Today, most people have the perception that marketing is intrusive, right? Pop ups, banner ads, commercials, e-mail campaigns and junk mail are routinely considered annoying. Well, if this is what you think, you could be wrong. In fact, according to an article in AdWeek, consumers actually like being marketed to. Go figure – it’s pretty surprising that someone would actually ASK consumers if they like being marketed to. However, that’s exactly what research firm MarketingSherpa did. And guess what - only 8% said they didn’t want to be marketed to.

Does that surprise you? We struggle to get 4% open rates on email campaigns, click-throughs on pay-per-click ads, and the many other metrics that indicate our marketing campaigns are successful. So, why do we see low success rates on our marketing efforts, when consumers apparently WANT to receive them?

According to the study, it’s less about whether they want to see them and more about HOW they want to receive them. The article includes a very cool infographic which illustrates that consumers are pretty picky concerning how they want to receive ads. The top three methods include direct mail, e-mail and a company’s website.

But beyond that, some very telling statistics are the ways in which consumers actually discover new products. Right behind the obvious way of in-store browsing at 59%, the top way consumers discover new products is through word-of-mouth from friends, family and colleagues, at 57%. Add in the 20% that indicate that reviews shared by these same people also help them discover new products, and you’re pretty close to figuring out what actually motivates consumers to investigate new products.

We know that consumers visit up to 24 touch points in their online car buying experience. They’re doing the research. Part of that research is deciding which dealership they want to visit. With consumers now averaging less than two dealership visits before purchasing, it’s more important than ever to do everything possible to ensure that your dealership is one of them. Keep in mind that something planted a seed which started the customer’s journey. Sure, they may have wanted a new car. But, unless they’re a true brand loyalist, they may not know which brand is the best one for them. And who do you think they ask first? Their friends, family and colleagues.

So, don’t be shy when considering whether to market to consumers. Just remember that you need to think in an omni-channel way. Most dealerships already do this to some extent with a good mixture of traditional, direct mail and digital marketing.  However, the one channel that typically gets neglected is indirect marketing - i.e. getting those friends, family and colleagues to share your message for you. According to the study, that is the most effective way to turn words into actions. Brand yourself and enlist your customers to help spread your message.

Get your customer to share their new vehicle and/or customer experience with their social networks. This will go far to keep your dealership top of mind when it comes time for their networks to purchase. People trust their family and friends more than any other resource. Leverage them for your benefit and you’ll see more business through referrals - whether you can directly attribute it to a previous customer or not.

Today, most people have the perception that marketing is intrusive, right? Pop ups, banner ads, commercials, e-mail campaigns and junk mail are routinely considered annoying. Well, if this is what you think, you could be wrong. In fact, according to an article in AdWeek, consumers actually like being marketed to. Go figure – it’s pretty surprising that someone would actually ASK consumers if they like being marketed to. However, that’s exactly what research firm MarketingSherpa did. And guess what - only 8% said they didn’t want to be marketed to.

Does that surprise you? We struggle to get 4% open rates on email campaigns, click-throughs on pay-per-click ads, and the many other metrics that indicate our marketing campaigns are successful. So, why do we see low success rates on our marketing efforts, when consumers apparently WANT to receive them?

According to the study, it’s less about whether they want to see them and more about HOW they want to receive them. The article includes a very cool infographic which illustrates that consumers are pretty picky concerning how they want to receive ads. The top three methods include direct mail, e-mail and a company’s website.

But beyond that, some very telling statistics are the ways in which consumers actually discover new products. Right behind the obvious way of in-store browsing at 59%, the top way consumers discover new products is through word-of-mouth from friends, family and colleagues, at 57%. Add in the 20% that indicate that reviews shared by these same people also help them discover new products, and you’re pretty close to figuring out what actually motivates consumers to investigate new products.

