Successful marketing isn’t always about competition. Counterintuitive as it may seem, collaborating with other local businesses on marketing efforts can grow your brand and put you far ahead of your market competitors.

An example:

Last week I went to purchase a new gym membership. When I walked up to the counter, I noticed a small cardboard sign: “Bring us a ticket stub from [the newly-built movie theater next door], and we’ll waive your new-membership initiation fee.” I thought that was pretty smart on the movie theater’s part. But it didn’t end there.  When I finished working out, I went by the smoothie shop in the next shopping plaza. Guess what? I noticed a little cardboard sign on their counter: “Bring us a ticket stub from [the same movie theater], and get a coupon for a free smoothie during your next visit.”

The movie theater’s move here was genius – they’re a new business, so they’re utilizing their local “peer” businesses to help garner attention and attract business. The theater, at the same time, is reciprocating by sending more business to the gym and the smoothie shop. It’s a win-win situation, and none of the three companies loses business to the others.

Business marketing consultant Diane Eschenbach explains, “By properly networking with other local businesses . . . you can expand your reach, more than double your word-of-mouth referrals, and become more easily ingrained in your community.”

Here are a few tips for making collaborative marketing work for your dealership:

Prospect.  Your first step to partnering with other local businesses is, of course, to find other local businesses to partner with. Eschenbach recommends joining your local chamber of commerce and other municipal organizations, and attending every meeting or event possible. You might also find local branches of groups such as the National Small Business Association, National Business Association, or National Association of Women Business Owners. Attending meetings and networking events is integral to prospecting the community for business partnerships. This article from Business2Community provides a list of business organizations you might join as a starting point.

Do your research.  Once you’ve identified a few businesses you think you might want to collaborate with, do your research before reaching out to them. This is a sales pitch in a sense, and you’ve got to know your “customer.” Eschenbach suggests finding out each business’s “vision, their specialties, their target demographics”, and incorporating those things into variable word tracks. That way, when you approach each business, you can customize what you say, work in phrases and buzzwords that specifically relate to that company, and effectively show them how this marketing partnership can really benefit them. Be sure that when you reach out, you’ve already got a proposed marketing campaign to share.

Test it out. CEO and Forbes.com contributor Deborah Sweeney recommends implementing a trial period for your new partnership marketing campaign, and measuring how much and what kind of customer engagement and reaction you garner. “In some cases,” says Sweeney, “you may need to go back to the drawing board. In the meantime, be 100% invested in the partnership. Know what you want, what your partner wants, what the customers want, and how you can make that happen to satisfy everyone.”

Partnering with other local businesses in the community is a great way to get your brand out there into the community and attract new and repeat business without breaking the bank, and it allows you to network to build and foster relationships in the community.

Earlier this year, Brad’s wife got fired from Cracker Barrel. You probably heard about it.

In case you’re one of the few who didn’t already know that Cracker Barrel terminated Brad's wife for apparently no good reason, here’s what happened:

Bradley Byrd’s wife (she has a name, by the way -- it’s Nanette) was a retail manager at her local Cracker Barrel in Indiana. She had worked there for eleven years, right up until this past March, when she got fired. We don’t know why she got fired. Neither did Bradley, her husband -- which is why he posted this simple query to Cracker Barrel’s corporate Facebook page: “Why did you fire my wife?” And lo, a social media firestorm was born. 

Fast-forward one week later: Cracker Barrel’s social media pages were pretty much hi-jacked by complete strangers demanding answers and justice for Nanette, who became widely known as  simply #bradswife (the other viral hashtag that arose from this situation: #justiceforbradswife). According to AdWeek, Cracker Barrel’s social media engagement increased by a whopping 226% after Bradley posted his question, and 90% of Cracker Barrel’s digital engagement between March 22 and March 27 was “Brad’s Wife-related.” Basically, the whole world was up in arms about Brad’s wife getting fired -- everyone, that is, except Cracker Barrel itself, which decided the proper course of action was not to so much as acknowledge that anything was amiss.

While we may not know what causes a single, seemingly insignificant social media post to become a global sensation, we can definitely take this as an opportunity to talk about some best practices on how to respond and bounce back in the event your dealership ever experiences something like this (it doesn't have to be global, either. Local disasters happen, too).

