How To Market A Used Car Dealership Online

On today's episode we talk about how to market a used car dealership online by: 

• Creating a unique and clean website. We go a little bit more in depth on what things you should have on your site
• Having a strong reputation management strategy. Simple... get more reviews!
• Mastering search engine marketing. 
• Using Facebook to advertise but doing it in a unique way.

Christian: [00:00:15] Hello,and welcome to another episode of The Marketing Natives. Today we are talkingabout how to market a used car dealership online. We're talking about reviews.We're talking about websites. We're talking about search engine marketing. Alot of good stuff in here if you are a car dealership owner or maybe you'repart of the marketing team, you know? Also if you're listening to this podcastfor the first time, we want to welcome you. If you want to check us out andhave a full list of all of our previous podcast episodes with transcriptionsand explanations and links and all that, you can check us out atbitbranding.co/podcast.

Aaron: [00:00:57] Iwould say- Kind of explain a little bit about our podcasts because we don't doit interview style. So we kind of just explain the industry specific because ifit's their first time-

Christian: [00:01:07] Yeah,go ahead.

Aaron: [00:01:08] Okay.I will. All right. So Christian and I are business partners, and we kind ofdissect these industry-specific terms. So one week we ' re maybe talking abouta car dealership. The next week we may be talking about a dentist, but I dowant to iterate that each podcast is applicable to any type of business owner.It's just we like to give like really good advice for that specific industry,and you can use it in your business as well. So.

Christian: [00:01:34] Absolutely.All right. So the first thing that you need to do to really market and bereally good at marketing your car dealership online is to have a unique andclean website. The website is going to be basically your storefront online. Soyou have to make sure that number one, it's functional. Number two, you havethe right content. A lot of car dealership websites use stock images or maybejust one or two images per car. You want to make sure that you have a lot ofimages, explanations, what's working, what's not working with the vehicle, andjust be upfront about all those things, but most importantly have, you know,something that stands out and something that's clean and easy to navigate foryour website. I guess another big thing is to- And this is something that a lotof people have been implementing in their websites, it's a messenger chatbot.

Aaron: [00:02:26] Yes.

Christian: [00:02:26] Soyou can automatically take care of a lot of customers, asking questions. Youcan set the chatbot to do different things and different answers. You can do-They can be very powerful. So definitely encourage you to use some kind ofchatbot or messenger in your website.

Aaron: [00:02:46] Right.I think some more popular ones like Intercom you can actually- Say you'reoffline. It's 1:00 in the morning. They're searching for a car, and you'reoffline. You can connect it to an FAQ. So on your website, having an FAQ willreally help you stand out, and if somebody's searching for it and there'snobody live to do it there, this is kind of like a customer service tool thatyou may get the deal compared to somebody else because you're able to answerthe question.

Christian: [00:03:12] Imean, besides just having the chatbot, you also need to make sure that you havesomeone in your team who's responsible for those leads coming in from thewebsite. You know, having that one person is good, and that person candelegate, you know, other tasks, but definitely have someone in charge of thosepeople come in from your website.

Aaron: [00:03:29] Yes,that's the first impression. I mean, that's a part of our notes here is thatthat's typically the first impression. Most people don't go see a used cardealership across the street and say, "I'm just going to walk overthere." No, they look online. They try to find the car they're looking forand then go check it out.

Christian: [00:03:48] Yep.

Aaron: [00:03:48] Anythingelse with the website?

Christian: [00:03:49] Nope,that's it.

Aaron: [00:03:49] Allright. Cool. The number two here is to ask for more reviews. So reviews arevery important. We've talked- I think we've had quite a few episodes beforeabout reputation management and then how important that is and what kind ofimpact that has on businesses when you don't have reviews or they're notfrequent or they're not good. So a car dealership, especially a used cardealership- I'm doing like some air quotes here. Like some people already havethis preconceived notion that you're going to get sold to as soon as you get onthe lot, that it's going to be a bad experience, and they kind of dread doingit, but if you have reviews from customers who tell you otherwise that say hey,this was maybe the best experience ever. I worked with Clifford or I workedwith Jamison or whatever, and these people really helped me out. They, youknow, they took the time. They weren't sales-y. They actually listened to whatI needed. They didn't try to upsell me this Corvette that I needed and I reallywanted this Honda. Honda's rock by the way. Anyway, but the point is that youget real customer feedback because you can talk about how good you are online.But I think even more so other than like maybe roofing or- I can't really thinkof another industry, but besides that like those types of industries, those areprobably the most important for you to have online reviews before somebodycomes in there.