We know that consumers visit up to 24 touch points in their online car buying experience. They’re doing the research. Part of that research is deciding which dealership they want to visit. With consumers now averaging less than two dealership visits before purchasing, it’s more important than ever to do everything possible to ensure that your dealership is one of them. Keep in mind that something planted a seed which started the customer’s journey. Sure, they may have wanted a new car. But, unless they’re a true brand loyalist, they may not know which brand is the best one for them. And who do you think they ask first? Their friends, family and colleagues.

So, don’t be shy when considering whether to market to consumers. Just remember that you need to think in an omni-channel way. Most dealerships already do this to some extent with a good mixture of traditional, direct mail and digital marketing.  However, the one channel that typically gets neglected is indirect marketing - i.e. getting those friends, family and colleagues to share your message for you. According to the study, that is the most effective way to turn words into actions. Brand yourself and enlist your customers to help spread your message.

Get your customer to share their new vehicle and/or customer experience with their social networks. This will go far to keep your dealership top of mind when it comes time for their networks to purchase. People trust their family and friends more than any other resource. Leverage them for your benefit and you’ll see more business through referrals - whether you can directly attribute it to a previous customer or not.

Today, social media platforms - Facebook, in particular - offer in-depth analytics and data that dealers can use to market to car buyers. Dealers who understand how to use and leverage Facebook ads frequently see wildly successful campaigns for very little spend. On the other hand, there are many dealers who place much less confidence in sales attribution when it comes to organic social media. With organic reach dwindling and declining fan engagement, some dealers simply aren’t putting much effort into maintaining a healthy social media presence. They don’t feel that the time is well spent. Perhaps, however, dealers aren’t seeing results for one simple reason: they’re marketing to the wrong people.

An interesting article published by Consumer Affairs discusses a study about the role social media plays in car sales. The Auto Insurance Center studied 23 major car brands and their 114 million American Facebook fans to look for trends in fan demographics, political orientations, and career paths. Specifically, it wanted to know which brands have the most fans and how that influences sales. Additionally, how do companies’ marketing efforts impact consumer perceptions – and prompt users to click “like?”

A finding I find interesting is that the demographic perceptions of these brands were oftentimes completely off the mark. For example, the article shared that “you might expect teens to be the ones dreaming of driving a luxury sports car, but the study shows that Dodge has the most new teen drivers as fans. Oddly, they share their affection for Dodge with people engaged in farming. Ford is apparently seen as a family car. It has the most married fans. Grandparents, meanwhile, are most likely to like Chrysler.”

The results of this study contradict what content marketers believe. Go visit a Ford dealer’s Facebook page and chances are great that you’ll find plenty of content about Mustangs and other performance oriented cars. If Ford, in general, has the most married fans, you would think that perhaps the reason for low engagement is that there is little content tailored towards married people with families. I also highly doubt you’ll find much content targeted towards grandparents on a Chrysler dealer’s page. It’s also probably safe to say that Dodge dealers are not marketing to farmers. Sure, this data is a result of the manufacturer brand and may not reflect the geographic region of that dealer. You certainly wouldn’t expect a dealer in Los Angeles to be posting content about farming.

In the end, however, the study found that the most direct impact social media had in regards to sales was less about how many fans a page had; or who those fans were demographically; but more what those fan’s networks perceived about their feelings towards the brand. Just like in the old days where word of mouth and keeping up with the Joneses ruled, Consumer Affairs believes that automakers may soon shift their marketing efforts away from advertising and start focusing “more on the persuasiveness of millions of your neighbors, giving a simple thumbs up on Facebook.”

Similar to the movie “The Matrix,” perhaps we are living in a world that is not real. We’re all asleep in cocoons being fed data that aligns with our beliefs and perceptions, rather than with reality. What matters most, however, is that regardless of whether we are in the Matrix, or in the real world, what our friends and family think - and do - when we buy a car. Or, how they see us interact with a brand, holds more weight than any advertising we could imagine.

Today, social media platforms - Facebook, in particular - offer in-depth analytics and data that dealers can use to market to car buyers. Dealers who understand how to use and leverage Facebook ads frequently see wildly successful campaigns for very little spend. On the other hand, there are many dealers who place much less confidence in sales attribution when it comes to organic social media. With organic reach dwindling and declining fan engagement, some dealers simply aren’t putting much effort into maintaining a healthy social media presence. They don’t feel that the time is well spent. Perhaps, however, dealers aren’t seeing results for one simple reason: they’re marketing to the wrong people.

