Where do your buyers come from? How do they make their purchasing decisions? And which online channels ultimately lead them to call or visit your dealership? These are important questions for your dealership to answer before you launch a digital marketing strategy.
Essentially, this all boils down to your sales funnel. At any given moment, you’ll have leads who are at different stages of their buying journey—some just beginning to research, others almost prepared to make their final purchase. Your marketing should address each of these different stages, nurturing those leads to the point of conversion.
Your Dealership’s Sales Funnel
To accomplish this, you’ll need to direct those marketing efforts in a few different places.
Data shows that a majority of consumers begin their used car purchasing journey by heading to the search engines—so it’s imperative that your dealership have a strong branded presence there. Local
is especially important, as you’ll obviously want to be found by consumers in your market.
SEO is just one way to canvas the search results page; it’s also important to have paid ads, which create brand awareness. In fact, research shows that many used car consumers actually place a lot of stock in PPC ads, so you’ll definitely want to make your dealership visible to consumers who are in the early research stages.
As consumers use the Web to determine which car to buy, they’ll also want to know where to buy from—and for your dealership to be chosen, good ratings and reviews are imperative. This is where online reputation management comes into play.
One of the keys to nurturing leads is educating them—building trust by showing potential customers important points about buying their next vehicle.
, social media, and press releases can all be impactful here.
Your website itself will come into play once consumers start narrowing down their search. Make sure yours is mobile optimized, full of good information, and set up to capture lead information.
Once a potential buyer navigates away from your site, you can use retargeting—and in particular
—to maintain awareness of your dealership.
Marketing with Your Sales Funnel in Mind
The average buyer will use many different channels to research vehicles and dealerships—and for yours to stand out as the brand of choice, you’ll need to ensure a strong presence and a smooth experience at each step along this journey.
In other words, you’ll need an integrative marketing strategy. We can help you put one in place. Reach out to
to begin the process today
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