The Guide to Simplifying Digital Marketing for Auto Dealers

When consumers shop for a vehicle today, they start online. As a result, digital marketing for auto dealers has become a necessity, and those who fail to adapt to these strategies are doomed to be seen as irrelevant by their target audience. Unfortunately, digital marketing involves a complex set of actions that can be difficult (and costly) to implement and maintain.

Here are 4 significant pain points many auto dealerships face when it comes to digital marketing and how to solve them.

PAIN POINT #1: YOU’RE STRUGGLING TO FIND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

For auto dealerships, digital marketing starts with knowing who it is you’re targeting. This allows you to implement the proper messaging with your ad campaigns and helps you create different buyer personas. The problem is, many auto dealers take a one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing; and create ad campaigns that speak to a generalized audience.

With this approach, you risk wasting money by spending ad dollars on a percentage of people who don’t make up your target audience. Think of it this way: if you were selling pet supplies, you wouldn’t want someone who doesn’t own a dog or cat to see your company’s ads. The same goes for dealerships.

Beyond targeting, dealers also fail when it comes to figuring out the best times to run their ad campaigns. For example: your target audience may not be as active during the winter months, which means you won’t want to waste ad spend during that particular season. Finding this information can be tricky though, as you’ll need to thoroughly review historical data for your industry.

PAIN POINT #2: YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT AD PLATFORMS WORK BEST

Just because LinkedIn advertising works wonders for a company that sells office supplies doesn’t mean you should expect the same results. The truth is, there are some platforms that simply won’t work for your dealership.

Figuring out what platforms will work best can be complicated though, as you’ll have to consider a few factors unique to your dealership such as your location, target audience, inventory and more. At the end of the day, you want to ensure you’re ONLY running advertisements on platforms that have proven to yield good results. Seeing where your competitors are running ads can be helpful in this regard.

PAIN POINT #3: YOU’RE IN THE DARK WHEN IT COMES TO THE PROPER MESSAGING

You can do all the market research in the world to find your audience, but if your social media posts and paid ads lack the proper messaging it will all be for naught. Your audience needs to feel as if they are receiving value in every piece of content your dealership puts out, no matter the platform or time of year.

Being able to create the right content is a challenge many dealerships face and one that keeps them from embracing digital marketing the most. To do this, you either have to hire a professional, partner with a digital agency, or find alternative methods (such as an AI-based solution) to produce the content for you.

HOW WINNOW SIMPLIFIES DIGITAL MARKETING FOR AUTO DEALERS

With an AI-based solution — like Winnow — all of the problems auto dealers typically face with digital marketing can be solved. Winnow combines artificial intelligence with real life experts to provide an end-to-end data-driven solution for dealership marketing.

Gone are the days of combing through market research data to identify a target audience. With Winnow, you can rest assured knowing your paid ads and organic social media posts are being shown to the most relevant people. What’s more? Winnow automates the process of creating and publishing content on the right platforms for your dealership. It also helps you identify the proper KPIs (key performance indicators), which allows campaigns to be adjusted the moment they need to be; ensuring you’re putting out content built to garner results every time.