An interesting article published by Consumer Affairs discusses a study about the role social media plays in car sales. The Auto Insurance Center studied 23 major car brands and their 114 million American Facebook fans to look for trends in fan demographics, political orientations, and career paths. Specifically, it wanted to know which brands have the most fans and how that influences sales. Additionally, how do companies’ marketing efforts impact consumer perceptions – and prompt users to click “like?”

A finding I find interesting is that the demographic perceptions of these brands were oftentimes completely off the mark. For example, the article shared that “you might expect teens to be the ones dreaming of driving a luxury sports car, but the study shows that Dodge has the most new teen drivers as fans. Oddly, they share their affection for Dodge with people engaged in farming. Ford is apparently seen as a family car. It has the most married fans. Grandparents, meanwhile, are most likely to like Chrysler.”

The results of this study contradict what content marketers believe. Go visit a Ford dealer’s Facebook page and chances are great that you’ll find plenty of content about Mustangs and other performance oriented cars. If Ford, in general, has the most married fans, you would think that perhaps the reason for low engagement is that there is little content tailored towards married people with families. I also highly doubt you’ll find much content targeted towards grandparents on a Chrysler dealer’s page. It’s also probably safe to say that Dodge dealers are not marketing to farmers. Sure, this data is a result of the manufacturer brand and may not reflect the geographic region of that dealer. You certainly wouldn’t expect a dealer in Los Angeles to be posting content about farming.

In the end, however, the study found that the most direct impact social media had in regards to sales was less about how many fans a page had; or who those fans were demographically; but more what those fan’s networks perceived about their feelings towards the brand. Just like in the old days where word of mouth and keeping up with the Joneses ruled, Consumer Affairs believes that automakers may soon shift their marketing efforts away from advertising and start focusing “more on the persuasiveness of millions of your neighbors, giving a simple thumbs up on Facebook.”

Similar to the movie “The Matrix,” perhaps we are living in a world that is not real. We’re all asleep in cocoons being fed data that aligns with our beliefs and perceptions, rather than with reality. What matters most, however, is that regardless of whether we are in the Matrix, or in the real world, what our friends and family think - and do - when we buy a car. Or, how they see us interact with a brand, holds more weight than any advertising we could imagine.

Remember the good old days when your Facebook audience actually saw the content you posted on your Facebook page? If you’re a social media person, you’ll know what a rush it was to see your content engaged with. As the likes, comments and shares piled up on a piece of content, a sense of satisfaction swept over you for a job well done. Then Facebook intervened and decided to decrease reach - albeit gradually - in favor of paid content because… well... money. But it isn’t only money that caused this decline in Facebook page content, if you listen to Facebook, that is.

In the good old days, Facebook’s algorithm, while still a little mysterious, was a little easier to understand and use to optimize your content’s reach. As time has passed, however, Facebook has increasingly accelerated the changes, determined to deliver the most relevant and interesting content to each individual user. This, of course, makes it much more difficult to create content that a general audience will enjoy, since each specific person has a wide range of interests. According to an article in Time magazine, Facebook actually employs a team of 20 engineers and data scientists. This team, combined with a panel of users named Facebook’s “Feed Quality Panel,” provide real-time commentary on content, allowing Facebook to tweak their algorithm continuously.

So now here we are… scratching our heads and complaining about how Facebook has become a de facto “pay to play” platform, as we whine about the fact that nobody sees our content. But wait just a minute… perhaps the reason for the decrease in reach isn’t as nefarious as we think it is. In general, the more targeted your content is to your audience, the better, right? If you could send a Honda Civic special targeted only to people in-market for Honda Civics RIGHT NOW, wouldn’t that be better than sending that message to all people in-market? Maybe, there is a simple reason for the decline in Facebook page reach…

Facebook is doing a better job delivering your content

to people who are actually interested in seeing it.

