If you’re in the automotive business and you’re either neglecting or don’t have an online marketing strategy, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. Online marketing offers some of the most powerful and efficient ways to make your brand known.
One of the best things about online marketing is how highly measurable it is. Knowing how much you’re getting back from marketing dollars is much easier through online marketing than through other methods like radio or print ads. There are also ways that you can market your business online completely for free. Let’s take a look at a few useful online marketing tips for automotive businesses.
Unleash the Power of PPC
PPC is one of the best ways that you can market your business online. PPC stands for pay-per-click and is a method that allows you to bid on certain keywords related to your business and have your ad displayed every time someone searches for these words. The most beautiful thing about PPC is that you only have to pay when people click on your ads, not when they’re displayed, so you’ll only be paying for results.
You’ve probably seen PPC ads before without realizing it. For instance, when you see sponsored results on the side, top, or bottom of searches in Google and other search engines, what you’re seeing is pay-per-click ads.
The best way to use PPC marketing as an automotive business is to target the three main networks, Google, Bing, and Facebook, do a thorough search of potential keywords, and test a few bidding strategies.
You can start testing with a very small budget; as small as $5 per day per network. In your keyword research, you should have a good mix of local and general terms, but they all have to be precise. You should also privilege keywords that show buying intent.
If you have the money for it, we would suggest that you speak with a professional to handle this for you. Some of these platforms are simple, but running efficient ads on Facebook’s very sophisticated platform takes experience. And, even on other platforms, you can easily overspend and have scattered results. So, unless you’re 100% confident in your skills, you should consider using a PPC agency, preferably one that’s used to your type of business.
Content Marketing
Another very powerful method to advertise an automotive business is to release high-quality content either on your site or on other well-respected sites. By doing this, you’ll not only be getting attention from their audience and become a resource to people searching for specific information, but you’ll also gain points with search engines.
Search engines love sites with rich informative content and posting on other sites allows you to send links back to your page. Google will reward sites with lots of links from reputable sources with better rankings.
If you’re in the car recycling business, for instance, you can write an article on how to sell your car with a blown engine and post it on your blog. This way, people looking for this type of information will end up on your site and start reading the information. If they like what they see, there’s a strong chance that they’ll come to you to sell their car.
This method will work even better if you subtly mention selling your car to a service like yours as one of the solutions and weave relevant keywords with high search volumes naturally into your text.
Local SEO
Local
If you don’t have a Google My Business account yet, get one right away. Make sure that your contact information (name, address, phone number) is consistent everywhere you post it online, whether it’s on directories, your website, or your social media page.
You should also revise your site’s content and see where you could include local search terms naturally. There are many ways that you can add your city and location naturally in your copy, but one of the best places to do this would be in a FAQ section.
You will also need to generate mentions on your site on local outlets. You can do this by posting content in local publications, or finding a way to get mentioned by local media. One of the easiest ways to do that is to give back to your community, or by creating an event that gains a lot of media attention.
These are all ways that automotive businesses can use online marketing to further their brand. Use all of these tips and always try to find new ways to use digital marketing to your advantage.
