The question “What is automotive marketing?” should pique your interest as an automotive business owner. Why? You need to implement an effective marketing strategy to gain popularity and a competitive edge.
95% of consumers start their journey online before visiting a physical store. So, if you want potential customers to find your automotive company online, you must take automotive marketing seriously. But note that automotive marketing can be traditional or digital marketing tactics.
Here, we’ll explain the meaning of automotive marketing and marketing strategies that can help you drive sales. Read on!
What is automotive marketing?
Automotive marketing involves strategies deployed by automotive businesses to attract potential customers. With an effective automotive marketing strategy, a car dealership, auto repair professional, car wash or accessories business can make it a breeze for potential customers to find and patronize the business.
Automotive marketing involves both traditional and digital marketing strategies. However, online marketing has become the most preferred and effective marketing method in this digital age.
Digital marketing is convenient, and you can reach a broader audience. You can even reach audiences you never thought existed or never would have reached if you were using traditional marketing strategies.
Automotive SEO Marketing Methods
We mentioned that automotive marketing can be traditional or digital marketing techniques. However, people focus more on digital because it brings better ROI and won’t consume more funds or energy like traditional marketing methods.
Additionally, digital marketing is less stressful and more effective. You can reach a broader audience within a short space of time.
So, our major focus will be on digital marketing strategies. Without further ado, here are the various digital marketing techniques automotive companies can implement to drive sales.
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Paid advertising (PPC)
- Influencer marketing
- Content marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Video Marketing
All these are effective marketing strategies. They can help your automotive company reach a broader audience and generate more sales.
But then, SEO is the most important of all the strategies. It is cost-effective, and easy to implement.
Billions of people surf the internet daily, and hundreds of potential car buyers are probably searching for a car dealership like yours in your location.
With SEO, you can improve your online presence and get qualified organic traffic. As you know, organic search has a higher click-through and conversion rate than other marketing methods.
The Benefits of Adopting Digital Marketing As Your Automotive Marketing Strategy
Digital marketing is an important marketing channel every automotive business should prioritize. With digital marketing, you can reach a new audience and achieve your marketing goals with ease.
72% of businesses’ marketing budgets are allocated to digital marketing channels. That is because many businesses have realized that online marketing is their best bet to achieve their marketing and sales goals.
Let’s discuss how digital marketing can transform your automotive company.
1: Improve organic search ranking with SEO:
You can rank high in organic search results by implementing effective SEO plans. SEO involves keyword research, content creation, link-building, local SEO and others.
An effective SEO strategy adheres to SEO best practices. In this case, you are following Google’s rules.
Search engine optimization involves making your automotive company’s website user-friendly and search-engine-friendly. In other words, Google crawlers will be able to crawl and index your website with ease, while users will have positive experiences on your website.
A Handy Tip: SEO is one of the most effective online marketing strategies that can transform your automotive organization’s fortune. However, you must adhere to SEO best practices and implement an effective SEO plan.
On the other hand, SEO is complex and time-consuming. It’s also quite demanding. By the way, you have to audit your website, analyze competitors, place your keywords strategically in the content, build backlinks, add your business to local listings, and more.
Furthermore, when implementing your SEO tactics, you must do it right. You must have in-depth knowledge of SEO and some level of experience. Mistakes like keyword cannibalization, keyword stuffing, and poor-quality backlinks, can put your website’s rankings at risk.
For these reasons, hiring an SEO expert will be a great idea. You’ll have enough free time to focus on other aspects of your company that require attention, while the search engine marketing experts ensure you are getting the help you need to succeed online.
Automotive SEO Services have been helping auto dealerships, car rentals, auto repairs, and accessories businesses of all sizes and shapes for over a decade. Contact us if you need help optimizing your website to improve search rankings and lead generation.
2: You can generate more leads via digital marketing:
You can acquire more organic traffic and generate leads through digital marketing strategies like search engine optimization (SEO). SEO brings quality visitors to your website. In other words, it brings prospects actively looking for a business like yours to patronize.
When someone searches for a dealership or car brand in their location, they’re actively looking to either purchase a car or get more information about the car. Even if that person doesn’t buy the car immediately, you’ll be the first company they’ll consider whenever they are ready to buy a car. Why? The content they found on your website was valuable to them.
3: You can generate more sales with a small budget through digital marketing:
You can generate more sales with SEO and paid advertisement. However, the challenge with paid advertisement is that you must continue funding your account for the Google search engine to display your website in the search results. Your website will disappear from the search engine results once the money in your ads account is exhausted.
With SEO, you don’t need to fund any account to rank your website high in the search engine results pages. Just optimize your website and follow SEO best practices. With patience and perseverance, you can start ranking high in the search engine result pages.
The initial cost of SEO may appear steep for many automotive businesses. But long-term, SEO is much cheaper than other marketing strategies.
You’ll get quality traffic once you rank high in search engines. Additionally, even if you reduce your marketing effort or stop doing SEO for a while, you’ll still maintain your position in the SERPs.
