Car Dealership Marketing Plan Template

Goals, audiences, channels, owners, budget, a 12 month calendar and the reports you review, in one free template your managers can fill in at one table.

Most dealership marketing runs on habit: the same vendors, the same events and the same budget as last time, with a new idea added whenever a rep calls with a good pitch. A plan replaces habit with decisions you can review.

This car dealership marketing plan template has seven parts, and each one is a tab in the download:

1. Goals: units, leads, appointments and cost per sold unit, by month.
2. Audiences: the groups of people you sell to and what each one needs to hear.
3. Channels: where you reach each audience and what each channel is for.
4. Owners: one name on every line, with a backup, so nothing runs unattended.
5. Budget: per unit planning, split by channel, with a test reserve.
6. Calendar: twelve months of inventory focus, offers and events.
7. Reporting: the reports you read every month and the decision each one drives.

It works for franchise dealers, independents, used car and buy here pay here stores, RV and boat dealers, and for brokers and salespeople running their own small automotive marketing plan. Smaller operations simply use fewer rows.

Every goal in an automotive marketing plan should trace back to cars sold. Set the new and used units you want to sell each month, then work back through your own conversion rates to find the appointments and leads it takes.

Illustrative math with round numbers: a store wants 50 used units in a month. Its shown appointments close at 40 percent, so it needs 125 shows. Its appointments show at 60 percent, so it needs about 210 set appointments. If it sets appointments with 25 percent of its leads, it needs about 840 leads. Swap in your own rates and the plan tells you right away whether your lead supply matches your goal.

Add two efficiency goals beside the volume goals: speed to first response and cost per sold unit. Volume tells you whether the plan is big enough. Efficiency tells you whether it is working. How lead response time affects close rate explains why the first number matters so much.

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A channel list without audiences turns into spending everywhere on everyone. Name the groups first.

• In-market shoppers looking at your type of inventory right now.
• Owners with equity whose payoff sits below their vehicle's value. See equity mining campaigns.
• Lease maturities coming due in the next few months. See lease maturity campaigns.
• Past customers and service customers, the least expensive audience you will ever reach. See sold customer retention marketing.
• Special finance shoppers looking for a store that works with credit challenges.
• Owners ready to sell a vehicle, for used inventory acquisition.
• Spanish speaking shoppers, when your market and your staff support it.

For each audience, write one sentence about what they need to hear and which inventory fits them. That sentence becomes the brief for every ad, every landing page and every text template that reaches them.

List the channels you use, what each one is for, and who owns it. The template's Channels tab uses these columns.

Put one name on each line: a real person, not a department. When a line has no owner, it runs on autopilot until someone notices the invoice. The Owners tab lists each role, the lines it owns, the hours a week it takes, and a backup for vacations and turnover.

Set the budget from the goals, not the other way around. Multiply the new and used units you want to sell by your spend per unit, then split the total across the channels above. Hold a test reserve, around a tenth of the budget, for one new idea at a time.

Count everything a channel costs: media, management fees, creative, tracking and landing pages. A channel that looks cheap because its fees are billed somewhere else will mislead you every month. Franchise stores should also note which lines qualify for manufacturer co-op, so the plan shows both the gross spend and the store's net cost. The car dealership advertising guide covers the channels and their costs in depth.

The Calendar tab holds one row per month with columns for inventory focus, the offer or event, the channels, the owner and the status. Plan the big moments first, then fill the gaps:

• Tax refund season, when many used and special finance shoppers have cash to put toward a purchase
• Model year changeover, when outgoing units need to move
• Holiday sales weekends and manufacturer events
• Month and quarter ends, when the store pushes for volume
• Local events, sponsorships and community dates your store already supports
• Service campaigns that feed sales, such as declined repairs and high mileage customers

Leave room. A calendar with every week booked has no space for an aged inventory push or a strong offer that shows up mid quarter. For ideas beyond paid media, see local event marketing for dealers.

