Bet I got your attention.  Good, I mean to.

The days of blasting consumers with non-stop ads to sell and service vehicles are coming to an end.

Technology is changing how consumers purchase cars and competing on price alone opens the door for tech companies to literally take significant market share from dealers. 

And, dealers have ensured that it's not that hard for technology companies to do so.

From Carvana to now FairTheApp, consumers have options on how and where to purchase or service a car.

"We’ve literally built a new way for customers to drive the car they want for as long as they want, and this touches all layers of the mobility total addressable market—from retail to maintenance to insurance and beyond. For our customers, Fair is one-stop shopping for practically all of their mobility spend, and that’s a gigantic opportunity that our investors totally understand." ~ Scott Painter, Founder/CEO, FairTheApp

FairTheApp revolutionizes the global consumer automotive market through its mobile app that allows you to shop for cars and drive it for as long as you want with financing options embedded into the app. 

The cars come with a warranty, roadside assistance, routine maintenance, and you can even add in insurance with a few clicks. Need an SUV for the winter and convertible for the summer? Not a problem. 

Users scan their license to shop pre-owned cars with all-in monthly payments they can afford, sign for the one they want with their finger, pick up their keys and drive it for as long as they want—with no long-term debt or commitment, or even physical paperwork.

Fair raised $385 million from Softbank and according to Painter "We’ve literally built a new way for customers to drive the car they want for as long as they want, and this touches all layers of the mobility total addressable market—from retail to maintenance to insurance and beyond. For our customers, Fair is one-stop shopping for practically all of their mobility spend, and that’s a gigantic opportunity that our investors totally understand."

This raises the obvious question, how does a dealership compete against the likes of Carvana and now FairThe App?

It's not by bombarding consumers with more ads, 

As it is today:

Customer expectations are higher than ever and word of mouth travels fast!

And as the customer becomes even more empowered, it increases the importance of the customer service experience.

Customer experience is an area that needs constant nurturing and care and with a greater focus on customer experience strategy, companies will realize a positive impact on customer loyalty, higher retention, and increased revenues.

Today, companies and brands are often unsure of what to post on social media and often resort to self-promotion, which to be honest is boring and one of the worst things you can do.

Social media when utilized correctly and with a purpose builds a community.

Brands that take on a mentoring role, providing the tools, techniques, and strategies for their customers to become more effective marketers in achieving their own goals, creating a win-win for all.

In today’s social business marketplace, brands that hope to build a loyal and growing community do so most effectively when they demonstrate their core values and allow a community to develop and engage around these values.

How To Build A Community On Social Media

So does a brand use social media to build a community and what should they be posting on social media to achieve these goals?

The last thing that I would advise any brand to do is to join communities on social media, add no value and think that you have accomplished something.  You have not.

You have to engage with the target audience!

This is where vulnerability comes in. A community is about engagement, with honest, open communication around a common purpose.

The purpose can be anything from clean water to skydiving to food. However, you have to engage and become part of the community.

Dedicate a few minutes a day, hop onto any social media platform of your choice and respond to questions, comments, memes.

Share your perspective and opinions, offer solutions, discuss common problems.

The only way to get to know your target audience is if you share yourself, your thoughts and insights and values.

Follow up

Here’s the next step.

Once you’ve engaged with people online, select a few that you felt you made a deeper connection with and send a DM.

No. Don’t ask them out.

Send them a resource such as a link to a blog post that will help them with a problem they are dealing with, or a funny meme to lighten up the day.

Ask for clarification on something they posted that you are genuinely interested in learning more about, ask for their input on product benefits.  Bring them into your internal community.

The key is to start building a personal relationship with them.

Continue this process and start the process with others and over time you will have built an active community.

As the community develops, people will have a natural inclination to ask what it is that you do, what do you represent, what products or services do you offer and how the overall purpose fo the group can be deployed to drive the brand.

What To Post On Social Media

There is a significant disconnect on what brands social media versus what consumers what to see.

According to the recent Sprout Social report: So what is social’s real impact?

In the long-term relationships it creates between brands and consumers. Social marketers across the board list awareness as their primary goal. Consumers are looking for more of this content from brands.

Marketers’ priorities aren’t aligned with what consumers want. Marketers are focused on posts that teach (61%), tell a story (58%) and inspire (53%), while consumers are looking for discounts and sales (73%), posts that showcase new products and services (60%) and posts that teach them something (59%). The only overlap between top marketing priorities and consumer preferences is educational content.

Digging deeper, Sprout Social looked at what consumers share on social versus brands content.  Consumers and brands believe that social is the primary hub for customer service and employee advocacy, yet few are doing this well.

Many brands talk about purpose, yet for most its lip service.

To be committed it means integrating mission and purpose into your business model through a long-term commitment to the cause that is aligned with your company’s core values and that of the community.

The brand has to become the architect of the community with corporate executives who have responsibilities that include the interest of all the stakeholders from the community, not just shareholders, but employees.

Brands have to empower the community to be the change agents in their own right.

Again, brands that take on a mentoring role, providing the tools, techniques, and strategies for their customers to become more effective in achieving their own goals, creating a win-win for all.

To do this, a brand needs to reach out and speak directly to consumers, to honor their values and to form meaningful relationships.

This is where social media brings the most power to a brand.

The brand takes on the role of the architect of the community, consistently demonstrating the values that their customers and community expect in exchange for their loyalty and purchases.

The other big disconnect you see with brands is the brand thinks they are the celebrity of the community.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The brand is the chief celebrant of the community, not the celebrity.  Rather than lip service, this is where a simple shift in thinking and taking on the community role of the chief celebrant, unlocks the transformative potential for the brand.

A CEO that is genuinely engaged with the community of a brand willfully embraces the role of serving as the public face of the company to the community and the overall marketplace.  This unlocks value.

What are Brands Posting?

The infographic below gives you a broad overview of what you see many brand posting, which as the Sprout Social report demonstrated, is not what consumers what to see.

As GDPR privacy regulations took effect in the EU businesses worldwide began to rethink their lead generation strategy.

Many USA based businesses are now asking people to opt-in to their email list versus distracting customers and potential customers with an offer of a free download to get them to join the list.

Small business owners and dealerships are finally beginning to recognize that in many instances, they were attracting the wrong type of audience with free downloads and coupons.

What that leaves us with is the realization that we may need to take a good long look at

• how we’re enticing people to join our email list, and
• what we’re doing with them once they get there.

The return of the e-newsletter

This means that we can put the shiny object away and we can return to focusing on delivering quality content once they join the list.

We are now at a point where it is necessary to assure that the content you are providing in your newsletter is of such high quality that people want it in their inbox.  Regardless of any offer them any digital download/bribe to get there or not.

SURPRISE!

Over the past few years now, the conventional thought was that an e-newsletter was not enough of a reason for most people to opt-in to signing up.

But with the confluence of events from Facebook sharing customer data, Experian data breaches and more, privacy is now at a heightened awareness.

As a result, I am willing to bet that we’re going to experience a return to the glory days of the e-newsletter before e-newsletters turned into 100% sales messages, all the time.

Today, customers are looking to be educated, for value, enlightenment or entertainment and they will sign up because they know that the e-newsletter will provide quality, valuable content.

Shocker, huh!

It's Back To The Basics

That means, we need to return to the basics of newsletters and ask ourselves a few questions to ensure that what we’re providing (or what we will begin to deliver shortly) is remarkable enough that people will willingly trade their precious contact information in exchange for it.

As with blogging or video creation, “Because someone told me to,” is no longer a good enough answer.

To be successful with any communication, you have to have a clear goal in mind for your newsletter, for both your business and for your reader.

Goals for your business might include:

• To engage with and build trust with your target audience and customers.
• To be able to sell and upsell to your audience via email.
• To become a thought leader and authority in the market.
• To get traffic to your blog and website.
• To upsell service offers, seasonal service or routine maintenance.
• To provide a private, VIP, or exclusive experience for your most loyal customers or those you want to build a unique or exclusive relationship with.
• To be able to segment your audience to show them more relevant information or messages; this can be based on the age of their current vehicle, the length of time they have been a customer or other.

And so forth.

Regardless of the "what" and "why" of the ultimate goal of having a newsletter is, you absolutely must be clear on that goal in all content.

For example, you know that 100% your sales come from referrals or purchased leads, not from people on your list, then the goal is not to ever sell to your audience via email.  The goal should be to build trust, become a thought leader, or drive web traffic.

