How Social Media Can Help a Car Dealership Sell More Cars

Social media has altered the small business landscape. It is not enough for a car dealership to only have a website today, even if it is informational and well-managed. You need social media marketing - it is quick, precise, inexpensive and measurable.

93% of Americans believe a business should have a presence in social media, according to a recent Cone Business School study. 85% believe a business should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media, and 56% of Americans feel they have a stronger connection and are better served by businesses when they can interact with them in a social media environment.

Anyone can have a social media marketing strategy but not everyone can do it right. Here are some ways a car dealership can do it right.

Expense

A car dealership today averages about $550 per car using traditional advertising. With the economy still struggling, it is more important than ever to spend your advertising dollars wisely. The cost of social media networking and marketing is fraction of what the traditional advertisers like TV, radio and print demand – and it reaches a new market that traditional media can’t deliver for you today.

Drive Traffic to Your Website

Over 40 percent of new cars will be purchased through a car dealership’s internet department and that number will grow as consumers become more savvy about the convenience and savings available, according to Edmunds.com. There are many ways to use social networks like YouTube and Facebook to drive traffic to your dealer website. Entertaining commercials, events, loss leaders and distressed merchandise are a few examples. Someone who knows you from a social media network is more likely to visit your website – and your store.

New Selling Opportunities

The sooner your dealership gets its name and message out on the social network sites, the better. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have fan pages that generate leads, leak sales and deliver your message to a huge new untapped market. Facebook alone claims to have 500 million users – and 50% of them visit it every day. That is not a typo – 500 million! You can brand your dealership over time and increase your sales overnight.

Contests and Promotions

As a car dealership, you are very familiar with traditional promotions. Did you know that they are one of the most effective tools in social media marketing as well? You can use them to drive sales, generate leads and brand your business. A recent promotion for an Ipad on a Florida Toyota dealer’s fan page increased the number of fans by over 1000%.  Discounts are a great way to connect with your community. By giving special coupons to your social community, you are telling them you are not only a business to engage with but also one to buy from.

Interact with Your Customers

The reason why they are called “social” networks is because people socialize and interact with each other on them. It is the new word-of-mouth advertising. According to Jeff Kershner of dealerfresh.com, a negative image is one of the biggest fears that keeps a car dealer from embracing social media. But a car dealership is going to have that negative image whether he uses social media or not. And a dealership can change the image by joining a social networking site – almost immediately.

Save money. Sell more vehicles. Learn more about social media and how it can help increase sales at your dealership at www.rhinoautomotive.com

Written by Dan Chambers

Four Steps to Relevant Marketing - Identify, Find, Touch & Thrill

For the most part, dealers are playing by yesterday’s advertising rules when, in reality, the game has changed and the rules are being redefined. Negative media about the money crunch combined with traditional ‘interruption marketing’ tactics by dealers have shaken consumer confidence in the buying process and, in some cases, taken the consumer out of the game altogether.

This may not be happening at your dealership, but it is happening in every market and it is affecting your potential customers. The bottom line is, while the process of buying a car is the same, the consumers’ mind set has changed and so have their options. This needs to be recognized and addressed by dealers, the media and advertising agencies alike.

New times call for new tactics

Relevant marketing campaigns connect with and empower consumers by building solid marketing bridges that complete the link between the buyer and seller. The four simple steps to building relevant campaigns are: Identify, Find, Touch & Thrill the target consumer. If applied correctly, your dealership will have a more efficient media buy and will see an immediate increase in traffic. The best part is you will spend the same amount of money to reach more qualified buyers.

The key is a narrow cast approach

By placing a greater emphasis on the end consumer, media partnerships and relevant creative, you will receive a higher and more accountable ROI for each dollar spent.

Relevant marketing is not a one-size fits all approach. It must be tailored to match the dealer’s culture, brand and model offerings to the geographics, demographics and psychographics of the target consumers. Each campaign is then constructed to fit within the proposed media platform. This will work across TV, radio, print, digital, outdoor and direct mail. Through this approach, you will achieve relevancy across the creative and media mix and hit your target consumer with maximum impact. It is better to be everything to some people than to be some things to everyone.

