Our industry does a lot with gimmicks. You’d be hard pressed to drive through an auto mall or other area dense with dealerships and not see balloons, giant inflatable gorillas or wavy tube men. On nice days, we attempt to lure shoppers in with hot dogs and sodas. We incentivize test drives. We offer televisions, iPads and Playstations with purchase. There’s always a gimmick just waiting to be unleashed on our customers. But do any of these really attract (and keep) business? Sure, they might get someone’s attention. However, I highly doubt someone has ever decided to buy a car simply because they saw a gorilla on your roof.

We’re faced today with increasing competition. No longer are you simply competing with the dealerships in your PMA. Shoppers are able to buy cars online, through vending machines and, soon, straight from a GM pool of 30,000 cars. The ability to REALLY attract business lies not in the gimmicks you can throw in front of your dealership, hoping to attract customers, but in creating a place that people want to buy -- and leveraging that in your marketing.

In-market consumers conduct a lot of research before you may even be aware they are in-market. Not only are they researching vehicles, but they are also researching where they want to buy them. Before you know that customer actually exists, they may have already written you off. How many dealership websites are they visiting? And, what, if anything, is yours telling them? Is it the same old stuff that’s on every dealers’ website? Are your ads filled with promises of loss leaders that consumers know aren’t attainable? What makes you any different from any other dealership?

Who YOU are as a dealership is the only thing that truly differentiates you from other dealerships. Grab your employees, managers and staff and ask them what THEY think is unique about your dealership. Then do the same thing with your customers – whether they are new or long-time customers. By doing this, you may be able to identify some unique selling propositions that your dealership offers. At the very least, you’ll discover whether you truly have any or not. If your staff as a whole cannot tell you why your dealership is different, then how can you expect your customers to feel that you are?

Once you have surveyed your customers and employees, take these unique items and ask yourself if there is anyway that you can add to it. Be careful though. Don’t add anything that you cannot deliver on, or you’ll find out very quickly that you are putting out more fires than you had to begin with. Also, stay away from generic value propositions. “Low prices,” “Huge Selection,” and “Bad Credit is OK,” are NOT unique. Not to say you can’t use these as part of your overall campaigns. But, work to find things that truly differentiate you. Do you have a high employee retention rate? That’s great! Telling a customer that their salesperson, service advisor or your management team will be there for them in the future is absolutely a valuable trait. Do you offer free car washes? Oil changes? What about loaners or concierge services?

Once you have a concrete list of unique value propositions that are reasonable, and that you are able to deliver on consistently, call an all hands on deck meeting with your staff. Review these items with them and explain why it’s important that these value propositions be delivered 100 percent of the time. Make sure that you have buy in from everyone. Don’t be afraid to field questions and listen to challenges that your staff may have for you.

Once this process is complete, it does absolutely no good to keep it to yourself. These value propositions should be integrated into all of your marketing, communications and forward-facing assets including your website, social media profiles and any advertising that you do. You may only get one chance to convince a customer why they should choose you. So, make sure that anyone that inspects your dealerships and considers doing business with you sees your pledge to them.

Steer clear of gimmicks that are not going to sell any additional cars, and switch focus to who you are as an organization. Then, leverage that to attract new customers. You could well find that people will choose you more often. And that you build trust with your customers. And that, my friends, is the beginning of a true customer relationship.

Social media has many advantages in today’s digital world. And, leveraging these social media accounts and platforms through employees enables your dealership to reach local customers through the networks of these employees.

Many salespeople use social media to promote themselves and increase awareness of their dealership, so as to attract customers and business. Those that use it effectively find that it can be very profitable for them and their dealerships. However, some dealers have expressed concerns about these personal branding efforts.

An article in Fast Company details the challenges that have arisen with the rise of this phenomenon. Employees that use these networks may be versed in using them for personal use. However, not many are trained in the proper use of these networks in a business setting. William Ward, a professor at Syracuse University who specializes in social media, stated that, “Because somebody grows up being a social media native, it doesn’t make them an expert in using social media at work. That’s like saying ‘I grew up with a fax machine, so that makes me an expert in business.’”

In the automotive industry, it’s pretty much an established fact that salespeople will naturally bring business and sales into the dealership, organically, from their friends and family. Their network of family, friends and associates tend to trust them to be fair in assisting them to get a good deal. Nothing has changed. If anything, the salesperson’s ability to bring this type of business into the dealership has expanded from simply word-of-mouth recommendations, to the huge potential of digital relationships.

Of course, this extended voice necessitates at least a minimal amount of training to ensure that the employee is not simply wasting time at work, and that both the dealership and the employee are portrayed in the best possible light. There are many free options available from social media companies, as well as platforms that can assist your employees in gaining a basic understanding of how to correctly use social media in a business setting. In addition, there are industry-specific tools available that allow your salespeople to maximize exposure in a way that presents the dealership in a good light and encourages engagement.