Or you excel at building customer loyalty and work diligently at maintaining a relationship with your existing customer with a focus on continuing to lower your marketing costs through customer loyalty.  Then your goal is to educate and entertain your current customers.

If you are using the internet to launch model to launch a product or program several times a year, such as paid webinars, your goal is definitely to be able to sell to your audience via email.

On the flip side, you must understand what the goal of your reader is when signing up for your newsletter.

In recent years, we’ve made the lead magnet or bribe the goal of signing up for our newsletter with the pie in the sky (delusional) dream that people would stick around afterward to hear what we have to say.

You must evolve now from this practice and focus on longer-term goals of your audience and customers.

The goal of your audience may very well be:

• To learn more about your business /dealership (to know you better, to like, and trust you)
• To receive coupons or discounts (this is highly unproductive if this is the exclusive goal, the spend vs. the redemption is low)
• To learn about new products and services before anyone else (FOMO)
• To be entertained
• To be educated
• Or to be inspired.

How do you know what you can deliver to them that will keep them on your email list as loyal readers?  You need to figure out their goal.

An example of this is from a client I’ve been working with for more than three years now.

The dealership was using their e-newsletter exclusively to send out discounts and notices of sales.

Today, that’s not the primary goal of the newsletter.

The primary goal is to build that know, like, and trust factor of the dealerships customers — we intentionally made the CEO the face and personality of the brand (dealership), and his customers resonate with the lifestyle, stories, educational aspects, and goals.

The upside of this is that we’ve been building trust with the dealership customers for a few years now — to the point that when we mentioned that he was looking to fill a few open positions at his dealership, in one of the weekly emails, the dealership immediately got 18 responses.  Four of which resulted in qualified new hires for the dealership in service, sales, and BDC.

The dealership was able to fill the positions with highly qualified people with minimal costs.

I’d say that’s a definite sign of trust, especially in a very tight job market!

So, when and how should you send a newsletter?

The mistake that I see many businesses and dealerships make is their first thought is not what the goals of the newsletter should be, it's often, “How often should I send an e-newsletter?”

There is no one correct answer, and it depends, but in general, aim for no MORE than once a week and no LESS than once a month.   You better have a good reason to go outside these guidelines, and it better be good.

Sending a newsletter under one time a month and people will forget you; on the other end of the spectrum, if you send an email or newsletter more than once a week and they get sick of you, you become a pain in the keister.

Once a week seems to be the sweet spot for building loyalty and driving conversions and if you cannot manage this, then shoot for twice a month.

Another critical thing to consider about frequency is your give-to-ask ratio. In other words, how many emails are you sending that GIVE compared to those that ASK?

I suggest that you should have a ratio of 5:1 — five emails or newsletters that GIVE or SHARE information for every one ASK or SPECIAL OFFER you make.

So if you are using an email sales sequence (an ask) with 10 emails, you need to have sent 50 emails that give value. This is just a ballpark ratio; however, if you’re sending valuable content every week or month, in general, you don’t need to worry about your ratio. You’re doing just fine.

For example, last week, we chose not to write a new blog post or send out a regular newsletter since we were hosting a webinar on how what routine maintenance should be performed at what intervals and why.  We knew that we would be sending four or five emails asking people to take part in the webinar, and did not want to clutter their inbox with another subject matter.

Which raises the issue of the "what"…

What should I include in my newsletter?

Once you have decided on clear goals for your newsletter, you should have a solid strategy behind the content you should provide with each newsletter and that it will be valuable both to your customers, target audience/subscribers and to your business.

However, there are some questions you have about how to deliver the content:

• One or more topic per email?
  If you are offering a curated list-type email (where the whole point of the email is to send a list of stuff) use ONE topic per email. This may mean that you will need to send more than one email per week.
• Include the full blog post or a link?
  Generally, I prefer to include a summary or opening paragraph and a link; if people are reading on a mobile device, they can choose whether they want to read a long text or watch a video or not. You are also teaching the reader to click the links in your email if you ever plan to direct them to a sales page or a schedule now or buy now button down the road.
• When should I send my newsletter - what time of day and what day of the week?
  This depends on your audience. Most business people check email during the day; moms and dads tend to check personal email before and after work; most people tend to do more online shopping on the weekends. We found that we got the best responses on Tuesday around 2:00 pm.
• What should my subject line say?
  Shorter is better, and I strongly suggest that you have a goal to drive curiosity and do not be afraid to use emojis.  The goal is to get the email opened, so do not be afraid to be creative and test things.
• Should I include images?
  For me, the answer is normally NONE because I want my emails to be super easy to read. However, the auto industry has a visual element (car photos, service how to photos), I would include at least one mage with your text, and then linking to a blog post with more images.  For video, I would include a transcript of the video with the video embedded into the e-newsletter and the thumbnail a clear image of the topic of the video. Keep in mind that Google doesn’t automatically load images in Gmail, so you need to include a short description of the image in the alt-text.

A few other things to consider with your newsletter

Newsletters don’t exist in a vacuum.

They are a critical aspect of the relationship you’re building with a potential customer and growing with your existing customers.

Therefore, it’s critical to think about how consumers find you, what motivates them to subscribe to your list, and how you introduce yourself.

• You need to take a look at your analytics and see if you can tell where most people sign up for your list — on your home page? In the middle or at the bottom of a blog post? On your about page? In a HelloBar? Understanding when and where people decide to join your email list can give you information about the expectations they have of the benefit they will receive from your newsletter.
• What happens when they sign up? Do you send them to a thank you page? What does the page say? What can you change or add to the page to give them a great brand experience right from the start? Will a funny gif or video work? A personal message from you? A bonus free resource they can download? A coupon offer?  A free service for signing up?
• What is the email sequence they receive right after they sign up? Do you introduce yourself or just add them to your newsletter list? What do they want or need from you immediately?
• Are the expectations clear about your newsletter when they sign up? Can you fulfill the expectations right away? Can you be useful, helpful, inspiring, educational, or entertaining from the first moment they sign up with you?
• When do you make an ASK (if ever)? Is it at an appropriate time? If you’ve already got an ask in your email sequences, how well does it convert?
• How clear and easy is it for them to unsubscribe or change their preferences? Are you upfront about what they will receive and how often they can expect to hear from you? Do you explicitly ask them to whitelist your emails, so they don’t go to spam?

Thinking about these sorts of things can make your weekly newsletters that much more effective at helping you create lasting relationships and happy customers.

When it comes to car shopping today, social media sites are a significant influencer in a car buyer’s decision making journey.

Today, marketers understand that social sites need to be integrated into the marketing strategy.

Brands that truly embrace social media brands have a fully integrated social marketing approach to generate leads and engage with customers.

With more and more consumers turning to social, the automotive industry needs to get fully engaged with social selling.

Social media is significant and is only going to continue to grow in influence.

In fact, 84% of all car shoppers are on Facebook with 24% of these consumers used Facebook as a resource for making their vehicle purchases.

We can assume that every auto dealer regardless of size is on Facebook.

Most dealerships already have a social media profile in place and perhaps post every so often, that’s the easy part and takes little forethought or planning.

How do you stand out from the noise and use social media as a tool that contributes towards a successful digital marketing strategy driving leads and helping boost sales?

A starting point is avoiding those all too common dealership social media misunderstandings, flaws, errors, mistakes… whatever, you want to call it.

If your dealership doesn’t think that is worth investing time or effort in social media, here’s a simple fact:

40% of users online are actively making the decision on what car to buy based on what they have seen on social media platforms, including reviews and recommendations, and this effect is only set to grow.

Do you still want to ignore this critical channel that gives your dealership the opportunity to interact with and engage with your consumer?

1. No Plan

The most dangerous mistake to avoid in your social media marketing (SMM) strategy is not having a plan.

For example, do you know which social media platforms are the most effective in the auto industry? Which platforms your target audience uses?  What time of day are they online?

Having a plan will help you manage the time you spend on social media while maximizing your success and ROI.

A good social media plan should consider your goals, and the action steps need to accomplish these.

You need to set realistic goals and then measure against the goal.  Be prepared to spend a few weeks dialing in your goals and what is practical, then once you have fine-tuned these, now it’s all about execution.

A social media plan is critical; social media may not charge for the use of the platforms. However, it is still an investment in time and resources to develop and maintain your social media presence.

Without a clear, well thought out strategy that complements your overall marketing plan, you have no way to know if your campaigns are successful.

