Guide
A marketing planthat starts from cars soldand works backward.
A car dealership marketing plan is a short document that turns next month's unit target into the shown appointments, set appointments and leads needed to hit it, using your store's own closing, show and booking rates. It then names the channels that will supply those leads, who follows up on each one and how fast, and the date the numbers get reviewed.
Six blocks to fill in, from the unit target to the monthly review. Copy them, print them, use them on Monday.
01The parts
What goes in a car dealership marketing plan
Six parts, in the order you fill them in. Each one depends on the part before it, so skipping ahead means guessing.
- 01
The unit target
Retail units for next month, counted the way your store already counts a deal. Leave wholesale out. Split new and used only if you sell both.
- 02
Units that arrive without a lead
Last month's repeat buyers, referrals and drive-ins, taken from the source field in your CRM. Subtract them, because the lead math below cannot produce them. Drive-ins are not free, though: some shopped your website or listings before they came in, so watch this line whenever you cut a channel.
- 03
Your own three rates
Shown appointment to sale, set appointment to shown, and lead to set appointment. Pull all three from the last 90 days of your own CRM, never from someone else's store.
- 04
The lead count
The number the math produces. This, not a budget, is the target your marketing is working toward.
- 05
Channels and owners
Where those leads will come from. Each channel gets a named owner and one thing to record about it every month.
- 06
Follow-up and review
Who answers each lead and how fast, in open hours and after them. Then the date of the monthly review and the agenda it follows.
The first four parts are arithmetic and the last two are people. Spend is the easy line to fill in, and the owner lines are the easy ones to skip. A plan with a blank in block D or E is not finished, however good the arithmetic.
02The template
The car dealership marketing plan template
Copy each block into one document, or print the page. Underscores are blanks. The line numbers carry through from block to block, so the math in block C can point back to the numbers above it.
01Target and rates
Month: ___
Line 1. Retail units to sell: ___
Line 2. Units expected from repeat, referral and drive-in (last month's count): ___
Line 3. Units this plan must produce (line 1 minus line 2): ___
Why it is here: the plan only answers for the cars that come through a lead. Count repeat and referral buyers as campaign results and every channel looks better than it is.
Line 4. Close rate. Shown appointments that bought: ___ out of ___ = ___
Line 5. Show rate. Set appointments that showed: ___ out of ___ = ___
Line 6. Booking rate. Appointments set (a rebooked no-show counts again) per unique lead: ___ set from ___ unique leads = ___
Why it is here: these three rates carry the whole plan. Count only leads and appointments from sources you market to, leaving out the repeat, referral and drive-in buyers taken out in block A. Write down the counts as well as the result, so next month's review can see where each rate came from.
02Leads and channels
Line 7. Shown appointments needed = line 3 divided by line 4 = ___
Line 8. Appointments to set = line 7 divided by line 5 = ___
Line 9. Leads needed = line 8 divided by line 6 = ___
Line 10. Leads per selling day = line 9 divided by days open this month (___) = ___
Why it is here: line 9 is the real target for marketing. Line 10 turns it into something the team can check every evening, not on the last day of the month.
Channel: ___
Leads expected this month: ___
Owner: ___
Cost this month, from the quote or invoice: $___
Measured on: cost per appointment shown from this channel
Copy this entry for every channel. The leads expected across all of them should add up to line 9.
Why it is here: a channel with no owner gets nobody's attention, and a channel with no number can never fall short. This block gives each one both.
03Follow-up and review
First response owner, open hours: ___
Evenings and weekends: ___
Response window we commit to: ___ minutes
Unanswered lead: ___ attempts over ___ days, by ___
No-show callback: who ___, when ___
A lead moves to long-term follow-up when: ___
Why it is here: lead quality affects lines 5 and 6, but this block is the part of them the store controls. Fill it in before you commit a dollar to block D.
Review date: ___
Attendees: ___
Cost per shown appointment, by channel: ___
The one change we made last month: ___
Did it work: ___
The one change for next month, its owner and its date: ___
Why it is here: a plan nobody reviews is a wish. One change a month means that when a number moves, you know what moved it.
03The math
Working backward from your unit target, with an example
The plan starts from units because units are what the store lives on. A budget tells you what you will spend, not what you need. A lead count with no unit target behind it cannot be judged either, because nobody can say whether it was enough.
