A Beginner’s Guide to Automotive Marketing

When it comes to car dealerships, you might find yourself being mostly focused on how to sell a car to a customer. There is more than meets the eye when marketing for automotive companies. It isn’t just about selling the fancy 2022 car, it’s about the marketing behind the scenes. You need good writers, blogs, search engine optimization for your website, and more marketing tricks to reach a wide audience. After all, you won’t have any customers coming in if they didn’t know you existed beforehand.

With the auto industry being one of the biggest operations in the United States according to current trends, there is a lot of competition between car dealerships as well as many choices to go about marketing. This can make things complicated and stressful for auto marketing. How do you break them all down when there are so many to choose from? 

Don’t worry, we have your back. Marketing can be an overwhelming process in this day and age with so many different online opportunities. In this article, we will go over a beginner’s guide to automotive marketing. You’ll be bypassing your competitors in no time!

automotive marketing

Have an Online Presence

With the digital age and the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a shift in auto marketing with more people are buying cars online, which means you have to have a better online presence. 

Before we get into more on automotive advertising and its digital shift, let’s talk about having an online presence in general. Having a successful online presence is more than just being online. It is being on multiple platforms, engaging in two-way communication with your audiences, and always evaluating your performance. When you have two-way communication with your audience, you are improving your automotive marketing strategies. With two-way communication, car dealerships are willing to take criticism, be truthful, and hold themselves accountable for their work. Having an online presence also helps with search engine optimization. 

Search Engine Optimization 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing tool used by many businesses to bring their website to the top of search engine result pages. This can be incorporated into content through various strategies including content creation, keywords, internal links, local SEO (which we will talk more about later), and more. SEO is important for automotive marketing because dealerships will want to do all they can to find a wider digital audience, and with SEO, they can. 

Having a Successful Marketing Strategy

Having a successful marketing strategy is important for keeping in touch with your audience through the rise of the digital age. Effective marketing means you will be able to connect with more customers and have new leads, rising above your competitors.

Automotive Marketing

Automotive marketing is marketing for the vehicle industry. This can be through mechanics, manufacturers, resale companies, dealerships, parts retailers, technicians, and detailers. There are many different forms of business when it comes to vehicles. 

Effective marketing is specifically important for automotive dealerships because, with the extreme competition, it will help you better connect with your customers to show what is different about you versus rival dealerships. 

beginners guide to automotive marketing

How to Market for Automotive Dealerships

There are many different ways to market for the automotive industry. While word-of-mouth through the community is very useful for car dealerships, digital marketing is a necessity. With several different platforms at your disposal, you’ll want to make use of as many as you can. 

Let’s talk about a starting point for beginners: websites, social media, blogs, and content creation. These different strategies are effective in starting out your marketing. Once you have been marketing for a while, results will show and you will be able to evaluate your performance in order to improve later on. Marketing becomes easier as you go. 

Website

The first step to making your auto marketing thrive online is to create a website. Websites give your company a space to provide basic information while also making your business your own. Create different pages on the website that hold key information along with unique graphics and personalized content. The more content you have on your website, the better.

Content creation

Make sure you are prepared with writers for the creation of your content. Whether it is you or a hired writing team, it is important to ensure that you have enough support to constantly create content and keep your website updated. 

Social Media

People come from various places online because different people use different platforms. In the automotive industry, you’ll want to reach a variety of people with different needs. Make yourself accessible to a wide audience by making profiles on all of the popular social media apps: like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and even TikTok. The more platforms, the better. 

Blogs

One way to constantly be keeping your website up to date is through blogs, which are very important for automotive marketing. Automotive blogs will bring interest to your site and make it thrive. Make sure to come up with a calendar for your blogs to hold yourself accountable for posting frequently. The more organized you are, the more likely you will be successful in reaching your automotive customers.  

automotive industry marketing

Tips for an Effective Marketing Platform for Automotive Facilities

When incorporating successful automotive advertising strategies, it is important to look beyond the technical aspect of which platforms to use and how to use them. It is also important to look at the emotional aspect. Do you care about your community? Do you care about the quality of your business? Show this through your marketing and have a bigger impact on your audience. 

Keep these tips in mind when marketing for cars:

  • Get to know your community. Since lots of people will be traveling locally to find a car, you’ll want to have a positive relationship with your community. 
  • Incorporate local SEO for your dealerships. Local SEO is just like traditional SEO, but with localization. Localization can be incorporated by using keywords that have a location, appealing to your community’s demographics through content, and more. This will help car dealerships be more in touch with their community. 
  • Focus on relationships and building trust. People don’t want to get their cars with a company that isn’t trustworthy. After all, a car is one of the most expensive purchases someone will make in their lifetime. Build your credibility and make it known. 
  • Pay attention to customer reviews. This is especially important for automotive marketing because people are likely going to leave reviews about you on Yelp, Google, and various social media platforms. When you have bad reviews, you want to respond and make sure they get addressed. When you have good reviews, you want to display those proudly to the world by putting them in newsletters, ads, and even a blog about success stories. The opportunities with reviews are endless and to be taken seriously. 

automotive marketing guide

SEO Design Chicago and Automotive Marketing in Sacramento

Need an agency to help you with automotive marketing? Look no further, SEO Design Chicago is the place for you.

SEO Design Chicago is a marketing agency that has grown into one of the best digital marketing companies in the country today. We specialize in SEO of all areas, specifically Automotive marketing. SEO Design Chicago has had experience working with automotive clients across the country and in Canada for over ten years, so we are well-versed in helping your company thrive. Knowing what has worked well in the past, we have certain strategies we recommend using: such as pay-per-click Marketing, Facebook advertising, LinkedIn marketing, and content creation. 

We know you take your marketing for cars very seriously. Even though our recommendations are based on previous successes, we know that each company is unique. That’s why we incorporate an in-depth analysis of your website before anything else. We want to get to know you so that we can take the proper steps to help make your brand flourish. 

We are a virtual marketing agency with staff located around the United States, so we are flexible when it comes to location. Our skilled staff specializes in Sacramento SEO, where we are the best digital marketing company. Whether you need a full-service or short-term PPC campaign, we are here to help. Our marketing solutions will bring you to the top. We are experts in our craft and will have your back with any automotive marketing needs you may have.  

FAQ:

  • What are some tips for automotive marketing?
  • What is search engine optimization?
  • How can car dealerships improve their marketing strategy?
  • What is automotive marketing?
  • Should car dealerships use blogs to market their business?

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