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Likes-to-Leads: Creating a Social Sales Funnel
- By autosocial
Tired of watching your boss’s eyes glaze over every time you mention a “20% increase in likes?”
Depressed from hearing your colleagues report on revenue growth while you report on retweets?
Sick of people asking you what it’s like having “the fun job?”
This article is for you.
The truth is; most social media programs today are still lacking a true sales strategy at the core. We do have a social media strategy, you may say. On Mondays, we post a funny tweet, on Tuesday we post a car picture, and on Wednesday, we post statistics.
To this, I say, an editorial calendar is not a strategy. It’s a schedule. To take your social media to the next level, you need to start correlating it to true sales metrics. The good news? You totally can.
Here’s how to do it:
Example of a Social Lead Funnel
Step 1: Create a spring campaign for a free car wash for new Twitter followers (use a service like TwitHawk to geo-target.)
Step 2: When your followers come in for their free car wash, make sure they feel welcome. Have your staff go through shaking hands, handing out lemonade and cookies, and bringing around an iPad asking people if they’d like to sign up for your social channels for more great offers and information.
Step 3: From there, nurture them with content marketing that balances car shopping best practices (How To Speed Through the Car-Buying Process) with marketing about your dealership (Why Lola’s Car Dealership is the Best).
Step 4: Once you’ve nurtured the relationship with about 3-5 pieces of strong content, it’s time to reel them in with some urgency. Send them a deal they can’t refuse: either a service coupon that’s only good for the next three days, or an LTO hefty discount on a car that only lasts for the next two hours. Take a cue from Groupon; the shorter the window, the more people are inclined to act, so don’t be afraid to add an element of adventure and excitement with a super-tight time frame.
This is just one example of a content marketing funnel, and there are many variations you could try.
My overall point is that it’s now fully possible to tie social media to the ROI metrics your Dealer Principal or COE actually cares about: leads and sales. You now have the means to up your game from marginalized maven to basking in the glow of revenue generation with all your digital marketing colleagues. Won’t that feel great?
What have you done at your dealership to help create a Social Funnel? Sound off in the comments!
The Mobile Movement for Your Dealership
This is a guest post by Shawn Petley (eCommerce Director). Shawn and I were discussing mobile strategies in relation to some of stats coming out of the Google Mobile Playbook. Before we ended the call, I asked Shawn if he would like to write an article around our discussion highlighting some of the data from the Playbook...
- Jeff Kershner
Smartphones are embedded into daily life. Understanding the impact of smartphones on consumer behavior is key to reaching today’s on-the-go user and we all need help figuring out what to do in mobile and tablets, Google wants to help us in the form of a “playbook” for the industry.
The Mobile Playbook, offers tips on how we/dealers can better take advantage of mobile. The Playbook starts by asking five “crucial mobile questions” everyone should be asking today:
- How does mobile change our value proposition?
- How does mobile impact our digital destinations?
- How is our organization adapting to mobile?
- How should our marketing adapt to mobile?
- How can we connect with our tablet audience?
Consumers are using smartphones and tablets to find the answers to questions and it’s our goal to answer those questions.
Mobile has a direct correlation with winning ZMOT because:
- 81% of smartphone users access the internet on mobile devices
- 77% use a search engine
- 48% watch videos
- 95% of smartphone users search for local information
- 61% called a business after searching
- 59% visited in person after search
At Google, they believe that our success in mobile will determine the future of our business.
Mobile search queries have grown 5x more in the past year. Mobile is incremental and needs its own budget to maximize exposure. Within the mobile budget you can allocate across mobile search, mobile display, experimental programs, extensions of other channels (email, social, coupons, etc.)
It’s important to note that these searches are incremental to your desktop search traffic, and these different searches create new opportunities. Meaning we need to embrace and leverage mobile ads because 74% mobile internet users are using search engines.
How many of you are using mobile ads?