Christian: [00:05:13] Yeah,absolutely. And I think I said that, you know, your website's like yourstorefront online, but to be honest, like a lot of people might just search andthe first thing that they might see is going to be reviews. So reviews issomething that they might even see before they actually see your website, andif you don't have the right reviews or timely reviews or you're not answeringto the bad reviews and the good reviews, you're not going to get visitors toyour website.

Aaron: [00:05:38] Yes.So just some good practices there. Always respond to the bad reviews, alwaysrespond to the good reviews, and don't just assume that people are only goingto be on like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Yelp. There are industry specific. Somake sure that you get some reviews on those spots as well.

Christian: [00:05:54] Yeah.DealerRater, cars.com, and all that stuff.

Aaron: [00:05:57] Which-Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know- They may have reviews. I guess I've neverreally looked at that part of it, but yeah.

Christian: [00:06:04] Ithink so.

Aaron: [00:06:05] Allright.

Christian: [00:06:09] Whoa.Cool.

Aaron: [00:06:10] That'sa little echo part at the end. If you hold it down long enough, it gives likean echo sound. So that's where my DJ skills really come into play.

Christian: [00:06:17] Interesting.

Aaron: [00:06:17] Allright. So this is your first time or if it's not you first time, this isprobably your favorite part of the episode too. This is where we tell a littlebit about BitBranding, and for the last three weeks now, we've been talkingspecifically about our ribbon cutting. We are in Allen, Texas, 550 SouthWatters Road at Allen Yeager Offices, and we are going to have a ribbon cuttingon May 3rd at 4:30 P.M.. Again that's May 3rd at 4:30 P.M.. We have a lot ofexciting things. Let's head it over to Christian. What kind of things are goingto really attract people to come out?

Christian: [00:06:52] Yeah.So actually we just confirmed we're going to have a room full of puppies thatyou can come and play with. That's pretty exciting. We're also going to have aspeech done by Tony Romo. He's coming over to our ribbon cutting. We also have-Obviously, we still have the zip line going. The hot tubs. We've also-

Aaron: [00:07:14] Withbottle service.

Christian: [00:07:15] Withbottle service. Yeah. Now we also thought about doing instead of just water inthe hot tubs, during one with chocolate. That will be pretty tasty, and peoplecan fondue in there too. That'd be kind of gross maybe. I don't know. We'restill working out the details on that.

Aaron: [00:07:31] Itsounds great on paper, but you know, as we're playing with the amount ofchocolate that's going to be needed, it's- You know.

Christian: [00:07:37] Thatmight be a little bit costly.

Aaron: [00:07:39] Oh.He almost missed. There's a small band coming that will be live in thecourtyard, Imagine Dragons, if you've ever heard of them. You can go googlethem. I think they got a couple of songs out you may like. So.

Christian: [00:07:51] Yeah.Good stuff.

Aaron: [00:07:51] Butanyway, if you want to experience all of that and more, it's probably waycooler to meet Christian and I. We are in the Dallas area. We would love tomeet you guys if you're listeners in the area, or if you drive from a reallyfar away, that'd be cool too. But May 3rd, 4:30 P.M. our ribbon cutting. Bethere or- I don't know. We should do like a live video or something, but Idon't know. Anyway, May 3rd 5:30, Allen, Texas.

Christian: [00:08:18] Yes.

Aaron: [00:08:19] Sorry.4:30.

Christian: [00:08:20] What'dyou say before?

Aaron: [00:08:21] Isaid 5:30.

Christian: [00:08:23] No.4:30.

Aaron: [00:08:23] Wewere testing you guys. You're probably listening, and you said, "No, it'snot 5:30. It's 4:30." All right. So, and give me one second here.

Christian: [00:08:34] Perfect,perfect. I love it. All right. So we're back to how to market a used cardealership online. The last thing we have here is to master search enginemarketing.

Aaron: [00:08:49] SEO.

Christian: [00:08:50] SEO.

Aaron: [00:08:50] SearchEngine Optimization. Where you go on Google, on Yelp, if you use Bing, or ifyou use something like DuckDuckGo, this is where you're going to try to findyour business online. Most people use Google. So that's what we're going to kindof use as our example, but mastering this is going to be very important. Peoplego to Google. They're looking for a car. They're not necessarily looking for adealership unless you have a great brand in the area. They're probably notthinking about the dealership. I can't- Can you think of any in the area?

Christian: [00:09:21] Hm-mm.

Aaron: [00:09:21] No,me neither. So there's no good ones. I know there's Clay Cooley-.

