Diversify your marketing strategy

Marketing is a tough beast to tame. Just when you think you’ve got the hang of it, trends change, and you’re back to the drawing board. The best practices of digital marketing seem to be ever-changing. The key is to always be evolving and improving — and to do that, you’ve got to diversify your marketing habits and strategies.

Outside of your dealership’s website, which should really be considered the “home base” of your digital marketing initiatives, there are three major categories of online advertising to consider. All three of these should be implemented (ideally at the same time) and altered as needed to drive the best results for your business. These include search engine optimization (SEO), creating website content with keywords that attract search engines and boost search rankings; search engine marketing (SEM), text and image ads placed in search engine results and select websites to capture internet users’ attention and encourage website clicks; and digital marketing campaigns.

The first two strategies are fairly self-contained, but we’ll break down strategy No. 3:

• Digital marketing campaigns could include a wide variety of components — things like e-newsletters, social media ads, website graphics and banners, and more. These advertising methods are highly visual and aim to drive engagement with viewers. They help to entice both past customers and prospects in a variety of places online — email inboxes, social media pages and beyond.

It may seem overwhelming at first, but the dealerships that implement SEO, SEM and a variety of digital marketing campaigns at the same time see the most accelerated results. According to research collected by Digital Marketing Philippines, diversification of digital marketing channels can result in up to 200 percent increase in conversion rates. While your website may be fantastic on its own, you run the risk of falling behind your competitors if you don’t take those extra steps that are available.

Also important to consider — different times of the year and certain seasons of digital marketing trends could affect your dealership’s advertising performance. For instance, Facebook video posts may be a highly effective strategy now, but what if we start seeing Instagram Story posts outshine them a few months from now? Maybe your email recipients weren’t opening or clicking on your e-newsletters as often as you’d prefer in the summer months, but come winter, those promotional emails will bring in the most leads for your dealership. To combat these variables and the ever-changing digital marketing landscape, you must diversify. When you have more than one marketing strategy working on bringing in results, you put yourself in a highly strategic position and increase your chances of performing your best.

If your dealership is new to all of this, you may want to start out by equally dispersing your marketing budget toward a multi-piece portfolio of online advertising strategies. With multiple efforts in place, you can monitor the results you see from each one over a certain time period — for example, one month. Let’s say at the end of that month you start to see great results from your display ads through SEM. In this case, you should consider upping your SEM ad spend but decreasing your budget in another area where results are not so impressive. Change this up as often as needed, and keep things fresh by updating your ads and graphics on a regular basis.

By creating a foundation for your digital marketing strategy in a variety of areas, rather than just one or two that you think will bring you the best results or may be the most effective right now, you’ve covered all your bases for now and for the future. You have given your dealership the security it needs to survive the trends and best practices of the moment, while preparing for inevitable changes later.

Lauren McLean is the public relations manager at Dealer Spike, a leading web services provider for powersports dealerships. The award-winning digital advertising company is focused on helping dealers increase sales through powerful, distinctive website design and a full suite of online marketing tools to drive results. Dealer Spike’s expertise comes from real-world dealership experience and a team of professionals who also ride. When you work with Dealer Spike, you’re working with digital marketing experts who have a passion for your industry.

Website: www.DealerSpike.com

Phone: 800/288-5917

Email: Press@DealerSpike.com