January is always a difficult period for car sales, as well as for other businesses and for customers. After the high costs that families can often accrue during the run up to Christmas, as well as on the day. Because of this, January is usually a month when people show more restraint and spend less money on non-essential items. This means that businesses can sometimes suffer as they get less revenue from people buying their items, and therefore your car sales might fall. To make sure that the impact to your car dealership is minimised, make sure you take measures that are both precautionary and active.
Making sure your car sales business balances its books is the most important way to make sure you make it through the spending slump at the beginning of a new year. Most businesses have times of year when they are likely to bring in more revenue and times when they are likely to bring in less. When you look at your finances on a year by year basis, you should look at the times your business’s car sales revenue is higher, and see what money can be saved to support your business during slump periods. Whether you use an accountant or bookkeeping software, find some way to manage your car sales finances so that it can support you throughout the year. Finding a way to smoothen out the rougher months will help you be able to plan for each year and keep revenue as high as possible.
January is a great time to advertise and promote any car sales discounts or reductions you have. If there is a product that is being discontinued and you have reduced it, make sure that people know about this product. People are tight on money, but if they can see that they will gain something by buying now instead of waiting, they are more likely to find money in their budget for the item. People love a deal!
Make sure to work on your advertising campaigns for things like Google ads and Meta products (for example). You can advertise your products for this month, or you could get a head start on preparing people for upcoming events such as Valentine’s day. Thinking forward and introducing things subtly to your audience means that they have more time to save money for your products.
If there is a new model of car being released or arriving at your car dealership in the next couple of months, this is a great opportunity to boost car sales. With the drop in footfall, you can work on changing your car sales marketing to focus on this new release. Use the time to build your audience’s anticipation for this new car, or show off all its amazing features. Use all the online marketing tools at your disposal. An email newsletter that is completely focused on the new car could raise people’s awareness, and if you are trying to build anticipation, you could give people snippets of information on Instagram. These and many other marketing ideas could help with engagement and keep people interested in your product.
If all else fails and you are still struggling to get customers to get spending as freely as they had been before, use this time to focus on building relationships with the customers. Blogs, email newsletters and social media channels are key for this. Once you have looked at your finances and figured out how to balance your books in such a way that the profit made last year can carry you through the slower beginning period of this year, focus heavily on maintaining lines of communication with your clients. Talk to them about any issues they may have with cars on Twitter. Show off new things they can do with their cars/ new accessories on Instagram. Use email newsletters to talk about ways they can remain car drivers and be environmentalists at the same time. Mention the new releases further along in the year and explain how this will be better for people in certain circumstances. Release blog posts about driving in the winter and the benefit of things like winter tyres. All these and more are examples of how you can engage with your audience and remain relevant and useful in their eyes, as well as build up trust and recognition in their eyes, so that when they start spending again, they make sure to spend with your business, and don’t spend more time considering others.
Your January doesn’t have to be a slump. Using these ideas and others, you can make your January a successful month financially, or you can build your dealership’s brand up for greater success later on in the year. Either way, January is definitely a month you need to take advantage of, and if you need support in dealing with the marketing/advertising side of your car dealership, Dealer Buzz can support you in building a customer base that will support you and help increase your car sales even in slower months like January.
