More and more car dealers are starting to truly grasp that the internet is the most powerful way to market their dealership and advertise their inventory. For years, dealerships would check the box. “Yep, I’ve got my inventory in Autotrader and Cars.com. I’ve got that internet thing all covered.”
It used to be that progressive dealerships would venture outside that paradigm but now we see that most dealerships have to do more online to compete. There are many good products and services in the market to help dealers win the online consumer but when you boil it all down it comes down to very important 2 factors.
The first is having the right inventory fairly priced in the market. Sure you can sell almost any kind of vehicle. I’ve said it many times myself over the years, “there’s an ass for every seat,” but that’s really the exception and not the rule. Dealerships need to purchase the fastest turning inventory for their brand and their market and price it competitively.
The second and most important, advertising your inventory – bringing as many potential customers to your dealership who might otherwise never know that vehicle exists.
One can argue there’s a lot more to selling cars. Dealerships need good salespeople, effective internal processes, a good reputation, a good service department, etc. I believe that too but let’s face it, having good inventory and lots of people see that inventory is the top two in my book.
There are lots of ways to marketing your inventory. As I mentioned, ponying-up to Autotrader and Cars.com is a way that many dealerships bring in customers. Both of these companies have first-rate sites and good markets. Millions of shoppers visit these sites every month. But is allocating all or most of your marketing dollars to one or two sources the best way to capture more market share? It would be like Toyota only advertising on NBC and CBS. Or Ford spending their entire print adverting budget in Field and Stream magazine. Smart companies, big and small find ways to capture as many potential clients in as many different markets as possible.
What if you can advertise your inventory to millions of auto shoppers in multiple markets and only pay when a consumer is interested in your specific vehicle? What if you can take that potential customer shopping around the internet and land them directly on your vehicle detail page of the car they are interested in? What if you can take part of your current budget and translate that into more visitors to your website, more leads and more sales?
AIM’s CarClicks new marketing program will do just that. We take your inventory and upload it daily to over 20 different automotive sites that produce over 20 million monthly auto shoppers. We display your inventory in these sites with priority over other inventory within a 50 mile radius of your dealership. Consumers interested in a specific vehicle are driven directly to the dealership website’s vehicle detail page. All for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee. CarClicks leverages the biggest online market of auto shoppers, provides shoppers who are deep in the sales funnel, uses cutting edge technology and is very efficient and effective. It’s the new way to drive quality traffic to your website. To learn more click here.