When market conditions tighten, marketing is often the first thing businesses cut. But smart dealers know that staying visible is crucial—especially when customers are making more careful purchasing decisions. Instead of just slashing your marketing budget, shift your focus to cost-effective strategies and get creative!
1. Optimize Owned and Earned Media Instead of Paid Ads
Instead of relying heavily on paid advertising, focus on optimizing the channels you already own, such as your website, email list, and social media. Don’t be afraid to do some PR and get the media involved. Cost-effective ways to maximize touchpoints with customers and prospects include:
Website Optimization:Â Ensure your site is up-to-date and SEO-optimized so customers can find you organically.
Content Marketing: Write blog posts, create videos, and share what’s going on at your dealership to drive interest and awareness.
Social Media Engagement:Â Post consistently, encourage interactions with followers and interact with followers as the dealership.Â
Email Marketing: Segment your audiences if you can, getting those prospects relevant information in a cheap and timely manner. If you can’t segment, at the very least send a monthly email with the content you’ve created and offers and include the three latest trade-ins to your lot.
Smart Move: Send a Press Release
Get the media involved by sending a press release or pitching them a story idea. In your next sales meeting, inquire about customers utilizing a piece of equipment uniquely or how it contributed to their success in some way. Then, reach out to local, regional, or state ag media to share the story (with the customer’s permission). It's a win-win—they get a great piece, and your dealership gets free publicity.
Have a technician training program? Share it with the media! Mainstream news outlets love highlighting job opportunities, especially on slow news days (which often occur around holidays). How great would it be to have your company and the program on the morning news?
2. Focus on Parts and Service Marketing
During a downturn, customers may delay purchasing new equipment but still need parts and service. Ensure your marketing messages reflect this shift by:
Promoting Preventative Maintenance: Drive awareness to customers on how regular service can extend the life of their equipment. Better yet, let your techs tell them. Record them sharing the reasons, or use their picture and verbiage to make it personal and share the strength and expertise of your service department.
Highlighting Special Offers:Â Offer bundled service packages, loyalty discounts, or financing options on parts and repairs.
Offering Free Inspections:Â Provide limited free inspections for combines, planters, or tractors during the off-season to drive shop work, customer engagement, and parts sales. Instead of an 80-point inspection, offer a major 10-point inspection or a one-hour inspection.
End-of-Warranty Awareness:Â Notify customers about upcoming warranty expirations through email and follow up with a phone call to ensure their equipment is checked before coverage ends.
Offering Extended Warranty:Â Customers in a downturn want to minimize risk and fix expenses. Extended warranties provide peace of mind and financial predictability.
Smart Move: Host an Equipment Performance Expo
Host a specialized event focused all around parts and service and maximizing the equipment they have. Get suppliers to pay a small fee to have a booth to cover the cost of having it off-site. Have a punch ticket, where if they visit all the booths, they get a free 10-point inspection. Hold it centrally located so customers from most locations can attend. Make it interactive with quizzes or tests for attendees to see where their baseline knowledge is and make it fun with prizes for those who score the highest. Make it visual by displaying worn and new parts side by side so they are aware and know when they need to replace parts. Have special offers that are only available to those in attendance. Keep it simple with a dessert bar instead of a meal.
3. Be More Efficient with Events
Traditional large-scale dealership events can be expensive and time-consuming. Instead, opt for smaller, targeted events that maximize impact at a lower cost:
Do Mornings:Â Have them first thing in the morning and provide breakfast, which is cheaper than lunch.Â
Leverage Co-Marketing Opportunities:Â Co-host events with agribusinesses or farm organizations to share costs and cross-promote.
Cut Costs:Â Instead of shutting down the shop, host events in a wash bay, a shaded area, or a limited section to keep techs working.
Call Them Up: Instead of costly mailers, divide up the invite list and have staff personally invite customers. Then follow up with a postcard confirmation or email to reduce or eliminate the printing and postage cost.
Smart Move: Livestream Demos or Clinics
While you're investing the cost and time into demoing a piece of equipment or event, take the opportunity to show it to a larger audience by livestreaming it on one of the social media platforms. Live content is prioritized so it will likely be seen by more viewers than what is typically posted. You could even promote the livestream in advance through email and social media and consider having a team member monitor comments to interact with viewers. After the live stream, repurpose the footage into shorter video clips for future marketing, such as website content, email campaigns, and social media posts.
4. Outsource Marketing Tasks
If your team is stretched thin, outsourcing can be more cost-effective than hiring full-time staff. Consider:
Freelance Writers:Â Have them create engaging content and blog posts. College students studying agricultural communication from your area can be a great resource.
Freelance Graphic Designers:Â Save time, keep your brand cohesive and professional, and not to mention, get it turned around quicker.Â
Marketing Agencies:Â Handle specialized tasks like SEO, email campaigns, and digital marketing.Â
Smart Move: Use Fiverr or Upwork
These sites are where you can find experienced freelancers to hire who are specialized for specific tasks, without long-term commitments, and have a fast turnaround. This is a great place to find someone to put together a flyer, handle digital marketing, do video editing, set up automation, write a press release, or help you with a podcast.Â
5. Dig Into the Data
Marketing during a downturn isn’t just about spending less—it’s about spending smarter. Use data to determine which strategies deliver the best ROI and what customers are really looking for by digging to:
Website Analytics:Â Identify the most-viewed equipment listings and popular content, then tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.
Email Metrics:Â Track open and click-through rates to refine messaging.
Clean Up: Do a spring cleaning of your email list to ensure you're communicating and sending information to people that are alive and still a relevant prospect or customer. That greatly reduces wasteful marketing spending.
CRM Systems:Â This is the time CRM systems shine! Leverage customer data to create targeted campaigns based on purchase history and service needs.
Smart Move: Share Insights with Staff
You can go old school and retarget by hand. Create a weekly report that goes out to parts and service managers, along with sales staff, even if it’s screenshots. Share customer engagement data, like what pieces of equipment on the website are getting the most clicks, who clicks on offers, equipment or content in a newsletter and social media engagement. The staff in turn can prioritize whom to follow up with and call them up to remind them of an offer, seek their interest, and potentially convert the prospect faster.Â
Final Thoughts
A downturn doesn’t have to mean going dark on marketing. By shifting your focus to owned and earned media, emphasizing parts and service, leveraging partnerships, outsourcing tasks, and making data-driven decisions, dealers can continue to market effectively without overspending. Staying visible and engaged with customers now will position your dealership for success when the market rebounds.