It would certainly be beneficial to explore some of these free on-line social media training programs with your employees. Customers increasingly use digital means to connect with dealerships and their employees. Social media training ensures that, at the very least, your employees know how to effectively leverage social media platforms to benefit both the dealership and themselves.

Social media can be a great and efficient way to reach potential customers in the local vicinity, as well as to engage with existing customers on a more personal level -- similar to the standard practices of phone calls and snail mail messages in the past. Your employees will use social media regardless of whether you train them or not. If they are educated in its proper use in a business setting, this can help to bring even more business and boost the dealership’s visibility in your community.

An undeniable shift is happening in our industry. One that will change how we operate forever. It’s all about delivering on the customer experience with a true online buying process. AutoNation saw it. And, Carvana, Beepi and other start-ups are gaining traction. In addition, other vendors within our industry have built platforms that allow dealers to facilitate this type of buying experience. There’s no doubt that we’ll see mass adoption on some level by dealerships. But, as always, a shift towards technology in one arena brings shifts in other areas.

What am I talking about? Social Media.

The logic behind consumers wanting a more convenient car buying experience is sound. That’s one of the biggest consumer pain points that we’ve heard for decades. Retailers have made it easier and more convenient to buy their products online for quite some time now. Consumers got used to it. Now they want a similar online experience for the vehicle purchase process. Not all of them, perhaps. There will still be tire kickers that want to come in, test drive 5 cars and really don’t know what they want.

However, there will also be that consumer who has done their research and knows exactly what they’re looking for. They want to buy a car and they know exactly which one. Providing these consumers with an easier way to facilitate that transaction should certainly be good for sales.

As dealerships adopt these processes, and consumers embrace them, we’re conditioning them for an online experience. And, what else do consumers do online with companies? They communicate. Many consumers today choose social media as the medium of choice for interacting with companies. Whether that’s asking product questions; airing complaints; or seeking customer service; they have no problem posting on a Facebook page, or tweeting out to the company. And they expect a response.

Most dealerships have social media accounts -- whether they actively use them or not. Even a dormant Twitter account, or Facebook page, is an open door that invites consumers to enter. If you’re not listening for consumers reaching out to you on social media, it is the same as having a phone which nobody ever answers (not that THAT ever happens).

If, as an industry, we’re going to embrace a digital buying experience, we must also embrace all of the ways consumers can interact with us digitally – whether that is via chat, text message, or social media channels. Failure to do so will just frustrate the consumer. They could then quite simply move on to the next dealership. Because, while dealerships that embrace an online buying experience TODAY may be differentiating themselves, we’ll soon see this as the norm.

And, dealerships that haven’t been listening, may find their customers have stopped listening to them as well.

It’s been a week now since the seventh installment in the Star Wars franchise hit theaters, breaking all box office records along its way. I’m sure that there is much more money in Disney’s future. That’s the ending of this story. Now for the beginning...

Think about the many months leading up to the release of the latest movie. About how much Star Wars we were all exposed to. Every YouTube video went viral. You pretty much couldn’t go to the grocery store without seeing Star Wars branded food – yes, food – Star Wars Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, cereal, soap, soup… the list goes on. Then there were the toys. You thought Black Friday was a big deal, then along came “Force Friday.” Yes, two months prior to the movie release itself, a release date for Star Wars merchandise became an event. How big? According to most sources, that single day generated over $1 billion (with a “b”) in sales.

But what does this have to do with marketing? Or social media?

Most major big-budget movie releases spend upwards of $50 million on television ads leading up to the movie’s release.  According to the Wall Street Journal, as of Monday, Dec. 7, two weeks before the movie’s release, Disney had only shelled out about $17 million. You want to know the truly amazing part? The companies Disney selected as official partners have spent $38 million in co-branded television advertising. Yes, somehow Disney managed to get other companies to spend twice as much money advertising the movie as Disney itself did.

Just about every company that could – whether in a licensing agreement or not – made some effort to be included in and engage with their audience about this single movie. Even Facebook changed its normal “What’s on your mind” status update prompt to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens today! Are you excited to see it? Let your friends know.” It would seem that the marketing machine at Disney is very smart. Could they have spent $100 million on television ads? Of course. But chose not to. The reason is simple. The marketing team threw out content they felt sure people would want to share. They also gave a few top influencer companies permission to piggyback on the hype and then sat back and let the world collectively drool while everything Star Wars sold out, went viral or was blogged about.

And they did this for one simple reason: They knew that there was more power in other people talking about their product than in talking about it themselves. This single concept is true in all marketing, public relations, content marketing and social media. While there certainly were benefits to the co-branding partnerships for the partners themselves (think Star Wars fans buying mac & cheese simply because the box has Yoda on it), there were far more benefits to Disney by letting other brands inundate the world with Star Wars themed packaging and merchandise; essentially transforming grocery stores into huge Star Wars billboards.

