The average buying cycle for a car is a little over 100 days or around three months.
Successful dealers know how important it is to stay in front of in-market shoppers throughout this entire process.
Now, you may be thinking…who cares if I market? With the current state of inventory, I can sell at sticker price without doing any marketing and I save money too.
The problem with this train of thought is that you need to consider the entire purchase cycle. Not just consumers who are ready to buy today.
Your dealership may be doing great now, but are you confident the market will be in the same state in three months?
If it’s not and you stop marketing, your dealership is going to be three months behind your competitors who invested in marketing to stay top-of-mind with in-market shoppers who are starting their car buying journey today.
With that in mind, here are four reasons why dealerships should always be marketing…
1. Today’s Digital Marketing Impacts Future Sales More than Most Dealerships Realize
Smart businesses know that marketing is food, not medicine. Businesses that treat marketing as a reactive band-aid will always struggle to fill their pipeline because they’ll always be playing catch-up.
Remember, the marketing you do today isn’t just for low-funnel leads, it’s for the entire sales funnel.
The chip shortage won’t last forever. In fact, recent data shows that it will be over in a few months. This happens to be around the same amount of time many shoppers start their car-buying journey.
The more of the buying journey you can own, the more likely consumers will choose your brand when it comes time to purchase.
That’s why it’s so important to utilize top-of-funnel marketing tactics.
Here’s a quick rundown of how AutoSweet helps dealerships market to top-of-funnel shoppers to help them capture future ready-to-buy leads:
- We utilize social media ads, automotive email marketing, local business listings, and search and display ads on Google to generate traffic to dealers’ websites.
- These shoppers are usually not ready to buy, but, by pushing them to a dealership’s website, we’re able to track and retarget them with ads across more marketing channels and websites.
- This keeps our dealerships’ brands top-of-mind when they’re ready to buy, even if it happens months later.
If you’re not marketing today, you’re missing out on all of these top-of-funnel buyers that will be ready to buy once the chip shortage slows down.
You may think you’ll be able to capture today’s top-of-funnel buyers by beginning advertising again in a few months.
But you’ll be playing a game of catch-up because growth-minded dealers didn’t stop marketing…
2. Your Top Competitors Won’t Stop Marketing
Think about it… When a shopper is ready to buy, will they be more likely to buy from the dealership whose ad they saw once or from the dealership whose ad they saw multiple times throughout their entire shopping experience?
Successful dealerships know how important it is to stay in front of consumers throughout their purchase journey. That’s why the biggest dealerships NEVER turn off advertising.
Even if their business is slow, or they’re facing an inventory challenge like many dealerships are today. They know that the marketing they stop today will affect their future business.
You may not be so sure about this…but luckily, it’s something you can actually test now.
Think of the biggest name dealership in your city or state. Type their name into Facebook’s Ad Library.
As an example, I typed in 2019’s largest dealership group (in terms of new retail vehicle sales), AutoNation, Inc, into this tool.
Not only are they continuing to advertise inventory, but they also launched several new ads this month (July 2021) to help encourage people to sell their vehicles.
3. You’re Missing Opportunities to Get Ahead of Industry Challenges
If you’re running low on inventory, mimic the same strategies that the largest auto groups in the world are utilizing (just at a smaller scale).
Many of these dealerships know they won’t make such a large margin on used vehicle sales again in the foreseeable future. So, they’re doubling down and trying everything they can to boost inventory with buyback campaigns.
Dealerships that are taking this initiative are the ones that will grow the most not just during the current chip shortage, but also once the shortage recovers over the next few months.
If your dealership continues to follow the status quo expect to get status quo results.
But, luckily if you go a little above and beyond it will be easy to beat the “status quo” dealers…
4. When Other Dealerships Slow Down Their Advertising, It’s the Perfect Time to Steal Their Traffic, Leads, and Sales
It’s no secret that many dealerships are struggling to restock their lots with vehicles.
Cars are easier than ever to sell right now, so many dealerships have gotten greedy and reduced marketing spend.
This means now is the perfect time to edge out the competition that may be cutting corners.
Get Your Free Customized Digital Marketing Plan
Hopefully, this article inspired you to do more with your dealership’s digital marketing strategy.
AutoSweet is currently offering a free dealership marketing plan designed specifically with your goals in mind. All you need to get started is to answer 4 simple questions.
Click here to start your plan.
