Advertising is the main component of any beginner, as well as an already thriving business. As Vance Packard said: “Advertising is the art which is aiming at the head but wants to get into one’s pocket.” This statement precisely describes the essence and necessity of advertising. With its help, you attract new customers, and as a result, you get more profit.
Why does advertising work? It’s simple. The more people see/hear about your automotive shop or your dealership, the higher the likelihood that they will want to buy exactly your product/item/service. The more recognizable and popular your brand, the more likely your profits will multiply.
Now there are a lot of types of advertising. And, of course, all we want to choose the most effective type of advertising. But also we want to spend as little as possible money on it. Therefore, today we will focus on 10 inexpensive automotive advertising ideas to promote your dealership or shop, which are not only relevant today but also have proven their effectiveness.
And so, as we said, there are so many cheap ways (and somewhere even free) to achieve high results. Let’s list them:
1- Post videos online.
The Internet is a great equalizer, it enables small companies to compete with large corporations. The main problem for any business on the Internet is that no one can find you. And posting videos online is the solution to this problem.
After you post the video, your website will appear on the first page of the search within 30 minutes and then rise to the first two positions during the day. It was also noted that customers are more likely to buy something if videos are present on the website.
You can shoot the video yourself, or you can hire a professional. Choose yourself, depending on what result you want to get.
2- Publish customer stories on the website.
Take a short interview with a customer by phone or send him a feedback form by mail, and then post it on your website. This will work with companies of all sizes, be it a small automotive shop or a large dealership.
Customer stories may be small, but contain a lot of useful information. This story must have:
- the problem that the client encountered and why he appealed to you in your automotive store;
- then, how your product solved this problem and made the customer happy.
3- Connect with your potential customers and buyers through the blog.
Use your blog to post news about your success, awards of your automotive company, happy customers or any other content: video, images, etc. Don’t have a blog? You can create it easily. With your WordPress account, you can enable the blog option. The combination of good quality content with a high presence on social networks will help you expand your customer base and accordingly increase the sale of your products.
4- List your company on Google Maps.
Your company must be on Google maps, plus everything is completely free. For small automotive shops, having local Google maps is of particular importance for several reasons:
- A customer using Google’s search will always see your company if it’s nearby.
- Your company website will be better ranked in search.
- Customers will be able to give ratings or leave comments about your company.
5- Explore forums to find customers.
Use the BoardReader.com search engine to search for articles or discussions on topics of interest to you. But, since your business is related to cars, we want to advise you to familiarize yourself with the website bestforacar.com where you will find all the information about the best products of the automotive industry.
A little hint: don’t sell openly, it’s better to give out tips or hints on behalf of your company and make sure that topics or articles are created recently.
6- Share information all over the Internet.
Nowadays, the most inexpensive and effective way to promote small automotive companies is to share on social networks what you do and what you like.
Recently finished a project? Write about it on your blog, on Twitter, on Instagram, Facebook, anywhere. Have a beautiful photo? Publish it. Have you read an interesting article, for example, and relating to your field of activity? Share it with others. Have you discovered exciting new information that will surprise your customers? Tell everyone about it.
Thus, you will not spend a dime on advertising, while all your contacts and customers will be checked and reliable, which cannot be achieved with the help of “cold calls”.
7- Write about seasonal events in your blog to fuel interest in your products.
Constantly post information about each seasonal event: be it an international automotive forum, a Formula 1 race, or a retro car show. So you will attract the attention of many to your site, and this does not require any investment, except for time.
8- Use online services to redistribute sales and list products.
For example, on the Lexity.com platform, you can select various applications that will help promote your business. You can add as many applications as you want. These applications will help to place information about your products on Google, TheFind, Shop.com, and Facebook, as well as manage your AdWords advertising campaign, and even place a panel of likes, reposts, +1, subscriptions on your site.
Lexity is a free service that is easy to manage. Application prices are also quite affordable: from $ 19 to $ 399 per month. Attentive support service is working.
9- Publish paid posts on Facebook.
Since Facebook changed the EdgeRank algorithm, which allows only 10% of your page subscribers to see your posts, posting paid publications has become even more relevant.
Paid publications will see more subscribers. This will directly lead you to sales. Plus, with the right use of Facebook ads, other people who don’t follow your news will find out about you.
And no, it’s not expensive. To start, invest somewhere in $ 50 to check the mechanism of action of advertising, and spend $ 5-10 per day. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the result and the profit received from this $ 50.
10- Use online services to get media attention.
It is currently difficult to imagine effective promotion without using Public Relations technologies, not only in print media but also on the Internet portals. They provide an opportunity to reach a huge audience of readers, thereby successfully popularizing the automotive brand. New articles are published every day, and maybe it is your company that will become its hero. Sign up for Journalistic Inquiries Services (which is usually completely free) and look for journalists’ requests for material related to your automotive industry.
These services will send you an email list of journalists’ questions several times a day, so you will not miss the chance to be published. The effect of this will be sure if it is both a well-known public press and a popular information portal, where is the attendance of up to 100 000 people per day.
In conclusion, we want to say that all the recommendations and techniques that we have given in this article are tested in practice. Yes, not all the tricks described here are suitable for every automotive shop or dealership. But, without doubts, absolutely everyone is very effective and also inexpensive. Choose some specific ones that will help without fail to your company.