And, that’s what we want, right? The right people to see our content so that they’re interested in buying or servicing their cars with us?

There is one thing that hasn’t changed throughout the history of Facebook’s algorithm changes – no matter how many changes they make, Facebook will always deliver content that people are interested in seeing. If you ask Facebook users themselves, the content they are almost always most interested in seeing originates from, and is typically about, their family and friends. So, breathe a sigh of relief. Stop lamenting in the fact that your dealership won’t give you a budget for Facebook ads or promoted posts. Don’t get discouraged as your Facebook page reach decreases. Simply find ways to generate content that people want to share - and you’ll find that, when they do, your efforts will be more fruitful than any Facebook ad.

Remember the good old days when your Facebook audience actually saw the content you posted on your Facebook page? If you’re a social media person, you’ll know what a rush it was to see your content engaged with. As the likes, comments and shares piled up on a piece of content, a sense of satisfaction swept over you for a job well done. Then Facebook intervened and decided to decrease reach - albeit gradually - in favor of paid content because… well... money. But it isn’t only money that caused this decline in Facebook page content, if you listen to Facebook, that is.

In the good old days, Facebook’s algorithm, while still a little mysterious, was a little easier to understand and use to optimize your content’s reach. As time has passed, however, Facebook has increasingly accelerated the changes, determined to deliver the most relevant and interesting content to each individual user. This, of course, makes it much more difficult to create content that a general audience will enjoy, since each specific person has a wide range of interests. According to an article in Time magazine, Facebook actually employs a team of 20 engineers and data scientists. This team, combined with a panel of users named Facebook’s “Feed Quality Panel,” provide real-time commentary on content, allowing Facebook to tweak their algorithm continuously.

So now here we are… scratching our heads and complaining about how Facebook has become a de facto “pay to play” platform, as we whine about the fact that nobody sees our content. But wait just a minute… perhaps the reason for the decrease in reach isn’t as nefarious as we think it is. In general, the more targeted your content is to your audience, the better, right? If you could send a Honda Civic special targeted only to people in-market for Honda Civics RIGHT NOW, wouldn’t that be better than sending that message to all people in-market? Maybe, there is a simple reason for the decline in Facebook page reach…

Facebook is doing a better job delivering your content

to people who are actually interested in seeing it.

And, that’s what we want, right? The right people to see our content so that they’re interested in buying or servicing their cars with us?

There is one thing that hasn’t changed throughout the history of Facebook’s algorithm changes – no matter how many changes they make, Facebook will always deliver content that people are interested in seeing. If you ask Facebook users themselves, the content they are almost always most interested in seeing originates from, and is typically about, their family and friends. So, breathe a sigh of relief. Stop lamenting in the fact that your dealership won’t give you a budget for Facebook ads or promoted posts. Don’t get discouraged as your Facebook page reach decreases. Simply find ways to generate content that people want to share - and you’ll find that, when they do, your efforts will be more fruitful than any Facebook ad.

Last year, Twitter partnered with the data firm Datalogix to study Twitter’s influence on sales transactions in the car industry. Twitter provided Datalogix with all the data they had about brand, dealership and consumer Twitter accounts. Datalogix then paired actual vehicle purchases by cross-referencing the Twitter data with data from Polk. Here is what they discovered:

1. Households with Twitter users were 2 times as likely to purchase a new car as the average U.S. household.
2. Households with Twitter users who engaged with Promoted Tweets from auto advertisers were 32% more likely to purchase a new vehicle than the average Twitter user.
3. Auto brand Twitter followers were nearly 3 times as likely to purchase a new car.

If Twitter users are more likely to buy cars than non-Twitter users, how exactly is Twitter influencing these consumer decisions?

According to a separate survey of 12,000 users by Twitter, a whopping 80 percent mentioned a brand in their tweets. And, 54% reported that they took action after seeing a brand mentioned in a tweet. What kind of action? According to the survey, the top 5 were visiting the brand’s website (23%), visiting the brand’s Twitter page (20%), searching for the brand online (20%), considered trying the brand (19%) and retweeted tweets mentioning the brand (18%).

