4 marketing moves car dealers should be making right now – Frank Lopes

Marketing is a key element of auto sales. Many dealers have reevaluated their marketing strategy with new budgets and new tools to reach more customers. We brought in Frank Lopes, vice president of Forrest & Blake Digital, host of Live with Lopes, and author of The Seven Minute Setup, to talk about what dealers need to be doing right now to improve their marketing efforts.

In this segment, Lopes and anchor Jim Fitzpatrick take a deep dive into four universal marketing principles that dealers should be using despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including:

1. Tripling spend on Facebook advertising

According to Lopes that amount of attention on Facebook right now is the highest that it’s ever been and it’s only going to get higher. It’s crucial for dealers to post content that is extremely valuable, and creates top of mind awareness.

2. Attack leads at the bottom of the sales funnel

So often, dealership marketing professionals focus on the wrong part of the funnel. They’re so concerned with filling the top of the funnel with as many people as possible. However, Lopes says that marketers should be working it the other way around. IN any market, you have a certain amount of natural demand. Go after them first.

3. Define your ad value message

The biggest mistake Lopes encounters is that dealers often don’t have a clear ad message. The goal of the advertising should be to get the impression into the customer that your dealership is THE place to go buy a car. In the past several years, there has been too much focus on inventory and price structure. The relationship between dealer and customer needs to be re-established.

4. Do not display any discounted pricing

According to Lopes, this is a practice that will make your quality leads sky high. The customer will either get on the telephone immediately or submit an inquiry about the price of the car. This begins the conversation with the customer about options like leasing and financing, where the MSRP doesn’t matter.

Be sure to watch our full interview above to hear more great insight and advice from Frank Lopes.