10 Marketing Tips for Automotive Dealerships to Deal with the Coronavirus
As per discussions on the same over at the highly rated runrex.com, there are very few industries that have been hit harder than the automotive industry. If you own an automotive dealership and are looking for marketing tips to help you deal with the coronavirus crisis, then you are in the right place as this article will look to highlight 10 such marketing tips.
Make sure your business is available online
This is one of the most important marketing tips for automotive dealerships, as per the gurus over at guttulus.com, particularly since most customers are likely to avoid in-person research when looking for a car. Make sure that you have a website where prospective customers can visit and browse cars on, as well as completing the entire car purchasing process from the comfort of their homes. This ensures the safety of your clients, which should definitely improve your popularity among the people looking to buy a car.
Update and improve ways through which customers can reach you
Buying a car is different from buying most other goods as customers like to negotiate the price so that they can get the best deal for them. Therefore, as a marketing tip, if you own an automotive dealership, you should make sure that you provide your customers with various avenues through which they can be able to reach you and interact with you from a phone number to email and even via video calls and so forth.
Make sure your customers know all the precautions you are taking to keep them safe during the coronavirus crisis
Given how serious the situation is, the gurus over at runrex.com recommend that as another marketing tip, you ensure that your customers know all the precautions you are taking to ensure their safety from the coronavirus. This includes letting them know if you are conducting a deep-cleaning and disinfection of the dealership and how often, the disinfecting and hygiene protocols that are there on-site and many others. Make sure that your customers are able to feel safe visiting your dealership, which will do wonders for your marketing.
Offer discounts and other incentives to your customers
One thing that the coronavirus crisis has precipitated for many people out there is financial difficulties. Therefore, the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com recommend that, as a marketing tip, automotive dealerships start lowering their prices as well as offering other incentives to encourage folks to make purchases or leases. This is something that you should definitely consider and is a marketing tip that you can never go wrong with.
Change your branding to match the times
Ordinarily, branding for most dealerships involves highlighting their lavish showrooms and first-class facilities. However, with the current coronavirus pandemic, the folks over at runrex.com recommend that you change the way you brand your dealership as highlighting such things are unlikely to be attractive to customers at this time. They care more about their safety than how lavish your showroom is and you should make sure you make the necessary adjustments to cater for this shift in consumer behavior.
Increase your social media interaction
Many people will be spending more time on social media, trying to check in with friends and family and looking for news on the coronavirus crisis, and as such you need to ensure you increase your social media engagements so that you can make sure that you are in front of your audience more often. This is a marketing tip that comes highly recommended by the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com.
Make sure that you are leveraging local SEO more
With people staying at home due to COVID-19, local SEO strategies have never been more important and, as per discussions on the same over at runrex.com, you should make sure that you leverage these strategies to ensure that your website ranks well in “near me” searches. Make sure customers in your geo region can find you easily online so that they can turn to you first if they are looking to buy a car. Convenience is what most people are looking for right now and you should make sure you are giving them exactly that with this marketing tip.
Make sure you add positive reviews onto your website
The gurus over at guttulus.com are adamant that online reputation management is crucial during the coronavirus crisis. You should therefore make sure that your website contains positive reviews of your service, and that they are very visible so that visitors instantly see them when they visit your website. It is also recommended that you put up relevant reviews, like those praising your business on the measures you have put in place to keep your customers safe during the pandemic, like say greatly reducing on-site transactions or how clean the dealership is and so forth.
Avoid knee-jerk reactions
One thing you don’t want to do as far as your marketing efforts go is manic a decision based on panic. The folks over at runrex.com advice against making panic moves, warning that knee-jerk reactions almost always end badly when it comes to marketing. Take your time to evaluate the situation, and consult experts, to make sure that you make an informed decision. It is even advisable that you sit tight so that you can position yourself to reap the benefits for when the crisis eventually passes.
Use the downtime to finish your digital to-do list
Given you will have lots of downtime due to the coronavirus, you should use that time to brush up on the marketing items that you may have ignored before. This means updating your website as mentioned earlier on but also having a specialist perform a CRO audit or even an SEO audit of your website, among other things. This is the perfect time for self-improvement as far as your marketing efforts go and you should make sure you do just that.
The above is just but the tip of a very big iceberg and you can uncover more information on this and other related topics by checking out the excellent guttulus.com.