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How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers – Free Marketing Webinar

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Businesses now have the power to leverage the Internet — search
engines, blogs, social media — to reach customers more effectively.
This includes connecting with customers where they hang out online and
engaging in conversations about the topics most important to them.
Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is all about joining the
ongoing conversations our customers and prospects are already having
and not trying to control them. It's realizing that people like doing
business with people they like and love doing business with people they
trust. 

This free webinar will cover:
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  • How to use social media to connect with customers online
  • Creating content to attract more customers to your business
  • Tools to help you manage and measure your social media efforts

Date: Tues. April 14, 2009

Time: 2PM ET (GMT -5)

Duration: 1 Hour

Who should attend?

Marketing professionals and business owners. No technical experience required.

Speaker:

Special guest presenter: Brent Leary, co-founder and Partner of CRM Essentials and recognized expert in the field of social CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Enroll_Now

April 9, 2009 by Gary May 0
Cracking The Code: Marketing Presence

What is it about marketing that has dealers so perplexed? It's not the act of marketing your brand, inventory, service panache, amazing staff, luxury facility, location, exclusive offerings and more that matters as much as how you do it and the completeness of your marketing.

It used to be enough to 'silo' advertise: one ad in the newspaper, one direct mail, one newsletter, one TV spot (over and over again…) and the like. The issue was that if the target didn't see/threw out/ignored/didn't fully read, etc your ad, you were done for. Remember: people want to consume content when they want, how they want, where they want, the amount they want and react to it the way they want.

So why are you content with a website and some email blast activities? That's not marketing as much as it is a band-aid. Think of it this way: how complete is your coverage? Would you buy insurance for two tires, a headlight, the drive shaft and tailpipe and not the rest of the car? Why are you partially marketing then?

Not only does your content need to be timely, contextual and relevant, it needs to be able to be seen by anyone, any time and anywhere.  Do you have a mobile site with inventory? Do you text message? Is your website dynamic? Are your eNewsletters actually engaging and do they drive results (traffic and sales)? How is your Facebook and Twitter volume in addition to your other social media efforts?

You wouldn't want to leave the house with one sock missing, half your collar sticking up, two different shoes and a jacket with a hole in the back (although I've seen some salespeople looking like this…) so don't leave your marketing undone or incomplete.

And another thing: you don't have to do everything you hear about. Do what you do well, learn news ways to market and effectively communicate, work with your vendors on new technology and push the envelope consistently. Every dealer tells me the same thing: "I just want to sell cars and not worry about the other stuff!". You have to worry about it and do something as well, but if you market the same way you did six months ago, how are your results going to be any different?

Build a presence that you're proud of and work it…or someone else will work you!

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Power Results

March 18, 2009 by Gary May 0
What Are You Doing About What Your Competition Is Not?

Everyone's worried about their bottom line, revenues, expenses, marketing,future and what's going to happen next. Worrying so much they have forgotten how to think forward and act intuitively. Better yet, they're not even paying attention to what is not being done by competitors (in and out-of-brand) that can easily be capitalized on.

Two years we were talking about 'an edge'. Now most every dealership is talking about falling off of it. Nothing has changed…nothing! Now, you may have to be more selective and conscience. But you have to market, you have to connect, you must communicate and you absolutely need to build.

Here's a little secret about what 80-90% of dealerships in your market are not doing (or doing effectively at all):

  • Online marketing: SEO, SEM (paid search/PPC, banner ads, etc)
    • Google Analytics (please!)
  • Customer Relationship Management: email, events, incentives
  • Social networking: Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, etc for increase engagement
    • And drives first two bullets!
  • Reputation management: DealerRater, CarFolks, MyDealerReport, Yelp, etc
    • And drives first three bullets!
  • Capitalize on resources for education
    • Automotive Digest, Digital Dealer, AutomotiveDigitalMarketing, Driving Sales
  • Capitalize on resources for training
    • Consultants, brand events, networking (chamber, local businesses, etc)

More often than not, 10% or less of the 'things that must get done' are and even when they do get done, they're not maintained. Some of the MOST fundamental activities are just not being done and for what?