So, the next time you’re sitting in your office at the dealership trying to figure out the best way to get exposure with your audience, take a lesson out of the Disney playbook and figure out ways to get others to share your brand for you. You’ll find out very quickly that the Force will be your ally.

If you haven’t heard, it’s getting harder for businesses to reach their audiences on Facebook unless they’re willing to spend some money. Estimates are that the average reach for a company post on its Facebook page is around 2-6 percent organically. There are only two ways to increase that. First, by paying for Facebook ads. And secondly, through interaction with your content. The second part is tricky unless you combine it with the first part, as how do you get people to interact with your content if they don’t see it in the first place? The solution to your problem lies no further than your office door: your employees.

Hopefully, you have created a company culture in which your employees are brand advocates. They should be aware of - and interested in - the content your dealership is posting on its social media accounts. Not only that -- you would hope that they would also engage with your content through liking, commenting and sharing that content. Interaction with your posts by your employees accomplishes two very important things. It increases the reach of your post. AND, that reach is typically very effective. You see, whenever someone interacts with a brand’s content on their page, their friends and families are likely to be delivered that interaction in their own Newsfeeds. Chances are good that a decent percentage of your employee’s networks live in your market and these are exactly the people you want your content delivered to. But what’s the benefit of this interaction for your employee?

How many times in your automotive career have you heard the story of a salesperson discovering that their friend bought a car elsewhere, simply because they were unaware that their friend actually sold cars? This is a tale that just about every person in car sales has heard and, more often than not, experienced. Interacting with the dealership’s social media content benefits the employee when they show those interactions and shares to their own personal audience. This could very easily inform their networks that they do, in fact, sell cars and keep that employee top of mind when someone in their network is in market. The dealership benefits through increased reach organically. It’s a win-win situation. But all too often, when you visit a dealership’s Facebook page, there is very little interaction by employees.

You would hope that your employees are proud to work for you and interested in helping the company succeed. However, more often than not, employees don’t interact because they don’t understand the benefits both to themselves and the dealership. Take the time to sit down with your employees and explain how they can help the dealership through simply clicking a like button, commenting, or sharing content through their own personal social media accounts. Interaction leads to more interaction, just like a snowball rolling down a hill increases in size as it goes. Simply going by the philosophy of “If you build it, they will come,” is no longer a viable strategy. Leverage your employees to jump start the reach of your social media content and you may find that your fans increase, your reach increases and you just might pick up some more business because of it.

In the past, consumers were limited in their options when they had any sort of complaint or service issue with a particular business. Those options, however, have progressed and today’s consumers have moved on from phone calls and e-mails to air their complaints. They now turn to review sites and social media in an effort to get businesses to rectify a perceived wrong. Yes, some of these complaints may escalate into a revenge-sort of rant by an unhappy customer. But, oftentimes a consumer is simply at their wits end after attempting to get the problem solved via traditional methods. Consumers are now getting wise to the fact that taking their unhappiness to social media may be the best way to get their problem solved.

A recent article on NJ.com, described several situations in which consumers tried to get problems solved via traditional methods, to no avail. One story involved a man who purchased a refrigerator which did not work correctly. After more than four service visits attempting to fix the refrigerator, the man demanded a replacement. Only to be told he was out of warranty. So what did he do? He took to the company’s Facebook page. He advised customers daily not to buy the company’s products. And guess what? It worked.

Stories like this are becoming more and more commonplace. Surprisingly, however, a new study from Sprout Social finds that despite an increase in messages sent to brands on social media, nearly 90% go unanswered. However, companies that do pay attention, see those previously unhappy customers share their now positive experience on social media with their friends and family - the equivalent of free advertising. The opposite, of course, happens to those companies that do not respond and fail to assist their customers. Consumers are now more vocal about their bad experiences with a much larger audience. With social media networks providing audiences in the billions, along with Google’s integration of tweets in real-time, those complaints shared via social media are now much more likely to be found by potential customers.

More and more articles keep popping up that advise consumers to take their complaint to social media for a faster resolution. As consumers continue to follow this advice, businesses better start listening and take action. It doesn’t take much for complaints to transform from one upset customer into a mob of them supporting each other’s plight. And that can have a powerful impact on prospects considering your product or service.

If you’re using your social media accounts simply to broadcast messages and fail to pay attention to your customers, and/or potential customers that post messages or complaints, you may soon find a mob of people standing outside your castle armed with torches and pitchforks anxiously awaiting the opportunity to storm the castle. Take care of your customers, show others that you are listening.  Then you will find a group of happy customers that will encourage others to do business with you, rather than a mob awaiting your demise.

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.

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.