As a car dealership owner, you must be aware that customers are the lifeblood of your automotive business. If you do not have any customers, you cannot sell cars on the dealership lot. This translates to zero sales, meaning your business’ heart is failing. This makes it imperative for you to engage with your target market. Understanding the minds of your customers, identifying their needs, and providing exceptional offers are a crucial part of automotive digital marketing.
Yet, there are many car dealerships out there that refuse to utilize digital marketing to its complete potential. Bear in mind those times have changed where it was okay to shove sales pitches down the throats of customers. Successful car dealerships are those who understand what customers want and plan accordingly. You need to provide them value, from the very first interaction. You need to earn their trust, which can only be done through engaging them.
So, without further ado, let us look at these automotive digital marketing tips for engaging better with your customers.
Develop Emotional Connections
According to a research from Google, Forrester, and The Corporate Executive, it was revealed that to connect with your customers, you need to develop strong emotional connections. This means, you have to go the extra mile in understanding your target audience. You must perform a thorough analysis of the viewers you receive at your website. Tailor your content to attract them. Then lure them into acquiring your specific automotive service.
Before all this, you need to provide them value. Make them believe that you are legit and understand their wants. This is where you must build emotional connections with customers to prove that they are dealing with an actual person. Not just a faceless, nameless corporation without any reputation. Therefore, do not hesitate on introducing yourself, creating a friendly brand voice, and engaging your customers via social media.
Get your team members’ images on forums and social platforms. Enable them to show the true side of your car dealership, even if you have just started out. Also, start adding author bios on your blog. This enables customers to get to know you. It builds the relationship of communication, asking questions/queries and learning more about your car dealership. You can even hire a brand ambassador or select someone from your team to be the face of the communication.
Build a Community or Forum
In addition to creating an authoritative blog that displays your business as an industry expert, you need to build a community/forum. While articles, blogs, and PRs are all good ways to boost engagement and generate communication, building a community/forum goes the extra mile in creating discussions. Many say that forums are outdated, but you can be sure they will be sticking around for the unforeseeable future. Why? You can direct engage your customers by sharing information, keeping them updated, having discussions relevant to your industry, and answer your questions.
Popular social networks like Google+ Communities, Facebook Groups, and LinkedIn groups at the same time give you the ability to create an online community. This is a remarkable way of further engaging customers, as almost everybody uses these social media networks. However, it is important that while communicating with your prospects, you introduce a personal, yet professional tone of voice. That’s the only way you can get customers to like you.
Hold a Contest
Is there anyone who does not enjoy getting free stuff? Nah… we all do. Use this trait from human nature to your advantage and create a strategy of hosting contests once in every while. Introduce better, fun ways of engagement that can spread awareness about your site, while providing contest winners amazing specials/deals for free. You can even engage by rewarding them for their participation.
For instance, you can ask customers to tag your business and show creative car photos. The winner of the best photo wins a free one-year membership to your service or a product. Other ideas of hosting include photo tagging contests and voting contests. You could even host a more physical contest. Since you are a car dealership, you can ask to create videos of drifting, racing; burnouts etc and share it on social media. The winner could get a discounted lease on a brand new car.
Use Technology to Your Advantage
We all know how important social media is for engaging customers. Instead of answering customer service inquiries and sharing content, why not use technology to figure out their needs via technology? There are various apps online that enable businesses of all types to listen to what the customers are saying. For instance, you can learn about the color preference for many reputable car make/models in the industry currently.
Additionally, you can use online technologies in the form SaaS tools to learn about the interests and likes of your customers. You can figure out what pages on your website attract the most traffic. This not only enables you to tailor your content more accurately, but it also ensures quick attraction and increased visibility. Make sure to always stay ahead of the curve with technology. You car dealership will not find success without it.
Make Your Customers a Part of the Team
One of the best ways to market your car dealership is to get customers to be a part of your team. This can be done by promoting them on your social media profiles, if you notice they released a product of their own or launched a new charity. Once you start developing connections this way, you will notice that customers will communicate with you more often. This results in an increase in overall trust, which is crucial for building relationships.
Therefore, do not hesitate on bringing customers onboard the team. Ask them about your car dealership, how you can improve your services, and grab more attention. Get an inside view of their minds. At the same time, celebrate milestones of your car dealership with customers. For instance, if you hosted a celebration for your first year in business, offer them a coupon or discount.
So, if you want to increase your engagement with customers, do not hesitate on following the above-mentioned automotive digital marketing tips.
