The evolution of marketing across the automotive industry has been moving at a rapid clip for a while now, and it’s critical for agencies to keep up with the times. Blending together the right strategy — through messaging, content, social media, omnichannel presence, upselling — will have everything to do with how your clients perceive you. We’ll look at what you can do to improve your agency’s reach by connecting with your target audience.
1. Build an Effective Messaging Strategy
What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? This is the defining characteristic that sets an agency apart from the one down the street. Do you have more effective technology? Lower prices? A stronger relationship with media partners?
Before building out each new campaign, agencies must ask themselves who they’re marketing to, what the audience cares about, and which words they’re likely to respond to. Most brands have a few selling points that they’d like to highlight to their customers. The key is to make sure that the selling points are communicated in a memorable way that touches on what matters most to the audience.
When in Doubt, Choose Specificity
Would you rather click on “Car Dealership Advertising” or “Facebook Inventory Ads for Tier 3 Auto Dealers”? The answer obviously depends on what you’re looking for. However, going down the rabbit hole of the former headline could yield a broad range of results, potentially ones that are off-topic for your needs. The latter headline captures the attention of the client that is explicitly searching for that specific use-case in an agency. Automotive agencies must first understand what the dealership wants and from there, tailor the messaging. Get specific as to what product or service is being offered across what vertical.
2. Create High-Converting “Lead Magnets”
A lead magnet is an irresistible content offer that you can promote to prospective customers in exchange for their contact information. This reciprocal form of marketing tends to be better received by customers and in turn, garner better results. Agencies can offer a relevant case study to the dealership in exchange for their contact information. Or give out free email templates to automotive agencies who want to start their own in-house campaigns.
Lead magnets start with understanding which resources will resonate with dealers and then making the language match their lingo. If you’re going after regional dealerships, chances are you want to be succinct. Owners and decision-makers are busy and accustomed to being bombarded by countless offers. Lead magnets are a great way to make a solid first impression, and capture prospects that you can then reach out to and nurture.
3. Experiment with Multiple Client Acquisition Channels
Word-of-mouth is often touted as the ideal for any business; it’s a symbol of a strong brand reputation and quality service. However, this revenue stream is also unpredictable. Predictable revenue streams are more along the lines of a killer inbound marketing strategy, pay-per-click campaigns, and paid social campaigns.
Search engine marketing and paid social channels have been successful ways for automotive agencies to reach their audience. However, each business will need to experiment to find the one that works for them. This includes identifying channels, budget planning, launching experiments, measuring performance at every stage, and allocating resources based on ROI. You can also take an advanced approach and apply custom attribution models if you’re going with a multi-channel approach.
4. Generate and Leverage Social Proof
Social proof in the form of case studies and testimonials can be incredibly powerful assets that prospects find valuable to evaluate your agency. Case Studies are irrefutable evidence of your clients’ success and it helps showcase your process and results across different channels. You should also include any ratings, certifications, or other awards you might have. Testimonials especially are very persuasive as they feature your customers’ voice. At every possible opportunity, document your clients’ successes. Leverage this type of content on your website and social media and close more deals.
5. Take Advantage of Automation
Though tailoring a client’s messaging is critical to an agency’s success, automation has its place in the funnel. Email automation can be a great way to nurture prospects and stay connected without wasting time. It allows for regular communication, moves leads from one step of the process to the next and facilitates final purchases.
For instance, let’s say that you’re reaching out to 50 dealerships, all of which have roughly the same pain point. It might make sense to automate emails to all dealerships that promise to help each sale stand on its own. As you cultivate a relationship with the dealerships that respond to that email, you can start communicating with personal emails or phone calls to ensure that their specific needs are being heard.
Additionally, you can use website behavior and lead score as triggers for drip campaigns. This can further save time and money, minimize the odds of human error, and result in better reporting. This can improve your targeting strategy while taking some weight off your sales team — giving them more resources to focus their attention on potential customers that are further in the pipeline.
6. Don’t Forget Upselling
While it is essential to invest resources into acquiring new customers, it is equally important to focus on upselling and cross-selling your current customers. Identify the most loyal customers and show them your appreciation with an exclusive offer, or launch a new product with the help of an exciting demo. Like lead magnets, you’re leveraging your resources to help dealerships and that won’t go unnoticed.
Demand Local understands how difficult it can be to make a move with so many media channels and competitors in the space. We aim to educate our customers on tried and tested marketing strategies.
Reach out to someone who knows this industry inside and out. We provide turnkey, white-labeled digital advertising solutions specifically designed and built for automotive agencies and their dealers. Get in touch with us and learn more about how you can maximize your profits by letting us do the heavy lifting, while you can spend your valuable time on closing new deals.