Mobile ads can help you achieve your goals by connecting you with customers while they're on the go. Mobile ads can help you get new users, more leads and more conversions. Keep in mind that you will see higher phone conversions then eleads. When creating mobile ads add the following call-to-actions.
- Increase your sales and leads with Click-to-call, a clickable phone number right in your mobile ad which makes it as easy as possible for customers to connect directly to your dealer.
- Add ratings and online reviews
- Add location-based ads that target customers who are looking for local dealers and show them relevant info like your dealer phone number and address.
- Add sitelinks to help people get straight to a specific page on your mobile site.
- Add location extensions which display directions to help customers find your dealer. So, if consumers are close enough to your business, a distance marker will show up in the ad indicating how close your dealer is to consumer.
How many of you have a mobile app for your dealership?
Google says “Having an app is not the same as having a mobile strategy. An app is essentially a bookmark for users who want to engage with you, but the majority of your traffic is likely coming from the web, not from brand-loyal power users who’ve downloaded your app.”
Keep in mind, your mobile website is also accessible by users across all devices, while apps must be designed for specific platforms.
But if you have an app you can increase downloads of your apps with click-to-download mobile ad formats. Also check out Google AdMob because you can connect with other apps to increase downloads and get noticed.
Here are some more takeaways from The Mobile PlayBook: The Busy Executive’s Guide to Winning with Mobile:
- Check you mobile website for ease of use and ensure it’s dynamic with your phone number prominent.
- Separate mobile-specific search campaigns from desktop search campaigns so your ads are more relevant.
- Define your value proposition by determining what your consumer wants to do with your dealership in mobile.
- Increase conversions with click-to-call phone number on mobile ads.
- Maximize Email marketing for mobile users. Up to 30% of email opens come from mobile.
- Incorporate location based products and services and make it easy for mobile customers to reach you because local information seeking is common among smartphone users and they are most ready to act on the information they find.
- Develop a comprehensive cross-channel strategy as mobile shoppers use their phones in-store, online and via mobile website and apps to research and make purchase decisions.
- Test, measure and develop messaging specific for mobile
Take 5 minutes today and search for your dealer on a smartphone and tablet as a consumer would. Are you happy with what you see?
What features are you looking to add to you dealers mobile website or mobile app in 2012?
Being a customer is tough
- By john.quinn
- Off Topic & Everything Else
- 6 Replies
Sounds like a squirrel to me... 
Being a customer is tough
- By Alex Snyder
- Off Topic & Everything Else
- 6 Replies
I was born into a dealer group. I never knew what it was like to be a real dealership customer. That all changed when I moved from Virginia to Vermont. I've been paying retail for service, tried to make a deal with a local dealership, and actually listed a car on Autotrader.com all as a consumer. It has been eye-opening! And I now fully appreciate why consumers perceive us to be monsters.
I write this article solely to educate and hope my experiences will at least inspire you to remove your dealer glasses and put on your customer glasses to look at your own operation.
Servicing my cars has been fairly standard, but one of the stores I go to has a luxury brand and a volume brand operating together. The luxury customers have the red carpet rolled out while the volume customers are obviously (and loudly) treated quite poorly. It actually hurts the experience for both customers.
One store's sales department is a very typical sales department. It has a sales tower and the men in that tower make it very obvious they've risen to the rank of manager so they no longer have a need to communicate with customers. The sales agents have been brainwashed into thinking this is acceptable behavior, and are quick to tell you the manager can't talk to you even though he's sitting 5 feet away. Does that sound familiar?
In the interest of time, I went through the Internet department to see if they'd buy one of my cars "off the street." They were excited to get this car because they're tough to come by at the auctions right now. The Internet manager was also excited to have a sure appointment - I assume he is paid on them. I was completely upfront about who I was, my experience in the industry, and that I was completely willing to work around their schedules; preferring to come in at their least busiest time of the day. I even left the car with them for 3 days because they wanted to do their research. Once the research was done they made me an offer and we swiftly came to a price agreement. I then gave them my account information so they could pay my car off directly, and I received an email a few hours later saying they needed to readjust their offer because they missed something in their research. They offered me $200 over my payoff. We were thousands higher originally. I didn't say anything; just grabbed my car and moved on.
