Should your car dealership hire an independent marketing company or build your own in-house marketing team?
This is an important question to answer when you’re trying to improve your online presence and reach your local market. Your in-house team might know your customer base better than an outside company, but hiring an outside marketing team will give you more time to focus on selling cars to your customers.
Salaries Make a Different in Price
If your dealership group is large enough to build an in-house marketing team, it might be worth the cost, but most car dealers find that an independent company saves them money. These companies are working for several clients, and the costs of salaries are spread across all clients instead of just one. When you have a team of your own, the full-time salaries of the team are entirely your responsibility. That might be a cost you don’t want to absorb.
You Get to Focus on the Business
When you hire an independent marketing company, you’ll have a team that can focus on running the advertising campaigns for your company without the burden of selling cars. The opposite is also true; your team can focus on selling cars and not worry about the social media marketing or PPC campaign that’s going up online. This can be a huge win for your team.
More than Just Marketing for the Price
If you build a team of your own, you may find that you’re going to need a lot more people working on your marketing campaigns than you thought. Marketing is much more than simply advertising and seeing if anyone responds to those ads. You will enjoy the benefits that come with SEO experts, social media gurus, graphic design artists, and web design geniuses when you work with an outside company.
New Ideas are Easier to Come By
The team you build within your dealership group will have a narrow focus and may not see the new trends and ideas that are being used in online marketing. An independent marketing company that has many clients will have a better understanding of what’s working and may see opportunities in your campaigns that have worked for other clients.
Your Growth Works for Their Scale
Most independent marketing agencies work hard to help you grow. When you grow, your team needs to get bigger, but your marketing doesn’t have to grow with more people unless you want it to. Of course, if you’re expanding and need to add more to your contract with your marketing agency, it’s easy to do and it won’t add more people to your dealership, just more work to the agency you’ve hired.
Results are Measurable; Unlike Traditional Marketing Methods
If you still believe shouting at an audience through the television is the best way to reach your audience, it’s time to clear your mind and work with an independent marketing company. With the online tools offered and the variety of marketing platforms that can be used, your outside team can show you real, tangible results that you never had when simply placing ads in the newspaper or on the television.
Advanced Technology and Tools at Your Fingertips
The blinders of an in-house team may leave you behind your competition when it comes to the marketing being performed for your dealership. An independent team will be aware of and using the latest tools and technology to build campaigns for their clients where your in-house team might not be doing this. It’s important that you benefit from the advancements being made in the market.
No Training Required With an Outside Agency
The independent marketing company you hire will have its own training program, expertise, and processes. They are a separate company from your dealership, and all you have to worry about is the cost and the effectiveness of the advertising they offer your dealership. This allows you to avoid the challenges of hiring, training, and incorporating new people into your dealership, especially when it would be a team of employees that aren’t directly selling cars.
Should You Hire an Independent Marketing Company?
The answer to this question seems fairly obvious. You can have your cake and eat it too when you let an outside company handle the marketing for your car dealership. This allows you to stay focused on selling cars and let your outside team focus on promoting your business and bringing your website to the top of search engines. Looks like a win/win for everyone.
