Upping Your Automotive Marketing Game

When you’re in the automotive marketing business, whether you’re selling second-hand vehicles, restoring old cars, servicing cars etc, people rarely register that your business exists until they have sudden need of your services. Think about it: if you’re not looking to buy a new car, you’re always going to skip over the YouTube ad for the new and improved Volkswagen Polo, because you don’t need a car, you’re not actively looking for a car, and it’s not something the vast majority of people are going to be influenced or able to buy on a whim after seeing a great advertisement.

Automotive marketing material and strategies then need to be geared toward attracting and reaching an audience that is already looking; as opposed to the marketing material in other sectors that may aim to entice consumers who weren’t actively looking for the product or looking to satisfy a particular need beforehand. What, then, are some foolproof ways to up your automotive marketing game?

1. Incentivize Referrals

Whether deserved or not, the automotive industry in general gets treated with a lot of suspicion. We’ve all heard the whispered stories about shoddy parts, total lemons, and underhanded dealings, and while the bad rap may not help business, it can be overcome if you play it to your advantage. Because people aren’t quick to trust a company operating in the automotive industry, a recommendation or referral from a friend usually means more to a consumer than any fancy marketing campaign – their outlook is: “advertising lies, my friends don’t. If my friend recommends an automotive company or service provider to me, they must be on the up and up”.

A great way to up your game is then to incentivize referrals in an effort to get more feet in the door. By offering your customers a small reward, or token of appreciation when the friends they referred to you do business with you, you can drastically increase the number of people singing your praises by word-of-mouth. Incentives could include things like a free oil change if you’re in the service industry, or a discount on your next service/car purchase/installment/insurance premium etc. You make the rules, which also means that this option can be modified to suit almost any business operating within the automotive sector.

2. Up Your Visibility & Accessibility

Make sure that your business is visible, both in real life in terms of signage and location, but also on the internet and in cyberspace. A social media presence and an informative and accessible website is marketing gold in this Media Age. Make sure you’re taking advantage of the opportunity to use social media platforms as a free marketing platform.

Pro Tip: You get bonus points if your website is optimized for mobile devices. Most people browse the web on their phones these days, and if a website is non-responsive or not optimized for use on mobile devices, a potential client may navigate away from your site and to the competition’s just because it was easier to use, and therefore easier to find the info they were looking for.

Do you have any tried and tested tricks or tips for upping your automotive marketing game?

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