The SOSTAC Framework

This SOSTAC Planning Framework guides you with setting up a social media plan:

The steps include:

1. Situation Analysis –  Where are we now?
2. Objectives – Where you want to be?
3. Strategy – How do we get there?
4. Tactics and Action – What we need to get there?
5. Control – How do we monitor and measure performance?

Source: Smart Insights

If you lack the time, resources, know-how or desire to take the time and effort to create a social media plan and would like assistance we can create a tailored social media strategy for you. This is the first step we undertake before we launch any social media campaign.  This allows us to work together as a partner and sets clear direction and goals.

2. It’s All About Me

How often have you looked at a companies social media account and every single post is all about them.  It’s about their product, how great they are, its all about them.

This is one of the most significant turns off there is, and no one wants to interact with this type of account.  Social media is about being social and engaging with others.

Social media is about trading opinions, asking for another point of view, entering into a dialogue.  Posting content that engages and drives a discussion then participating in the conversation.

3. Sales and Nothing but Sales Posts that do Nothing to Engage your Audience

Social media is not the place to post your ads.

A big mistake that we see time and time again from dealerships is every single post is an ad for a car they are trying to sell, including the price and specs.

Consumers come to social media to hang out, socialize, talk about current events, read posts, read reviews, explore and read engaging or entertaining content.

The last thing they want to deal with is a car dealership pushing a car.  Doing this reinforces the low perception that consumers have of auto dealers and the low level of trust they have for dealers.

Dealerships need to create a mix of content that your followers can interact with.

This can be anything from an upcoming car show, a customer review, an article on “How to” article.  Examples of “How to check your tire pressure before you leave for that summer vacation,” “Summer is approaching, is your air conditioning ready, here are the steps to check to see if you need service” and similar.

Don’t be afraid to post a link to a funny story, for example; recently an Uber driver drove down a set of city stairs in San Francisco because the Uber GPS told him to do so.  This is a quick way to reinforce the need for drivers to consider the safety features of the cars you sell, without being salesy.

The goal is to make your social media account interesting, engaging and interactive and ideally drive customer engagement on the content and share it with their friends.

Managing your social media accounts with a plan that isn’t just pushing cars is a way to boost your online presence, which in turn will help boost your brand visibility and make you a valued member of the community.

4. Posting The Same Content On Every Social Media Channel

Every social media channel is different, and the customers that use each platform are different.  This is why it’s important to customize what you post on each and every social media channels you use. What works well for one channel may not work on another platform.

Example of a Customer Review and News Content Facebook Posts

For example, Facebook would be a great channel to post car videos aimed at potential customers whereas on LinkedIn this type of content would be a total failure. LinkedIn can be used to post job openings, articles about how to maintain your vehicle and company news.

Below is a quick guide to the type of content that should be shared on the various social media platforms:

To see the benefits of multi-channel marketing that includes social media marketing, please read 4 Benefits of Multi-Channel Marketing For Car Dealerships.

5. You Can’t Be Everywhere At Once, Nor Should You

A multi-channel presence is critical to boost brand visibility and offer several ways for your customers o engage with your brand and dealership.

It is as important to realize that you do not need to be everywhere and on every single social media platform, there is.  There are some places that your dealership just shouldn’t go.

Spend the time and effort to research where your target audience is spending their time on social media and online; you will be able to understand where your presence is needed and where you can focus your efforts.

Wasting your time and resources putting effort into social channels that get little to no visibility will make your dealership look like an uninvited guest to a party.  You don’t want to be seen as the outcast in the corner waiting for someone to talk to them.

It’s better to focus on creating great quality content for a few social media platforms than spreading yourself too thin across every platform available.

6. Failing to Be Consistent and Not Putting Enough Time In

Consistency is the key when it comes to social media.

How can you build trust with your audience if you’re there one day and gone the next and don’t return for a week?

What message does this send to your audience?

Effective social media means that you’re alive, active, engaging and engaged; online users will trust brands that showcase this, and their efforts are rewarded with brand advocacy and increased sales.

There is a balance between posting too little and posting too much, and you need to find the balance.

By focusing on quality verses quantity, it’s relatively easy to find the balance that engages your audience without bombarding them with posts that make them despondent.

A good rule of thumb is to post once to twice a day on Facebook and Twitter.  Instagram is great for the automotive industry since it is so visual-based allowing for creativity with images.

Be sure to check back on the feeds several times a day that you can engage with your fans and respond to their comments or handle any customer service issues that may be posted.

Some days it is a struggle to set time aside to stay on top of your social media accounts, or you feel like you need some assistance with social media management, you could consider partnering with a marketing agency (like us). This affords you access to the skills and experience of seasoned social media management immediately, which is an excellent benefit as 72% of creative leaders do not have time to develop their team members.

7. Not Using Calls-To-Action

Social media is excellent for promoting your dealership brand visibility online, engaging with consumers and more.  That stated, the goal and most important element of any digital marketing strategy are generating leads and closing sales.

For example, if you post a picture on Facebook of one of your cars (its safe to post an image, a special offer or video of a car or deal of the week once every 5 posts).  You should also include a link and a clear call-to-action (CTA) that will inform your followers on where they can find out more information or submit an inquiry instantly.

Then make sure you follow up on these leads.

There is nothing worse than generating leads and letting them fall into a dark hole, never to be seen again. This also hurts all of the goodwill that you have created through social media and kills your reputation.

Remember, word spreads fast on social media.

It is also a great idea to incorporate the CTAs into your social profiles. This will make it a lot easier for your potential customers to contact you like the image below.

8. Not Investing in Training For Social Media

The digital talent gap is widening, which contributes to the fear of missing out (FOMO) within the digital marketplace and not dedicating the manpower required to meet the demand. The need for rapid skill development is more significant today than ever before in history.  Dealerships and companies, in general, need to invest in training to adjust to the disruption driven by digital technologies, such as social media, AI and soon virtual reality.

The key to tackle the talent gap in is to invest in learning about it, including staying current on social media and social trends. On-going training will help you be kept up-to-date and leaves no room for the knowledge gap to widen. A marketing agency can provide you immediate help when you need it most.

9. Ignoring and Not Reacting to Comments or Reviews

Social media can make or break reputations.  Social media can be your best friend or your worst enemy and learn how to react appropriately and quickly to feedback or comments made by your online customers is important and not to be overlooked.

Now and then we come across a Facebook page of a dealership with negative comments or poor customer reviews (it happens to all of us) with no reply at all from the dealership for days between the reviews and the responses and sometimes just ignored by the dealership.

This leaves preception with the dealerships online audience that the dealership doesn’t care and there is no customer service in the business.   The dealership sold the car and now doesn’t care about its customers.

Dealerships need to remember that you only get one chance to make a good first impression.

Dealerships need to take the time to respond to positive comments as well as negative ones.

Bear in mind, the way you respond will speak volumes to your audience.

Here are a few action steps to keep in mind when responding to both positive and negative comments online:

1. Consumers expect a response within a few hours. Don’t make them, better to do what you can today versus putting it off until tomorrow is a good rule of thumb to follow.
2. Consumers and your audience they will focus on the “how” you provide the solution. Utilize and have a great news story or positive piece of feedback ready (otherwise known as a bucket of water) to throw quickly on the fire (negative news or comments) is a recommended plan to have in place.

Be careful though not to fall into the trap of arguing with trolls, you will get sucked into a vortex that serves no purpose other than to inflame in most instances.  Trolls are people who have nothing better to do than post rants on every online platform they can find.

Want To Avoid Making These Social Media Mistakes?

Ideally, you’ve gained some insight as to why social media is critically important for the automotive industry and dealerships in particular.  In addition to what you should avoid doing in social media channels to make the most out of this robust marketing strategy.

A good social media strategy requires as much careful planning, time and thought as any other type of marketing.

Despite this, we often see social media at the bottom of the marketing priority list for managers.

We often see business owners passing it off to an intern, sales member or low-level marketing person.

With 84% of car buyers using Facebook and 66% of car buyers who viewed a Facebook Ad and clicking on it, it is pretty shocking that social media isn’t paid more attention by auto dealerships.

Social media and social selling is a great way to market your products and services and boost dealership brand awareness.

Social media gives you the opportunity to connect with customers on a personal an human level.

Some of the biggest questions asked by the automotive industry about social media management are:

• Why invest time and resources in social media?
• Which platforms should we be using?
• How often should we post?
• What type of content should we post on each platform?

