Among the many methods of digital automotive advertising, mobile phones are emerging as one of the most effective devices to promote your dealership. But not all mobile phones are created equal.

While SMS marketing capitalizes on text messages to propel its campaigns, another platform for mobile marketing is gaining popularity. I’m talking about smartphones. IDC’s 49.2% market growth prediction for 2011 shows that smartphones such as the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, etc, are definitely on the rise in today’s era of portable internet and mobile web browsing.

But with the advent of mobile web, does it mean that SMS marketing will soon become an obsolete method of advertising? It’s not likely so. Millions of people still send text messages everyday, and SMS messaging remains a low-cost, easy and fast way to directly reach out to a number of people through mobile. And because SMS is a standard feature in practically all mobile phones today (including smart phones), SMS marketing conveniently extends to both smartphones and “dumbphones” users.

Luckily for the automotive industry, both SMS marketing and mobile web can work together to drive an efficient marketing campaign for your auto dealership. SMS marketing provides a faster, more personalized way to send information to a targeted group of potential customers. Mobile web, on the other hand, offers richer multimedia experience and a new level of interactivity through the integration of customized smartphone apps in your mobile ads.

But while mobile web marketing is still dealing with a few hurdles, such as OS segmentation making it difficult for mobile apps to display correctly across different devices, SMS marketing enjoys a seamless operation. Through text message marketing, your dealership can target a broader scope of the market beyond just the smartphone users.

Print classified ads are one of the main tools auto dealers use to advertise their vehicles and service but as more and more people are turning to the internet for information, online classifieds are significantly and steadily outperforming newspapers and periodicals in providing ad spaces and lead generation.

Craigslist alone, as an established leader among local online classifieds, boasts over 20 billion page views each month, besting online retail giant Amazon and multimedia empire Disney. The 50 million new ads created on the site each month clearly indicates how successful online classifieds have become, showing why you, as an auto dealer, should consider this tool in your automotive advertising campaign.

Online classifieds, unlike traditional print classifieds, offer more flexibility and more space. Instead of just a few lines of abbreviated text you can utilize the full page, making it possible to provide complete information about the product being sold. However, be sure to break the text in concise, readable paragraphs and include the basic as well as the technical specs when describing a vehicle.

Pictures are a must; the ability to post images is definitely a big improvement over traditional automotive classified advertising. One tip in posting images is to include as many pictures as possible, showing the exterior and interior parts of the car at different angles. Pictures can often be a deciding factor for a prospective car buyers thinking about driving to your dealership to check out the vehicle.

As most online classifieds are localized, you can achieve maximum exposure to your target location. If the site allows it, you can post your ads to as many relevant locations as possible. But make sure when your posting your not “spamming;” most internet classified sites impose penalties on accounts that are spamming the system.

Establishing a concrete business image can also win the trust and confidence of potential buyers. This can be achieved by simply offering detailed business information such as name, contact info and address. Add your web address to link back to other related information and show that you are a legitimate auto dealer. In fact, you can design your online ads to advertise not just a single vehicle but your dealership as a whole.

Five years ago Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, sent out the first tweet launching a new form of communication that became a revolution in 140 characters or less. This year, Twitter posted a blog reporting that it only takes about one week for users to send 1 billion tweets and last February an average of 460,000 accounts were opened per day. In the automotive industry, we should all ask ourselves, are we utilizing the fundamentals of Twitter to best engage current and potential buyers on this social network?

Create some personality on your Twitter page. Instead of using the generic templates Twitter provides, invest some time to brand your profile. Make sure to maintain the brand consistency but have some fun with it in order to distinguish yourself from other dealerships. Go beyond just displaying your manufacturer’s logo and make the page reflect the dealership as a whole.

Use Twitter to strengthen your traditional marketing efforts. This does not mean to fill your Twitter feed with constant inventory updates (trust me, people won’t want to follow you if you spam them this way!) but using it to mention new service specials, newsletters, blog posts, vehicle launches etc. Don’t forget to add some fun and humor occasionally to your Twitter Feed as well to keep people engaged. Use content that creates a call to action, for example ask a question that entices people to read your tweet, respond to your tweet and possibly find it interesting enough to re-tweet.

