The Ultimate Guide to Creating Your 2013 #AutoMarketing Plan

Last updated 5 months ago

Goodbye 2012, and hello 2013! Sure, the ball may have already dropped in Times Square to signal the beginning of a new year – but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to start planning your dealership’s 2013 marketing plan. If you haven’t started thinking about your marketing resolutions this year, we’ve put together the ultimate guide below to get you thinking about how to make the most of your 2013 digital campaigns. What are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

Set Goals

Write down what you’d like your dealership to achieve with its digital marketing efforts this year. Maybe you want more revenue. Maybe you’d like to improve customer retention. Whatever your goals, put pen to paper, and write them down.

Get Specific

Look at your goals, and link them with specific numbers and actions. If, for example, you want to drive more traffic to your dealership’s website, consider how many more unique visitors you’d like to get to your website each month, and what you're going to do to attract those visitors. Create a "To Do" list of tasks to ensure that you've got a list of steps leading up to your larger goal. This makes it easier to stay on track and monitor achievement along the way. Note: At this time, you'll also want to ensure you've got the appropriate tracking mechanisms in place to manage your progress. If not, add that to your list, too!

Make a Timeline

Set a date for when you’d like to achieve your goal, and work backwards to determine how much time you need to achieve our marketing goals. Be honest with yourself to ensure that you’ve estimated a realistic amount of time needed to complete each task. Think about how many hours you can really dedicate to your marketing efforts to ensure that you’ll be able to work towards completing each task.

Consider Roadblocks

There are always going to be certain issues that could potentially prevent your dealership from accomplishing its marketing goals. It’s good to consider anything that could possibly steer you off course. Doing so ahead of time means that you’ve got time to start planning around obstacles, and ultimately make things easier as you work to achieve your goal.

Stay the Course

With clear goals, steps and timelines, you’ve got a great map to your goal. You just need to stay focused. Ensure you’re setting aside the appropriate amount of time each week necessary to deliver results – and don’t get discouraged if you’re not seeing a drastic improvement right away. Change takes time. Be patient, and stay focused on what you want to achieve.

We hope that by setting (and accomplishing) your dealership’s marketing goals, 2013 will be one of your best years yet!

Have you set your marketing goals for 2013? Share what you’re going to be working on in the New Year in the comments below