Dealership Marketing Strategies for LinkedIn Advertising

LinkedIn recently rolled out a new lead generation form for marketers to use when sponsoring posts. Prior to this form, advertisers struggled with measuring ROI and converting leads to customers. We know impressions, engagement, clicks and click thru rates… but what about the who, when and why without having to invest in costly marketing software programs to track it. That’s where the form comes in. Dealerships can use this form to build attendance for customer events, advertise promotions, and the like.

For example, let’s say there is a 2017 Toyota RAV4 Lease Event for $189 a month for 36 months with $2,300 down. Create a post to the company page. Add the landing page url to link out to the special and be sure to include a feature image. Once the post is complete, go into the campaign manager. Click into tools to create a form. Once the form is made, create a sponsored content campaign. After naming the campaign, choose collect leads using LinkedIn lead gen forms. The call-to-action would be to get a quote.

Why utilize LinkedIn advertising when there is Facebook ?

Facebook easily reaches the masses and has a much higher daily attendance from account users. By no means are we saying to replace Facebook advertising, but rather showcasing an additional marketing avenue. LinkedIn allows brands to hone in on extremely niche audiences and is currently underutilized as a mass advertising platform. This means marketers are more likely to get in front of the intended target audience first – and the audience is less likely to be pummeled with ads like on Facebook.

For example, let’s say the dealership is in Chicago and the promotion specifically targets executive directors – there is a sizzling summer lease pull ahead tent event for Audi that includes dinner and festivities. LinkedIn allows advertisers to drill down on location, industry, company size, skill sets, job titles and seniority! In this case, the target audience fills out the form to RSVP to the event knowing that they will be amongst industry peers (they can lease a new vehicle and get to network at the same time).

For clarification, we aren’t pitting the two against each other, but we are saying to give LinkedIn a fair chance. LinkedIn has always been a valuable HR tool for searching for qualified candidates to fill open positions. It’s also a great way to network with other top professionals in the industry to learn new tricks of the trade. Business minded individuals use it to build relationships with key community members in a professional setting to drum up opportunities. And, just like every other high ranking social media platform, it’s good business etiquette to simply have a brand presence. Not only does it add credibility, but it also builds customer relationships, drives traffic, generates brand awareness… the list goes on. With the addition of LinkedIn’s form, dealerships have a better reason to use the platform to generate legitimate, trackable opportunities.

Related article (for salespeople and individual LinkedIn profiles): Are you converting LinkedIn profile views into leads? By Christine Julka of ADI Agency