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Online Options Drive More Efficient Used Truck Sales

Online Options Drive More Efficient Used Truck Sales | ADI Agency
Online Options Drive More Efficient Used Truck Sales | ADI Agency

Online Options Drive More Efficient Used Truck Sales

You could keep doing what you’ve always done – placing classified ads and similar listings to sell your dealership’s used trucks. It works, which is why the vast majority of used truck dealers still stick with that traditional form of advertising. However, as with everything else, the internet has transformed how people shop, including how they shop for used heavy duty trucks. Are they finding your used trucks?

Zero in on the most interested prospects

You use a variety of online channels to promote your dealership as a brand as well as your product lines and services. Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, perhaps even Twitter have made their way into your marketing mix along with your website, email campaigns, etc. because those are all highly effective ways to reach top prospects and stay in touch with customers.

It’s no different for advertising your used trucks. Online options enable you to target your advertising toward folks who are looking for the type of truck you’re selling. Placing a classified ad puts your truck “out there” in front a large audience, but you can only hope that someone among that audience is interested. That’s not very efficient, and perhaps not very cost-effective.

How can you take advantage of online advertising opportunities?

Here are some tips that can help you create and implement an effective online marketing plan for your used trucks. (And, by the way, implementing these tips will also help boost overall brand recognition and show a new audience what else your dealership has to offer beyond use trucks.)

To start, you’ll need a list of prospects. You have a lot of data already in hand – contact information collected at trade shows and existing CRM data about prospects and customers, for example. You can augment that by using an online tool such as RigDig to identify relevant new prospects, filtered by whatever criteria you want to apply.

Now you can decide where to advertise.

Facebook is a proven winner

Facebook remains a top communication tool for heavy truck dealers. In fact, surveys show that more than half of fleet executives and owner-operators regularly use Facebook for business. Facebook ads enable you to target display to your desired audience, using your own prospect list. You can upload phone numbers and email addresses, and Facebook will show your ad to those prospects via their News Feeds.

Your Facebook ad can attract instant leads, by sending an interested prospect directly to a pre-populated form rather than to a landing page where they have to make another click-through decision.

Paid search is another effective option

AdWords and other paid search options can be useful for advertising used trucks, because you can use keywords to target searchers on Google and other major search engines. Keywords can be very specific – “2014 Freightliner Cascadia Evolution” — or more general, such as “used Class 8 trucks.”

In this case, you want your ad to lead to a landing page, because you need to capture that prospect’s contact information. In return for that, offer them what they want most — a chance to browse your inventory of used trucks. Include a click-to-call option, so prospects using mobile devices can get in touch immediately when they see a truck that interests them.

Paid search ads can be especially valuable because you’re targeting people who are actively looking to buy a used heavy-duty truck. You can use specific keywords to target anyone who might be searching, but AdWords also allows you to upload your own list of prospects and display your ad only on them.

Consider retargeting

Retargeting is another potentially valuable option, because it keeps your dealership (and even a specific used truck) in front of prospects. When someone visits your website, the site uses special coding to follow that visitor if they leave. Then, as they visit other websites, your ad is displayed to them. You’ve undoubtedly been retargeted yourself, though you may not have known how it worked.

Retargeting has value because those who see your ads have already shown they are interested. For some reason, though, they didn’t take the next step. You’re giving them a second chance to buy from you. It’s much the same as using an email campaign to nurture leads.

Placing classified ads may still be a viable option for selling used trucks, but if you aren’t using online sales tools as well, your dealership is missing out. Marketing your used trucks on Facebook or via paid search and/or retargeting allows you to reach more potential buyers, build your prospect list for the future, and strengthen your dealership’s brand, all at the same time.

 

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