Customers buy cars differently now…
Whether it’s a new car or a preowned vehicle, people now turn to the internet to find what they need. Instead of looking in a phone book or newspaper, modern consumers pull out their phone and run a quick search for terms like “best car dealers near me” or “where to buy a car”.
Unable to customize your website? Frustrated because it takes weeks to change things on your site? Can’t figure out why your website doesn’t rank well on Google?
Let us set you up for success with the right automotive SEO agency services and tune-up your marketing and sales machine for vehicles. The world of SEO and digital marketing as a whole is complex and potentially overwhelming, but our automotive marketing specialists can help you through the whole process.
Just look at what we’ve done for Bentley of Bellevue. They’re now able to update VDPs, run dynamic advertising as their inventory changes, and their digital automotive marketing manager receives unlimited technical support from us.
Take a look at Kirkland RV or this automotive PPC case study. We’ve helped them grow sales by over 3,000% and integrate into local vehicle inventories through our custom API.
Also, consider checking out the other industries we serve like RV Dealers.
The bottom line is that at Fannit, we get results for our clients in the automotive industry. Successful online car marketing requires an organized approach and constant monitoring. Our team can help you take care of this part of your business so that you can focus on what you do best — getting sales from the people that walk in through the front door.
What is Online Automotive Marketing?
The automotive industry relies on physical customers to close more than 90% of their sales. However, because people are now looking for businesses way before visiting the physical store, automotive marketers need to stay ahead of the game and reach out to consumers at the right time.
Online automotive marketing is the process of promoting the cars, services, and products you have available on the internet. A solid online automotive marketing plan should include a variety of techniques that help increase your visibility and allow you to stand out from the competition.
There are many different online automotive marketing approaches you can opt for, but search engine optimization (SEO) has become the golden standard among automotive marketers that want to reach potential customers at a local level.
Automotive Organic Search Marketing
Simply creating a website and slapping on your contact information is not nearly enough to land you a top spot on Google and other search engines. The good news is that automotive SEO marketing can help you get better results from your automotive website.
Automotive SEO is an umbrella term that describes the steps you take to improve your organic search engine rankings.
When a potential customer runs a search for a new car or used vehicle on Google and other search engines, he or she is relying on these results to show the top companies in their area. Automotive SEO allows you to connect with these prospects by making sure that the structure, keywords, and other elements in your site meet the requirements to get your site on Google’s first page.
This is important because at least 75% of all online organic clicks go to pages on Google’s first page, so it’s the only way to engage a significant portion of your audience.
There are many factors that affect your website’s ranking on search engine results pages. These can be divided into on-page and off-page SEO ranking factors.
On-Page Automotive SEO
On-Page SEO is a term used to describe the code, content, and other elements that make up your website. Search engines like Google employ pieces of software called crawlers, which are in charge of analyzing your website and figuring out what it’s about. On-page SEO focuses on the elements that crawlers use to rank your site, including meta tags, written content, images, page loading speed, and other variants.
Off-Page Automotive SEO
In addition to your page’s elements, Google also monitors social networks, review sites, and local directories in order to determine how relevant you are to each user’s search. Needless to say, this will also help search engines figure out where they should rank your site, so monitoring these off-page elements is also an automotive marketing job that needs to be taken care of.
All the different data and pieces of information that you can’t manage directly, but still affect your rankings, make up off-page SEO.
Benefits of Automotive Marketing for Auto Dealers
Now that we’ve gone over the definition of automotive search engine optimization and automotive marketing, let’s take a look at the benefits that these two can bring to companies in the auto industry.
Some of the advantages of marketing your dealership through digital channels include:
Develop a Custom Car Dealer Organic Search Strategy
There are dozens of automotive marketing jobs that need to be carried out for your digital strategy to work. In addition to being familiar with the type of car or vehicle you sell, your automotive marketers should also develop a tailored approach that takes your specific goals into consideration.
