Maintaining Relationships with Customers – Dealership Marketing Tips 

When it comes to vehicle inventory acquisition, it can be easy to get caught up in advanced dealership marketing tips and forget the basics. Your customers are your most valuable asset. It’s important to see the true value your customers bring to the future of your business.  

Although sales are important, you shouldn’t make them your sole focus. Maintaining relationships with your customers can help you further down the line. This article will focus on how customer relationships can impact your vehicle inventory acquisition. You’ll also learn some valuable dealership marketing tips to promote your dealership to customers. 

Why maintaining relationships with customers is essential 

You probably spend a lot of time focusing on lead generation and conversion. However, it’s important to recognize that a sale doesn’t have to be the end of your sales funnel. Once a customer visits your dealership and buys a car, you might never hear from them again. While this works for some businesses, it isn’t ideal for dealerships that need to improve their vehicle inventory acquisition processes.  

Improving your after-sales processes can be invaluable to your vehicle inventory acquisition and future sales. Remember that if you treat a customer well, there are many ways your dealership can provide benefits to them in the future.  

Focusing on customer relationship maintenance can encourage repeat customers. If a customer has a memorable experience with your dealership, they’re more likely to turn to you when they want to buy and/or sell their next car. However, this isn’t the only benefit. Maintaining good relationships with your customers can mean getting more business through word-of-mouth or recommendations.  

Encouraging brand loyalty should be a key goal in your marketing strategy. Strong customer relationships can ensure you always have an outstanding reputation. Treating your customers well throughout the sales process and after can be a very cost-effective marketing technique. There are many ways you can do this by following the dealership marketing tips further down this page. 

4 marketing strategies to maintain customer relationships 

Maintaining relationships with your customers relies heavily on dealership marketing tips. With the right techniques, you can build an excellent reputation and remain memorable. Here are 4 essential dealership marketing tips to make your vehicle inventory acquisition marketing strategy successful. 

Keeping post-purchase relationships with customers can require continuous marketing efforts. However, the rewards often outweigh the effort as you can create a circular sales process. This means the customer sells the vehicle back to you in the future. Using these methods, you can keep your inventory stocked with quality used cars. 

1. Email marketing 

Although technology has progressed significantly since the introduction of email, email marketing is still essential today. Many businesses use email marketing to reach their existing customers and encourage them to make repeat purchases. When it comes to marketing your dealership, it’s the same principle.  

You can use emails to your advantage in many ways. For example, you could send emails letting your previous customers know that you offer trade-ins.  

You could also send general marketing emails periodically to remind previous customers about your dealership. If you do this, be sure not to spam your customers. Doing so could damage your reputation.   

Be sure to use calls to action (CTA) in your emails. These are directions that you want your customers to follow, for example, “follow us on social media,” “call us,” or “book a vehicle appraisal.” 

2. Digital marketing 

Using several channels for marketing your business can seem intimidating, but it gives you a greater chance of success. Using a combination of digital marketing channels, such as social media, emails, banner ads, and paid search ads can help increase awareness of your dealership.  

Using multiple social media platforms is recommended; however, be aware that what you post on one platform may not perform as well on another. Get to know what works on each platform and create content accordingly.  

Managing marketing campaigns across several channels can be challenging. Therefore, many businesses outsource this to specialists. However, if you are on a budget, you can do it yourself with the right tools and planning. 

There are many excellent digital marketing tools available for dealerships. Using these can make marketing your business much easier, and they’re often very cost-effective.  

Tools can simplify a lot of your marketing processes. These include social media management and email marketing. Simplifying processes where possible can give you more time to focus on other operations, so try to automate as much of your marketing efforts as your budget allows.   

3. Rewards 

Rewarding your customers can be the perfect reminder that you value their business. There are various ways of rewarding customers that will also reward your dealership. For example, you could ask customers to leave a review for your dealership in exchange for an entry into a prize drawing.  

You can use prize draws to entice new customers and remind existing customers of your presence. The way you promote a prize draw can vary to reflect this. For example, emailing existing customers about a prize draw can be the perfect way to jog their memory and remind them of your dealership. Using paid social media ads to promote the prize draw may be more effective for targeting new customers.  

If vehicle inventory acquisition is your goal, there are more direct ways of rewarding customers and achieving this. Using a referral is one example of this. Rewarding previous customers for referring new customers to your dealership to sell their vehicle or buy a vehicle from you is beneficial for all parties involved.  

For dealerships, referrals can be a great way to stock your inventory. As an example, you could offer the referrer a small cash bonus when the person they refer sells their vehicle to you. As an added incentive, you may reward the new customer with a small cash bonus or discount on top of their trade-in. 

4. Vehicle inventory acquisition 

Vehicle inventory acquisition is often a focal point for many dealerships. Keeping your showroom stocked with quality used cars is fundamental to your success. You’ll always have new inventory to showcase to your former, current, and potential customers. 

You’ll need to focus on encouraging customers to provide their email addresses or follow you on social media so you can stay in touch and remarket regularly.  

Using dealership marketing tips and tools such as the Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer tool can help you appeal to customers again.  

Click here to learn more about effective vehicle inventory acquisition tips and recommendations. 

Improving your vehicle inventory acquisition – how Kelley Blue Book can help 

Following the dealership marketing tips above should make building customer relationships and vehicle inventory acquisition simpler. There are many ways Kelley Blue Book can help you with your automotive marketing efforts. We offer a range of tools suitable for dealerships of all sizes.  

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help with your vehicle inventory acquisition, contact us today. You can also request a demo of our vehicle inventory acquisition tools.