This process should serve as the foundation of your annual marketing strategy. You can then add quarterly focus and monthly specifics to your plan based on ever changing market conditions and incentives.

Finally, you must ensure consistency across all forms of communications, both internal and external, to maximize consumer recall of your message. One slip up here and you will break the marketing bridge you have spent so much time and money to build.

Take time to challenge your current strategy, management team and advertising agency with the four steps to relevant marketing. You might be surprised by the answers you get. This focused approach will allow your dealership to construct a solid plan to connect with and collect customers rather than just advertise to them.

Thomas Hensey is the Managing Partner at Rhino Marketing, a full-service advertising agency in the automotive sector. Telephone 713-681-6711 or e-mail: thensey@rhinomarketing.cc

Sell More Cars with ‘Referral’ Based Radio Campaigns

If you could, wouldn’t you grow your business off referrals? What if you could combine the effectiveness of referral-based selling with your next radio campaign and get instant, credible and direct response results?

Well, you can, by utilizing referral-based radio campaigns. It’s the most cost effective and credible way to grow your dealership and it can’t be duplicated by the competition on that radio station. Positive word of mouth and a strong referral trumps thousands of dollars in advertising any day.

For over 15 years, Rhino Marketing has successfully used this approach with radio advertising to help dealers around the country sell more cars and gain market share. Properly set up and executed, it will deliver immediate and measurable results and you will never buy radio the same way again.

Select the right radio station and the right DJ

First, you must select the radio station that best reaches your target demographic. You then need to identify the DJ on the station that best connects with the listeners. This is usually the morning drive DJ but depending on the station could also be the mid day or afternoon DJ.

Next, you need to meet with the DJ and ‘sell them the dream’ of why you offer a better product, better selection, better service, better pricing, etc. You want to really ‘showcase’ the dealership and have the DJ become a product knowledge specialist on your vehicles.  It may take several meetings to create the right relationship and may even involve having the DJ ‘test drive’ your cars during the campaign.

‘Live’ radio – not recorded

Once the relationship has been established with the DJ, you then you need to build a schedule based on ‘live’ radio spots, not recorded rotators. ‘Live’ radio commercials blend with the DJ’s editorial. This allows them to ebb and flow with the programming of the day, and many times, you will receive longer than the :60 seconds you purchased. I recommend one to two ‘live’ radio spots each day in the DJ’s day part or show. You don’t necessarily need to buy the station vertically or have a high frequency. Consistency in the day part is what works here and gives the DJ credibility with the listeners over the days, weeks and months.

Creative

Do not write a script and force words into the DJ’s mouth. Provide ‘talking points’ for the DJ to reference during each ‘live’ commercial. The real creative comes from the DJ and their experience with the dealership, the people that work there and driving the cars. The DJ has become a product knowledge specialist and knows your dealership as well as your best salesman. If done correctly, he or she will say “I drive their cars and you should too” OR “I do business with ABC Dealership and you should too”. That referral will immediately separate your dealership from all the other ones advertising on that station, giving you instant and positive credibility and direct response results.

Thomas Hensey is the Managing Partner at Rhino Marketing, a full service automotive advertising agency. Telephone 713-681-6711, e-mail thensey@rhinomarketing.cc or visit: www.rhinoautomotive.com

Brandcasting: Adding Content To Social Media

Has your dealership joined the ‘social revolution’ on the internet yet? Before you answer yes, I am not talking about a website, search engine marketing or e-blasts. Although creating and gathering Facebook friends or even placing commercials and clever videos on YouTube would be considered an entry level attempt.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent each year by major brands, including auto manufacturers, attempting to crack the code on connecting with consumers over the internet in a less intrusive way. The platform they are using is called ‘social media’ and like all new media, it is being defined and re-defined on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

The goal of using ‘social media’ is to connect with and engage consumers over the internet through the sharing of a common interest, passion or relevant and entertaining dialog. This is the “pull” side of messaging your business, in contrast to those you “push” out to the crowd with traditional media. 

