There is a lot of great information in here already, and being that it was 10 pages long I thought for sure, somewhere hidden amongst the clever ideas and secret tips, I would have heard Joe's mumblings of a new resolution for 2011 that involved social media as his number 1 marketing tool and the rest of the post was a victory for everyone that's been instrumental in Joe's evolution.
Ok, backing up to the reality that Joe is far from being "reborn" as a social media fairy waving his magic wand over the heads of those who doubt unicorns do exist.
What defines social media?
Conversation.
What defines an automotive social media strategy?
A conversation about cars.
What defines success?
More cars sold? - hold that thought.
Consider these questions, just answer yes or no.
1. Can your business be successful without ANY word of mouth business?
2. Can your business be successful without ANY advertising, marketing or promotion?
3. Would you be considered having a success if you made the same amount of revenue at your dealership as you made in 1987?
If the
answer is yes to any of those questions, then
you do not need a website, SEO, social media, or anything other than a building in which people will come and buy your stuff. Just keep on doing what you're doing.
Now since it's unlikely that you've answered yes to any of those questions, lets consider the ones you answered no to.
If you answered No to #1 then you must rely on it to some extent (actually this should be a known percentage you can rattle off because its likely more than 20-30%).
What if you knew that for every 100 people that referred you business, 20 of them bought cars. Out of that 20, because they were referred and obviously rely on that type of decision making and offer it to others they know, lets say 5 of them are likely to refer others to you.
Now, take those 5 and think about who you'd most want them to be. How about one's a lawyer, ones a school teacher, ones a hairdresser, one works at Google, one works at Macy's.
Actually, one of them
has a blog, quite a popular blog actually. Turns out when they refer people, they aren't talking one-on-one, they speaking to thousands who read their blog. Thousands of like minded people, with similar interests, who share the same tastes, like the same food, go to the same movies, etc........
Would it be a wise idea to perhaps learn a little more about what appeals to the person who bought the car the most and
create a page or two of content on that subject?
So now, instead of having a cookie cutter site, you have pages of content that were developed for
a particular audience, one that is very
likely to buy because of the
blog that regularly influences them.
Now, sure sounds easy, but here's the hard part. How to actually get the results you want. Well, I'm going to assume you've never measured your site in this way before so it may take awhile to grasp what people are looking for but once you do imagine creating products based on demand, because people have actually asked for it.
This is why advertising and social media currently clash. People are being "advertised to" - here.... buy this product!
That will change because why would you want to "try and sell something that you are NOT 100% sure your customers want".
Ford and Mercedes (others I'm sure now too) have Pandora streaming, not because they wanted to offer something that was free, but because it was a feature that customers WANTED. Ford is even developing an Open API - think Apple's App Store for your car.
If you keep in mind the things that people want, you'll no longer have to sell, all you'll have to do is give enough reassurance that they'll have a great experience (through blogging) and one that they'll be dying to share (you made them feel important) and one that they've been waiting all their lives for (to fall in love with the perfect vehicle that has everything as if it were manufactured and engineered for them personally).
Most dealers seem to want to pass this off on manufacturers to worry about, but in my opinion it's the actual dealership where the experience occurs so making it an extraordinary experience will likely be years ahead of the competition.
So if you're looking for an ROI on social media, think about whether the above makes sense and if not then I'd suggest reading some books like
"The Referral Engine" by John Jantsch
John Jantsch | The Referral Engine
"Made to Stick"
Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die | by Chip and Dan Heath ::
And a great one on SEO by Vanessa Fox
Nine by Fox blog: words from Vanessa Fox - Nine By Blue
Read SEO blogs like
Internet Marketing Blog | SEO Blog | Outspoken Media - (side note, you'll be surprised at who comments on this one)
In Vanessa's book, there are some great lines like "before diving into search data, you should clearly define your business goals."
"What is the primary goal of the business?"
- To get potential buyers into the dealership perhaps -
If the above was to "sell cars" then you might be missing the most lucrative spot in the buying cycle because the fact that most people don't "like" going to the dealership, they're only going once they've made up their minds on exactly what they want and have done all the pricing and research and have come in to grind away on price, and could care less if they get treated well because they just want the car at the price they have in mind.
If you know your closing rate for people who step foot into the dealership, then having more people come to the dealership would be considered a good business objective.
The most powerful and engaging content on Facebook is photos, specifically photos that you've been tagged in get nearly a 100% CTR from emails so think about that when you're deciding about whether or not to have a "clinic" at your dealership where pics are then shared on facebook.
The reason that most discredit or doubt social media is that it's very hard and takes a long time to become important enough for even one out of 1000 visitors to leave a comment. This is because so many blogs and other sites are setup by content scrapers, ie. nobody cares or hears the comment that someone took the time to write, so why bother.
On the other hand, what if you're service department was on Twitter, and the minute any one of their customers so much as gets a check engine light, they are instructed to tweet it and the dealer responds with some great info to set their mind at ease if it's no big deal, or with three available appt times based on the customers preference on scheduling such visits. (if all it takes is a simple warning light to get people into the dealership, well what are you waiting for, get this out there and let people from the competitors dealership get free oil changes when they come in for service)