1. Why invest in social media marketing if we already have a website and advertise on Autotrader?

Today, there are 24 touch points in the average car buyer’s journey.

Of which 19 of which are digital, your website is one of these touch points, as are the social media platforms consumers utilize.

Research shows that consumers look at a companies’ social media presence when doing their research for a new car.  Consumers are looking at customer reviews, comments, and photos.

Now imagine you’re a potential customer and you see nothing has been updated in months on your dealerships social page or the post are the “car of the week.”  Doesn’t this make you wonder what is, is going on at the dealership that they don’t post useful educational or entertaining information that helps their consumers in the buying journey?

Consumers want to engage with an innovative, exciting, happening businesses; not stagnant, dormant and boring companies.

Source: Opportunity Max

80% of USA car dealers advertising on Autotrader, dealerships need to differentiate themselves to stand out from the crowd.

They need to rely less on AutoTrader and more on separating yourself in the hyper-competitive automotive market. Read more here on 3 Great Ways to Differentiate Your Car Dealership – Alternatives to Autotrader.  

With social media and social selling, there are three core goals which social media marketing can help you achieve:

Responding to customer inquiries:

Consumers have their preferred method for contacting a dealership and inquiring on social media is increasingly becoming a key channel for people to engage with dealerships.

People expect responses within a few hours of their question posted on social media channels and don’t want to have a conversation with someone in sales, for obvious reasons.

According to AM-Online, 81% of consumers will take their business elsewhere if their questions aren’t answered quickly and efficiently by a company

Talk to your customers

Many dealerships get social media marketing wrong by continually posting sales pitches and advertisements of inventory.

Consumers are not on social media to endure your sales pitch. Social Media is a 2-way conversation; consumers want to know you’re listening and answering their questions and concerns.  That you promptly and efficiently follow-up on their complaints and demonstrate that you genuinely and honestly want to help them.

Related article: 3 Great Ways to Differentiate Your Car Dealership – Alternatives to Autotrader

Reach more people:

Social media marketing can grow your business; 1/3 of all car buyers use social media to post pictures of their new vehicles. They are promoting your dealership to their friends and followers which in turn helps boost your brand visibility to reach new audiences.

This is an opportunity to engage with your customer and garner a positive review of the dealership.

2. What social media platforms should my car dealership be using?

This depends on where your customers and potential customers hang out online. This requires research, and I would suggest taking the time to develop buyer personas.

Not every dealership is the same and results will vary for each car dealership.

You need to do the research where your customers and prospects are online and which social sites media they use.  The benefits of developing buyer personas are they will guide you as to which platform is best suited for the demographics of your target audience.

For effective social media marketing, your car dealership should have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

To engage a younger audience, then you should be on Instagram. These are the key social media sites for auto dealerships and the platforms that will allow you to interact and engage with prospects.

Want more exposure for your dealership?  Then you need aa presence on multiple social media.

It’s critical to remember that you don’t need to be on every social media channel.

Not every social media platform is for everyone and not every platform is used by your target audience.

(Related article: 4 Benefits of Multi-Channel Digital Marketing For Car Dealerships)

3. What type of content, tone, and how often should we be posting on social media?

This will depend on the social media channel you are using. Each has its own and different “rules” as to how to use them efficiently for automotive marketing.

Below are the basic rules:

Type of content:

Do not use the same material for every channel.  What works well on one social site usually will not on another.

Facebook is used to connect with their friends or family. Your brand posts need to fit into this in the ecosystem to keep the interest of your audience in what you’re posting.

So, don’t make it solely about selling.

Twitter is fast-paced, it is a great place to share quick thoughts, news and generate traffic to your website about special offers or coupons offers, a good ratio is five posts that educate or entertain followed by one promotional post.

Using manufacturer’s content is okay as long as it is relevant and exciting to your audience.

The bulk of your posts should be custom created content or curated content that is education or entertaining.  Dealerships should focus on the content they create for a more successful social media marketing experience.

Every blog post or article can easily be repurposed into about 24 social media posts, from video to infographics.

Use high-quality images; there is nothing worse than posting bad-quality pictures of low resolution.  These will highly likely put off any potential customers as it makes your brand look unprofessional.

The tone of content:

You want to keep the tone and language consistent across all social channels and with content.

Do you want your dealership to be perceived as serious and professional, or humorous and cheeky, or inspirational or educational?

The tone is essential for your social media marketing strategy.

Posting only advertisements of your cars, will bore your audience and you will be seen as a pushy sales channel, which to be h no one wants to interact with.

As important, you don’t want to be continually joking, as this can come across as unprofessional. 

You need to find a happy balance that works for your dealership that speaks to your target audience and customers.

How often should you post:

You want and need to keep in mind how often you’re posting for your social media marketing strategy to be effective and deliver an ROI.

You should post content often enough to keep your audience interested and gain their trust, while at the same time be conscious that you aren’t posting too much.

You don’t want to bombard your audience with post after post as this will be considered spam by your audience.  They will just to scroll past your content instead of looking at it, and worst case, unfollow you.

(Related article: 9 Common Mistakes Car Dealerships Make With Social Media Management)

4. Will training be required at this or can anyone take the baton?

An effective social media management plan and strategy takes time, planning and as much thought put into it as other areas of marketing.

The rise in technology has resulted in a significant change in the car buying process.  Social media, engaging with consumers directly are just a few to date that has had a direct an impact on the auto industry, and over time this continues to grow.

Social media is used today by car buyers to read reviews, and recommendations,  which influence whether a consumer will do business with you.

38% of consumers check social media as part of the car purchase decision-making process according to Brandwatch, which is why it’s crucial to have a social media marketing strategy today.

Example of star-rating that appears on Facebook business pages

A successful social media marketing strategy requires and investment in time and effort.  The payoff is rich, and it can be done by your in-house marketing team or outsourced to an agency.  Either way, the time invested or not will determine the success.

Today, the digital talent gap in the automotive industry is widening, so the need for rapid skill development is higher than ever.

Investing in on-going training is a way to stay ahead of the curve and ensure you understand the ever-changing customer car buying behavior of today.

Another option is to partner with a digital marketing agency that specializes in automotive marketing. Agencies place their credibility on being up to date and invest continually in training to stay up-to-date to deliver the best quality work and results for clients.

This option is often more attractive as the processes and results are proven, it can be more cost-effective for most dealerships, and you don’t have to consider recruitment, payroll taxes, benefits and training costs.

5. How do you handle negative comments or feedback on social media?

Every car dealer is going to get a bad review, that is a given. How and when you respond to it that makes the difference.

Consumers will watch how you respond.

This can be an excellent opportunity to show you care about your customers and want to help them;  this demonstrates to the market at large that you listen, show empathy and concern for your customers.

Responding to negative comments on social media speaks as loudly to your customers as positive feedback.

Acknowledging online complaints promptly and following up until they are resolved sends a message to the marketplace. What applicable, do not hesitate to add a little humor to your response this humanizes your dealership.

There will be a time when you receive an unfair comment or the person who posted it is notoriously difficult or trolling you.  You still need to respond.

Don’t be afraid to report a comment to Facebook if you can provide sound and clear explanation as to why the criticism is not valid.

When a customer in the dealership showroom thanks you for all your help, you acknowledge this and respond. The same holds true for a customer complaint in the dealership; you try to resolve the problem.

Why would it be any different on social media?

One of the best way to manage customers’ reviews and comments is to assign the responsibility of responding to all your customers’ comments, complaints or other to a dedicated person.  This allows for continuity.  Its best t allocate a specific time for this task.

When someone responds to customer compliments and complaints, it shows that you appreciate and care about the time your customers invested to write to you and that you’re on top of their issues.  This action is worth more to your customers than any advertising ever will be.

Assure that your responses are unique and personalized to the customer,  They will know that you have taken the time out to respond to them personally, and it’s not a generic ‘thank you/we’re sorry’ canned message.

Related article: The Most Common Automotive Marketing Problems & How To Solve The

Ideally, You Know Have A Better Idea of The Value Of Social Media For Your Business

We hope this article gives you insight into the value of social media and the biggest questions that have been circling social media marketing within the auto dealership market.

Are your content marketing efforts not getting the results you anticipated?

Believe that you’ve followed all best practices and done all that you read and were told, but you are still not getting results?

You’re not alone:

In a survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, it found that 88% of the companies use content marketing.  Only 30% of B2B marketers say they are effective at content marketing.

