As an auto manufacturing company, you have a lot of competition. In order to succeed, you need to stay ahead of the pack – and one of the best ways to do so is with digital marketing.
With more than 253 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads, it’s more important than ever that your car brand be at the top-of-mind to customers – so that your vehicles are the majority of the ones on the road. When consumers are ready to purchase a new vehicle, they’ll likely purchase from a brand that has a better advertising and marketing strategy – simply because they see and hear about it more often.
There are several digital marketing strategies that you can use to improve your brand awareness, ensure that your auto manufacturer is a household name, and that you outsell your competition.
On this page, we’ll talk about a few of the best digital marketing techniques for auto manufacturing companies, and how you can get started. If you’d like to speak with one of our digital marketing experts directly, you can reach us at 888-601-5359.
But first – let’s talk about what we mean by the term “digital marketing.”
What is digital marketing for auto manufacturers?
Digital marketing is an umbrella term that covers many techniques – but in short, it’s any strategy that helps a business reach new leads or customers online.
An effective digital marketing strategy includes SEO, PPC, social media marketing, and web design – all of which we’ll talk about on this page.
Digital marketing as a whole is effective for many reasons, but there’s one reason that particularly stands out – and it’s all about the targeted approach.
In general, there are two kinds of marketing, outbound and inbound.
Outbound marketing relies on advertising to a huge audience and hoping that at least some of them will be interested in what you have to offer. This includes traditional channels like billboards, direct mail, and TV commercials.
All of these techniques can simply be ignored if the customer isn’t interested – and many won’t be.
Outbound marketing can be successful if you want to reach a wide audience, but if you want to get better results for your investment, inbound marketing is the answer.
Inbound marketing involves strategies that help your audience find you where they’re already looking – they make your auto manufacturing company easy to find, and allow customers to come to you.
These strategies market products based on what they know about potential customers and advertise directly to the audience that is most likely to become satisfied, paying customers.
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AUTOMOTIVE MANUFACTURER
Digital marketing strategies for your auto manufacturing companies
Though there are many digital marketing techniques available, these four work especially well with the auto manufacturing industry.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the practice of making your website easily readable to Google, and beneficial for your readers. Making your website easy for Google to understand makes it easier for customers to find you online.
When a user searches for something on Google, it returns results based on what their algorithm has determined to be the most relevant and beneficial pages for the information they want.
With SEO, you can improve your rankings in results for keywords and phrases related to your business, so that more searchers will see and visit your website.
The higher your pages rank in search results, the better. In fact, 33% of users will click the first result, and less than 10% of users will even advance to the second page of results. This explains why SEO is a crucial part of your marketing strategy.
However, achieving the rankings you want involves several steps, and an ongoing SEO strategy.
As you work through these steps and create your strategy, you should strive to create the best site experience possible for your target audience.
For example, if you are a Jeep manufacturer, and after some keyword research you find that a high volume of users are asking what kind of Jeep is best for off-roading, you should create a page dedicated to answering that question.
Or if you find that there is a high search volume for the keyword “bike rack for [your car brand],” you could create a page about where to find those bike racks, and why they can be an asset to your vehicle.
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
PPC is a kind of ad platform, and is also known as pay-per-click advertising.
You can place PPC ads in search engines like Google and Bing.
The ads work on a bidding system – so you choose the keywords you want to target with your ads, and then choose how much you are willing to pay every time the ad is clicked. If your bid is among the highest for a given keyword, your ad will show up when a user searches it.
PPC is extremely budget-friendly, too, because you only pay when the ad is clicked – not for the ad space alone.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is a valuable strategy for companies in all industries today. With a combined total of billions of users every day, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great places to reach your target audience.
Social media is primarily used for improving brand awareness, and you can share industry news and share your own website’s content, in order to spark conversation with your followers.
You should include photos with as many of your posts as possible, since visual content stands out much more in users’ feeds. Social media is also a great opportunity to share videos, like how your cars are made, or how they perform on the road.
Web design
Many companies don’t necessarily think of web design as part of their marketing strategy, but it’s an important part of establishing your brand online and showing your target audience who you are.
Your website is often the first impression you make on potential customers, so if it’s unorganized, difficult to navigate, or poorly designed, your target audience could develop a negative opinion of your brand.
This means that your website should be an accurate representation of your company. For example, if you’re dedicated to creating trucks that make it through the toughest conditions, your website could utilize darker, more industrial colors, and use graphics that give a rugged feel.
Just like Google wants to serve users the best possible information for their users, they also want to make sure that those results deliver a positive user experience – another reason why web design is so important.
A positive user experience allows users to find what they are looking for easily, enjoy the overall feel of the website, and be informed while doing so.
This means that your site should have a straightforward navigation bar, fast load times, and interesting graphics for increased engagement.
Want to speak with an expert? Call us at 888-601-5359
Are you ready to reach more customers with a digital marketing campaign?
Auto manufacturing companies all over the world use digital marketing to reach more customers. With the right strategy, you can increase your online visibility, attract more qualified leads, and generate more revenue.
If you’re ready to experience these results, WebFX can help. We have an experienced team of digital marketing specialists that can create a results-driven campaign tailored to your needs and goals.