Use Twitter to monitor how people feel about your dealership. Twitter is where more and more customers go to leave a tweet about their negative experiences. Especially with more and more people using Twitter on their mobile and smartphones, if someone is upset it is easy for them to immediately Tweet about their negative experience. By immediately responding to these tweets (as well as to the positive ones) your letting the customer know you are not only listening but that you care about their experience at the dealership. If done correctly chances are you might be able to win the trust back of the disgruntled customer or increase the loyalty of current customer. It’s faster and easier to respond to angry customers via Twitter if you have a daily monitoring process in place.

Facebook has recently launched a new application that could change the way you interact with current and potential customers. Facebook Questions, which operates similarly to Quora, Aardvark, LinkedIn Answers and other Q&A sites on the internet, can be a valuable tool for dealerships looking to find out more about their target market. With Facebook Questions you are able to ask a question then either set up specific poll answers for people to vote on, keep the question open-ended allowing them to add and vote on their own answers, or even do both adding specific poll options and still leaving the option for them to add to the list.

Utilizing Facebook Questions is as easy as asking your fans a question. But you should exert some effort in crafting your questions. Essentially, they must have a goal and inquire on a specific area in your business that you think would benefit from customers’ input and suggestions.

For example, ask them what their dream car is and what’s stopping them from buying it, if they haven’t bought it already. You can also pit vehicle models against each other, luxury vehicles against economical cars for example, to know which model you might want to feature in your next campaign. Have you had a lot of different promotions lately? Ask people which ones they liked best and learn from their answers.

Be creative in your questions as well as in choices that you provide them. When a Facebook user participates by answering your question, that question is also posted to his or her profile page; a compelling question could spread to many people very quickly this way.

What items stand out the most to you in search results? Often pictures and especially video will initially draw your attention more than plain text results. Videos posted to sites like YouTube show up especially well in search listings. Auto dealerships need to take advantage of this free exposure by creating videos of walkarounds, customer testimonials, test drives, dealership tours, events, etc., to post online and tag to rank right at the top of search results.

What can you do to make sure your videos rank your dealership’s name in search results and actually get views?

• Use descriptive titles with model names and your dealership location to make sure you rank for people searching for all the specific models you sell. A name like “Stock # 13748A Just Arrived” is not going to rank very high in results or get many views. A video name like “Test Drive the 2011 VW Jetta-Greenville SC” will show up in many more searches and in turn get many more views.
• Tag your videos with keywords to cover model names, locations you target, etc. These  keywords help YouTube and Google know what searches and categories to rank videos for.
• Post to multiple video network websites in addition to YouTube; although YouTube by far ranks the best, other sites like MetaCafe, DailyMotion, and Vimeo also show up well in search results. For our clients, we regularly see videos from multiple channels showing up to fill the top of the search results.
• Customize and monitor your YouTube channel to build your brand identity and exposure. Read our previous blog post on YouTube Marketing Tips for Auto Dealers for more info on this.

For a more in-depth lesson on ranking your car dealership in search with videos, sign up for a free online workshop this Thursday, March 24, at 1:57 PM. 

StumbleUpon, Reddit and Delicious are popular websites that can drive traffic to your website without costing you money or an enormous amount of time. These types of sites were developed to help people discover new and interesting things, and guess what? Your site or blog could be one of the new and interesting things they discover.

In order to truly make StumbleUpon, Reddit or Delicious beneficial to your dealership, you first have to build up a strong foundation. Just like with any social media, it is also important that you convey to the site-community that you are interested in helping them and are not planning to just push a sales pitch at them.

As you add blogs and newsletters to your website, make sure that you add them to social bookmarking sites but don’t forget to go outside your own website too. Other interesting links- like manufacturers sites or car and truck links that might interest people- will help you establish credibility amid the community. Once your profile establishes a positive reputation, the sites you bookmark (like your own dealership site) will become more valuable to followers.

AUTOMOTIVE AGENCY ACCOUNT MANAGER for POTRATZ Would you like to work in an Automotive Advertising Agency as an Account Manager where you will be a key player and be encouraged to learn something new everyday to help our Auto Dealers and Dealer Groups surpass their goals…then read on!

Potratz is a full service digital and traditional automotive advertising agency that focuses on fully integrating our entire portfolio of services to drive results for our clients. Our philosophy is simple…Empower the agency team to drive results for the client and all great things will follow.

