As the famous saying goes “you have to spend money to make money.” This likely applies to all of your business dealings: from hiring employees to managing your inventory. The same also holds for marketing. Whether you are purchasing a new piece of software or paid ads, your marketing budget is probably ballooning as this article is being written.
What if you could save money on some of your marketing efforts, particularly training? The world of marketing is ever evolving, and it is crucial for your employees —as well as yourself—to stay current on marketing trends, especially related to the automotive industry. Fortunately, there are a ton of free resources out there for digital marketing training. Take a look at our list of excellent tools you can use to train your marketing employees for free:
SEO
The Beginner’s Guide to SEO – Moz
Having a good SEO strategy could be the difference between showing up on page one or page 20 of search engine rankings. To ensure you reach the top page, you and your staff have to understand the ins and outs of SEO.
The Beginner’s Guide to SEO is an excellent starting point and even refresher for those with prior experience in the marketing method. The guide has been read over three million times and includes chapters that address how search engines operate, keyword research, how page composition impacts rankings, and how to measure and track success. This guide contains much of what you would learn in a paid course for free.
Email Marketing
The Email Marketing Certification Course – HubSpot Academy
HubSpot is an excellent resource for free training and courses related to all things digital marketing. In true HubSpot fashion, their email marketing certification course does not disappoint. Email marketing is crucial to any dealership customer cultivation strategy, and HubSpot’s free course can help you engage your audience. The course focuses on teaching you to build an email marketing strategy that can grow your business. It walks viewers through contact management, segmentation, creating engaging email messages, lead nurturing, and email testing. This course packs everything you would need to know to start reaching your customers through email.
Paid Advertising
Paid ads are a huge part of automotive marketing. Sites like Facebook and even Instagram have made it easier to acquire new customers through their paid advertising opportunities and algorithms. While getting started isn’t hard, it can be challenging to know the right strategies to use and how to make segmentation on the platforms work for you.
This scenario is where Quick Sprout University comes into play. This platform was developed by famous digital marketing expert, Neil Patel, and includes short videos that walk viewers through the process of using paid ads. From setting up a Google AdWords display to using Facebook ads to generate traffic to your site, the website is an excellent free training resource for those just getting started in online paid ads.
Social Media Marketing
Social Marketing Education – Hootsuite
There is more to social media than posting, sharing, and commenting on content. While this is a big part of any social media strategy, the knowledge needed to thrive on it is evolving. Today, customers expect you to create a community, partner with influencers and create compelling visuals for content.
How can you do all this effectively while staying on brand? Hootsuite, the social media scheduling platform, has an extensive social media marketing training that takes viewers through social media optimization, strategy development, engagement, and advertising. The course even includes an exam at the end and a certification for those who pass. If your dealership needs a social media strategy update, this training is one the best free option out there.
Final Thoughts
You don’t have to break the bank to train your staff on the fundamentals of digital marketing. In addition to the options mentioned above, there are even digital marketing influencers that also share their insights on platforms like YouTube that could also be used for training.
Either way, good training (especially on topics related to basic and intermediate digital marketing themes) can be free. There are many free (and low cost) training options available for marketers; however; be sure to take stock of the exact information you need before you pay money for digital marketing training. You want to ensure you are getting the most useful information for your money.