This illustrates that all this content creation doesn’t seem to be working.

This raises the obvious question, does content marketing work?

Absolutely, without any doubt.  The key is to be aware that it is effortless to go about content marketing wrong and with forethought and planning you can get it right.

There are numerous examples of companies (even in the “boring” old industries, such as insurance) that have significant success with content marketing.

For example, Optum, a health information technology (HIT) firm, utilized a  hub & spoke approach to content marketing to boost lead generation & nurturing campaigns.

For example, Optum created an ebook as a lead generation item called Moneyball Analytics that discussed the power of analytics in healthcare. By using a landing page with content, the eBook was downloaded by readers over 800 times in the first 30 days and generated more than 18,000 quality leads.

I know you think that content marketing is not right for your business, but most likely you’re missing an essential piece of the content marketing success puzzle.

Thankfully, the reasons behind ineffective content marketing strategy are common, and most of them are easy to fix.

Below are some of the most common reasons why your content marketing isn’t working and some advice on how to fix them.

1. You never developed a content strategy

A solid strategy is at the heart of every good marketing campaign, not just content marketing. You name it – social media, SEO, PPC, email marketing, the list goes on and on.

Every marketing plan needs a strategy to be successful.

However, 14% of marketers have no strategy, and 48% had a verbal-only plan (which let’s face it is the same a having no strategy).

It should be of no surprise that research has consistently shown that having a clear and documented strategy has a direct impact on content effectiveness.

To put it in plain English, a bad strategy is better than no strategy.

With some strategy in place, you can judge and measure if what you’re doing is working or not. When you have no strategy, or at least not a documented one, there is no way to benchmark your efforts or calculate an ROI.

Do you recall your KPIs for this quarter?

Probably not. Stop and document your content strategy if you haven’t already.

Below are the basics of a content marketing successful strategy:

• Establish content marketing objectives and KPIs – How can you know if your content marketing efforts and articles, keywords and other are successful if you are not clear on what you are attempting to achieve?

Do you aim to increase website visitors?

What is the intent of your content marketing strategy?  Is it for lead nurture and lead generation?

Or maybe improve SEO and page rankings?

Set realistic, clear & timely objectives and KPIs on how you would measure success.

Here is an example:

Objective: Increase new visitors to the company blog, or website or landing page

KPI: 15% increase in new and unique visitors month over month

•  Build your buyer persona –To run a successful content marketing campaign you need to know who you’re speaking and marketing to. You need to define your target audience before you start.
• Complete a content audit – Have you been producing content?  You may want to run a content audit. A content audit will help you figure out what to keep, scrap or repurpose & identify existing content gaps.  Content should be written with a spoke and hub mindset.
• Develop content ideas – Complete keyword research, another tool that you can use is a content idea generator to aid you in coming up with content ideas.
• Develop an editorial calendar & plan your posts – If you don’t have one, you can use ours.
• Content creation & distribution– Developing custom content isn’t enough, while content may be king, distribution is queen, and she wears the pants.  This is where the magic happens. You need to put as many resources and effort into distributing and promoting your content as you did with creating it.

Now its time to sit down and document your content strategy.

2. Do you know who your customers are?

A study back in 2005 showed that over an entire day, consumers are exposed to over 3,500 distinct marketing messages.

This number has grown by over 5x in 2018!

So how do you make sure you cut through the advertising clutter and better tailor your brand messages to the people who would be interested in your products or service offering?

The easiest way to do that is to create a buyer persona(s).

HubSpot defines buyer persona as:

A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.

Here is an example of a good buyer persona:

Notice that the description is written as if the persona was a real person?

The more detailed your buyer description is, the better understanding you have of your target market and buyer. Your buyer persona should include traits, attitudes, and values such as background, demographics, hobbies & interests, motivations, challenges, goals & common objections.

Most business will have more than one buyer persona, and you need to determine how many target customers your company has. A niche businesses may only have 1 or 2 target customers, and that’s fine. However, services like Hoote Suite will have several distinct groups that can benefit from their social media software.

3. Brands believe its ok to publish average content

Today the internet is crowded with content with more created every day.  Although it may feel overwhelming when you first get started with content marketing, realize that your goal is to produce highly relevant content that engages, informs and educates your target audience.  Not every piece of content will be a unicorn, between 60% & 70% of B2B content created goes unread, and about 30% of Microsoft’s content had never been clicked on.

So, what does this mean for your company?

Investing in creating content that nobody reads is an empty investment, but more importantly that:

Average content no longer cuts it.

Successful content marketing means providing unique content that adds value to your audience. That’s what your site visitors are expecting, and that’s what Google wants to show web searchers.

Below are the very basic criteria every piece of content needs to meet:

• Content needs to be original
• It has to be relevant to your audience
• Content should be well-timed
• It has to be helpful; no sales pitches disguised as content
• Provides unique value to the reader
• It needs to reflect the overall marketing strategy
• Uses good writing skills
• Your website has a great user experience

It may feel like its a lot of work to meet the criteria listed above; however, if you start and stay consistent, you’ll be there in no time.   One of the most challenging aspects of content marketing is developing ideas for fresh content.  Along with the time and resources required to create great content.  This requires a commitment to research, time & resources to put behind a one of a kind article of content can be enormous.

Nobody said that doing content marketing is easy, but it is rewarding, generates leads and builds a loyal audience.

4. Content marketing is not a sales pitch

The one constant with content marketing is that great content marketing is not a sales pitch.

Source: Marketoonist

Sales driven content and clickbait might get you a few clicks, but visitors are looking for answers to their problems, not sales pitches.

If visitors do not find what they’re looking for, they will leave, increasing your bounce rate.  This will impact your page rankings over time.

You want to ensure that people stay and read your article or blog post.  To do this, you need to meet and even exceeds their expectations.  To do this,  you need to identify their needs.

So, how do you do that? The best way is to do this is to identify the users’ search intent.

Search intent is:

Identifying primary topics and questions that people are looking to answer when searching for a specific term, then creating content that addresses the user’s needs.

In plain English, search intent is the searcher’s intentions when performing a Google search.

The 3 main categories of search intent that you need to focus on:

• Informational
• Navigational
• Transactional

Below are a few practical examples of every type of search query:

Source: CoSchedule

A 15-minute brainstorming session and you can develop plenty of questions that can help you investigate and identify user intent; you can also use Google suggested search for others.

Here are a few questions to help you get started:

• What were visitors searching, what keyword string do they use when they arrived on your website?
• What problems where they looking for answers on or hoping to get from your content?
• What other semantic searches could your content answered?
• Why made the searcher choose to land on your page and not another?
• What makes your meta description unique?

Understanding searcher intent will help you drive qualified traffic, improve the user experience and also identify missed opportunities & content gaps.

5. No clear call-to-action (CTA) in your content

The CTA button is one of the most essential and critical tools that every digital marketer has at their disposal.

A CTA refers to the buttons that encourage visitors to take a specific action, whether it’s reading more articles, scheduling a demo, downloading an ebook or requesting a quote.

• “Subscribe to our newsletter.”
• “Download…”
• “Start a free trial.”

Every website and landing page needs a call-to-action

It is well documented that 75% of your blog traffic is information searchers. This means that these readers are not yet sales-ready and are either early or mid-funnel visitors.

A CTA that is effective can help you:

• Nurture visitors through the funnel
• Provide clear expectation of the next step
• Generate Leads
• Increase conversion rates
• Capitalise on your content efforts
• Improve customer experience by assisting visitors to fulfill a need or solve another problem
• Grow your email list

Below are a few examples of effective CTA buttons that make you want to click to learn more:

Source: UrbanMassage’s home page

Source: Neil Patel’s home page

Source:  Spotify Homepage

• Notice that they are all focused on a single next action?
• How the surrounding images, colors & text complement the button and make it more effective?

The design of a successful CTA takes into consideration more than just the text itself. It also includes elements such as button design, color, and position, background color, surrounding images and text.

6. The Queen is your distribution & promotion plan

After you have spent hours brainstorming, writing and editing your new blog post, and created a custom image for it, you’re feeling pretty good and are confident that the article is going to go viral. After hitting the “publish” button and waiting for the traffic to pouring in for a few days.  You then check your Google Analytics stats and see, nothing, no traffic, no readers of the article and you wonder what went wrong.

Sound familiar, doesn’t it? Thought so.

