These are exciting times for automotive dealerships! Why? Because getting your brand in front of new customers has never been easier!
Let me start by saying, I have been in sales for 24 years (15 – Marketing & Advertising, 7 – Automotive, 2 – Misc.)
It’s great to understand the fundamental objectives of both industries; Automotive & Marketing. I’ve spent many of years standing in a showroom waiting for an UP. Yet, I’ve spent even longer beating the streets to prospect small businesses.
In both careers, I always saw to it that I had a self promotion system in place. From sending handwritten postcards to sales promotional funnels, I’ve tried it all.
And I’ve both bought and sold marketing services, so I’ve felt the disappointment of purchasing ineffective advertising. And, having managed countless small business marketing clients, I’ve seen why many promotions fail and how others systematically succeed.
It was the savvy business owners who stayed in tune with the latest marketing trends. They’re the ones who made the profits.
On the other hand, the majority of small business owners end up “getting sold” their advertising by random media reps.
Don’t be the latter, get a good grasp on your marketing methodology and then leverage it for maximum returns.
As I mentioned earlier, these are exciting times for automotive dealerships that practice promotion properly.
The marketing ideas below, I feel will be essential in expanding your brand throughout the local community.
Automotive Dealership Event Promotion
And Influencer Marketing Ideas
1) Digital Event Promotions –
Digital events are executed online rather than live. They entertain your audience right where they are. On their phones!
Automotive dealerships have many options for creating highly engaged digital event promotions online.
You can use webinars, an automated email campaign, short videos, live streaming, digital information products, etc. to deliver your digital event.
Picture this… You’re a Toyota dealer and decide to host a digital event themed “Cram A Corolla”.
Participants of this event will need to squeeze as many people into the latest Corolla model as they possibly can.
You put up a promotional landing page that describes the rules, sells the idea and collects new registrants for the event.
The team with the most bodies in the Corolla, will win something exciting. Maybe each person on the team will get a free $25 gas card or something.
Have each team submit a video of them cramming
themselves into the car. That should be quite entertaining!
As the videos come in, post them on social media and just watch as the local community engages with the shenanigans.
Of all those who participated, you can be assured, many will like and share those videos with their own networks of followers.
This will spark local buzz about your dealership and probably even make a well-demonstrated point on how roomy the Corolla is.
That’s just one small example of a digital event promotion. You can get further inspiration by reading my article on automotive marketing ideas.
The objective in hosting digital event promotions is to establish your brand as a local authority, generate new leads, develop entertaining content, contribute value to the community and ultimately be “top of mind” when someone is in the market for a vehicle.
Digital events don’t require as much planning time as live events, yet they have the ability to reach deep into your audience, granting equal or superior engagement.
And when you combine creating digital events with the next marketing idea I’m about to cover, influencer marketing, that’s when it really gets wild.
2) Influencer Marketing –
In the last 3 or so years, influencer marketing has been the hot new buzz.
When companies found that 82% of consumers are likely to act on the recommendations of Influencers they follow, influencer marketing has grown to a $10 billion dollar industry.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
An influencer is an online personality that has built a loyal following within a specific niche industry.
You have mega influencers with over 1,000,000 followers, all the way down to micro influencers who have followers ranging from 1,000 to 10,000.
A local automotive dealership, aspiring to connect with more people in the community, will find partnering with micro influencers the best option.
Micro influencers in your local area might run a popular community blog, they may have a strong local following on social media, produce a podcast or they just may be a well-known local celebrity.
By having someone with a sizeable sphere of influence promote your ads or digital event campaigns you’ll gain instant “word of mouth” advertising.
Using the “Cram A Corolla” example, just imagine having local influencers encourage their followers to participate in the excitement. It could make the campaign go local viral!
An automotive dealership could attract loads of new customers by pairing digital event promotions with influencer marketing.
Not to mention, all of the quality content that can be extracted as the event is taking place. You’d never need to scrape up another boring social media post, with all the content you’d have from digital events.
And then you’ll receive extraordinary reach by getting your influencer partners to promote and share the content with followers. The possibilities are endless!
Major automotive manufacturers have already jumped on board with influencer marketing. Take a look at this article by MediaKix about the amazing impact auto brands have had with social media influencers.
Still not sure whether digital event promotions and influencer marketing are a good fit for your automotive dealership?
Contact us today and we’ll create a custom strategy that will get your dealership featured in your local community.
