Looking for some insight on this topic. I work at an independent dealer that has roughly 32-37 cars on the lot ready for sale at any one time. We sell roughly 25-30 cars a month with this inventory level.
We spend what I perceive to be a fair amount on advertising, but until 6 months ago, we've done zero traditional advertising. We have zero billboards, zero tv commercials, zero print ads, zero direct mailings, zero local sponsorships or community involvement. In the last 6 months we've spent about $2k on radio ads with one of the local agencies that control 6 stations.
Our money is spent on 3rd party classifieds, craigslist, google and facebook. Our budget is around $10-11k including our ad spends for PPC and FB and a 3rd party that runs Meta and most of our Google ads. We've historically spent a fair amount on CL but have cut that down in have to about $2k.
Our business model up until 2.5 years ago was almost entirely online based. Meaning 85-90% of our customers were coming from some distance away or are local but found our vehicles online. Now we've transitioned to a new(larger) location and are more "retail" sales oriented. We're always wanting to find additional avenues to advertise our business. But our budget is not unlimited and so the decision to cut some services to add other unproven services is a difficult one. Especially on advertising sources that have almost zero provable ROI (Billboards, radio, pumps, banners/sponsorships). Some of that will just be top of mind and name recognition but I'm not into spending an additional 3-5k a month to plaster the radio just to say we advertise on the radio.
Any thoughts on the budget we have compared to our inventory and sales? Some of our local bigger dealers must spend tens of thousands between all the radio, tv, gas pump videos, sponsorships, etc.
Ultimately our goal is to get into the 40-45+ sales on 55-60 inventory units.
We spend what I perceive to be a fair amount on advertising, but until 6 months ago, we've done zero traditional advertising. We have zero billboards, zero tv commercials, zero print ads, zero direct mailings, zero local sponsorships or community involvement. In the last 6 months we've spent about $2k on radio ads with one of the local agencies that control 6 stations.
Our money is spent on 3rd party classifieds, craigslist, google and facebook. Our budget is around $10-11k including our ad spends for PPC and FB and a 3rd party that runs Meta and most of our Google ads. We've historically spent a fair amount on CL but have cut that down in have to about $2k.
Our business model up until 2.5 years ago was almost entirely online based. Meaning 85-90% of our customers were coming from some distance away or are local but found our vehicles online. Now we've transitioned to a new(larger) location and are more "retail" sales oriented. We're always wanting to find additional avenues to advertise our business. But our budget is not unlimited and so the decision to cut some services to add other unproven services is a difficult one. Especially on advertising sources that have almost zero provable ROI (Billboards, radio, pumps, banners/sponsorships). Some of that will just be top of mind and name recognition but I'm not into spending an additional 3-5k a month to plaster the radio just to say we advertise on the radio.
Any thoughts on the budget we have compared to our inventory and sales? Some of our local bigger dealers must spend tens of thousands between all the radio, tv, gas pump videos, sponsorships, etc.
Ultimately our goal is to get into the 40-45+ sales on 55-60 inventory units.