  • The road to hell is paved with good intention
  • The road to debt is paved with discounts
  • The reason that 90% of people fail is the inability to deal with people
  • Nobody ever earned a dollar without spending one

These are the times when (as a good friend of mine in the industry put it) you can get a larger piece of a smaller pie or you can save yourself to death. Most everything listed here can be done for free to hundred of dollars per month.

One of IM@CS' clients has reduced their marketing expense by nearly 85%, increased their brand exposure, delivered more cars in the past month than they did over the past six, is driving over 25% more web traffic and nearly doubling their own website leads over the past three quarters. They're doing all of the above.

It's completely up to you. So what are you doing about what your competition is not? Someone has to wake up first and get going. It might as well be you!

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

February 19, 2009 by Gary May 0
Admitted Adverholic? Here’s a Two-Step Recovery Program

If you've been a dealer for more than two years, face it: you're an adverholic. Anyone who has made it through the auto 'heydays' has spent 30, 70…even 100 thousand plus PER MONTH to get their name out to an unmeasured amount of eyeballs. Those days are gone (and soon many of the recipients of those ad dollars, if not already) but the pain and yearning may still be there.

When you stop advertising for the sake of advertising and start a conscience level of engagement with 'your public', paying attention to things outside of the dealership and spending more time getting to know who buys from you and why, things get a bit clearer. Understanding the components of today's market related to your brand existing comes in a two-step recovery program:

1. Stop doing what doesn't work
2. Start doing what does work

The biggest game change in media over the last 100 years: social media/consumer opt-in engagement. It's truly interesting when you sit down with a dealer or general manager and hear about what they want changed: more of their own website leads, to drop (costly) third party leads, to retain more clients, to spend less (sometimes blindly) and ultimately stay flat or grow in today's economy.

So, how can and where do you start? Short of choosing to disappear completely from people's conscientiousness, you have to be smarter about what you say, where you say it, how you say it and when you say it. Then you absolutely have to be spot on when a person consumes your media and wants to interact with you.

There are no better tools that I've ever seen than in social media, and dealers are starting to get it. Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, LinkedIn and more, let alone your website (done right, that is). You don't need to worry about your overhead or CPM if you have 735 fans of your dealership on Facebook. It's free. And get this: you can drive the most contextual messages to them and they'll get it automatically. Imagine this scenario:

Joe Blow likes your dealership, even has visited when the new models arrive and he ends up buddies with one of your sales staff from chit-chat. He sees a promotion in the reception area about your Facebook page and becomes a fan. He gets updates regularly about your dealership, special cars arriving, service specials and more. You also broadcast exclusive specials via Twitter so he follows you there. When he's in market, clicks the option on your Facebook page to get inventory sent directly to his cell phone. The unit he wants comes in, he IM's the salesperson that he'll be in the next day at 5:30 to buy the car.

No lead, no timer, no missed emails or communication. No cost. No competition. No guessing what drove him in (ie was it your $10,000 cable spot, $15,000 direct mail campaign or the $20,000 newspaper ad). This customer was always yours, which is the way most dealers I know like it.

Repeat after me: "I'm a recovering adverholic and I don't need to advertise just to advertise anymore. I will be relevant, timely and honest (ouch!). My website is a living, breathing entity, not a billboard. I'll go digital so my camera is not the only one in my office that is. And I'll meet my customers in the same place that I go for my sports scores, to book travel, to post pictures of my kids and do all my banking: ONLINE!"

