Differences Between Auto Dealer Marketing & Advertising

28 December 6, 2023

There’s a stark difference between auto dealer marketing Arlington, TX and auto dealer advertising. Although they’re not worlds apart, you’ll need to draw the line to use them effectively in your online campaigns. Luckily for you, Actual SEO Media, Inc. is an expert in both auto dealer marketing and advertising. We’ll show you the fine line and what both sides can bring to the table for your dealership.

Auto Dealer Marketing Arlington, Texas

More online traffic means more IRL foot traffic, which means more of your inventory is moving.

What is auto dealer marketing?
First, let’s set the record straight. Auto dealership marketing includes the plans and methods used by dealerships to get new customers and market their inventory. This can include many types of marketing, both online and offline, like advertising, social media marketing, search engine optimization, content marketing, and more.

That’s right! Advertising is a type of digital marketing strategy. If you want a comprehensive marketing plan that covers all of your bases, auto dealer advertising should become one of your cornerstones. After all, online advertising is the most cost-effective way to get your name in front of more people instead of the traditional advertising methods.

Regardless of how you go about it, auto dealer marketing aims to raise awareness of the brand, generate leads, bring more people to the dealership, and eventually sell more cars.

What Auto Dealer Marketing Arlington, TX is in a Nutshell

So, what’s so important about constructing the perfect auto dealer marketing plan for your business? It’s the most important building block to your vehicular empire! Although traditional marketing methods are sure to bring in the business you expect, they won’t be as effective as using a tool and platform almost everyone is on – the Internet!

These days, everyone’s online in some way, shape, or form. You’d be missing out on hundreds of leads and opportunities if you keep yourself too grounded in offline marketing methods. Of course, having some offline methods will still bring in leads, but you’ll notice that those are a money-sink compared to modern online marketing plans.

What type of auto dealer marketing initiatives are there?
Some common auto-marketing tactics include:

  • Advertising: This can include both old-fashioned forms of advertising like TV, radio, and print ads as well as newer forms of advertising like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
  • Social Media Marketing: Car lots can use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to show off their inventory, share news and updates, interact with customers, and run focused ad campaigns.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Making the dealership’s website better for search engines can help bring in more visitors and make it more visible online. This can include things like researching keywords, optimizing the page itself, building links, and writing content.
  • Content Marketing: Making and sharing useful content about buying and owning a car can help the company become an expert in the field and bring in new customers. This can be blog posts, movies, infographics, and other things.
  • Managing Online Reviews and Reputation: It’s very important for car dealerships to keep an eye on their online reviews and reputation. Good reviews can help build trust and bring in more people, while bad reviews need to be dealt with and fixed right away.
  • Event Marketing: Holding or supporting events like car shows or community fundraisers can help the business get more attention and meet new people who might become customers.

Auto dealers can use different marketing tactics based on their location, budget, and the type of customers they want to attract. For businesses to get a good return on their marketing efforts, they need to keep track of and measure how well they’re working. An auto dealer marketing expert like Actual SEO Media, Inc. can help you sort out and tailor a plan that works best for you.

Auto Dealer Marketing Arlington, Texas

See how the right Auto Dealer Marketing Arlington, TX can bring in more leads and conversions than before.

Using Online Advertising As One of Your Marketing Cornerstones

One of the most popular online advertising methods is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. With this type of marketing, advertisers pay a small fee every time someone clicks on their ad. It is a way for a dealership to buy website traffic instead of trying to get it naturally through search engine optimization (SEO).

In pay-per-click (PPC) ads, businesses bid on keywords that are important to their brand and the people they want to reach. If someone uses a search engine like Google and types in words that match the keywords the seller bid on, their ad may show up on the search engine results page (SERP) along with the natural search results. There is a mix of the advertiser’s bid and the relevancy and quality of their ad that decides where it shows up on the SERP.

It’s called “pay-per-click” because marketers only get paid when someone clicks on their ad, not when it’s shown. So, marketers only pay when someone actually sees their website. This makes pay-per-click (PPC) an effective and cost-effective way to advertise online. If you’re interested, Actual SEO Media, Inc. can help you set up and manage a PPC ad campaign to see how it marks up against your current online advertising plans.

