Many car dealers approach their marketing by advertising their vehicles on Autotrader as this is what they have always done; previously in magazines and many more recently via the Autotrader website.
Advertising online via Autotrader is often an easy decision for car dealers given the volume of search engine traffic enjoyed by the UK’s number one website to buy and sell new and used vehicles. But the increasing prices of Autotrader could well force car dealers to change their minds.
The most basic web-based advertising package available from Autotrader is called a “Response Package”. This gives you advertising space for 5 vehicles (plus 2 additional for free). This costs a staggering £89.90 + VAT* per week! Rather costly I think you will agree. Obviously, prices go up considerably if you wish to advertise more.
Around £20 per week per vehicle enables you access to their Dealer Portal where car dealers have an opportunity to include a small amount of text about their business, it also gives access to a website link to a stock page to enable the ability to control, review and report on stock levels where you can add up to just 4 images per vehicle.
This could mean that car dealers who wish to use the Autotrader platform to advertise their stock could be faced with a difficult decision of which vehicles they select to advertise on a week by week basis.
For many dealers, they may be happy trying to compete on Autotrader with fellow car dealers by being on the first search engine pages where there is a massive selection of similar vehicle makes, models and age of car, but for others it may well be a losing battle.
It could mean car dealers who feel they are fighting that losing battle need to be smarter with marketing their vehicles elsewhere.
Many car dealers appreciate that many customers looking for a new car may search the web for research purposes and will compare prices for the car they are interested in but customers invariably end up buying at a local car dealer.
Market trends show car buyers are not prepared to travel great distances in order to save money. This means local independent car dealers have an opportunity to build value in their own business and trade profitably by being smarter than the rest.
This is where Viper Image Media is set to assist.
Viper Image Media can offer car dealers a personalised website which has been designed with the intention of “going it alone”. There are no listing fees, no recurring fees (only basic web hosting) and once the site is purchased it’s completely 100% yours!
There are two versions of the car dealer website. The most basic package costs a very small fee of £149.99 + VAT and the more tech savvy website costs just £299.99 + VAT. The two websites have been designed to work hand in hand with Google. Unfortunately, this alone isn’t likely to get traffic immediately to your website but Viper Image Media have come up with a search engine optimisation campaign which can help your website to become more popular for customers searching for cars in local area; so Viper Image Media could assist you with this task for a small additional fee.
Why not go it alone and give Viper Image Media a call today on 08456 432 110 and we can explain everything in more detail.
*Prices correct at the time this article went to print.
Tags: Advertising, Auto, Car, Dealers, Online, Trader, Web-Based, Websites