By Jeremy Anspach, CEO, PureCars

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, dealers are looking for every opportunity to not only preserve lost sales but also to adapt and maximize advertising strategies to aggressively grow mindshare in front of every possible customer. This is critical since many dealerships have either scaled back, temporarily closed their doors by state orders, or are relying on digital retailing and contactless transactions.

At the time of writing this article, 24 states allow dealership sales operations to remain open, according to J.D. Power. Another 23 states have allowed only online or remote sales (Michigan is now online sales only).

Reallocating Ad Dollars – Shift Dollars from Search to Social

Dealers have had to shift their advertising strategies to maximize their online transaction potential. Data from PureCars shows that dealers who either maintain or increase social spend, see up to 30% higher sales volume than those that have cut all spend. More specifically, using video in social marketing is proving beneficial for dealers during the pandemic.

Why Video Content Is Helping Dealerships

Consumers find videos more engaging, more memorable, and more popular compared with many other forms of content today. Video helps with brand storytelling, increasing reach, enhancing engagement, and driving more transactions.

• 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63% over the last year. (Hubspot)
• By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017. (Cisco)
• Users view more than one billion hours of video each day on YouTube. (YouTube)

Shifting dollars from search to social and video provides an opportunity to capture shopper demand and save ad spend. According to automotive digital marketing experts:

Frequency Is Key to Reaching Customers and Keeping Them Engaged

Make sure that you are mindful of how often you are serving video ads to users on Facebook and other social platforms. Now more than ever, you don’t want to bombard people with ads. Start with a frequency of once per day and adjust based on performance in the first week or two.

Don’t start with an aggressive frequency of two or more times a day. The last thing you want to do is create a negative experience for potential new customers before you get the chance to start a real conversation.

Once you have at least a week of data you can confirm that your video campaign is:

1. Pacing budget as expected
2. Engaging users with relevant content
3. Serving ads to the right shoppers and driving them to your website

Here are a few ways to use video content:

• Community-focused – “We’re here to help”
• Promoting incentives and offers from your dealership and OEMs
• Live stream from your dealership
• “How we’re doing business” to show precautions you’re taking to keep customers and employees safe
• Good news or feel-good stories that bring some light and levity to people’s lives amid all this chaos.

With this knowledge, you have a better chance of connecting with customers even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Combined with the important data insights necessary to make informed decisions, these advertising strategies can help you to successfully navigate through the current challenges.

By Jeremy Anspach, CEO, PureCars

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, dealers are looking for every opportunity to not only preserve lost sales but also to adapt and maximize advertising strategies to aggressively grow mindshare in front of every possible customer. This is critical since many dealerships have either scaled back, temporarily closed their doors by state orders, or are relying on digital retailing and contactless transactions.

At the time of writing this article, 24 states allow dealership sales operations to remain open, according to J.D. Power. Another 23 states have allowed only online or remote sales (Michigan is now online sales only).

Reallocating Ad Dollars – Shift Dollars from Search to Social

Dealers have had to shift their advertising strategies to maximize their online transaction potential. Data from PureCars shows that dealers who either maintain or increase social spend, see up to 30% higher sales volume than those that have cut all spend. More specifically, using video in social marketing is proving beneficial for dealers during the pandemic.

Why Video Content Is Helping Dealerships

Consumers find videos more engaging, more memorable, and more popular compared with many other forms of content today. Video helps with brand storytelling, increasing reach, enhancing engagement, and driving more transactions. 

• 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63% over the last year. (Hubspot)
• By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017. (Cisco)
• Users view more than one billion hours of video each day on YouTube. (YouTube)

Shifting dollars from search to social and video provides an opportunity to capture shopper demand and save ad spend. According to automotive digital marketing experts:

Frequency Is Key to Reaching Customers and Keeping Them Engaged

Make sure that you are mindful of how often you are serving video ads to users on Facebook and other social platforms. Now more than ever, you don’t want to bombard people with ads. Start with a frequency of once per day and adjust based on performance in the first week or two.

Don’t start with an aggressive frequency of two or more times a day. The last thing you want to do is create a negative experience for potential new customers before you get the chance to start a real conversation.

Once you have at least a week of data you can confirm that your video campaign is:

1. Pacing budget as expected 
2. Engaging users with relevant content
3. Serving ads to the right shoppers and driving them to your website 

Here are a few ways to use video content:

• Community-focused – “We’re here to help”
• Promoting incentives and offers from your dealership and OEMs
• Live stream from your dealership
• “How we’re doing business” to show precautions you’re taking to keep customers and employees safe
• Good news or feel-good stories that bring some light and levity to people’s lives amid all this chaos.

With this knowledge, you have a better chance of connecting with customers even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Combined with the important data insights necessary to make informed decisions, these advertising strategies can help you to successfully navigate through the current challenges.