If you are here, reading this, you would most likely wish to go back to the good old days, when the market was not as saturated and the customers not so dissatisfied.
You can not turn back time, but you can surely recreate the things that made it a golden age, by upping the sales and raking better profits. We have compiled three marketing strategies and channels each to get you started on your golden age.
3 Excellent Marketing Strategies You may want to try
1) Warming Up Leads the right way
Customers visiting your dealership are not uninformed anymore; they know what they want, and they are aware of your dealership and brand. They are not cold leads anymore, and if you are fortunate, they may have heard all the good stuff about you. If not, you may be facing a reluctant buyer, or at the very least, a person on the fence.
Warming up your leads allows you to nurture your potential customers into customers. Using tools like Ringless Voicemail and Rich Text Messaging, you can quickly generate 2x callbacks and awareness. Services like Rich Text messaging also allow you to share pictures, links, and geo-location to further help you better convey your message.
2) Working on Sundays
Working on Sundays (read weekend) can be a fantastic strategy to woo clients and separate yourself from other dealers.
One of our clients in Jackson, Mississippi, reported a 9% growth in sales after they started working on Sundays, with almost double the rush seen on Sundays than on Mondays!
In some states, the law does not permit car dealerships to be open on Sundays. But for those states that allow car dealerships to be open on Sundays, catering to the customers when they have time for trying your services and products can drive up your sales.
Also, working weekend improves post-sales customer services. Your dealership taking out time for them, when they are free, sends out a positive message to the customer.
3) Leveraging Cab Sharing Platforms
Cab sharing platforms offer huge potential to market your cars and dealership. It can be an excellent guerilla tactic to increase your brand awareness in your locality. The idea is simple, lend out your cars or register your vehicle in the ridesharing app and let the people experience the car. It’s like you getting paid for every test drive.
Adding your brand name, contact details, and other branded merchandise in the car can help you reach customers that directly use your products.
Note: Like all guerrilla tactics, don’t go overboard. No one likes to be bothered on their commute and wouldn’t want a garish car decked with mascots to pick them up. Be smart, Be subtle.
3 Marketing Channels you should be tapping into today.
1) Digital Marketing
No self-respecting car dealership should be without a digital marketing team. Your online identity is the first thing the customers will come in contact with. Hence, it is important to portray yourself in ways that showcase your brand personality on digital platforms. It also works as super-fast feedback and fire fighting tools. With the growth of social media and the internet, customers are quick to comment negatively and post a bad review online. Having a dedicated team or PR team managing your digital presence can quickly stop these from negatively influencing your brand and sales.
2) Leveraging the customer
Most of us would trust a friend than an influencer, and you can leverage this by offering discounts or services by asking your customers to endorse you on digital channels. Endorsements can be as easy as uploading the picture of the car and tagging your car dealership in the post. Also, sharing the experience of their Test Drive can help you generate positive feedback fast and create a good awareness in your locale.
3) Umbrella Approach
Customers today want the same quality of service across all the channels. With LeadsRain’s Umbrella Approach, you can easily have a strong presence across multiple channels. Using multiple channels to nurture and funnel your leads also increases your touchpoints with your potential customers. These numerous touchpoints can than be leveraged to perform a specific need or can be more generic in nature. Using touchpoints from Ringless Voicemail Drops or Rich Text Messaging, for example, can be used to warm up cold leads.
A good example Umbrella Approach in action is one of our clients based in Utah. She uses Ringless Voicemail with our Dialer for Inbound calls, to increase callbacks for her Car Dealership. She reports
“Umbrella Approach generates a steady stream of callbacks to keep my team of 7 busy though the day.”
Trying out the above strategies and channels for your car dealership can boost your lead generation significantly. Check out LeadsRain’s services to find the best tools to implement and augment your lead generation.
