What is Automotive Content Marketing?

Does your dealership have a solid content marketing strategy in place? If the answer is “no”, keep reading to discover how this type of marketing may help your dealership build customer trust, loyalty, and retention. An effective content marketing strategy is an absolute game changer.

Content marketing, as defined by the Content Marketing Institute, is…

“… a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Put simply, content marketing is the sharing of valuable content with the primary goal of education rather than promotion. It’s not meant to be about advertising your dealership, your inventory or your services. Instead, content marketing is about offering value and meaning in order to cultivate relationships with existing and potential customers. Generally, the main goals of content marketing are to build loyalty and trust for your dealership,  increase brand awareness and generate leads—  ultimately to sell more cars. Authenticity and transparency play a critical role in content marketing. 

Content marketing takes many different forms including blog posts, video content, infographics, case studies, white papers and so on. This is an opportunity for your dealership to get creative in its strategy. 

Why is content marketing necessary for your dealership?

Content marketing is an incredibly valuable strategy for a number of reasons. In addition to building loyalty and trust, content marketing is also an effective lead generation strategy. Sharing useful, captivating content with car-buying audiences is likely to drive more traffic to the website and result in higher conversions, as well. 

These are just a few of the potential benefits that a robust content marketing strategy can bring to your dealership:

Build Customer Loyalty – Use content marketing to build customer trust and loyalty for your dealership while also improving brand recognition

Improve Your SEO – Increase website Domain Authority by adding relevant, in-depth blog content to your site, contributing to a higher position in the SERP (Google loves it when website content is updated regularly and contains valuable, focused information highly relevant to a searcher’s query).

Reach More People – Content marketing helps your dealership reach larger audiences by distributing content that is both educational and shareable across a variety of channels.

Increase Traffic – Content marketing helps to drive traffic to your website, and as a result, see increased conversions.
You can’t really go wrong!

Use content marketing as a way to answer customer questions and curiosities (before they even ask!) Help guide people through their car-buying journey with effective advice or tips for each phase of the car-buying (and post-purchase) process. Customers will appreciate the value and support provided and even though it’s not directly linked to vehicle sales, it will help keep your dealership’s name top-of-mind when it comes time to buy.

How can your dealership get started with a content strategy?

We’ve got a couple ideas to get the wheels turning with your dealership’s content strategy. 

1. Write and share an article titled, “Five Tips For Choosing the Right Vehicle for Your Family” or any other tip-sharing articles that educate or provide value to your customers. 
2. Write a “How-To” article about how to properly prepare a vehicle for winter. Use this as an opportunity to include mention of your winter servicing packages! 
3. Create a YouTube video showing how to inspect a vehicle before purchasing. Video content is king! 
4. Create instructional YouTube videos showing how customers can change their own oil, tires, or other vehicle maintenance on their own.

Providing valuable, shareable content is an effective way to build recognition and trust for your dealership. When combined with a powerful Paid Search (SEM) and Organic Search (SEO) strategy, you’ll reach car shoppers in critical decision-making moments throughout their journey, and stay top-of-mind until they’re ready for a test drive.