However, we don’t advise you to abandon search engine optimization for a long time, as your competitors are working hard to take your place on the search engine results page.
4: Improve your local presence online:
As a car dealership, car wash, auto repairer or accessories dealer, your customers will come from people around your location. So, how do you make these local customers know that your automotive business exists?
You can do this with the help of local SEO. You’ll rank high in local search results, making it easier for local customers searching online for a car dealership to find you.
5: Improve your online reputation:
Digital marketing strategies like search engine optimization can help improve your online reputation in two ways.
The first is your search rankings. When prospects occasionally encounter your company in their search results, it will convince them that you’re a trustworthy brand. People know Google only promotes valuable and reputable websites or businesses to the first page. So, if you’re on the first page of search engines, you’ll be seen as a reputable brand.
Another way SEO can help you build a solid online reputation is through online reviews. You can set up a Google Business Profile where customers can leave reviews after doing business with you.
Your automotive business will experience the benefits of reviews once you acquire more positive reviews. Prospects that come across your positive reviews will have confidence when doing business with you.
Automotive Marketing Strategies You Should Implement
Now that we have discussed the benefits of automotive marketing for car dealerships, let’s discuss automotive marketing tactics you can implement to achieve your marketing goals.
1: Set up a Google Business Profile:
Do you already have a Google Business Profile (GBP)? If yes, you must check if it’s well-optimized and set up. If not, set up a Google Business Profile right away.
A Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is a crucial strategy for your automotive business. Setting up an account is free and increases your chances of ranking high in local search results.
Tips to note when setting up a Google Business Profile:
- Ensure NAP consistency. NAP is your name, address and phone number.
- Avoid using a keyword in your business name. Write your business name as it is on your other online profiles.
- Add your target keywords strategically in your description.
- Upload quality photos of your offices, products, and other aspects of your business you would like to showcase.
- Request and respond to reviews in a professional manner.
2: Get more reviews:
Reviews are crucial for every automotive marketer. That is why when customers leave reviews for your business; endeavor to showcase them anywhere you can. These include your website, Google Business Profile, social media profiles and other local listings.
Reviews can transform your automotive business in the following ways:
- With reviews, you can build solid social proof. That alone can entice prospects to trust your brand. 95% of individuals read online reviews before splashing the cash on products or services. So, with your business having so many positive reviews, it will be easy to convince prospects to trust you.
- Reviews can improve your website’s search visibility. Even Google has admitted that positive reviews can improve your local search visibility. Google bases its local search rankings on relevance, presence and distance. More positive reviews and a higher rating indicate that your business is trustworthy.
- From customer feedback and reviews, you can identify areas in your business that require improvement.
A Handy Tip: Positive reviews will have the most impact on your business. But if you get negative reviews from customers, don’t panic. Instead, respond to the customers professionally and show that you’re willing to fix their issues.
Other prospects will see your negative reviews and consider how you responded to the customer. By responding professionally, you have shown prospects that you have a great customer support team and are customer-centered.
3: Invest in search engine optimization:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is another crucial car dealership marketing strategy to consider. It involves strategies to improve your website’s ranking in organic search results.
Here are the SEO strategies to market your car dealership business to potential customers.
- Keyword research:
Find relevant keywords potential customers use when searching for a car dealership in your area. You can include location-specific keywords, which will help with local SEO.
- Create high-quality and well-optimized content:
Your content has to be captivating and valuable. When you provide quality content that helps users solve problems or acquire more knowledge on a subject, they may trust you more. In other words, to them, you’re an authority in that field.
- Optimize your title tags:
Include your primary keyword in your title tag, and avoid keyword stuffing. Your title tags should be around 50-60 characters long.
- Optimize meta description:
Add your keyword in the meta description too. And ensure your meta description is around 150 – 160 characters long.
- Use quality and well-optimized images:
Pictures will make your content more captivating. But above all, optimizing your pictures will contribute greatly to your SEO campaign.
4: Build quality backlinks:
Backlinks are one of Google’s major ranking factors. A web page with quality backlinks is more likely to rank higher than another without backlinks.
Backlinks are a vote of confidence from other authority websites to yours. They convince Google that other websites rate yours highly.
Tips to consider when building backlinks:
- Avoid backlinks from spammy websites
- Disavow poor-quality backlinks
- Hunt for niche-relevant and quality backlinks
- Diversify your backlink strategy and sources. In other words, get backlinks via guest posting, niche edits, broken links, brand mentions and even press releases.
- Build your backlink profile gradually but consistently. The idea is to make Google see that you’re gaining authority gradually.
Conclusion
We have answered the question, “What is automotive marketing?” Marketing is an integral part of any business. Whether you’re running an established or new business, you must invest in marketing to succeed.
Automotive marketing can be divided into traditional and digital marketing strategies. Digital marketing strategies are considered the most effective, with SEO getting the most attention.
By implementing effective search engine optimization strategies, your automotive company will rank high in organic search results, making it easier for potential customers to find you.