Dealers are scratching their collective heads trying to figure out how to pull consumers to their website and keep them there longer. Internet specials, printable coupons and community sponsorship announcements are only valid when the customer is in the market to buy a car or get it serviced.  

Visionary dealers are now attempting to build a bridge between their business and the customer around a shared passion for cars, computers and music. It is called Brandcasting and it is the newest movement on the ‘social media’ front.

Be the media, don’t just rent space on it

More and more dealers are now experimenting with this by launching their own custom radio station over the internet that plays 24/7 and is linked from their own web site. It can be played on any computer or smart phone with the click of a button and even stays on when the customer migrates to another site or to do e-mail. Dealers even play it in their showroom or over their telephone’s on hold to stay connected with the customer. It becomes the soundtrack for their brand. Embedded around the enjoyable variety of music are subtle selling messages for new, pre-owned, financing and service specials.

Brandcasting is a differentiator to stay connected with customers

It opens a new door to welcome customers around something they already are already passionate about – their music. The unique link that’s created between the dealer and customer is exclusive to the dealer and add incredible stickiness to the web site.

Over 60 millions Americans now listen to music on Internet radio each week and that number is growing.

Lexus of Las Vegas seems to have found the perfect blend of Brandcasting. It is called Radio Lexus Driven By Lexus of Las Vegas and you can hear it out at www.lexusoflasvegas.com.  It was produced by RFC Media, one of the leading custom internet radio station providers.

Now when you answer the question about ‘social media’ you can just about dominate the conversation.

Are You HyperLocal? Unleash The True Power Of The Internet

The Internet has become a staple part of the automotive marketing diet. Dealers are investing tens of thousands of dollars each month on their Internet activities (i.e.: Web Site, Facebook, YouTube videos, Blogging, Tweeting, Live Chats, etc.). Many automotive experts now say that the average dealer is spending between 40 – 50 percent of their marketing budget directly on Internet activities – if not more. Are you?

While initial reports on ROI are positive and will only get better as dealers learn what works and what does not, it is still somewhat of a ‘shotgun’ approach to reach and connect with target consumers through the Internet. This is mainly due to the desire to reach everyone who is searching Google for research or pricing on a new car.

Before you buy all your competitors domain names, pay for every search engine key word and banner all the industry web sites, make sure you are super servicing your own backyard through the Internet.

Become HYPERLOCAL with your Internet activities

‘HyperLocal’ is the new buzzword in media and advertising. It is not exclusive to Internet Marketing, although most references pertain to that. You can and should apply it to your traditional advertising thinking as well. It is really ground zero for marketing activities and starts with the location of your dealership and signage on the lot. From there it spreads down the street and into your local neighborhoods.

HyperLocal Marketing focuses on the Internet users in your immediate area and invites them to do business with their neighborhood dealer. If you think you have this covered, then pull your internet sales report and run a quick zip code analysis. Cross reference that data with the streets in a one mile radius of your dealership. You might be surprised to learn that your Internet sales are coming from all over town, but not from your own neighborhood.

Address this opportunity with your IT department or advertising agency and start reaping the rewards of being HyperLocal immediately. For pennies on the dollar, they can geo-target your Internet exposure right down to the homes and businesses next door, down the street, and in your local neighborhoods. Once you have this 100% covered, then all the other coverage you receive on the Internet will be a bonus.

After 90 days, cross reference your sales reports against the streets in your immediate area and you will see the results for yourself. Dealers who have adopted this approach have been shocked with the sales they were missing from their own backyard. This minor adjustment in focus with your Internet strategy will deliver amazing and immediate results.

Now that you have applied HyperLocal Marketing to your Internet campaigns, do the same thing to your above-the-line advertising. It works across any medium you can zone.