Boom, you're healed. Go sell cars…

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

January 23, 2009 by Gary May 1
One Thing At A Time Online…All At Once

When it comes to the 'new age' of Internet existence for your business, it is important that you appear as good as possible when people find you online. When it comes to reputation, shoppers want to know what your customers say rather than what you say. They want to have transparency in inventory, see the actual cars and features. Online visitors want to know what you'll do for them, to understand how you work, dealership history, who makes up the team, what specials they can get and so much more.

So hop to it…get your blog entries published, inventory fixed, Twitter your specials, text your new inventory, moderate the discussion for your local enthusiast group's site, shoot videos of your CPO vehicles and stream them on your site and push them onto YouTube, get all of your clients to write online testimonials and refresh your website's content monthly and SEO every quarter (if not monthly). Done! Oops…not yet…sell 50 cars a month via the web while you're at it.

Stop the press! We've only be gathering email addresses regularly for a year? We haven't gotten our customers' cell phone numbers and carriers to message them? Nobody has been putting the most valuable client information in the CRM? How do 50% of our leads fall through the cracks, how do you truly track them? And why does the factory blind shop us 10 times a month? Hold on…how do you ask a customer to write an online recommendation? Where do I even send them?

OK, that may be a little tongue and cheek but it's not too far off for many dealers today. So how do you start from zero and get up to 75 immediately on the information superhighway? The best recommendation I can provide here is…act like a customer! What do your customers talk about more and ask from you daily? Consider that one of, if not the greatest influence on consumers is search.

Fact is that you have no choice but to trust more people with your dealership than ever before: vendors, customers and employees. Things are changing at breakneck speed with technology, social media and engagement. One bad customer experience written online may not ruin you overnight but it will affect people's opinion and become pervasive if not offset by more positive assertions.

Make it a goal in January to spread the online responsibilities among all of your front-end staff. Get your people comfortable with your online existence and build your brand, reach and reputation. Become a truly trusted brand with the best advocates out there. Your option is having someone else beat you to it.

It starts with one thing at a time, just do it all at once.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

January 8, 2009 by Gary May 0
Week At IM@CS: Chats With The Industry

Keeping up with the 'Joneses' in the industry is something that most people want to do, if not beat them. The issues are typically time, resources, knowledge and access. While I've been using many of the online resources for a while, it's not the case for the majority of our industry friends.  Also, there is a reluctance at different levels of the industry due to misunderstanding and ignorance.

Part of what IM@CS brings into clients is eliminating mistakes or the 'what not to do and why' as compared to simply telling people 'do this'. There are a few newer resources that address that in a great way, and they deserve plugs.

First and foremost, it is imperative to stay up-to-date with education from your vendors and use their products fully. Second, leverage the eNewsletters, webinars and events that are free to 'inexpensive' (defined by you or your dealership) run by companies including Automotive News, Cars.com, KBB, Automotive Digest, Ward's, Dealer Magazine and more.

Then you have access to sites that are community based and living on the real-life, day-to-day, cut-your-teeth edge in order to provide value where it's needed most.  Here's two that are prominent players and should be bookmarked:

AutomotiveDigitalMarketing – What can you say that hasn't been said about the prolific Ralph Paglia? Don't waste your time (sorry Ralph), just go to the website and immerse yourself in the groups, discussions, blog posts and more because these are the people (about 1,600) making it happen at retail every day. http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com*
*The fact that this post will end up on the site as well is not an additional endorsement and no, we're not being paid!

DrivingSales – Jared Hamilton started this site as a way to stay in touch with people he had taken NADA courses with. Still in beta (and a number of bugs to work out), this is another community that aims to be the knowledge base for folks starting and maintaining their digital presence, including vendor rankings, video interviews and more. http://www.drivingsales.com

Nothing is static about our industry anymore. Your success depends on accumulating an incredible wealth of knowledge, deciding how to move forward and then doing it. Both sites are testimonies that these communities must exist and are of significant value. And if you have an idea, comment and question, go ahead and get it out there. Chances are there's at least one other person that has the same.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

November 23, 2008 by Gary May 2