Launched in 2016, Facebook Marketplace has risen to the top of online sales platforms, alongside e-commerce veterans like Craigslist.
Facebook Marketplace has attracted a large (to put it mildly) following thanks to its simple and transparent platform, and as of 2022, Facebook announced Marketplace has reached 1.79 million active users.
That’s a LOT of potential sales traffic for your dealership!
Its immense popularity has caused Marketplace to become saturated with sellers, both private and professional, which can complicate your plans to get in front of sales leads. In order to make your inventory listings stand out, we compiled a list of best practices to enhance your brand visibility. Here’s how you can get ahead of local competitors in marketing and selling on Facebook Marketplace:
List Every Unit on Your Lot
As is the case with any third-party sales platform, I encourage you to list your full inventory offerings on Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace recently changed its inventory feed policy and ceased allowing mass inventory uploads via feeds; however, if you want to avoid manually uploading inventory a listing at a time, you can invest in a third-party software that will run your inventory uploads in the background on your computer while you focus on other tasks.
Enhance Your Inventory’s Searchability
Facebook Marketplace’s algorithm shows users units related to previous searches and purchases. You can use the algorithm to your advantage by adding tags and descriptions to your listings that enhance their searchability. This includes keywords buyers are likely to include in their searches, such as make, model, new or used, year, mileage, color, features and so forth. Popular, relevant tags and keyword-rich descriptions will help your units appear in more search results and attract genuine leads.
Involve Your Facebook Ads
Once your inventory is posted, you have the opportunity to take an extra step to get in front of qualified buyers by running Facebook Ads. Facebook’s advertising feature is notorious for its audience targeting capability, and it promotes your listings to shoppers who have purchased or shown interest in similar inventory. You can further appeal to your target audience by selecting from multiple objectives and ad formats to align with shopper interests and creating an ideal audience list based on location, demographic, location, age and more. This ensures that 100% of your ad spend goes toward highly promising leads.
Market to Prospects on Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger has evolved beyond a casual chat tool as more consumers use it to connect with brands directly. Likewise, you can use Messenger to personally send your customers incentivizing information like sales blasts, service reminders and even your latest how-to blog. Messenger’s average open rate is 80%, which is significantly higher than email’s 15-25% average (1).
Use Customer Service Automation
Facebook Marketplace presents an incredible opportunity for customer service, not just because it boasts such a large audience, but also for its wide variety of shopper engagement tools. For example, your dealership could employ a Messenger chatbot to auto-respond to prospects outside of your business hours and answer frequently asked questions about your store. Some businesses find their chatbots are also adept at creating organic conversations with shoppers – without a team member needing to hop on the chat.
If you’re driving inventory sales through Marketplace, it’s important to monitor your messages and be quick to respond to shopper inquiries. If your team has limited capacity to stay on top of Marketplace messages, Facebook’s automation tools can help you create an auto-answer that notifies leads their message has been received and a team member will contact them as soon as possible.
Boost Your Sales Leads on Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace presents a prime opportunity to connect with a large buyer market, and its enormous user base ensures there’s no shortage of potential buyers who could come across your listings. The setup process for listings is easy, and if you want to launch an ad campaign to increase traffic to your listings, you can pre-set your ad spend to always stay within your budget. Best of all, the community-oriented nature of Facebook makes Marketplace an easy and natural method to connect with shoppers and drive them to your Facebook profile, where they can stay involved with your brand.
Want to increase the lead-driving capabilities of your Facebook presence? Check out our guide to creating a powerful Facebook business page.
If you have any questions about optimizing and managing your Facebook presence, don’t hesitate to ask. Contact ARI today!
(1) Mobile Monkey