Christian: [00:09:25] Well,no. There might be some good ones.

Aaron: [00:09:27] No.Okay, that's true. There definitely are some good ones, but they're notsticking out to us. So if you are a car dealership and want to stick out, thisis a selfish plug to say reach out to us. But anyway, people are going to go toGoogle, and if you have a certain type of car, you have certain types of cars,it's probably a good idea to have like maybe- I wrote down here like aone-minute video about the car kind of showing the outside, showing the inside,maybe some features. It's got 497 horsepower just on the wheels. It's gotleather interior, and it can fly. Like those are all, you know, techniques touse to kind of tell people about the video or tell people about the car, and Idon't see anybody doing any videos because it takes a little bit more work. Butif you're gonna buy a car, I feel like a video will really give you a betterunderstanding. And I would probably go check out a car if it was done as avideo versus just a bunch of pictures.

Christian: [00:10:23] Sowhat you're saying is do a video, put it on YouTube, and then link that video -that YouTube video - to your website to that specific car.

Aaron: [00:10:31] Exactly.And I mean, you should write out some details about the car too. So like maybesome features, all the things that you said in the video, like as some bulletpoints so that people still get that information if they can't watch the video.But Google owns YouTube, and that's a search engine tool. So you'll start torank for that specific type of car. You know, if it's a 2012 used Honda Civicand you rank for that video in the area, they're going to see that video, andyou link that to your website and drive more traffic there. And that's wherethe messenger bot or the messenger person is able to talk to them, and theycome in and make a purchase.

Christian: [00:11:07] Doyou have anything else?

Aaron: [00:11:09] Ifyou don't want to do videos, you can do blogs.

Christian: [00:11:13] Ithink the one thing that we didn't talk about was social media.

Aaron: [00:11:15] Wow.Yeah, we missed that.

Christian: [00:11:17] And.

Aaron: [00:11:18] Bonus.

Christian: [00:11:19] Bonus.So yeah. I mean, definitely be on Facebook. That's where everyone is at, butyou need to do things differently. You know, don't do the typical, you know-

Aaron: [00:11:30] Standingin front of a car. We have a great deal. Come on down.

Christian: [00:11:34] Yeah,exactly. Don't do those. Be a little bit more creative. Add some fire or-

Aaron: [00:11:40] Right.Some stuff blowing up.

Christian: [00:11:42] Stuffblowing up. Yes, some special effects. I don't know. Just make it fun just toattract some people. Make it funny definitely. I mean, cars is a very broadaudience, I would say. So make something really funny or something extravagantout of that. You know, you'll get people watching your videos and images andall that on your Facebook. And also I think - don't quote me on this - but Ithink car dealerships can post on the marketplace now.

Aaron: [00:12:11] ,Yesthey can. So actually most people can post on the marketplace as well now.

Christian: [00:12:15] No,I know people could, but I didn't know if dealerships could also do that.

Aaron: [00:12:19] Yes,I believe they can, and you can also set up like what's called a catalog onFacebook and actually have a list of your cars that are there and remarket backto people who like looked at your videos or your images about specific cars.

Christian: [00:12:33] Gotcha.

Aaron: [00:12:33] Andone last thing, I guess - it's very important - is Facebook advertising allowsyou like- Say, for example, Christian's in the market for a luxury vehicle. Ican actually find out if he's been looking in the last six months for a luxuryvehicle or is looking for like a sedan or SUV. So you can target people who arelooking for specific types of cars and put it right in front of them.

Christian: [00:12:54] Allright. There you have it. So this episode, how to market a used car dealershiponline. We talked about having the clean, neat website with lots of pictures,considering using a chat bot. We also talked about getting a handle of yourreputation management, getting more reviews, having reviews, you know,consistently, also responding to reviews. Number three is to master SearchEngine Optimization, create some videos and blog posts on your website. Numberfour, social media ,  social marketing,Facebook advertising, Facebook page. Make sure you're doing very unique videos.You know, also use the Facebook marketplace to share some of your vehicles.

Aaron: [00:13:41] Right.And if you've gotten this far in, you are a car dealership owner and you'reneeded some help, reach out to us, and if you are tuning in and would do us afavor, you love the podcast, please leave us an honest review online. Sharethis with a friend by going to bitbranding.co/podcast, and if you would like apodcast in your industry, go to BitBranding's Instagram and shoot us a directmessage.

Christian: [00:14:06] Allright. You'll hear us.

Aaron: [00:14:09] We'lltalk to-

Christian: [00:14:10] We'lltalk to you next week. Bye.