For used car dealerships, there is a practically limitless number of marketing tools and resources out there. The problem is, your marketing budget isn’t limitless—so how do you determine which marketing tools are worthy of your investment?
There are a number of tools that we think are worthwhile, from blogs to email marketing—but if we had to pare it down to the bare essentials, there are three marketing platforms we think your dealership can’t do without.
As you consider your 2019 marketing budget, these are the three categories where we recommend investing the most of your money.
A Superb Dealer Website
First, if you don’t have a good website—or if it hasn’t been updated in a while—now’s the time to resolve that. A website is your online home, and it’s likely the first impression most buyers will have of your dealership. And, a website serves multiple functions: It should offer you good SEO rankings but also help you generate conversions.
Is your dealership website optimized for Google visibility? It is responsive, fast-loading, and user-friendly? And does it help you land appointments? These are important criteria to consider as you evaluate your website needs.
An Active Presence on Facebook
There are a number of social media platforms where you could boost your dealership, and the one we recommend most enthusiastically is Facebook. Why? Simply put, Facebook is still the largest and most popular platform. And, the Facebook Ads tool allows you to take a highly targeted, data-driven approach to advertising—really helping you to get maximum bang for your marketing buck.
To that end, we encourage dealerships to have a two-pronged approach on Facebook—investing in some paid ads, but also ensuring some regular content updates to ensure organic reach.
Regular Craigslist Ads
The third and final component that we think is essential for dealership marketing is regular posting to Craigslist.
Craigslist is still the best way to connect with buyers who are local and who are highly motivated to buy. Indeed, studies confirm that Craigslist buyers are more likely than any other demographic to actually close the deal, and to do so quickly.
Your dealership should be putting some of its inventory up on Craigslist, and using that as a way to generate new appointments in your showroom. Ask us about our Craigslist app, which can help you automate the process!
Take Care of the Basics
Again, there is plenty more that you could do to market your dealership—but these three things are, for us, the true essentials. Contact us today to learn more about how you can master these dealer marketing musts!