A customer marketing plan is important because promoting your services is a unique practice. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so you need to carefully assess your current standing as well as your resources in order to find the areas of improvement that will have the biggest impact.
Guide Customers Through the Buyer’s Journey
Your customers go through a process called the buyer’s journey before making each purchase. This process can be relatively long in the auto industry because cars and other vehicle types are more expensive than smaller items.
For this reason, your promotion plan needs to focus on the buyer’s journey and identify ways to gently usher leads down your sales funnel until they become paying customers. You should also develop a plan that helps you delight existing customers in order to drum up referrals or repeat business.
Get Better Search Engine Rankings
The main goal of marketing your dealership online is to get more business. With 3 out of every 4 users choosing companies on the first page of search engine results pages, the only way to reel in customers is to get better rankings.
A good automotive SEO plan will allow you to gradually reach the top positions of search engine results, which should funnel more visitors to your site.
More Web Traffic and Be Prepared for It
Simply putting your address, phone number, and pictures of your cars on your website is not enough to transform visitors into new customers. Your site should be fast, attractive, and most importantly, functional. Not only this, but a good automotive marketing plan ensures you have contact forms strategically placed through your site and that your servers are powerful enough to handle a surge in traffic.
All of these may seem trivial to automotive marketers who have not implemented a solid online strategy, but these are the areas that make a difference to the number of leads you generate on your site.
Higher Number of Leads
Leads in the automotive industry work slightly differently than other specialties. Instead of looking for online purchases, automotive companies rely on automotive digital marketing strategies that bring more people through the front door. A well-crafted automotive marketing plan allows you to get more leads from your website because it’s designed to engage with users at key stages of their decision-making process.
In addition to contact forms, you should also produce useful content that your potential clients can use during their search for a new car or vehicle. For instance, you can create checklists that help people find the best car or guides on what to look for when purchasing a new vehicle.
Your automotive marketing plan can help you determine which resources to produce and how to distribute them among your potential clients.
Improve Your Branding Strategy
Having a good automotive branding strategy can help you get more clients, but you also need to ensure that your business identity is the same across all platforms. A solid automotive marketing plan will help you visualize the different channels you’ve used as well as the techniques you’re about to implement, so you can ensure that your brand’s message and appearance remains the same throughout.
In addition to branding, a good internet marketing plan will also help verify that all the data found on the web is accurate and up-to-date.
Monitor Online Reputation
Local directories and review sites are common tools that consumers use when purchasing a new or used vehicle. By developing a comprehensive automotive marketing plan, you can set aside time and resources to monitor these platforms and ensure that you have a good reputation.
Learn More About Your Target Audience
Although many dealership owners feel like they know their audience, promoting your automotive company through online channels can reveal a huge amount of information about their clientele. In addition to selling more cars, savvy automotive marketers can also identify the patterns that help up-sell and cross-sell additional products as well.
Better ROI Than Traditional Forms of Automotive Digital Advertising
While it’s almost impossible to track your return-on-income (ROI), automotive digital marketing channels can help you measure how much money you get from your advertising dollars. Additionally, the ROI from online promotion campaigns is much higher than conventional means that rely on quantity rather than quality.
Become a Thought Leader
Becoming a thought leader in the auto industry may be challenging, but a good strategy should help you establish yourself among the most knowledgeable companies. In order to get the credibility, you need to develop valuable content that informs your users while also highlighting the benefits of choosing your dealership over the competitors.
Track & Adjust Your Automotive Marketing Campaigns for Performance
One of the biggest benefits of online promotion strategies is the ability to track and adjust your campaign. Conventional automotive advertising methods force automotive marketers to shoot in the dark and hope they can resonate with consumers. In the online world, you’re able to track information like the number of new cars you sell, the amount of leads you generate, and how much it’s costing you, among other data.
With this information, you can improve the way you market the cars you sell and attract more people through the front door. This takes out all the guesswork and allows you to hone in on the best performing parts of your promotion plan based on real data.
