Snap a Seasonal Sales Slump with These Tax and Stimulus Strategies
Snap a Seasonal Sales Slump with These Tax and Stimulus Strategies
During the first two quarters of every year, dealers work to sell off older models to make way for new ones. The previous year’s holiday season brings hope and excitement for the year ahead, as well as an increase in commercial activity, and 2020 was no different. JD Power reported that December 2020 retail car sales were significantly higher than in November, but January was “typically slow.”
Sincro surveyed our network of dealer websites and found a seasonal lull in early 2021. Website visits across marketing channels between December and January were down 1.17%, and low-funnel engagement, e.g., click-to-calls and form submissions, were down 1.42%.
Strategies exist to boost your 2021 sales to correct for this lull. Nearly two-thirds of tax refunds are delivered to taxpayers by the end of March. Taxpayers spend 9% of their refund on significant purchases, including vehicles, which creates an early sales opportunity for dealers. The Internal Revenue Service also sent out stimulus checks worth about $325 billion to 127 million Americans.
To take advantage of these opportunities, create and execute a strategy across your marketing channels to capitalize on more than 150 average monthly searches on how to spend a tax return or a stimulus check on a new vehicle.
Websites
Create a landing page to explain how a shopper’s tax return or stimulus check can be used for a vehicle purchase at your dealership. Include a banner on your home and inventory pages to link to your tax season landing page. Schedule the banner to expire before June!
Digital Advertising Strategies
With inventories remaining low and advertising budgets slimming down, it is a great time to invest in your digital advertising strategy. Use digital advertising to drive traffic to your tax season landing page. Or, have your agency vendor or Sincro digital advertising analyst add a sitelink, i.e., a link in search results, to your website for branded searches to promote your tax season landing page.
SEO
When your tax season landing page is on your site, your agency vendor or Sincro SEO analyst can ensure that unique, keyword-rich content is on the page within SEO elements, such as the URL, the title tag, and meta description. Posting the promotion to Google My Business will also assist in driving awareness of your site landing page.
Monitoring
Once the advertising and SEO work is complete, set up tracking and reporting to monitor and benchmark the results, determine the landing page effectiveness, and make tweaks. A Sincro survey of 240 websites found sites with a tax return landing page saw a 63% MoM increase in overall sessions in January compared to December and a 97% MoM increase in valuable actions on the website (total events).
If your business feels the effects of the first half of the year sales lull, give yourself a boost. Find out how Sincro can help you take advantage of tax refunds and stimulus checks to grow your business.
Email us to learn more about your website’s digital performance today!
Allegra Rosenbaum – Senior SEO Analyst
Allegra Rosenbaum has worked in digital marketing for over six years, mostly in automotive. She is a Senior SEO Analyst on the Earned Marketing team at Sincro, focusing on dealerships in the United States as well as in Canada. For fun, Allegra likes to do origami and write letters to her friends around the world.