This study further found that:

1. Of the 32% that saw tweets from brand sources, 45% reported taking action.
2. Of the 33% that saw tweets from non-brand sources, 65% reported taking action.
3. Of the 35% that saw tweets from both sources, 79% of those reported taking action.

So, what are the takeaways from these two studies as regards the auto industry?

While Twitter could seem to be a less desirable platform for dealers than Facebook, simply due to message limitations, don’t discount the impact your efforts there can have on sales. The first study very clearly shows that Twitter users are more likely to buy cars than non-Twitter users. And, a dealership’s Twitter followers, in particular, are 3 times more likely to.

It would therefore seem wise for dealers to have an active Twitter account, to engage with followers and provide content for followers to share with their network. In addition, the survey results clearly show that the best case scenario is for consumers to be exposed to not just content from the dealership, but, also to content about the dealership that is posted by others. The trick to accomplishing that is simple. Create content that others want to share. By doing that, you stand to increase the possibility that consumers drive further along the car-buying path in your direction.

Last year, Twitter partnered with the data firm Datalogix to study Twitter’s influence on sales transactions in the car industry. Twitter provided Datalogix with all the data they had about brand, dealership and consumer Twitter accounts. Datalogix then paired actual vehicle purchases by cross-referencing the Twitter data with data from Polk. Here is what they discovered:

1. Households with Twitter users were 2 times as likely to purchase a new car as the average U.S. household.
2. Households with Twitter users who engaged with Promoted Tweets from auto advertisers were 32% more likely to purchase a new vehicle than the average Twitter user.
3. Auto brand Twitter followers were nearly 3 times as likely to purchase a new car.

If Twitter users are more likely to buy cars than non-Twitter users, how exactly is Twitter influencing these consumer decisions?

According to a separate survey of 12,000 users by Twitter, a whopping 80 percent mentioned a brand in their tweets. And, 54% reported that they took action after seeing a brand mentioned in a tweet. What kind of action? According to the survey, the top 5 were visiting the brand’s website (23%), visiting the brand’s Twitter page (20%), searching for the brand online (20%), considered trying the brand (19%) and retweeted tweets mentioning the brand (18%).

This study further found that:

1. Of the 32% that saw tweets from brand sources, 45% reported taking action.
2. Of the 33% that saw tweets from non-brand sources, 65% reported taking action.
3. Of the 35% that saw tweets from both sources, 79% of those reported taking action.

So, what are the takeaways from these two studies as regards the auto industry?

While Twitter could seem to be a less desirable platform for dealers than Facebook, simply due to message limitations, don’t discount the impact your efforts there can have on sales. The first study very clearly shows that Twitter users are more likely to buy cars than non-Twitter users. And, a dealership’s Twitter followers, in particular, are 3 times more likely to.

It would therefore seem wise for dealers to have an active Twitter account, to engage with followers and provide content for followers to share with their network. In addition, the survey results clearly show that the best case scenario is for consumers to be exposed to not just content from the dealership, but, also to content about the dealership that is posted by others. The trick to accomplishing that is simple. Create content that others want to share. By doing that, you stand to increase the possibility that consumers drive further along the car-buying path in your direction.

Dealers struggle all of the time trying to find value in social media marketing - Facebook in particular, and hesitate when deciding whether Facebook (or social media marketing in general) is worth their time, effort or money.

Perhaps it’s because they don’t see direct results? They may be looking for a straight line between expense and sales. However, for the most part, that metric is difficult to attain without a very knowledgeable person on staff, or an experienced vendor.

So, is social media all about sales?

In selecting the most effective advertising, marketers will study the demographics, viewership or potential reach. It doesn’t matter if it’s print, radio, television, Internet, or any other form of advertising - the more people reached, the more expensive the medium typically is. Want to run your commercial during an episode of “The Walking Dead?” Be prepared to pay a pretty penny. Throw it up at 2am during a re-run of “Friends” and it’ll cost much less.

