Leads are equally important for automobile dealerships and showrooms as other businesses or services. Without having high-quality and favorable leads, no automotive businesses and sellers can survive in the competitive market. Unfortunately, most automobile dealers don’t have a rich idea about car dealership lead generation. As a result, they usually stick around traditional ways to capture the market and fail to capture enough automotive leads and scale their business.
Therefore, it is essential to approach automotive lead generation in the right way and discover some automotive lead generation ideas to attract new customers and retain the existing ones effectively.
What is automotive lead generation?
The digital era has introduced some new and effective methodologies in the marketing domain. Any business belonging to any niche or industry can instantly engage potential customers by leveraging different lead generation strategies. For instance, you can opt for Facebook, Instagram, or Google to gain access to the right audience. In addition, your business website itself is a vital platform to attract and hook qualified leads.
Despite this newly emerged and evolving approach for lead generation, it’s become difficult to generate hot leads amid overwhelming competition and market saturation. For example, people who want to buy or change their car hardly visit any dealerships before finalizing their purchase decision, and being an automobile seller, your shop must be their first and only choice.
This is where automotive Lead generation joins the frame even before your prospects actively start searching for their dream car, station wagon, or SUV. It includes developing an engaging website with lead capture forms, publishing relevant content, dominating social media platforms, and other useful strategies to attract and convert prospects into loyal customers.
Importance of building car dealership lead generation
As we have discussed above, automobile dealers or sellers are under overwhelming pressure to generate more qualified leads and thrive in their highly competitive niche. According to the stats, the average car buyers use to visit only 1 car dealership to finalize their purchase decision (the number reduced from an average of 5).
Car dealership lead generation has become more important and mandatory than ever. With more dealerships and sellers occupying the digital world and leveraging lead generation strategies, the competition to hook hot leads is touching the new summits. Therefore, you need to craft a state-of-the-art and effective lead generation strategy to capture and retain your target audience.
An effective car dealer lead generation model enables automotive dealers to filter, engage, and nurture the automotive leads who are more likely to become paying customers. It interns help you improve your business’s bottom line, reduce customer acquisition costs, improve ROI, and skyrocket your business.
Automotive Lead Generation Ideas to boost your sales
The following automotive lead generation tips help you generate high potential automotive leads and stay ahead of your competition in the market. But, first, let’s discuss each of these effective automotive lead generation ideas in detail.
1. Work on buyer persona for finding targeted audiences
Not everyone interacting with your website, social media posts, or content is an active buyer. Due to the glamour in the automobile niche, most individuals are just navigating through pages or posts and far beyond a sales conversion. Create a buyer persona to gear your automotive lead generation efforts towards the individual who is more likely to become a customer. Your buyer persona is your ideal customer profile.
You need to align your buyer persona with your ideal customers’ demographics, interests, expectations, live events, priorities, and behavior. The right buyer persona has immense potential to increase the efficacy of your automotive lead generation efforts and reduce your customer acquisition cost.
2. Offer valuable content & RFQ in exchange for details
Plan and create valuable gated content for your prospects like vehicle purchase guides and vehicle comparison charts or offer RFQ (Request for quotations) option in exchange for your prospects’ demographic and contact info. Valuable and informative content that adds value to the CX of your prospects can win you a greater number of qualified leads. You can further nurture these leads for the sales qualification at each stage of your sales funnel.
3. Devise content marketing strategy for Automotive lead generation
An effective content marketing strategy starts with content planning and keyword research. First, you can use different keyword research tools to search for your niche’s most trending and heated keywords, phrases, or subject titles. Then, design and create different types of content to address the requirements at each stage of your sales funnel, like vehicle purchase guides, case studies, newsletters, vehicle comparisons, feature sheets, etc. The fundamental idea here is to offer valuable content in exchange for emails.
4. Local SEO
When it comes to purchasing or upgrading a vehicle, people often opt for local dealerships. Statistically, around 80% of people search for the automotive dealership with the keyword “car dealership near me” or “car dealership in XYZ area, city, state, or region” on Google. If your dealership website and blogs are not optimized for local SEO, you will be losing these hot leads and it will cast a devastating impact on your car dealership to lead generation campaign.
Keep in mind that, Google gives extra preference to the geographical location of the prospect. It means that despite any industry-leading auto manufacturer or its official dealership having perfect SEO strategies, it will fail to outrank your dealership business in SERPs if it’s offering services in your city or town.
5. Social Media strategies
Don’t undermine the potential of using social media for generation efforts. Make your account or business page on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Upload and share the informative and relevant content to start discussions and engagement. Join community groups on Facebook and participate in discussions regarding contemporary trends in the automobile sector.