A plan is only as good as the meeting that reviews it. Hold one review a month with the general manager, the sales managers and whoever owns the channels. Read the same reports in the same order:

1. Units sold against goal, new and used
2. Leads, appointments set, appointments shown and sold units by source
3. Cost per sold unit by source
4. Speed to first response and attempts per lead
5. Budget spent against plan

Each report ends with one decision: keep, cut, add or fix. Write the decision into the plan before the meeting ends. When your CRM keeps the source on every lead and your team marks sales on the lead, most of these numbers come from one place. The LeadLocate Reports dashboard shows leads by source and status, activity, appointments and deals for any user and date range.

Plans rarely fail on the first day. They drift. These are the patterns that show up most often when a dealership plan stops working:

• Goals in impressions or clicks. Those numbers are easy to hit and say little about sales. Tie every goal to units, or to a step that leads to units.
• No owner for the follow-up. Marketing buys the lead and nobody owns the first response. Put the BDC or internet sales manager on the plan with a response time goal.
• A budget set once and never moved. If the money sits in the same places every month, the review is a formality. Move something each month, even a small amount.
• Testing three things at once. When a new channel, a new offer and a new landing page launch together, you will never know which one worked. Change one thing at a time.
• Ignoring the list you already own. Past customers and service customers cost the least to reach. A plan that spends everything on new shoppers leaves easy sales on the table.
• Leaving inventory out of the plan. Advertising a unit that sold last week wastes money and trust. Tie the calendar to what the used car manager expects on the lot.

Each of these shows up in the monthly review when you read the reports in order, which is the best reason to keep that meeting on the calendar.

Download the car dealership marketing plan template in Excel, or print the marketing plan template as a PDF. Then work through it in this order:

1. Fill in the Goals tab with unit targets and your own conversion rates.
2. Pick the three to five audiences that matter most for your inventory.
3. List your channels and put one owner on each line.
4. Set the spend per unit and split the budget across channels.
5. Block the big moments on the calendar for the coming twelve months.
6. Agree on the reports and the day of the first monthly review.

Plan on about ninety minutes with your managers. The first version will be rough, and that is fine: the monthly review is where it gets sharper.

LeadLocate puts most lines of the plan in one place. Leads Manager holds your lead program selections, and our team builds and runs the campaigns from them, so every lead in your zone lands in your CRM inbox with its source. Bulk texting, bulk email and voicemail drops reach your own customer lists, and Scheduled Messages queue them for the right day and time. Lead Pages build a landing page for each offer, Design Studio makes image ads from your live inventory, and the Reports dashboard covers the monthly review.

See how it fits your plan on the car dealer marketing page, or explore the LeadLocate CRM. Plans and add-ons are listed on the pricing page.

What should a car dealership marketing plan include?

Unit goals by month, the audiences you sell to, the channels for each, one owner per line, a budget built per unit and split by channel, a 12 month calendar of inventory focus and events, and the reports you review monthly. The free template has a tab for each part.

How often should we revise the marketing plan?

Review it monthly and reset it quarterly. The monthly review moves budget between sources based on cost per sold unit. The quarterly reset revisits goals, audiences and the calendar as inventory, staffing and your market change.

Who should own the dealership marketing plan?

The general manager owns the plan and the budget. Each channel line gets its own owner, usually the internet sales manager, BDC manager, used car manager or marketing director. Agencies can run channels, but a person inside the store owns each result.

How much of the budget should go to digital?

Let your results decide. Many stores put most of their spend into digital and lead generation because it can be tracked to sold units. Move money toward the sources with the lowest cost per sold unit, and keep traditional media where tracking numbers show it sells.

Does the template work for a small independent store?

Yes. Use fewer rows: two or three audiences, four or five channels, and one or two owners. The structure stays the same, and the monthly review matters even more when every dollar counts.

Can a broker or individual salesperson use it?

Yes. Set goals in deals per month, pick the audiences you sell to most, and list the channels you use, such as a personal website, listings, a lead program and texts to past customers. You own every line, so the monthly review takes ten minutes.

Watch the demo or call 844-376-2274. We will show how lead programs, texting, email, landing pages and reports run your plan from one login.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.