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Car Dealership Advertising Ideas to Drive Success Despite the Pandemic by Zach Klempf
Founder and CEO, Selly Automotive
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ith COVID numbers continuing to stay high across the nation, many consumers are still shopping from home, and although e-commerce has been around for many years, the pandemic has accelerated the shift to digital marketing and digital shopping. You may already be posting customer-centric content to your website’s blog. That’s a useful starting point, but in this newer landscape, what will be the most efficient use of time and have the best ROI for your auto marketing strategies? Although some of the platforms for marketing are changing, the good news is that the foundation remains the same. Relationships and going to where the people are is still everything. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the top car advertising ideas that are both actionable and timely.
Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, and More
Did you know that more than 20 million people click on vehicle listings in Facebook Marketplace every month? Additionally, more than 1 out of every 3 people on Facebook in the United States use Marketplace to buy and sell things. Facebook Marketplace is an invaluable resource for auto dealers, whether you are posting listings or posting ads to find inventory for those sub $10,000 vehicles. Marketplace isn’t the only way to utilize Facebook for your auto marketing. A Facebook business page offers a megaphone for sharing valuable and relevant content with your 40
customers; if a particular blog post does well, you can boost its reach by creating an advertising campaign where the post appears as a sponsored post in customer’s timelines. Another way to use your Facebook business page for auto marketing is video promotion, for example video test drives and vehicle walk arounds. Shooting the video doesn’t have to be complicated: you can use your phone to record and upload it, in fact. Customers like to see salespeople, and video helps foster familiarity so that when they do come into the dealership, they feel like they already know you. There are many types of content you could use for your videos. One useful thing would be to record your cleaning measures; this reassures customers that they’ll be safe when they do come in.
Another example of a way to drive interaction would be to post a video contest showing three different vehicles on your lot and invite people to vote on which car they’d like to see the inside of. This question offers insight into what interests your potential customers and drives engagement, which will boost the post organically. Set a deadline for when voting stops. When that deadline passes, record an interior tour of the vehicle that won. Think about what types of prizes your customers might enjoy or need, such as a free gas card. Besides asking people to comment to enter the drawing, consider inviting people to like your post and share it with their network to earn extra entries. This incentivizes shares and participation to boost visibility. Facebook’s still one of the most popular social networks, and T e x a s
D e a l e r
February 2021