Pull each rate from your own CRM, and agree on the definitions before you count. A lead is one unique person, so merge duplicates and count the same buyer arriving from two sites once. An appointment is set when it has a date and a time. "Maybe Saturday" is not set. Shown means the person physically arrived at the dealership. A lead who walks in without booking counts as set and shown on the day they arrive, not as a drive-in. If your store does not track these, count the last 30 days by hand from the CRM and the appointment log. A rough number of your own beats a precise number from somebody else.
A worked example: invented numbers, use yours
Example Motors is a fictional store. Every figure below is made up to show the arithmetic. None of it is typical of anything, and none of it is a target.
- Target. 40 retail units next month. Last month, 10 came from repeat buyers, referrals and drive-ins. Units this plan must produce: 40 minus 10 = 30.
- Rates from its last 90 days (invented). 90 out of 180 shown appointments bought, a close rate of 0.5. 180 out of 300 set appointments showed, a show rate of 0.6. 300 appointments set from 1,200 unique leads, a booking rate of 0.25.
- Shown appointments needed. 30 divided by 0.5 = 60.
- Appointments to set. 60 divided by 0.6 = 100.
- Leads needed. 100 divided by 0.25 = 400.
- Per selling day. Open 25 days next month: 400 divided by 25 = 16 leads a day.
Now read what the math is telling you. If line 9 looks impossible, look at the rates before you look at the ad budget, because a better rate makes every lead you already pay for count for more. In the invented example, lift the show rate from 0.6 to 0.75 and the store needs 80 appointments set instead of 100 (60 divided by 0.75), and 320 leads instead of 400 (80 divided by 0.25), with no new spend. Booking rate and show rate are follow-up problems as well as marketing problems. They move with how fast the store answers, how it books and how it confirms, which is the work covered inappointment setting and inBDC best practices.
The lead count is not a forecast. It is the number you need if your own rates hold.
An auto dealership marketing plan is only as good as the rates under it, so recalculate all three every month. Do not plan next month on rates from a month that went unusually well or unusually badly, such as a month with a big sale event or a lot that sat half empty. Use the last normal stretch, and write down why you skipped the odd one.
04The channels
Choosing channels for an automotive marketing plan
Block D is where line 9 gets split between sources. These are the channel types an independent store can draw leads from, and what each one is for.
Start with the customers you already have. Working your sold and service lists is covered indealership customer retention, and the service side in what a service BDC does. For website and listing inquiries, readautomotive leads explained. Phone calls only count toward the plan if each one lands with a named person and a source in the CRM, and tagging that source is whatautomotive call tracking sets up. Paid search has its own guide in car dealer PPC, and Facebook has two:Facebook ads for car dealersand Facebook Marketplace for car dealers. Referrals you ask for have their own playbook incar dealership referral program. When the math says you need more leads than your own channels produce, lead generation is one way to close the gap, and automotive digital marketingshows how the online channels report against each other.
Every channel is judged on appointments that showed, never on clicks, impressions or raw leads, and a channel with no named owner stays out of the plan. The full argument is incar dealership marketing, and tactics to try inside each channel are incar dealership marketing ideas.
05The follow-up
Assign follow-up before you spend a dollar
Block E is where the store controls its booking and show rates. Money spent on leads that nobody owns buys inquiries, not appointments.
- 01
One owner per lead
A named person or role for every hour the store is open. Leads that belong to whoever is free get answered late or not at all.
- 02
A response window you commit to
Pick the number of minutes, write it into block E, then pull the actual median from the CRM every month. Your own number is the one to beat.
- 03
A cadence for unanswered leads
How many attempts, over how many days, and by phone, text or email. Written down, so the later attempts happen whether or not anyone feels like making them.
- 04
Evenings and weekends
Web forms stay open after closing, so inquiries arrive then too, and on a busy Saturday the people who would answer them are with customers on the lot. Name who covers those hours, or the plan quietly stops at closing time.
- 05
No-shows
Who calls, the same day, with an offer to rebook rather than a scolding. A buyer who booked once can book again.
- 06
When to stop
The rule for moving a lead to long-term follow-up. Moved, not deleted: it stays in the CRM with a reason and a date to try again.
For the cadence, thecar sales text message templatesgive you a message for each attempt. For evenings and weekends, see how an after hours BDC covers the gap. For the stop rule and long-term follow-up, readCRM management andautomotive lead management.
Follow-up is the part of the plan tad. runs for independent dealerships, inside the CRM you already use, throughappointment setting.