Acknowledge the situation.
Whether it’s a product issue, an employee misstep, or a seemingly insignificant post gone rogue, it is absolutely critical to acknowledge the situation immediately. In the case of #bradswife, Cracker Barrel showed us exactly what not to do. The company offered zero comment on the situation; in fact, it continued to update its social media sites with its normal marketing campaigns and advertisements, as if nothing ever happened. This, of course, made things exponentially worse. By ignoring the whole debacle, “Cracker Barrel [came] across as uncaring, unresponsive, and ridiculous, all at the same time. Consumers [we]re angry at a lack of any response or acknowledgement from the company, which result[ed] in even more outraged posts.”



Even if the problem at hand can’t be rectified or addressed right away, it’s important to at least acknowledge that the problem exists. When it came to #bradswife, Cracker Barrel failed to so much as comment that they refused to comment. By flagrantly continuing to post photos of new products and the like, Cracker Barrel gave a virtual middle finger to its customers and what may have been future customers, sending the message that it didn't care what they had to say.


Find the opportunity.
Imagine if Cracker Barrel had made amends with Nanette Byrd and brought her back onto their team. She becomes a celebrity of sorts, and all the supporters who sought #justiceforbradswife become brand ambassadors for the restaurant chain. With the right marketing team and strategy (and, of course, the initial problem having been properly addressed and rectified), it’s a golden opportunity for a whole lot of (free) positive publicity.


Develop a strategy.
Every brand should have a crisis management strategy in place from the get-go. It's kind of like having car insurance: hopefully you’ll never need it, but you don't want to be without it if the need arises. It’s a good idea to put together a "frontline social media team" -- a committee of a few people who are fully invested in the company and are authorized to speak on the dealership's behalf. Make sure those on the committee are empowered and well-informed, so that they can respond as effectively and as quickly as possible. Firebrand suggests starting with these questions as you build your social media crisis response strategy:

• How can the frontline social media team reach the crisis team—especially if a situation arises after normal business hours?

• Once the crisis team has been notified, who will craft the response?

• Who has final approval?

• Who will actually respond to the commenter?

Once you've taken this first step of forming the response team, consider investing in training for them. It doesn't have to be a massive undertaking -- an hour or two of training a few times a year can usually provide enough insight and skills to deal with a negative situation, should one arise. (If this type of publicity firestorm happens to your dealership on a regular basis, your team might need to do a little more than read this article and take a few hours of social media management training).
 

It doesn't have to be this way.
The bottom line is that what seems like a crisis initially doesn’t have to remain a crisis; it all depends on how your dealership responds to the situation. With a little preparation and a well-thought-out response strategy, you can turn a potential disaster into a business-driving asset (or, at the very least, stop it from poisoning your customer base and destroying your reputation and your brand).

THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSONALIZATION IN THE DIGITAL DEALERSHIP

One of the many reasons today’s leading consumer sites have become so successful is the creation of a personalized customer experience. Every purchase, every search, every click, is logged into their systems and into your profile. The first time you use a site like Netflix or Pandora, it’s a blank slate. But every move you make leads to recommendations the next time you visit the site, leading to a personalized service and anticipation of products built up over time that presents options without you even having to ask.

Groundbreaking when it happened, it’s now expected for any and all consumer-facing sites online. And like other technological advances, the auto industry is finally joining the party now. More importantly, Cox Automotive’s media solutions brands have collaborated so that the personalized customer experience is integrated across all websites and pages.

Dealer.com’s Website Experience Optimization is a breakthrough for dealership websites. The product saves dealers time and money by deploying inventory and fixed ops marketing content, specials, and assets automatically on the site. This all happens in a consumer-friendly shopping experience that personalizes the content for car buyers.

With the integration of Cox Automotive company websites Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book, the Dealer.com’s technology automatically delivers curated inventory for each individual shopper based on their online shopping behavior. The technology is so advanced that this happens even on the customer’s first visit to the website.

So for example, if a shopper is browsing SUVs on Autotrader and looking for trade values on Kelley Blue Book, those searches and data are merged together into a dealer’s digital showroom so that the customer only sees the most relevant vehicles and offers when they visit your dealership’s site. The integration between Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book, and the dealer website, helps deliver a more relevant consumer experience and accelerates the path to purchase. Experience Optimization generally results in click through rates two to two and a half times higher on personalized content than on non-personalized content.1

The Dealer.com Website Experience Optimization technology will be featured at the Driving Sales Executive Summit Innovation Cup Product Showcase in Las Vegas, October 22-24, 2017.

Using this type of technology is essential for today’s dealer in today’s car-buying environment. Bringing today’s personalized experience to car-buying may not be revolutionary, but it is an essential asset that all dealers need to remain competitive.