Automobile dealerships can use a variety of other online advertising methods to help them sell their business. A lot of people use these strategies:

  • Google Ads: With Google Ads, dealerships can show their ads to people who might buy a car when they look for certain keywords related to buying a car or their dealership. You can see these ads at the top of search results or on websites that are related and part of Google’s Display Network.
  • Retargeting: This method involves showing ads to people who have been to a dealership’s website or interacted with their brand before. This can help users remember the store and make them more likely to come back and buy something.
  • Display Advertising: These ads can be put on important websites and apps, which means they can reach a lot of people who might want to buy a car. These ads can have a lot of pictures and strong calls to action to get people to go to the dealership’s website or call them for more information.
  • Mobile Advertising: Since a lot of people now use their phones to browse the internet, auto dealerships should think about how to use mobile advertising. This can include making websites that work well on mobile devices, advertising on mobile apps, or using location-based services like Google Local Ads or Facebook’s Local Awareness Ads for advertising.

Auto shops that use online ads need to carefully choose the people they want to reach, make sure the ads are interesting, and keep improving their campaigns based on how well they’re doing. Dealerships can see how well their online ads are working by keeping an eye on and studying key metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost per acquisition. If they need to, they can make changes.

Auto Dealer Marketing Arlington, TX

Whether you want to focus more on online marketing tactics or advertising, Actual SEO Media, Inc. can help you decide.

The Difference Between Auto Dealer Marketing & Advertising

People use the terms “auto dealer marketing” and “auto dealer advertising” to refer to the same thing, but there are clear differences between the two:

Scope: Paid advertising like display ads, search engine ads, and social media ads are what online advertising means. Its main goal is to get goods, services, or brands in front of specific people by using targeted placements. Online marketing, on the other hand, includes more than just paid ads. It includes things like content marketing, social media marketing, native search engine optimization (SEO), and more.

Cost: You need to set aside money for online promotion because you have to pay for ad placements or clicks. For ads, people bid on terms or pay every time someone clicks on their ad. There are both paid and free ways to sell online, and it depends on the dealership’s goals and resources. Some forms of online marketing, like getting an SEO expert or running paid ad campaigns, may cost money. Other forms, like making useful content and participating in online communities, can be done for little or no cost.

Approach: The goal of online promotion is to get results right away by directly bringing in visitors or customers. People who might become buyers are supposed to notice it and be prompted to do something, like go to a website, fill out a form, or buy something. The way you do online marketing is more long-term and looks at the bigger picture. Its goals are to have a strong online presence, make more people aware of the business, gain their trust, and build long-term relationships with potential customers.

Visibility: Online ads can make your business visible right away to a specific community. Most of the time, the ads are shown prominently on search engine results pages, social media feeds, or websites that are related. Strategies like SEO, content marketing, and social media engagement are used in online marketing to increase reach and exposure without paid ads. It focuses on making websites search engine-friendly, making information that people want to read, and getting people to stick with you. It might take a while to see the full results of your online marketing, but it can help you grow and have a stronger online profile.

To sum up, online advertising is a part of online marketing. Paid advertising tries to reach a specific audience and get results right away. Online marketing, on the other hand, includes a wider range of activities and strategies meant to create an online presence, raise brand recognition, and build lasting relationships with customers. Online ads and other online marketing strategies may both be part of a well-rounded digital marketing plan to reach goals and objectives.

Auto Dealer Marketing Arlington, TX

Spread the word of your brand and dealership through social media marketing.

Let’s Get Social Through Media

Auto shops can connect with their target audience, raise awareness of their brand, and get new leads by using social media as part of their marketing plan. To get the most out of social media for business, dealerships can do the following:

Be involved online. Make profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, among other popular social media sites. Post relevant and interesting content on a regular basis to keep people interested in your business and connected with it. An active social media account can help keep you up with the trends.

Post high-quality content. On social media, share pictures and videos of your inventory, show off deals and special offers, feature customer reviews, and give useful tips on how to buy a car or keep it in good shape. Think outside the box and use pictures to get people’s attention.

Talk to your community. Social media is a way for two-way communication. Respond quickly to messages and comments, join chats, and show that you care about what your audience has to say. This will build rapport with your community, helping you retain or attract a fresh audience with the image you’ve built up after speaking directly with your potential customer base.