Reel in More Referrals and Recurring Business
As with most local companies, referrals and recurring business are one of the biggest sources of income for most car lots. The best SEO plans focus on keeping clients happy even after the sale so that they send more prospects your way and come back whenever they need a new car themselves.
What Additional Practices Support Your Automotive Digital Marketing Efforts?
In addition to Automotive SEO, there are other online promotion techniques that can bolster the performance of your entire marketing machine. At Fannit, we help our clients in the automotive industry by developing a wholesome approach that includes a combination of the best tactics available.
Content Marketing
All solid automotive SEO plans should include a content strategy. In most cases, this means creating a blog and consistently producing quality articles, images, videos, and other elements that showcase your expertise in the automotive retail business. Focusing on content isn’t only a branding strategy either, it’s a genuine source of leads that can be as good as paid advertising
PPC
Pay-per-click or PPC advertising platforms like Google allow you to place ads in search engine results, news feeds, and other areas in order to push more sales. As with most retail businesses, many companies in the car dealership industry use PPC as a source of immediate income while their new SEO campaign kicks-off.
Social Media
The sheer nature of social networks makes them one of the best places for car lots to get sales. Besides being highly interactive, social channels also allow rating of products, sharing of information through rich media, and other actions that increase engagement while increasing your chances of getting new clients.
Email Marketing
Although many regard email as an outdated form of promotion, savvy marketers can still build effective sequences that get sales for your dealership. Emails are not only good for sharing deals, but they also provide enough space to feature in-depth content about industry trends and other pieces of information that encourage clients to complete more sales.
Reputation and Local Directory Management
To succeed in the automotive industry, you have to have a good reputation. However, users can now turn to the internet’s many rating sites and local directories to share their experiences, so automotive dealers have to monitor a wide variety of channels to maintain a pristine reputation.
Five Great Moments to Target with Your Automotive Digital Marketing Strategy
All clients are different, but you can start identifying certain purchase patterns once you study your audience for long enough. In the automotive industry, clients’ decision-making processes are usually more prolonged, but this gives you more chances to connect with your leads at different moments.
Some examples of great moments to target in your online promotion campaign include instances like:
Car Comparing
One of the very first things consumers do before when purchasing a vehicle is compare the different options available. This is the stage where prospects decide information like the type of vehicle they’re looking for, their budget, and when they would like to have their new vehicle by.
Car Selecting
After deciding on the features they want and comparing a few models, people start looking for a more specific vehicle. By creating automotive content that targets consumers in this stage, like car reviews, you can throw in your name and vehicle inventory into the conversation.
Deciding on Price Range
People looking for an automotive dealership may be flexible with their budget depending on what type of deal they’re offered. While most buyers have an ideal price range, you can reach out during this stage and offer information that makes your dealership stand out of the pack.
Deciding on Where to Purchase From
Potential clients on the final stages of the automotive buyer’s journey is not necessarily an easy task, especially due to the amount of stiff competition you face. Targeting users who have already gone through most of the decision-making process requires a lot of skill, but this technique can produce outstanding results.
Determining If the Deal is Really a Deal
Potential clients are always trying to justify their purchase, even when they’re about to drive out of an automotive dealer in a top of the line model. Your clients will do things like research competitor prices on their phones while they’re in your shop to ensure they’re getting a deal, so use this to your advantage and reinforce that idea.
Custom Automotive Marketing Solutions at Fannit
At Fannit, we provide a full range of automotive promotion services that help local dealerships connect with their most important audiences. Our custom services for automotive can include a variety of techniques that improve the performance of your site and help ensure that you have the best possible setup.
For instance, our online promotion specialists can use methods like:
- Automotive Local SEO
- PPC Management
- Custom website
- Car inventory API
- Dynamic Facebook marketing
- 24/7 Concierge Services
- Photography and social media promotion
If you want to learn more information about our automotive marketing services, contact us today and our team will be glad to help.