In the last few weeks, I’ve been curating a lot of content regarding the benefits of content marketing for your dealership. It’s a powerful way to increase the keywords associated with your dealership, a sustainable way to control and multiply the inbound links to your Website, and a hands-on strategy to increase your overall authority on the Internet as a car dealer in your area…
…but most of all it’s an incredible way to generate leads from conquest customers for your dealership and sell more cars to vehicle shoppers outside of your database.
Unfortunately, most car dealers I am talking to have not yet put in place a structure to create new content on a regular basis to attract new customers. Other than updating their Website each month, making a few post on their Facebook page, filming inventory walkaround videos or using their TV commercial on their YouTube channel... very few are making diligent efforts to dramatically increase their digital footprint to allow vehicle shoppers to stumble on their content.
Is it worth the effort?
Is content marketing a little overwhelming considering your current crazy schedule? YES!
Is it easy to set in motion the necessary processes and maintain the discipline to keep the strategy alive? NO!
Is it worth it? Dealers committed to content marketing see a 300% increase in Website traffic and sales leads within six months with ZERO increase to their advertising budget!
…but the best incentive to stay the course with your content marketing is the residual or compound effect of your efforts. Every piece of content you produce will remain on the Web for months and years to come, constantly attracting new prospects as they research their next purchase online.
Don’t take me wrong; there’s still a place for paid ads in the automotive marketing strategy of your dealership. They will provide you with an immediate “lift” and instant visitors to your Website. Unfortunately the second you turn the ads off the traffic disappears.
With content marketing, the traffic never stops.
You should use paid ads while you are building and rolling out your content marketing. I would even use paid ads to promote specific pieces of solid content your team produced and that you know will provide great value for vehicle shoppers looking for information about their next vehicle.
Where to start?
If you are just starting with content marketing, the key concept you have to grasp is content multiplication; or in other words, you need to find ways to multiply your content into numerous media formats.
For example, you could record a podcast explaining your manufacturer’s incentive (audio) and have it transcribed into a blog for your Website (written) and use the audio to create a slideshow video for your YouTube channel (video) and then distribute these three pieces of content on all your social media properties.
Turning one video into 12 pieces of content marketing for your dealership
Let’s take this promotional video we created for our GM dealers and explore all the different ways it could be re-purposed as content to help you attract new vehicle buyers:
The video should first be uploaded to your YouTube channel with a back link to your Website
You could use the video as a YouTube pre-roll ad (officially called True-View in-stream ads)
You could use the video on your dealership’s Website home page
You could use the transcripts of the video and create a blog post on your Website or Tumblr
You could share the new blog created in step #4 to your dealership’s Facebook page
You could upload the video to Facebook as a social post
You could boost your Facebook post to reach a wider audience
You could add a few thumbnail of the video or images of vehicles featured in the video to Instagram and invite your followers to visit your site to watch the video (make full uses of # to increase visibility)
You could Tweet the video (make full uses of # to increase visibility)
You could update your personal LinkedIn contacts and LinkedIn dealership followers with a news update with a link to the video
You could take the audio from the video and use it in your podcast
You should finally include in your dealership newsletter the links to the blog and the video
The video should first be uploaded to your YouTube channel with a backlink to your Website
Finally, make sure you’re making full use of the power of retargeting to remarket to everyone who will have engaged with your content on your Website, your blog or your Facebook page
If you would like help jump-starting your content marketing strategy or fine tuning your content multiplication tactics don’t hesitate to contact the automotive marketing experts at Turbo Marketing Solutions every weekday by calling 1 800 262-0081.
Sean Cassy is co-owner and the automotive digital marketing strategist at Turbo Marketing. You can contact him here by email or reach him from 8am-6pm every weekday at Turbo Marketing Solutions.