Marketing

Online Marketing: Fundamentals, expectations, and using the tools

Posted By: Mary Green
Post Date: 02/09/2017

IF YOU’RE running a powersports retail business, you’re a success-oriented individual. You might have started in the business because you love to ride or wrench, but at the end of the day, you want to see your business grow and flourish.

Online marketing, properly executed, is a powerful weapon you can use to make that happen. But if you’re not careful, you can fall into any number of traps – over-aggressive expectations, failure to understand your customer base and prospect markets, and focusing on delivery instead of creating a valuable marketing message (hint: content is king) are just three of them. These traps cost you time and money.

The Dealernews Academy launches a series of tutorials on online marketing to help you understand its strengths and pitfalls, and, more importantly, how to use certain tools to better your business and save you time. Author Dave Kopf is a veteran business journalist and marketing professional, and a regular contributor to Dealernews.

This series is useful for Dealer owners and employees who don’t have marketing backgrounds but nevertheless need a basic understanding of how online marketing works in order to make decisions on such things as platform/software purchases, list purchases, and even marketing staff hires. Information in these pieces also will help you understand performance reports and analytics, so you can ask the “right questions.”

Our first series of easily-digestible articles discusses online marketing goals, processes and priorities, and provides you with working knowledge of key metrics and terms. Part II discusses email marketing, including CAN SPAM compliance. Certain articles have a “Dealer Q&A” where you can read how Dealers are using these tools to maximize their marketing efforts. Click on the links below to get started.

PART I: ONLINE MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS

Manage your expectations, improve your performance

Content is king. Here’s how to get started

Segmentation (and why you put customers into groups)

The importance of a good impression

The Metrics Lexicon


PART II: EMAIL MARKETING

Five steps to CAN SPAM compliance

Why design your email for all devices (especially mobile)

Powerful metrics = success

Subject lines that generate opens

Preheaders (or, what a difference 100 characters can make)

Should you build a list, or should you buy?

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