Everybody tells you that to excel in content marketing you need to create great content that educates, informs, inspires or entertains your target audience.

What nobody tells you is that content creation is just the first part of a two-part rule.

The second rule is promotion and distribution.

A good rule of thumb is that for every piece of content you create, you need to invest an equal amount of time and effort in content promotion and distribution as you did in creation.

Content requires promotion and distribution, and you need to jump start the initial traction for your content through promotion initiatives that target your audience and personas. The failure to have an active outreach and promotion plan is more common than you may realize and without one, chances are even your best content will go unnoticed.

How to promote your content?

The most comprehensive promotion & distribution strategies, use owned, earned & paid media. That stated you need to adjust your promotion strategy according to time, budget & internal resources.

For example, you want to invest more time & resources promoting a cornerstone content piece or an eBook than a regular entry on your blog.

Below are a few ways to promote a single blog post to increase your reach:

• Email your internal teams and have them share it on their social media channels
• Create an e-newsletter and email it to your subscribers
• Share your content on social media channels
• Repurpose content from article to videos and infographics
• Add new content to your email signature
• Publish on Medium
• Post to Reddit
• Write a weekly round-up post
• Practice proper internal linking using a hub and spoke approach
• Post a portion of your content or mention it with a link when you comment on other websites and forums
• Rach out to and pitch influencers & other bloggers and ask them to share your content
• Use native advertising to reach your target audience

7. Your content needs to be search engine friendly

Content and SEO go hand in hand. If your website has bad SEO, then nobody is going discover your content, and there is no point producing content nobody will read.

So, before you start producing content, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the basic SEO principles.

If you’re running your website on a CMS platform like WordPress, you can also install an SEO plugin, such as Yoast which will help you optimize your content.

Conclusion

The last thing you want to do is get discouraged with your content marketing efforts are not paying off immediately.  No one hits a home run at their first at-bat.  It takes time, and continuous effort and every many businesses are facing the same challenges as you are.

I’m willing to bet that the reason why content marketing is not working for you is already on this list.

Happily, with a few adjustments, planning and effort this is easy to address and correct.  There is a fix for every mistake, and by identifying where your gaps and mistakes are, you are more than halfway there.

Realize that content marketing is a long-term investment and an asset to your business, it continues to pay dividends and drives traffic.  Unlike ads that are only effective while they are run.  The key is to be patient and give your content time to start paying off, it will.

The biggest mistake you can make is to quit; most people quit just when they are about to see the results of their effort.

What other content marketing struggles you have faced?

No  matter how well-written or polished the content on your website is,  if it’s not covering the subject matter, your target audience is seeking, or of interest to your target audience it won’t bring visitors to your site or convert website visitors into leads.

Developing exciting content keeps your existing customers and visitors engaged and attracts new potential customers.

The primary goal of every piece of content is to be read and appreciated by as many people as possible.

You can achieve this by creating relevant content for your target audience.

If you find that you are getting stuck on coming up with content ideas, take a look at this article for assistance:  6 Tools to Help You Come up with Fresh Content Ideas

Does content need to be relevant to your audience?

Luckily, this can become rather easy if you follow these basic tips and tricks:

1. Know your audience

To start any successful marketing activity, you need to get the basics right.

Defining who your target audience is, is critical not only to content marketing but also to any other aspect of your marketing campaign.

Marketing has many facets, including social media, email marketing, PPC, SEM, SMM, native advertising and so forth, you need to know who you are talking to create a message that appeals to the target audience.

For your marketing to be successful, you need to create a buyer persona.

In short, a buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer(s) that is based on quantifiable market research and real data about your existing customers.

A buyer persona is a robust document that covers the attributes and demographics, background, motivations and goals, identifiers, hobbies and interests, challenges and everyday objections among others of your target customer.

Obviously, you don’t have to have all of these details, but the more detailed your customer persona is, and the more you know about your audience, the better.

Here is an example of a buyer persona:

A buyer persona description is very a very detailed document that dives into every element of your target audience. Often the most valuable information is in the smallest details.

For example, one of the leading challenges of Diane is the fact that she has too many responsibilities and is extremely busy with a high-stress job.

Based on her profile, we would offer content that gives tips on time management, multi-tasking or maybe an article reviewing the best solutions and software solutions to help save time, cut costs and increase the use of best practices would be of interest to this persona.

Identifying the right buyer persona is the essential step to producing relevant content for your target audience.

Take the time to develop relevant buyer personas for a complete target audience identity.  This will aid you in any other marketing activities.

2. Address their questions and concerns

After you have identified your target audience is and their persona, now you need to address their questions and concerns.

An excellent place to start is doing research, including taking the time to create a detailed list of keywords that are applicable and appeal to each buyer persona.

After you have identified the main topics, do further research through using a keyword research tool (SEMRush if one of my preferred goes to tools).

Keywords analysis is critical, and you would be wise to dive into niche markets for the most significant impact and to drive rankings.  Backlinko has written one of the best guides on how to do keyword research that will make an impact.

The Customer Service department, Service, and Business Development department should be some of your first stops when looking for customer insights. These are the people who are speaking to your existing and potential customers every day.

A quick way to interact with internal department and not impede in their work day to put together a  survey or questionnaire for each department asking for their input including what the common questions customers have or what the pain points that you can address.

You should discover that 10% of all customer service inquiries could be answered in the form of written content, short video or infographic.

To stay relevant with your content schedule and to increase customer satisfaction, content has to be timely and relevant.

Other places that are often overlooked but hold valuable information on trending topics that are relative to your audience are forums such as Reddit or Quora along with automotive forums. Also, talk with your sales, service and customer service departments.

Forums are a question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its users according to topics.  Below is a screenshot from Quora:

Quora is a way to great find questions which you can turn into a substantial content piece by simply answering them.

3. Show, not tell

The future of content marketing is video, and it will dominate marketing strategies in the very near future.

According to Cisco, 69% of all consumer internet traffic by the end of 2018 will be video.

In addition to video, other visual contents such as infographics, slideshares, and branded images are among the most preferred types of content.  People are visual by nature.

Studies have shown that 65% of people are visual learners and 90% of the information coming to the human brain is visual.

As our attention span has become shorter and shorter and we expect content to be designed and structured to be skimmed through and not read.

The goal of content marketing is to ensure that your content is diverse and that your written material has visuals to refer to making the content engaging.

It is essential to show people verses telling or explaining how to do something.  This is where the art of storytelling comes into play.

People relate to and love stories.

If you browse the web, you will find a countless number of articles explain what to do but not how to do it.

Readers and visitors of your content will vary from experts to beginners, and you want to ideally appeal to both (the amateurs will one day become the experts, and you want them to have a favorable impression of your brand.

Always try to give practical examples, explain everything down to the tiniest detail or even share personal details if it can help us get the point across.  You are storytelling.

4. Trends, trends, and more trends

To stay relevant and current, it is critical to also keep up with your industry trends.

You don’t want to be producing out of date content nobody will be interested in reading.

For example, of you are in the telephone market and a new type of phone systems was released, the first thing you may want to write would be discussing the benefits, advantages and disadvantages, best features or any other aspects of the system.

You need to stay up on industry trends if you don’t rest assured, your competition will, and that’s where the forward-thinking customers will go.

A good content marketer knows that staying on top of industry trends is essential, but keeping up with other trends related to your industry essential.

The goal of content marketing is to engage your target audience and to be known as a thought leader in the market.

Everyone needs a content strategy, but maybe lost on where to start.

A good social media strategy requires as much careful planning, time and thought as any other type of marketing.

Despite this, we often see social media at the bottom of the marketing priority list for managers.

We often see business owners passing it off to an intern, sales member or low-level marketing person.

With 84% of car buyers using Facebook and 66% of car buyers who viewed a Facebook Ad and clicking on it, it is pretty shocking that social media isn’t paid more attention by auto dealerships.

Social media and social selling is a great way to market your products and services and boost dealership brand awareness.

Social media gives you the opportunity to connect with customers on a personal an human level.

Some of the biggest questions asked by the automotive industry about social media management are:

• Why invest time and resources in social media?
• Which platforms should we be using?
• How often should we post?
• What type of content should we post on each platform?

1. Why invest in social media marketing if we already have a website and advertise on Autotrader?

Today, there are 24 touch points in the average car buyer’s journey.

Of which 19 of which are digital, your website is one of these touch points, as are the social media platforms consumers utilize.

