You should hire an automotive digital marketing agency because it has specialized industry expertise that can help your business increase brand visibility, the number of high-quality leads, conversion rate, and sales. It also helps your business develop marketing strategies that improve customer relationships and drive maximum return on investment (ROI).
1. Leverage automotive industry expertise
An automotive digital marketing agency specializes in your niche, target audience, and industry. Because of this, it knows how to highlight your product’s benefits and unique features to capture your desired audiences. Additionally, it knows the most profitable platforms for your business by staying up to date with the latest market and industry trends.
In contrast, a regular marketing agency will require extra time to study and understand all these details. It might also miss important information, like the right messaging for your campaign, leading to missed growth opportunities.
2. Get a higher return on investment
Based on the computation by Financial Models Lab, an automotive digital marketer’s salary is $50,000 - $150,000 a year. This doesn’t include the cost of onboarding and training, marketing tools and software, and technological equipment like a camera, mobile phone, and laptop.
On the other hand, an automotive digital marketing agency charges an average of $4,800 - $120,000 annually. Plus, it already has the experience, technology, and skills to achieve your marketing goals in a measurable and scalable manner. As such, you can make data-driven decisions that maximize your return on investment.
One such example is when the online store for Ukranian car accessories Autobaza approached Netpeak to reduce the cost of conversion and increase sales within a limited budget. The automotive digital marketing firm leveraged Google Ads and used the Shopping Campaigns and Smart Shopping Campaigns features. It focused on products with the highest sales results, developing individual campaigns for each.
As a result, Autobaza reduced overall costs by 47.34% and transaction costs by 73.91%. It also increased the number of transactions by 101.82%, income by 133.24%, and return on marketing investment by 772.54%.
3. Strengthen brand awareness
Up to 80% of customers search for a vehicle online. This means that your customer’s journey now starts online. And to be in front of their searches, you need to have a strong online presence.
While you can start building your brand presence with an in-house team, it can take longer than hiring an automotive digital marketing agency. An automotive digital marketing agency already has a streamlined and proven method to increase a brand’s presence online. Plus, it has a robust network of media partnerships that can help further strengthen your brand visibility and reputation.
Moreover, automotive digital marketing agencies can tailor their services to your specific local or international audience.
Take AGA Truck Parts as an example. The client supplies heavy equipment and trucking parts worldwide, but it needed a website that targeted its international clientele and showcased its products. SmartSites conducted thorough industry research, showcased featured product lines, designed and developed an industrially centered website, and translated it into four languages.
Through these efforts, SmartSites increased organic search traffic by 1,057% and total site traffic by 685%.
4. Increase qualified leads, conversion rates, and sales
According to Think with Google, almost 25% of all automotive searches are related to:
Although most consumers are online, not all will fit your ideal buyer profile. Automotive digital marketing firms make sure to target the leads with a higher chance of buying from your brand by developing strategies based on thorough research, market segmentation, and profiling. This allows it to select the right channels, methods, and audiences to target, driving qualified traffic to your online profiles and physical stores.
Once the agency captures high-quality traffic, it will implement targeted marketing, lead nurturing, and conversion rate optimization strategies. It will also optimize your landing pages and call-to-actions in all your content. This will ensure that leads convert into customers despite a highly competitive market.
5. Improve customer relationships
With consumers spending at least 14 hours on average searching for a vehicle, online presence is crucial to developing customer relationships. However, doing this can be resource-heavy and time-consuming, especially for small automotive businesses.
An automotive digital marketing agency can help nurture your customer relationships by providing an omnichannel experience via social media, website, email, and other marketing channels. It can also enhance your customer’s experience by optimizing your website, creating mobile-friendly content, and crafting highly engaging videos for both traditional and online marketing.
Plus, the agency can help you develop customer loyalty programs to further increase customer lifetime value.
A good way to illustrate this is when BMW partnered with Crafted for the “Joy is BMW” campaign. The agency developed a homepage takeover for the client on MSN and slate.com. Each channel had its own set of unique interactive and dynamic content tailored to its specific type of audience. Some of these include an iPhone app that allows the user to control a BMW like a paintbrush and a web app that lets users build their own BMW.
As a result, BMW increased site traffic by 41% from Slate and site traffic by 37% from MSN. It also reached over 800,000 site visitors during the campaign.