3 Ways Content Marketing Can Help You Sell More Cars
Dealerships that don’t have a well thought out content marketing strategy for their digital initiatives are shooting themselves in the foot. Effective content marketing programs can do everything from bringing in new customers to encouraging existing customers to spend more money. With consumers becoming more and more tech savvy and digital dependent, it’s imperative that your dealership has a large digital footprint. One way to accomplish this is through strategic content marketing.
Below are 3 ways content marketing can help your dealership sell more cars.
Establishing Trust & Authority
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “content is king” in digital marketing before. Well, I’m going to shake things up a little by saying “trust is king”-especially in the automotive industry. Developing a content marketing strategy gives you the opportunity to come across as an authority and a thought leader in your industry. As a result, your customers will grow a positive affinity with your brand and start to trust you. The stronger the connection and trust an individual has toward your company, the more likely they are to buy from you.
A great way to accomplish this is by routinely posting content that educates your consumers. A great example would be writing about a unique feature found in one of your vehicles. Take Subaru, for instance. It is one of the only cars with a boxer engine. Providing information on your website describing what a boxer engine is, and how it can benefit you, can help establish your dealership as an authority. Not only is this a great selling point of the vehicle, it shows your potential customers that you understand the cars you’re selling from the inside out.
You can also identify specific questions your target audience asks you on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and then publish blog articles around those topics. Since customers are asking you these questions, chances are, a lot of other people are seeking the same answers. Position yourself as an authority in your industry so that all of your customers come to YOU for the answers, not a competitor.
Relevancy and Freshness
What’s the number one search engine in the world? Google. What types of content does Google rank highly in search results? Fresh, relevant content. It makes sense—if visitors aren’t finding new and resourceful content on your website, why come back?
The goal if a search engine is to return the most relevant results to users. If you aren’t doing your diligence to ping search engines with new content, there’s nothing enticing the spiders can crawl your site and rank your webpages higher than those of your competitors.
Everybody wants to have their keywords ranking on the first page of Google because we understand it can result in buck-loads of web traffic. However, in order to do so, you need to be frequently publishing and updating content on your site in order to appease the search engines. This doesn’t need to just be blog posts, either. It can be in the form of publishing new pages or updating existing pages on your site.
Extend Your Reach
With a strategic marketing plan in place, you have the opportunity to extend your brands reach to thousands of new customers. Content can be in the form of developing social media posts, videos, blogs, or other types of engaging content. The more engaging content you post, the greater your chances are of being found by new customers. By consistently posting great content, you have the opportunity to obtain a lot of earned media. Consumers will begin sharing your content with their own networks, not necessarily because they care about you, but because they care about their friends! The only thing is, if you aren’t producing any content, what is there to share? Content fuels consumer conversion. However, in order to spur conversation you need to provide compelling content for your audience.
Constructing a content marketing strategy will allow your dealership to tap into your target market more effectively. Today’s consumer goes through more touch-points before a purchase than ever before. It’s important for us as marketers to not only be where our consumers are at every step of the purchase path- but to also speak their language. A great content marketing strategy will reinforce your master brand strategy and will result in greater brand awareness, affinity and ultimately, car sales.