1 Dealer.com Homepage Personalization Test, August 2017

Bob George is Senior Director of Website & Platform Products at Dealer.com.

CONTACT:
Lisa Hagendorf
Centerpiece Public Relations
lisa@centerpiecepr.com

DRIVE MOTORS HIRES FORMER SHOWROOM LOGIC CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER TO EXPAND EXECUTIVE TEAM AS SVP OF CONSUMER EXPERIENCE

San Francisco-based Tech Company Leverages Recent $5.2M Fundraise to Make Key Hire

SAN FRANCISCO (October 3, 2017) -- Drive Motors, which builds ecommerce solutions for the largest car dealerships and dealers in the country, announced today that Matt Weinberg will be joining the team as Senior Vice President of Consumer Experience. Mr. Weinberg joins the company from Showroom Logic, an automotive digital-marketing company, where he was their Chief Strategy Officer.

"I’m excited to join the team during this pivotal phase for Drive Motors, a company that’s uniquely positioned as the online-checkout pioneer in the automotive space," said Mr. Weinberg, who will be based in South Florida. "As the company continues to develop consumer-friendly features that will streamline the future of car buying, I’m looking forward to expanding our dealership network and driving those efforts.”

An industry veteran, Mr. Weinberg brings nearly 20 years of automotive experience to his new role at Drive Motors. His responsibilities include engaging with the nation’s largest dealer groups to create online strategies that drive the best consumer experience. Additionally, he will be growing a team of automotive ecommerce experts that will help dealers seamlessly deliver online checkout to car buyers, nationwide. He started his career in the car business in 1994, working at several dealerships in automotive retail and ecommerce. He left the retail side of the industry in 2005, becoming Territory Manager, Southeast U.S., for Izmocars, an automotive web-solutions provider.

"Matt’s in-depth knowledge of the psychology and behavior of the American automotive consumer, combined with his passion for partnering with dealers and driving their online success, will be a tremendous asset in scaling our growth,” said Aaron Krane, CEO and founder of Drive Motors. "With Matt newly on board and rounding out our executive team, we now can elevate our product offerings to the next level, bringing the future of car buying to dealers and consumers, today."

In August 2017, Drive Motors announced that it raised $5.2 million in total funding with the completion of its seed round, led by Bullpen Capital, with participation from existing investors: Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, Perkins Coie LLP, Emagen Entertainment Group, and others.

Drive Motors transforms car-dealership websites and showrooms into ecommerce destinations, and, since completing Y Combinator’s incubator program in 2016, has grown to over 1,000 car orders per month and $250 million in annual order volume for its dealership customers.  

About Drive Motors
Drive Motors builds ecommerce experiences for auto dealerships. For dealerships, Drive Motors offers an online-checkout experience that integrates effortlessly into their own website and showroom, and transforms their dealership into an ecommerce destination. For buyers, Drive Motors offers a simple, end-to-end checkout experience that removes sales pressure from the showroom, and lets people buy at home in their comfort zone. For more information, visit drivemotors.com/dealers and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

It’s the goal of every business to make money - and how can we do that? By increasing gross sales. And how do we do that?“

There is more than one way to skin a cat, as they say in Georgia,” says W. Scott Wheeler, founder and president of Automotive Consultants Group, Inc. Similarly, there are many ways to increase gross sales – increasing car count is one of the most common. That said, in many instances, increasing car count works. But it’s not the only KPI worth focusing on. If you only look at car count, it could cause problems for your shop down the road, whether by overworking technicians or maxing out facility, says Wheeler. He adds that increasing car count is often viewed as a “Band-Aid for all issues” and that it’s important to ensure it’s the best way to increase your gross sales before you implement it."

“Before you go to raise car count, is that the real problem?” Wheeler asks. Again, increasing car count can be effective, but in order for it to happen you have to look at other KPIs and make sure they’re working.

There’s a misconception that increasing car count will automatically increase gross sales, Wheeler says. Some other KPIs you should assess before making the decision to increase car count include: average repair order, gross profit margins, net operating profit, productivity, and efficiency. Track these on a daily basis; it’s important to know how your shop is doing every day, says Wheeler. Wheeler himself gives clients his version of a KPI tracker in Microsoft Excel.

The first step is to identify the right car count benchmark you should be hitting consistently. Ask yourself:

• What is your current car count?
• What are your current gross sales?
• What NOP are you trying to achieve?
• What are your GPMs?