What does this have to do with social media marketing - Facebook, in particular?

On Wednesday, August 27, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that “On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their family and friends.”  This means that over a BILLION people logged into Facebook on a single day. With a little over 1.5 billion active accounts, on that one day, two-thirds of Facebook users decided Facebook was important enough to check out what was going on in the world. That’s three times the population of the entire United States!

As Facebook continues to absorb more and more new technologies, an increasing number of daily and active users log in. And, while it is well-known that YouTube is the number two search engine in the world, Facebook’s big push for video is a direct threat to that ranking.

Google has just about abandoned its social networking ambitions with Google+, meanwhile Facebook is making itself more useful to users by courting publishers, celebrities, music stars and just about every type of content and service that consumers need or want. This will only increase the usage of each person. It used to be that people logged into Facebook simply to see what their friends were up to. Now they’re doing that and MUCH more, such as searching for news articles, pop culture and other topics of interest.

There’s little doubt that Facebook is becoming more and more attractive for its users in general. This will only translate into more active use. Because of this, it would be wise to consider that there is probably no advertising medium with a greater reach potential at a price point that can compete with Facebook. Over the years, Facebook has tracked usage and collected an incredible about of information about its members. This data enables advertisers to target an audience with pinpoint precision and deliver a message to customers that has more impact. Paid advertising on Facebook is just one way to benefit from this social media platform. Through engagement with customers in an organic and personal way, you can also better showcase your dealership’s unique personality and interact with the people that matter the most – your customers.

If you’ve been struggling to decide whether Facebook is something you want to include in your marketing mix, there are now a billion reasons to reconsider.

Dealers struggle all of the time trying to find value in social media marketing - Facebook in particular, and hesitate when deciding whether Facebook (or social media marketing in general) is worth their time, effort or money.

Perhaps it’s because they don’t see direct results? They may be looking for a straight line between expense and sales. However, for the most part, that metric is difficult to attain without a very knowledgeable person on staff, or an experienced vendor.

So, is social media all about sales?

In selecting the most effective advertising, marketers will study the demographics, viewership or potential reach. It doesn’t matter if it’s print, radio, television, Internet, or any other form of advertising - the more people reached, the more expensive the medium typically is. Want to run your commercial during an episode of “The Walking Dead?” Be prepared to pay a pretty penny. Throw it up at 2am during a re-run of “Friends” and it’ll cost much less.

What does this have to do with social media marketing - Facebook, in particular?

On Wednesday, August 27, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that “On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their family and friends.”  This means that over a BILLION people logged into Facebook on a single day. With a little over 1.5 billion active accounts, on that one day, two-thirds of Facebook users decided Facebook was important enough to check out what was going on in the world. That’s three times the population of the entire United States!

As Facebook continues to absorb more and more new technologies, an increasing number of daily and active users log in. And, while it is well-known that YouTube is the number two search engine in the world, Facebook’s big push for video is a direct threat to that ranking.

Google has just about abandoned its social networking ambitions with Google+, meanwhile Facebook is making itself more useful to users by courting publishers, celebrities, music stars and just about every type of content and service that consumers need or want. This will only increase the usage of each person. It used to be that people logged into Facebook simply to see what their friends were up to. Now they’re doing that and MUCH more, such as searching for news articles, pop culture and other topics of interest.

There’s little doubt that Facebook is becoming more and more attractive for its users in general. This will only translate into more active use. Because of this, it would be wise to consider that there is probably no advertising medium with a greater reach potential at a price point that can compete with Facebook. Over the years, Facebook has tracked usage and collected an incredible about of information about its members. This data enables advertisers to target an audience with pinpoint precision and deliver a message to customers that has more impact. Paid advertising on Facebook is just one way to benefit from this social media platform. Through engagement with customers in an organic and personal way, you can also better showcase your dealership’s unique personality and interact with the people that matter the most – your customers.

If you’ve been struggling to decide whether Facebook is something you want to include in your marketing mix, there are now a billion reasons to reconsider.