Auto dealership marketing: how to know what’s working and what isn’t

As you already know, one of the toughest jobs in the automotive industry involves properly diagnosing vehicular problems and determining how best to make repairs.  As a firm that specializes in digital marketing for auto dealerships, we at Stratosphere Studio know that managing the marketing for a car dealership can be just as much of a challenge—particularly if you can’t tell what’s helping to bring in more business and what isn’t. 

To give you a better idea of what’s working in your auto dealership marketing strategy and what isn’t, the best thing you can do is to implement tracking.

Tracking print, radio, TV, and outdoor marketing:
It’s essential that every marketing campaign include a strategy for tracking.  Print, radio, television, and outdoor marketing can be somewhat tricky to track, so if you’re advertising with these methods, then be sure to ask every person who comes through your door how they heard about your dealership.  Maintain a detailed spreadsheet and refer to it frequently.

Tracking online marketing:
Digital marketing is hands-down the easiest type of marketing to track.  With the many types of tracking services available online, there’s no excuse not to be tracking every page of your website.  Many website hosting platforms even come with tracking services already.  If you don’t already have tracking and are in the process of searching for a great, user-friendly platform, try Google Analytics.  It’s sophisticated enough for business use, yet it costs nothing.

Some programs even let you track which phone calls to your auto dealership come from people visiting your website.  This is a great way to catch many online visitors who have become either leads or customers.

Monitor your progress daily.
Once you start tracking your webpages, establish a system for monitoring your progress.  We recommend that you check your analytics every morning.  Take a look at your number of visitors, your number of leads, and how well your blog posts are performing.  See what keywords people are using to find your website and which other websites are sending traffic your way.  When you start to monitor your progress on a daily basis, you’ll notice weekly, monthly, and even yearly trends.

Strategize with these results in mind.
Once you have a daily routine of monitoring your web presence, you can see where your marketing efforts are paying off and then adjust accordingly.  For instance, if you see a dip in your monthly number of website visits, you’ll know that it’s time to evaluate your content marketing or social networking.  If you start to lose traction with leads, then test some new calls to action. 

Need help with your auto dealership marketing?
If you want to take the guesswork out of your online marketing, then let Stratosphere Studio give you a hand.  We have loads of experience working with some of the top shops across the U.S. and we’ve been able to increase our clients’ leads to over 50 more per month.  What would you do with the money from 50 extra customers coming into your dealership every month?  We’re ready to help you find out!