It can be hard to attract new customers to your car dealership, especially in these difficult economic times. If you have a talented team and great customer service, your customers will give you good reviews online and tell their friends and family to visit you. There are a few things that you can do to encourage your current customers to visit you more and to bring more customers in. Read on for a couple of tips on making a profit with your car dealership, even when the economy is down.

Loss Leaders

Don’t play any games with jacking up your cars’ prices and then “marking them down” to their original list prices. Car shoppers have access to the Internet, which means they have the means to find out what the cars you sell are going for at other dealerships and what other dealerships are getting for extended warranties and service plans.

Instead, pick a few vehicles that you can afford to take a minor loss on. The customers who purchase these cars will no doubt tell all of their friends and family what great deals they got on their cars. That word of mouth will bring more potential customers to your lot, whom you can then woo with your amazing customer service.

Use Your Mailing List

Each time you sell a vehicle, you add a name and address to your mailing list. Now, of course you’ll need to keep those on file in case of warranty or recall issues, but you can actually use this information to attract more sales. Don’t do anything unethical like selling your list. However, no one will have any problem if you use the list to send out coupon cards to your customers for things like free oil changes or discounted wheel alignment jobs. You could even encourage your customers to bring more people in by giving them incentives like, “50% off your next oil change when you bring a friend!”

Whether you directly ask your customers to bring in more customers or not, this is a great way to get more people to come in to see you. No one can resist a great deal, especially on things they will need to get anyway, like oil changes and other car maintenance. When they come in, you can ensure that they’ll be back again by going ahead and scheduling their next maintenance appointment before they leave. When you treat your customers well and streamline their experience with you, they’ll be more than happy to come back for more business.