Another way to leverage social media is to leverage lead generation ads. Facebook lead generation ads and Instagram ads allow you to target the right set of audience that matches your buyer persona.
6. Email Marketing campaigns
Running an email marketing campaign is an effective and personalized approach to generating and nurturing hot automotive leads. You can nurture your leads to make them sales-ready by offering valuable gated content and different promotional offers via email marketing. It is recommended to design creative emails with catchy and personalized subject lines to connect with your potential customers. Add detailed and clear CTAs in your email to drive conversions.
7. Paid Marketing campaigns
PPC (Pay Per Click) or Paid Advertisement ), allows you to show ads to your prospects based on the keywords or phrases they search for using search engine platforms like Google and Bing. It is recommended to perform comprehensive keyword research in your niche before opting for paid marketing for lead generation.
PPC as the name suggests, means you are charged for each click the user makes on your ad. Therefore, targeting and bidding for the high-intent and transactional keywords is necessary to make your Ad popup in front of the prospects who are active buyers. Otherwise, you may end up worsening your ROI.
8. Invest in Referral marketing and PR
Nothing offers as much as a referral or word-of-mouth marketing. When purchasing vehicles, most people rely on their friends’ or family members’ suggestions or recommendations. You can design a referral marketing campaign by rewarding your existing customers for referring any other automotive buyer.
You offer different rewards to value your existing customers for their recommendations like a free test drive, discounted service charges, etc
9. Traditional marketing
Traditional and outbound marketing also offers great perks for local businesses like automotive dealerships. Along with all your digital marketing and targetted efforts, employ different traditional marketing strategies in parallels like a print advertisement, flyers, brochures, television or radio broadcasts, and outbound marketing efforts like cold calling, SMS marketing, or direct emails. Nurture your acquired Leads
11. Publish high-quality walkthrough car videos & images
Upload high-resolution and aesthetic pictures and videos of vehicles listed “for sale” on your dealership website as well as social media platforms. Add relevant details in the description like make, model, variant, mileage, color, tax history, and other important attributes. High-quality pictures and videos showcase every single detail of your vehicles to your potential customers and persuade them to take an action. Don’t forget to capture images and shoot videos in daylight.
12. Highlight your offers
Here is a rule of thumb. Test drive, car insurance, and car inspection are a notable part of the vehicle purchasing drive. If your prospects reveal their interest in a test drive, inspection, or insurance, they are more likely to buy from you and thus target all your efforts towards closing the deal.
Highlight all your offers and additional services like free test drive, car inspection service, car insurance, after-sale service, mileage verification, etc. However, don’t offer or promise something that you can’t deliver, as it will damage your dealership’s image and authenticity.
13. Give Customers Credit Check and Car Financing Options
Most buyers prefer financing options while purchasing a car. Since the car purchase demands a notable investment, you need to offer flexible financing options with competitive EMIs to make the purchase journey of customers more smooth and quick.
As an automotive dealership, don’t forget to offer an EMI or loan calculator and display a detailed breakdown of the financing plan and a credit check option. It will add value to your overall automotive lead generation strategy.
14. Automate lead generation with chatbots
Integrate chatbots on your automotive dealership website to engage your customers as over 55% of automotive dealership businesses offer AI-based chatbots to engage the customers effectively. Chatbots can help you engage your prospects at any stage buyer journey and provide them with relevant answers to their queries.
15. Outsourcing lead generation
It is challenging to create a fruitful automotive lead generation model and find the right skill set to deal with the comprehensive task of lead generation. Opt for an authentic lead generation service if you don’t have enough resources or talent to set up an effective car dealership lead generation strategy. Before finalizing an outsourced lead generation service for your automobile dealership, ensure that they have a proven record and successful customer case studies in your niche.
By opting for an https://tech-drop.io/ you gain access to the right talent and focus your time & effort on core business processes.
FAQ’s
How do you get Automotive leads?
The best way to get hot automotive leads is to outsource any leading and authentic lead generation service like Tech-Drop. Outsourcing lead generation service saves you from a lot of headaches and experimentation as you will be acquiring the services of experienced and professional lead generation experts.
How can I get free Automotive leads?
Guest blogging, content marketing, and local SEO are the most effective ways to generate qualified automotive leads for free.
How much do Car dealers pay per lead?
The average cost per lead in the automotive industry may vary from $60 to $550, depending upon the scale of business and source of leads.
Conclusion
These Automotive Lead Generation Ideas are known for producing qualified leads for your automotive dealership and improving your business’s bottom line. Want to scale your business by engaging hot automotive leads? Book your appointment now.