Research shows that consumers look at a companies’ social media presence when doing their research for a new car.  Consumers are looking at customer reviews, comments, and photos.

Now imagine you’re a potential customer and you see nothing has been updated in months on your dealerships social page or the post are the “car of the week.”  Doesn’t this make you wonder what is, is going on at the dealership that they don’t post useful educational or entertaining information that helps their consumers in the buying journey?

Consumers want to engage with an innovative, exciting, happening businesses; not stagnant, dormant and boring companies.

Source: Opportunity Max

80% of USA car dealers advertising on Autotrader, dealerships need to differentiate themselves to stand out from the crowd.

They need to rely less on AutoTrader and more on separating yourself in the hyper-competitive automotive market. Read more here on 3 Great Ways to Differentiate Your Car Dealership – Alternatives to Autotrader.  

With social media and social selling, there are three core goals which social media marketing can help you achieve:

Responding to customer inquiries:

Consumers have their preferred method for contacting a dealership and inquiring on social media is increasingly becoming a key channel for people to engage with dealerships.

People expect responses within a few hours of their question posted on social media channels and don’t want to have a conversation with someone in sales, for obvious reasons.

According to AM-Online, 81% of consumers will take their business elsewhere if their questions aren’t answered quickly and efficiently by a company

Talk to your customers

Many dealerships get social media marketing wrong by continually posting sales pitches and advertisements of inventory.

Consumers are not on social media to endure your sales pitch. Social Media is a 2-way conversation; consumers want to know you’re listening and answering their questions and concerns.  That you promptly and efficiently follow-up on their complaints and demonstrate that you genuinely and honestly want to help them.

Related article: 3 Great Ways to Differentiate Your Car Dealership – Alternatives to Autotrader

Reach more people:

Social media marketing can grow your business; 1/3 of all car buyers use social media to post pictures of their new vehicles. They are promoting your dealership to their friends and followers which in turn helps boost your brand visibility to reach new audiences.

This is an opportunity to engage with your customer and garner a positive review of the dealership.

2. What social media platforms should my car dealership be using?

This depends on where your customers and potential customers hang out online. This requires research, and I would suggest taking the time to develop buyer personas.

Not every dealership is the same and results will vary for each car dealership.

You need to do the research where your customers and prospects are online and which social sites media they use.  The benefits of developing buyer personas are they will guide you as to which platform is best suited for the demographics of your target audience.

For effective social media marketing, your car dealership should have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

To engage a younger audience, then you should be on Instagram. These are the key social media sites for auto dealerships and the platforms that will allow you to interact and engage with prospects.

Want more exposure for your dealership?  Then you need aa presence on multiple social media.

It’s critical to remember that you don’t need to be on every social media channel.

Not every social media platform is for everyone and not every platform is used by your target audience.

(Related article: 4 Benefits of Multi-Channel Digital Marketing For Car Dealerships)

3. What type of content, tone, and how often should we be posting on social media?

This will depend on the social media channel you are using. Each has its own and different “rules” as to how to use them efficiently for automotive marketing.

Below are the basic rules:

Type of content:

Do not use the same material for every channel.  What works well on one social site usually will not on another.

Facebook is used to connect with their friends or family. Your brand posts need to fit into this in the ecosystem to keep the interest of your audience in what you’re posting.

So, don’t make it solely about selling.

Twitter is fast-paced, it is a great place to share quick thoughts, news and generate traffic to your website about special offers or coupons offers, a good ratio is five posts that educate or entertain followed by one promotional post.

Using manufacturer’s content is okay as long as it is relevant and exciting to your audience.

The bulk of your posts should be custom created content or curated content that is education or entertaining.  Dealerships should focus on the content they create for a more successful social media marketing experience.

Every blog post or article can easily be repurposed into about 24 social media posts, from video to infographics.

Use high-quality images; there is nothing worse than posting bad-quality pictures of low resolution.  These will highly likely put off any potential customers as it makes your brand look unprofessional.

The tone of content:

You want to keep the tone and language consistent across all social channels and with content.

Do you want your dealership to be perceived as serious and professional, or humorous and cheeky, or inspirational or educational?

The tone is essential for your social media marketing strategy.

Posting only advertisements of your cars, will bore your audience and you will be seen as a pushy sales channel, which to be h no one wants to interact with.

As important, you don’t want to be continually joking, as this can come across as unprofessional. 

You need to find a happy balance that works for your dealership that speaks to your target audience and customers.

How often should you post:

You want and need to keep in mind how often you’re posting for your social media marketing strategy to be effective and deliver an ROI.

You should post content often enough to keep your audience interested and gain their trust, while at the same time be conscious that you aren’t posting too much.

You don’t want to bombard your audience with post after post as this will be considered spam by your audience.  They will just to scroll past your content instead of looking at it, and worst case, unfollow you.

(Related article: 9 Common Mistakes Car Dealerships Make With Social Media Management)

4. Will training be required at this or can anyone take the baton?

An effective social media management plan and strategy takes time, planning and as much thought put into it as other areas of marketing.

The rise in technology has resulted in a significant change in the car buying process.  Social media, engaging with consumers directly are just a few to date that has had a direct an impact on the auto industry, and over time this continues to grow.

Social media is used today by car buyers to read reviews, and recommendations,  which influence whether a consumer will do business with you.

38% of consumers check social media as part of the car purchase decision-making process according to Brandwatch, which is why it’s crucial to have a social media marketing strategy today.

Example of star-rating that appears on Facebook business pages

A successful social media marketing strategy requires and investment in time and effort.  The payoff is rich, and it can be done by your in-house marketing team or outsourced to an agency.  Either way, the time invested or not will determine the success.

Today, the digital talent gap in the automotive industry is widening, so the need for rapid skill development is higher than ever.

Investing in on-going training is a way to stay ahead of the curve and ensure you understand the ever-changing customer car buying behavior of today.

Another option is to partner with a digital marketing agency that specializes in automotive marketing. Agencies place their credibility on being up to date and invest continually in training to stay up-to-date to deliver the best quality work and results for clients.

This option is often more attractive as the processes and results are proven, it can be more cost-effective for most dealerships, and you don’t have to consider recruitment, payroll taxes, benefits and training costs.

5. How do you handle negative comments or feedback on social media?

Every car dealer is going to get a bad review, that is a given. How and when you respond to it that makes the difference.

Consumers will watch how you respond.

This can be an excellent opportunity to show you care about your customers and want to help them;  this demonstrates to the market at large that you listen, show empathy and concern for your customers.

Responding to negative comments on social media speaks as loudly to your customers as positive feedback.

Acknowledging online complaints promptly and following up until they are resolved sends a message to the marketplace. What applicable, do not hesitate to add a little humor to your response this humanizes your dealership.

There will be a time when you receive an unfair comment or the person who posted it is notoriously difficult or trolling you.  You still need to respond.

Don’t be afraid to report a comment to Facebook if you can provide sound and clear explanation as to why the criticism is not valid.

When a customer in the dealership showroom thanks you for all your help, you acknowledge this and respond. The same holds true for a customer complaint in the dealership; you try to resolve the problem.

Why would it be any different on social media?

One of the best way to manage customers’ reviews and comments is to assign the responsibility of responding to all your customers’ comments, complaints or other to a dedicated person.  This allows for continuity.  Its best t allocate a specific time for this task.

When someone responds to customer compliments and complaints, it shows that you appreciate and care about the time your customers invested to write to you and that you’re on top of their issues.  This action is worth more to your customers than any advertising ever will be.

Assure that your responses are unique and personalized to the customer,  They will know that you have taken the time out to respond to them personally, and it’s not a generic ‘thank you/we’re sorry’ canned message.

Related article: The Most Common Automotive Marketing Problems & How To Solve Them

Ideally, You Know Have A Better Idea of The Value Of Social Media For Your Business

We hope this article gives you insight into the value of social media and the biggest questions that have been circling social media marketing within the auto dealership market.

If you are interested in working with a digital marketing agency with experience in social media management, please contact us

Want to set yourself apart from your competition?

One of the best ways to do so is to influence how your target market perceives your company, and publishing quality content online is a great place to start.

Research shows that 78% of consumers believe that companies providing custom content want to build long-term relationships. That goes a long way for brands trying to find new and keep customers, especially when the purchase is a big ticket item like a new car or auto service.

Content that is informative solves a problem and educates, that earns trust positions you as one of the leading authorities in the industry.

Content that is continuously sales based to push your product is a turnoff and depletes trust.