Now I'm subscribed to every single email and mail blast this dealer group does for every single brand they sell. I literally receive at least 1 email a day with offers for sales, service, and asking me to be a part of their charities. These emails come from their service CRM, sales CRM, and another well known email-specific platform. I wonder how many times I will have to unsubscribe in order to get off of all their different lists. Crazy!
And then we come to Autotrader.com. I figured I don't want to get too involved with other dealers now, so I'm doing things myself. Listing a car on Autotrader is not the easiest thing to do. I'm not going to dive in will my usability insight, but all I can say is the process is not consumer-friendly. And I'm someone who has added and edited more cars in more inventory management systems than I can count. On top of that, I'm slammed with all sorts of BS offers to help sell my car which are now putting all Autotrader emails into my junk box. I am getting a lot of offers, but I'm missing a few of them because they're going into my junk box too.
Anyway, I just wanted to rant a little bit. It is tough being a consumer and the whole thing adds up to a sour taste in my consumer mouth.
P.S. No, I'm not your typical consumer. No, I didn't meet a salesman. Yes, the coin-operated machine is getting in the way.
I write this article solely to educate and hope my experiences will at least inspire you to remove your dealer glasses and put on your customer glasses to look at your own operation.
Servicing my cars has been fairly standard, but one of the stores I go to has a luxury brand and a volume brand operating together. The luxury customers have the red carpet rolled out while the volume customers are obviously (and loudly) treated quite poorly. It actually hurts the experience for both customers.
One store's sales department is a very typical sales department. It has a sales tower and the men in that tower make it very obvious they've risen to the rank of manager so they no longer have a need to communicate with customers. The sales agents have been brainwashed into thinking this is acceptable behavior, and are quick to tell you the manager can't talk to you even though he's sitting 5 feet away. Does that sound familiar?
In the interest of time, I went through the Internet department to see if they'd buy one of my cars "off the street." They were excited to get this car because they're tough to come by at the auctions right now. The Internet manager was also excited to have a sure appointment - I assume he is paid on them. I was completely upfront about who I was, my experience in the industry, and that I was completely willing to work around their schedules; preferring to come in at their least busiest time of the day. I even left the car with them for 3 days because they wanted to do their research. Once the research was done they made me an offer and we swiftly came to a price agreement. I then gave them my account information so they could pay my car off directly, and I received an email a few hours later saying they needed to readjust their offer because they missed something in their research. They offered me $200 over my payoff. We were thousands higher originally. I didn't say anything; just grabbed my car and moved on.
Now I'm subscribed to every single email and mail blast this dealer group does for every single brand they sell. I literally receive at least 1 email a day with offers for sales, service, and asking me to be a part of their charities. These emails come from their service CRM, sales CRM, and another well known email-specific platform. I wonder how many times I will have to unsubscribe in order to get off of all their different lists. Crazy!
And then we come to Autotrader.com. I figured I don't want to get too involved with other dealers now, so I'm doing things myself. Listing a car on Autotrader is not the easiest thing to do. I'm not going to dive in will my usability insight, but all I can say is the process is not consumer-friendly. And I'm someone who has added and edited more cars in more inventory management systems than I can count. On top of that, I'm slammed with all sorts of BS offers to help sell my car which are now putting all Autotrader emails into my junk box. I am getting a lot of offers, but I'm missing a few of them because they're going into my junk box too.
Anyway, I just wanted to rant a little bit. It is tough being a consumer and the whole thing adds up to a sour taste in my consumer mouth.
P.S. No, I'm not your typical consumer. No, I didn't meet a salesman. Yes, the coin-operated machine is getting in the way.