If your current numbers aren’t matching up, it might be time to evaluate what you need to work on before you resort to increasing car count. Every shop has a “sweet spot,” explains Wheeler, but they’re all different, and exact numbers for each will vary.

Wheeler suggests also considering these five factors before increasing car count:

• Physical space. How much increased car count can your shop handle? Eventually you’ll reach your maximum capacity.
   
• Technicians relative to car count. You need enough technicians to handle however many cars you have, or you’ll run into obvious problems. If your shop is smaller, says Wheeler, you need to know what your technicians are capable of (i.e., efficiency and productivity). If you end up with too many cars, warranties might go up as technicians may be more prone to error under pressure or if they feel too rushed. Watch your warranty numbers; if they go up, you’re pushing your facility’s limits and your technician’s capabilities, warns Wheeler.
   
• Technician-to-service-writer ratio. Increasing car count will increase the number of phone calls coming in, so you’ll have a high demand for your service writers and technicians. According to Wheeler, a good ratio is 3 technicians to 1 service writer.
   
• Marketing efforts. With more cars, you’ll need more business. To get more business, you may need to increase your marketing efforts. Wheeler recommends offering promotions, such as a free oil change upon referring three customers. You need to know your ROI on marketing, Wheeler says, if you’re going to do additional marketing. If you double your car count, you should in theory send out double the mailers.
   
• Productivity. It should be at 100 percent or higher, says Wheeler. If it’s not, adding more to your car count won’t fix anything. If your shop is operating at full productivity, though, increasing car count will help. The higher the productivity, the more car count you can handle - but find out how soon until your techs are maxed out. If need be, hire an additional technician. 

Aside from increasing car count, what are some other ways you have successfully increased gross in fixed ops?

If you’re not utilizing influencer marketing as part of your digital strategy, you’re missing out on one of the most valuable marketing opportunities out there today. Nearly 84% of marketers say they plan to implement at least one influencer campaign in the next twelve months, and for good reason. Influencers have the reach and the sway to raise brand awareness and drive brand loyalty in ways with which traditional methods simply can’t compete. Here’s a basic breakdown of what you need to know about influencer marketing and how to get started.

What it is (and what it’s not).

The internet offers varying definitions of the term influencer marketing, but I find a definition from the influencer relationships management company Traackr to be the most comprehensive and concise: They define influencer marketing a s“the process of identifying, researching, engaging, and supporting the people who create high-impact conversations with customers about your brand, products, or services.” Essentially, influencer marketing is a strategy by which a brand  (most often) pays or otherwise compensates a key culture or thought leader in a target niche to create and relate content promoting certain products or services.

Influencer marketing generally incorporates two main, intertwining components: social media and content. According to influencer marketing company TapInfluence, “Many influencer campaigns have some sort of social media component, whereby influencers are expected to spread the word through their personal social channels.” This often includes “a content element in which either you create content for the influencers, or they create the content themselves.” The nature of this content component is one of the main factors differentiating an influencer campaign from, for example, a celebrity endorsement. With celebrity endorsements, it is presumed that the brand being endorsed has created the content -- the article, advertisement, commercial -- in which the celebrity appears. Conversely, in an influencer campaign, “the influencer, not the brand, is perceived to be the creator of the entire message.” Additionally, while any celebrity can recite a given script, influencers are almost always people who are considered experts or leaders in their field or niche, which is only sometimes the case with celebrity endorsements.

Influencer marketing is also not the same as advocate marketing, which involves having existing customers provide testimonials or reviews about the brand and its products or services. Influencers, who are almost always paid or otherwise compensated, aren’t necessarily existing brand loyalists or even customers of the brand; they are hired because of their influence they already exert over a particular audience.

Why you should incorporate influencer campaigns into your current marketing strategy.

Marketers use influencers to raise brand awareness and increase sales by placing their product or service in front of an audience that (a) is already interested in the type of product or service the brand offers, and (b) already paying attention to the person who is talking about the brand. Even beyond that, though, “[c]ontent created for [influencer] campaigns contributes to overall SEO, benefits other marketing efforts through redistribution, and continues to inspire sales.”

Target Audience. An effective influencer has direct access to consumers who are already interested in the type of product or service your brand offers. They engage with their followers on a regular basis, and they know their audience well. “In many cases,” according to blogging platform Bloglovin, “influencers have spent years growing their readership. They know what products and types of content their audiences enjoy best.” This eliminates a need to track down and seek out members of your target niche, and dissolves the concern that your message may not be reaching its intended audience.