Every business needs to position themselves a partner with their target audience, you are in this for the long haul and want to foster in-depth, long-term relationships.  Your target audience wants to trust you and build a relationship that stands the test of time.

Today, more than ever brands need to establish an online presence to stand out from the crowd.

Facebook ads, PPC ads, TV ads are all great and serve their collective purpose to ‘brand’ your company; however, they do not drive user engagement.

The consequences of not being innovative or finding engaging ways to stand out in today’s increasingly competitive online world may result in your brand and message being overlooked and lost in the crowd.

Today, search engines reward websites who continually update their website content with fresh, in-depth articles that answer the search intent with higher rankings and push down sites which are stagnant.

There are many different types of content from blog posts, to eBooks, white papers and even videos the ability to communicate with your target market, to generate new interest and grow your audience is virtually limitless.

‘53% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority (HubSpot, 2017).’

You may be thinking that content isn’t right for your business if you are still on the fence about content marketing or need some reassurance to continue to invest in content marketing, below is a list of long-term benefits to consider.

7 Long-Term Benefits of Content Marketing

#1: Improved SEO Results

If your sole outcome for producing content is to improve search engine rankings you to change your mindset.

Content should be utilized to add Avalue to your audience, if you are solving your target audience problem, educating them and answering their questions, your customers will love your content, and we expect the search engines will too.

Quality content marketing can significantly improve your search engine visibility. However, you need to think like your customer and how they search with intent.  People don’t search for “Honda,” they search for long tail phrases such as, “what Honda holds its value over five years,” or “what Honda model has the best crash results.”

The SEO benefits are that each new content piece you add to your blog or resources page is another page Google is going to index.

More pages may not necessarily lead to more search traffic; the more quality content you have on pages that answers the searchers intent you have indexed, the more opportunities you get to rank for in these search queries.

As you produce quality content, you’ll likely to get people linking to the content, sharing your content on other forums and blogs.

Adding graphics to your articles helps you rank in Google’s image search.

The best thing about image search is that it’s much less competitive and can be a significant source of traffic. According to Moz, the number of visits resulting from image search accounts for 20% to 60% of all visits.

Think of a spoke and wheel; you need to establish a base piece of content that is the hub of a subject matter.  Then link other pieces of content to this piece of content and continue to build the spokes.  This is internal linking.

Internal links are links that link content from one page on a website to a different page on the same website. Your goal is to build strong internal links throughout your site and content allows you to do this.

Pages of content on related topics build good internal linking architecture. This will help important pages and cornerstone content rank better. Below is an example of internal linking:

Source: Neil Patel

#2: Increase traffic to your website

Providing valuable content to your audience to quickly access drives traffic to your site. Over time, with improved search visibility, the traffic to your website will increase.

Guest posts, native advertising using content on your website and syndication where appropriate are all ways to build backlinks to your site.  You prompt the reader to click-through to your website and read internally linked articles.  This improves the user experience providing more content that educates on the topic of interest.

Adding a short, informative bio at the end of a guest post is a quick way to drive more traffic to your website you can leverage this description by mentioning your products, services or company.

Below is an example of how the author has anchored her services and linked back to her website.  If Ann had mentioned her social media profiles, she would have grown her social media following.

An example of an author bio

#3: Establish your brand as the authority

Producing educational and informative content influences how people think of your brand and what emotional appeal they associate it with trustworthy or dishonesty, expert or novice, educational or salesey and so on.

Your goal is to position yourself through your content as the go-to resource for any solutions to problems or questions your target audience may have.

Today, 94% of buyers conduct online research at some point in the buying process. Establishing yourself as the “go-to source” in the awareness and consideration stages of the sales funnel puts you in strong contention to be the “go-to” website as they are considering and are ready to make a purchase.

Then layering in guest posting or content syndication to help establish you as a thought leader. Guest posting and syndicating content on authoritative websites your target audience visits drives additional credibility.

#4: Improve your brand awareness and recognition

Strong content shows your target customers who your company is and what your brand stands for.

If you want your content to have the most significant impact and reach as many people as possible in your market, your brand awareness strategy should be geared toward mainstream topics that appeal to high-authority news sites with large followings.

Examples of this are suggested articles such as:

• 12 Things to Consider Before Buying a Used Honda
• Why You Should Purchase A Certified Former Lease Vehicle
• How to Save $14,000 on your Next Car Purchase
• What SUV is Right For Your Family
• 9 Things To Consider When Selecting an SUV or Crossover Vehicle
• What to look for in a used car
• How to extend the life of your new car
• These are the best vehicle for your growing families needs
• How to Select a Dealership That Meets Your Immediate and Long-Term Needs

The consumer’s ability to recognize, recall and associate your brand with critical qualities they are looking when starting down the car purchase path and as they move through the sales funnel is essential into deciding which dealership they choose to ultimately purchase from.

Content helps establish your brand’s identity by using brand-specific language and tone of voice, content marketing also aids in delivering important messages about your products or services.

#5: Content Marketing Generates Qualified Leads

The number one marketing challenge today for marketers is generating traffic and leads (63%).  Content marketing is a great way to do this.

Source: HubSpot

One of the most impactful benefits of content marketing is the ability to attract new leads.

Research continues to find that companies that blog generate 67% more leads than companies without content (blogs/articles/videos, etc.) or content-rich websites.

Gating some content or adding downloadable PDFs of checklists, ebooks or infographics that accent or summarize an article where the reader is required to fill out a form to access it is an easy way to generate leads and build your email list.

Once you’ve have the readers contact details, you can nurture them with more relevant content through a bi-monthly newsletter that incorporates educational content and special offers or coupons.  This aids in moving the prospect through the sales funnel and ideally into sold customers.

Content marketing continues to deliver an ROI even after its published.  Old blog posts and articles continue to generate leads over time, content stays searchable, and it’s a good practice to update older pieces of content every once in a while to keep it fresh and add in market changes that have occurred since ht initial publication. Evergreen content is an asset to your business and offers a compounding return on investment (ROI).

#6: Cost-effectiveness & loyalty

While the initial investment may seem significant, the amount of time needed for planning and executing a strong content marketing strategy are well worth the investment.

When compared to other outbound marketing strategies, content marketing still proves more cost-effective in delivering results.

In fact, content marketing costs up to 62% less than traditional marketing, and considering that 615 million devices have installed ad blocker technology and it’s across all generations, fewer people today are seeing your ads.

Brand loyalty is influenced by updated and relevant content, resulting in your consumers returning to buy more of your product or service. From new cars to auto service.

The community that results from content marketing provides a consistent source of revenue for your company, reducing the pressure to continuously seek new customers.

#7: The Type of Content Car Dealers & Brands Should Be Creating Matters

Buying a car is stressful for most people, it’s a big ticket item that warrants time and research before a buying decision is made.

Car buyers want to be as educated as possible before stepping onto the lot for a test drive, and most have narrowed their decision down to 3 vehicles long before they showed up on the dealership lot.

Car brands and dealers can help buyers with this process by developing and syndicating educational and helpful content.

Below are three types of content marketing auto dealerships can create to bring buyers back to their sites again and again.

Tips

Cars are a significant purchase, and it can be an intimidating process for buyers today.  If anything the car selection has increased as has features, the move to add additional technology into cars, including and the connected vehicle add to consumers need for education.

Articles and blog posts that include topics similar to:

• “How The Connected Car Will Make Your Life Easier”
• “Do You Need A Connected Car”
• How to Maintain Your Car today to Extend Its Lifespan.”
• “What is the Best Vehicle for Your Needs”

All offer educational aspects for car buyers.

These types of articles, ease the car buyers concerns by giving them information and downloadable tip lists that can quickly build confidence in your brand and help develop a relationship where there may not have been one previously or to enhance the relationship, building additional trust in your dealership.

Common Questions

Giving auto buyers a place to find answers to common questions, or even ask questions of their own, is another excellent way to build deep relationships. This aids your ability to assert authority and knowledge on the subject matter, giving car buyers and drivers a go-to resource that they trust and can turn to as needed.

Checklists

Checklists are evergreen material that stands the test of time.  They can be used over and over again without the need to update them.

Creating a downloadable checklist that car buyers can print out and take with them to the dealership lot gives buyers a boost of confidence, and help improve the relationship you’re fostering.

If you would like to find out more about the benefits of content marketing or would like to get to work on your strategy, we would love to hear more about your dealership; please feel free to contact us.