06The review
The monthly review: one hour, same agenda
A plan is only useful if someone checks it against what happened. Hold the review on the same day each month, keep it to an hour, and bring last month's filled-in template. Use the same agenda every time, so this month's numbers can be laid next to last month's without anyone arguing about what was counted.
The agenda
- Units sold against the target, split into those with a lead and those without one.
- The three rates, recalculated from last month. Which one moved?
- Leads by channel against the plan.
- Shown appointments and cost per shown appointment, by channel. This is the line that decides budget.
- Actual response time against the committed window, and the number of leads with no owner.
- The one change for next month, with an owner and a date.
Which block to fix when a dealership marketing plan misses
Leads short of line 9: go to block D, channel by channel, starting with the one furthest under its own number. Leads on plan but appointments set short: go to block E first, starting with the response window and the cadence, then check which channels sent the leads that booked least. Appointments set on plan but shown short: check confirmations and the no-show callback. Shown appointments on plan but units short: that is the close rate, a sales floor question that more leads will not fix. Fix one block per month, so the next review can tell what worked.
For what to try when a channel falls short, seecar dealership marketing ideas. The channels a used-only lot leans on, and how to keep them tied to what is on the lot this week, are inused car dealership marketing. A store that has not opened yet has no rates to pull, so start withhow to start a car dealershipand fill in block B once you have a month of your own numbers.
Keep reading
Where to go next
- Car dealership marketing and advertisingThe channels worth funding, and why the measure is cost per appointment shown.
- Car dealership marketing ideasWhat to try inside a channel when the monthly review says it fell short.
- Automotive digital marketing for independent dealersEvery online channel, and a channel report built on appointments that show.
- Outsourced BDC and appointment settingThe follow-up blocks of the plan, run for you inside your own CRM.
- Automotive lead generationLeads produced for one dealership at a time, when the math says you need more.
- Automotive lead managementRouting each lead to one named owner, and the handoffs where leads go cold.
- Advertising, promotion and event ideasConcepts for independent lots, and what each needs to book appointments.
Questions
Common questions
Ask us anything else on a free call. No obligation.
A page or two, not a binder, and more than a calendar of promotions with a budget split by channel. A finished one is six blocks with numbers and names written in: a lead count per selling day, a named owner beside every channel, a response window in minutes and a review date. If someone outside the store could not read it and say who answers a web lead at 8 on a Saturday night, it is not finished.
Fill it in from the top down, in order. Set next month's retail unit target, subtract the units you expect from repeat buyers, referrals and drive-ins, then pull your close, show and booking rates from the CRM. Divide through to find the leads you need. Only then choose channels, give each one an owner and write down the follow-up rules. The template on this page has a blank for every step.
This plan does not start from a budget, so it will not hand you a percentage. Start from the leads the math says you need, then price each channel you are considering against that count, using quotes and your own past invoices. Spend tied to a lead count can be judged a month later. Spend set as a share of revenue cannot, because nothing says what it was meant to produce.
The structure is the same. A used-only store skips the new and used split in the unit target, and its channel list may lean on listing sites, Facebook inventory ads and past customers. What changes more is the inventory. A plan built around a car that sells this week has to adapt when that car is gone, so channel owners should promote what is on the lot now, not what was there when the plan was written.
There is no single answer, and any ranking that ignores your own numbers is a guess. A store with a busy service lane has a list to work that a newer store lacks. A store that answers web leads slowly is paying for search clicks and then letting them go cold. Run each channel for a full month with a named owner, record shown appointments by source, and let your own review decide what stays.
Give every channel its own source in the CRM, and use tracking numbers for calls, so each lead carries where it came from. At the monthly review, count appointments set, appointments shown and units sold by source, then set those against what each channel cost that month. Cost per shown appointment is the early reading, and cost per unit sold, with the gross on those deals, is the ROI line. Cost per click or per lead looks precise but cannot tell you who came in or what they bought.
Cover them. Your sold and service customers already know the store, and you already hold their details, so reaching them does not start with buying attention. Give that list its own line in the channel section, with an owner and a monthly count of appointments set from it. Keep it apart from the units you subtract at the top, and give it its own CRM source, so a buyer you asked is never also counted on line 2 as one who came back on their own.
Yes, on this page. The template section has six blocks, from the unit target to the monthly review, each with its own copy button. Paste them into a document or a spreadsheet, or print the page and fill the blanks by hand. There is no download and no form to fill in first. Keep last month's filled-in copy beside the new one, because the review depends on comparing the two.
07Next step
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