Our services include: Media Placement for traditional and interactive, social media marketing, online brand reputation management, behavioral marketing, video search, BDC set up, off site lead management and appointment setting, graphic design, lead generation, custom websites, landing pages, mobile marketing, surveys, TV and radio production, public relations, interactive marketing, and strategic planning.

As an automotive account manager for Potratz you will be responsible for managing existing automotive clients and developing new automotive clients by:

• Initiating and Coordinating Agency Projects
• Presenting and Analyzing reports of the Success of Current and Past Campaigns
• Building Client Relations
• Project Briefs Creation
• Working with Creative Department
• Promotions and Events
• Working Trade Shows NADA, Digital Dealer, JD Power
• Speaking and Presenting to 20 Groups and Dealer Groups
• Facilitating meetings
• Reviewing Ad Copy, Press Releases, RFP's
• Developing Presentations
• Presenting to automotive dealers, dealer groups and internal colleagues
• Staying Current on industry trends, account moves, and personnel moves among prospect organizations

Account Manager Qualifications

5+ years of Automotive Marketing or Agency/Advertising experience
Bachelor’s degree
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Strong project management skills
Strong sales and presentation skills
Outstanding relationship building skills
Ability to handle fast paced, demanding work load

If you become part of Potratz then you can expect an above average salary, performance based bonuses/profit sharing, health insurance, 401k with matching funds and learning in a fast paced automotive marketing environment. To apply, send your letter of interest and resume to jobs@ppadv.com.

In today's Potratz online workshop, Dan talked about ways to enhance the look and features of your auto dealership's Facebook business page. One way to give a page a true "custom" feel is to add custom tabs with branded images, content, etc. In our experience with automotive advertising on social media, we find that the more customized the page, the more people like it, and the more time they spend on it.

It's fairly simple to add a tab with a very basic knowledge of HTML code--Facebook has its own code called FBML (Facebook Markup Language) that's similar to HTML and lets you add images, format text, add links, and more. This is something that any web designer can help with; at Potratz, we have created several customized tabs for our clients with graphics for specials, promotions, and more.

Even if you didn't get to attend today's webinar, you can learn how to add a Custom FBML tab to your car dealership's Facebook page that will let you add content to promote sales, service, social contests, and more. Visit this post on our site to download a free PDF instruction sheet showing you how to easily add a custom tab to your Facebook business page.

Q&A websites like Quora, Aardvark and LinkedIn Answers are gaining popularity in the social media spear, and people are looking for answers. Answers about cars, about servicing cars, about car parts and about where to buy cars. So the question is- as an auto dealership- are you an expert in the car industry?

People buy from people. Q&A sites can enhance your dealership’s reputation by establishing your credibility on automotive topics. By  contributing to these sites you can demonstrate your expertise in the automotive industry, and keep your dealership  top of mind when a potential customer needs a new vehicle, requires service, or needs to buy a part for their car. These sites go beyond the marketing pitch and not only highlight you as an expert but also give people a reason to buy from you instead of XYZ Auto down the street.

From an automotive advertising standpoint, Q&A sites like Quora, Aardvark and LinkedIn can help brand your dealership on the internet and drive traffic to your site, ultimately increasing car shopper leads . Q&A pages rank well in organic search results since they contain frequently updated content and are engaged often by users commenting, scoring and voting on these pages.


 

Do you have a social media strategy for your dealership? Maybe you’ve met with your marketing department or your management team to discuss how you should go about posting to Facebook or Twitter. The discussions and the opinions can be endless- who should post, how often, what to post and what time of day and on and on and on.

Unfortunately, during all this planning and strategizing we often forget the key to automotive advertising and social media: being social! Social media users don’t want to have marketing messages constantly taking up space on their “Facebook Wall” or their “Twitter Feed.” Which means your content needs to be strong enough- and interesting enough- that your users won’t click the dreaded “x” on their news feeds that will hide your posts or decide to un-follow your Twitterfeed.

By creating an interactive social media plan, you allow the user to be a part of the community that you are creating. Instead of posting your weekly ads and or your brand new inventory, try posting polls about your cars, pose interesting questions to the people who “like your page”, create fun surveys and apps– give your users a reason to engage in your page and be social with your dealership.