In order to compete in a crowded market, dealerships need to take a look at the digital mediums where the customers prefer to read, shop, compare, and do business, and take the hybrid approach for optimal success.
Yesterday’s Marketing: Is It Dead?
Before the Internet and social media, businesses would spend big dollars on the heavy-hitting forms of marketing, such as television, radio, direct mail, billboards, and even yellow pages. These were some of the best methods to reach a massive audience in the hopes of attracting attention. The digital channel now comes with targeted, measurable, and interactive engagement. Of course, dealerships should not discount traditional forms of marketing altogether; mailers, television ads, and radio ads are still widely used by a lot of companies, however many of them have also integrated these campaigns with digital marketing to boost results. While traditional marketing methods are far from dead, the digital landscape has opened the gates for more competition and dealerships need to get in the race.
Changing the Channel: Why Digital Marketing Gives Full Power to Dealerships
Digital marketing is the obvious choice for many reasons: it comes with optimal reach, price, speed, and flexibility. Traditional marketing campaigns are often organized around a schedule, and that means they’re not very responsive to recent developments in the world they get presented to. One of the main advantages of digital is that it offers agility to your brand’s response time. Dealerships can take advantage of trends as they happen and find opportunities to engage with their customers in real time. This form of instant marketing is an impressive opportunity to secure loyal clients and customers in the exact moment they need you. Compared to traditional marketing, where it takes weeks or months to evaluate the veracity of a campaign, a digital campaign provides immediate results on an ad’s performance.
Digital Marketing Versus Traditional Marketing: Taking the Hybrid Approach
Successful marketing thrives in various forms of media. While digital marketing offers a clear advantage for dealerships seeking to engage the modern customer, traditional marketing has its place in the successful dealership’s toolbox. Dealerships can easily promote digital marketing channels on all printed collaterals, such as business cards, leaflets, and posters. Your print ads may engage the customers and guide them to social channels, or the dealership website to engage in real time while creating some excellent leads.
Traditional marketing is highly effective in reaching broad audiences, while digital marketing has the power to go into deeper and more relevant levels of connection with the consumer. It only makes sense for dealerships to combine them for a wider, more effective reach. After all, your consumers are a perfect combination of both traditional and digital lifestyles, and to that is what you need to adapt.
