultimately outperforms the rivals in your neighborhood, even though you might not be able to influence the bigger market trends.
Creating a Killer Strategy’s Efficient Budget
Building your marketing approach around consumers who are actively shopping at the moment, especially during a market downturn, is crucial, according to our CEO Dave Spannhake. What steps does a Dealer Principal or Marketing Manager take to accomplish this?
Continue your advertising!
Even if there may be fewer consumers in the market, it’s still important for your company to be seen by anyone looking to buy a car right now. The screenshots below, for instance, depict a dealer who, over the course of a year, improved internal procedures, reduced inventory and merchandising, and improved his marketing budget to increase sales efficiency in a peaking market.
Set a goal for your marketing’s cost per vehicle sold.
What percentage of each vehicle’s purchase price can you afford to put toward advertising? Depending on your brand and market, this will change, but despite a recent industry average of roughly $650, we frequently view about $400 as a realistic cost per car sold.
We have repeatedly observed that dealers that maintain an effective budget and truly cut expenditures are able to gradually boost their sales.
Take your monthly sales goals and work your way backward to a monthly marketing spending cap.
Don’t forget to take into account any co-op reimbursement you anticipate receiving this month. (Marketing Cost Per Car Sold) * (Total Sales Objective) = Budget Cap is the formula to determine the marketing budget cap. Here’s an illustration:
Begin with a reliable website. Step 5 will go into greater detail on this. As more than 50% of traffic originates from mobile devices for the majority of the sites we administer, make sure your site is responsive or mobile-friendly before you start sending thousands of visitors there. Keep in mind that your website’s goal is to drive traffic, leads, and consumer activity like VDP views. Ensure that your website is designed to promote that behavior.
Next are SEO and SEM. It’s crucial to drive low-funnel, high-converting visitors to your website, and these two services do just that. At SimpSocial, we avoid investing in and optimizing for highly competitive, poorer-converting, and pricier generic phrases like “Ford.” We focus instead on searches that show buying intent and have been shown to convert, such as “Ford F-150 deals near me.”
appear on websites run by other parties, such as CarGurus and Cars.com. Being present wherever your buyer looks can help you win the sale because the average auto purchaser engages with 19 different digital touchpoints during their purchasing process.
Don’t be shy. Consumers frequently use social media and their phones dozens of times a day to check for changes. The key takeaway is to be where your customers are online and influence them with relevant, tailored messaging. Due to collaborations between Facebook and Polk, advertisers are able to display owners and potential buyers of certain automobiles based on a variety of data elements. Facebook also offers demographic targeting and zip code or radius targeting.
Mainstream media.
A marketing budget should include channels like email, radio, and television when it has built up the funnel from intent to stimulus. These sorts of media’s primary purpose is to pique public curiosity by appealing to large populations, frequently both inside and outside of your area of responsibility; therefore, spending money on them is fundamentally less effective than spending money on targeted digital media. Although this is frequently quite expensive, traditional channels can make sense for businesses with larger budgets and a strong brand to market.
Improve your website.
Make sure you’re maximizing those thousands of monthly visitors, as your website is where we advise sending the majority of your traffic. Keep in mind that your website’s objectives are to generate leads, display your goods, and ensure that your proper company information is easy to access.
Here are some tips for optimizing your website:
Make sure to include prices, pictures, and descriptions with your inventory. Which of the following car listings would you be interested in?
Pay attention to your phone! Mobile users seek solutions. Now. Make sure your website contains a clickable phone number in the header so you can give people what they want.
Use website chat, if so. Users can talk with you instead of filling out a form on your website thanks to services like ActivEngage. Managed chat can give clients the immediate information they need in today’s mobile-first environment while also requesting their contact information so your BDCs can follow up with them:
In conclusion, even though new vehicle sales are slightly down nationwide from last year, you have the potential to increase your market’s vehicle sales by developing a lean, efficient marketing plan and budget that are focused on low-funnel shoppers and have clear budget goals.
By having a high-performing website, a solid SEO presence, and extensive SEM campaigns, you can concentrate your efforts on clients who are most likely to make a purchase. You can then expand to other techniques as your budget permits. You will save money, sell more automobiles, and increase your market share by adhering to this straightforward plan and concentrating on success using best practices across all of the marketing channels.
For dealers wishing to revamp their digital approach, consulting is one of the most beneficial services we provide at SimpSocial. We collaborate closely with you to completely understand your company’s requirements and objectives before providing advice based on our years of successful experience in the automotive sector.
I sincerely hope you will get in touch with us for a free digital analysis.
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