Trust.  Through their continuous engagement with followers, influencers have built up a level of trust and loyalty in their audience that is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with traditional advertising methods. Need proof? A recent study by Twitter found that:

• 49% of consumers seek purchase guidance from social media influencers.
• 20% said that a Tweet from an influencers inspired them to share their own product recommendation.
• Nearly 40% said they had made a purchase as a direct result (a direct result!) of an influencer.

These numbers are huge, and they simply can’t be ignored in today’s digital marketing landscape.

How to get started.

Now that you know you need to invest time and money in influencer marketing, let’s talk about some basic steps to help you get started.

1.  Identify your target audience.

You first need to identify which influencers are right for your brand and marketing goals. Christina Newberry, from social media management platform Hootsuite, recommends considering the “three Rs” -- relevance, reach, and resonance.

• Relevance.  Fairly self-explanatory. Your best influencers will be ones whose primary audience is focused on and interested in the the kinds of things you’re offering. For example, if I’m an aspiring pop singer, I’d want to seek out established pop singers with a strong following (think Taylor Swift). On a smaller scale, if I’m a car dealer, I might want to partner with a local racecar driver with a loyal following in the community.
• Reach. Reach refers to how many people you reach with your campaign. The natural inclination here is to think that the more followers an influencer has, the more successful the campaign will be. But that’s not necessarily the case. In fact, Markerly, an influencer marketing platform, recently conducted a survey of more than two million social media influencers, and found that “partnering with ‘micro-influencers’” -- in particular, influencers with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers -- “can provide much better ROI than trying to snag a big celebrity.”
• Resonance.  Newberry describes resonance as “the potential level of engagement the influencer can create with an audience that’s valuable and relevant to your brand.” A prime example of this is the partnership between Lynda.com and YouTube personality Jack Douglass and his channel called jacksfilms. Lynda, a site that offers online courses in business, technology, and creative skills taught by industry experts, enlisted Jack to promote its site to his nearly three million subscribers. Jack challenged his followers to try a Lynda course for free, use the skills they learned to create videos, objects, songs, and the like, and then submit their creations to be featured in one of his videos. He provided the link for Lynda below his videos, and the submissions came rolling in -- a prime example of strong resonance in an influencer campaign.

2.   Build a Relationship.

Once you’ve selected several potential influencers, it’s time to start building relationships with them. As with any relationship, you should be sure to take things slowly; you don’t propose to someone on a first date, and you don’t ask someone to promote you before you’ve created value for them. Start by making some quality, value-evidence (not self-promotive!) posts and comments on their pages, and then, eventually reach out. Scott Ludwig, writing for content marketing platform Skyword, emphasizes the importance of showing them that “you’re a person and that you’re actually interested in their business objectives before ever talking shop.” And Bob Pearson, president of the W20 group and the brains behind J.K. Rowling’s massive marketing success, boils it down to this: “It’s really old-fashioned relationship-building applied to the new ways of doing things.”

Now that you’ve established a relationship, reached out, and entered into the necessary agreements with your influencers, effective and respectful communication is key. You should be constantly empowering your influencers with material that is relevant to your mutual objectives and that can help them create content relating to your brand. Ludwig suggests providing them with a steady flow of quality sources and information, including items such as articles, videos, e-Books, white papers, press releases, event tickets, and interviews with experts and industry leaders. It’s also important (again, as in any relationship) to be respectful. Remain open to your influencers’ opinions and suggestions -- after all, they know their audience better than anyone.

3. Measure Your Results.

Finally, measure the results of your efforts. You may want to invest in an influencer tracking and program management platform to help you track things like hashtags, mentions, views, and engagement, since measuring these can be tricky. Tracking and measuring the results of your influencer campaigns is no different, and no less important, than measuring the results of your other marketing efforts: monitor, measure, and change or adjust as needed.

Remember, urges Newberry, “that influencer marketing is one of the hottest marketing trends right now, but you still need to do your research, ensure your efforts align with your overall marketing strategy, and test and track your results to improve performance[.]”

So much killer insight in this video. To get to the related content, skip to 5:10 in the video. 

In a nutshell, here's Gary's roadmap for marketing using DM:

• search hashtags
• look at the account
• see what brings them value
• DM them
• overwhelm them with value

Has anyone done any successful Instagram marketing using DM?