Read reviews and react to them. Auto dealerships need to keep an eye on reviews on sites like Google, Facebook, and Yelp. Keep an eye on reviews and react to them, good and bad, to show that you care about what your customers think and want to give them great service.

Use social media for customer service. You can use social media to chat with customers. Respond quickly to questions, give information, and deal with public concerns or issues to show that you care about your customers.

Look at performance. To see how well your social media efforts are doing, use tools for social media analytics. Track things like the number of new followers, the rate of engagement, the number of visitors to your website, and the number of sales to see what’s working, and then change your plan to match.

Remember that social media is always changing, so it’s important to know about the newest methods and trends. Check your social media plan often and make changes as needed to make sure you’re reaching and engaging your ideal audience.

End Your Customers’ Search at Your Site with SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is an important part of any online marketing plan that works, and car dealerships are no exception. Optimizing a website to make it more visible and higher up on search engine result pages (SERPs) is what SEO is all about. Auto shops can benefit in a number of ways from using SEO as part of their marketing plan:

  • More people can see your website: Using SEO methods can help more people find your dealership’s website on search engines like Google. By adding relevant keywords and search terms to the website’s pages and material, it will likely show up higher in search results, which will increase its chances of getting free traffic.
  • Targeted traffic: SEO helps car companies get very specific people to visit their website. By focusing on specific terms and phrases related to their products and services, dealerships can make sure that people who find their website through search engines are interested in what they have to offer. This makes it more likely that those people will buy something.
  • Better user experience: SEO includes making the structure, navigation, and performance of a website better so that users have a good time. Users will be happy with a website that is easy to use, loads quickly, and has useful and relevant information. It will also do better in search engines.
  • Local targeting: Location targeting is very important for car stores. Local SEO techniques, like making business ads on directories like Google My Business better, can help dealerships get a better ranking in local search results when people are looking for dealerships in their area.

To make SEO work for auto dealers’ marketing, they should do keyword research, optimize on-page elements like URLs, titles, headings, and meta descriptions, write relevant and high-quality content, build quality backlinks, make the website faster and run better, and keep an eye on and analyze website analytics to make changes based on data. Working with an SEO expert or digital marketing firm can help dealerships create and carry out a specific SEO plan that helps them reach their goals.

If you’re looking for an expert in auto dealer marketing, Actual SEO Media, Inc. is your best bet. We have years of experience marketing for dealerships far and wide. Although we’re based in the Houston area, that has never stopped us from getting our clients the auto dealer marketing experience they need. Call our team today to get your free consultation and start upgrading your auto dealer marketing methods.

Tags

Houston Location

12922 Briarwest Cir
Houston, TX 77077
Phone (713) 737-5529
info@actualseomedia.com

Service Areas

Houston, TX
Harris County, TX
Houston, TX 77077

19901 Southwest Fwy #310
Sugar Land, TX 77479
Phone (281) 962-6166 info@actualseomedia.com


Service Areas

Sugar Land, TX
Fort Bend County, TX
Katy, TX 77479

24044 Cinco Village Center Blvd #100
Katy, TX 77494
Phone (281) 962-7777
Sales (713) 737-5529
info@actualseomedia.com

Service Areas

Fort Bend County, TX
Katy, TX
Katy, TX 77494

1880 S Dairy Ashford Rd Suite 682
Houston, TX 77077
Phone (832) 834-0661
Sales (713) 737-5529
info@actualseomedia.com

Service Areas

Houston, TX
Harris County, TX
Houston, TX 77077

2800 Post Oak Blvd Suite 4100
Houston, TX 77056
Phone (832) 390-2407
info@actualseomedia.com

Service Areas

Houston, TX
Harris County, TX
Houston, TX 77056

16310 Tomball Parkway, #1303
Houston, TX 77064
Phone (346) 946-9494
info@actualseomedia.com

Service Areas

Tomball Parkway, TX

Day Hours
Sunday 8:00 AM- 8:00 PM
Monday 8:00 AM—8:00 PM
Tuesday 8:00 AM—8:00 PM
Wednesday 8:00 AM—8:00 PM
Thursday 8:00 AM—8:00 PM
Friday 8:00 AM—8:00 PM
Saturday 8:00 AM—8:00 PM