How Car Dealerships Should Be Marketing in 2017 🚗💨

It’s pretty simple, dealerships:

If you live in the world today and do not produce (at scale) these 4 things: videos, audio, graphics/images, and written words for social on a mobile device, you are invisible & irrelevant.

Is that clear enough?

There’s so much waste & confusion going on in the dealership model. With old school allocations of marketing $$$, not leveraging the people resources & data you have, and half-assing social, digital, and content (mainly because you have the wrong people or vendor doing it), I’m thinking of opening up a dealership so I can smash on all of you who are stuck marketing like it’s 2005.

Think about it, dealerships have salespeople fidgeting with their phones & twiddling their thumbs during their downtime (which is often) when they should be acting like a media company (because we are all one now) by producing content daily, engaging in an Employee Advocacy Program, and listening & engaging with people – we call this “working the digital cocktail party” (this is the sawdust of the industry and it must be used to create more value for the dealership and your people).

So, GM’s and Owners: why aren’t you giving them the tools, strategy, and creating the conditions to start producing content for the dealership and to help them sell & build rapport? And why aren’t you investing more resources into the places where all the attention is?

There’s a general rule in advertising that says: the % of your advertising spend should match the % of where your audience’s attention is. That means if the majority of the people who buy your cars spend the majority (medium-wise) of their attention on social, then the majority of your $ should, too.

(If you’d like an example of what we’ve done with some of our dealership clients, send me a message and I’ll send over a case study).

This is about fundamentally changing the way we market & communicate with people – and it must match the shift in how people interact today (not 10 years ago), and where their attention is.

Here’s a few statistics we wrangled up since so many of you like them:

  1. 96% of people discuss dealerships without following their social pages or tagging them.
  • This means, if you’re not using a listening tool, you’re missing some opportunity.
  • People are asking buying-related questions daily on social and you’re not listening. You wouldn’t ignore someone asking in person, would you?! Don’t ignore them on social.
  1. 81% of people have used social media to communicate directly with dealerships, yet 64% of social messages are ignored by dealerships.
  • And no, your bot system or outsourced, canned responses don’t count as a response. Have you reviewed this lately?! I’ve witnessed SO many leads lost in this process alone.
  • Stop being so push-centric & engage with people. You wouldn’t ignore them in person, would you?! Don’t ignore them on social. This is the dawn of 1-on-1-one marketing.
  • Listen more than making people listen to you – it’ll pay dividends.
  1. 67% of people want meaningful relationships with car brands, yet only 17% of them think car brands provide them.
  • We aren’t selling on social; we’re creating the conditions that people want to buy from. This is how you can clearly differentiate yourself from your competitors.
  • We spend so much time auditing (via social secret shops) dealerships interactions digitally/socially – and they are SO bad. But this is great; it’s an opportunity to differentiate the experience.
  1. 79% of people would rather buy from a dealership they feel is authentic and has humanized themselves.
  • Um, duh. Trust, authenticity, familiarity – those are tenets of selling. So storytell & humanize yourself & team. People don’t buy the products & services we sell, they buy the stories we tell.

How do you learn how to do this? Well, you learn how to do this stuff by doing it. Not by reading it in this blog or having someone tell you about it. Actually, not by doing it, but by doing it wrong, first. So, start. The expectation is the initiation

For those of you who know me – and my little mantra – (I’m all for giving away eggs to sell a chicken) – here’s your egg:

Idea #1:

  1. Monitor social conversations in – let’s say – Ventura & Santa Barbara County regarding anything related to cars. Be proactive (not just reactive), answer their questions, become a resource, act like a human, and engage with them. (we throw this word out – engage -, but very few do it).
  2. Then, map which questions are asked most and what people want answers to. Get your marketing dude or dudette (my team) to create content around that interest & need. How much content? Follow the 5x5x5 rule – email me and I’ll elaborate.
  3. Now, get that content in front of those people and become the industry leader & expert in Ventura & Santa Barbara County and lead them down your funnel. Enter the Distribution Strategy.
  4. Plug them into a Social CRM (and your CRM) and build audience profiles. (This one pays dividends long-term).
  5. Then run ads that warm them up BEFORE you spam them with the Lease & APR offers EVERY DEALER blows people up with. Familiarity BREEDS acceptance. It’s a funnel, not a chopping block.

Want to know how to execute these? Want to know how to measure this & which KPIs to use? Want more ideas (eggs)? You know how to get in touch.

In the meantime, please STOP:

  1. STOP – Copying Your Competitors
    • You copy their website (which they all suck and have the worst UI & UE), their ads, their copy, their targeting, their SEO tactics, their SEM tactics, and everything else.
    • WTF?! By definition, this is the opposite of marketing. Same is lame. And if you fit in, you can’t stand out. Be different.
    • You can’t beat what you copy.
  2. STOP – Producing $#!% Content (Inventory, Dealership, People, Ads – Videos & Images)
    • Be real, your images and videos are absolute garbage.
    • You’re likely using some weirdo photo person who comes in on a schedule, wearing headphones, and rushing to finish each car because they’re paid per car and exchange time for money, not value for money.
  3. STOPNeglecting To Understand Your Marketing Expenditures & Metrics
    • I often sit with owners, GM’s, and Internet Directors – and although they act as they know – they can’t truly define what that money looks like in action nor what the metrics REALLY mean.
    • So many times, I find double or triple spending on the same tactic. And occasionally, I’ll find money being spent on something that isn’t being done nor used. SMH.
  4. STOP – Allocating $ To Banner Ads
    • Why? The difference between how people respond to search engine results & banner ads versus social media parallels the difference between how people respond to advertising & how they respond to word of mouth. One is a random, intrusive, faceless encounter that is easily forgotten; the other is a meaningful, engaging, trusting exchange with weight & worth passing along & sharing with others.

Wake up.

 

P.S. Seriously, wake up, be different, take action, and start marketing in the year we actually live in.

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6 Responses

  1. It’s hard at our dealership because the person making the decision doesn’t know this stuff and thinks we should keep stuff as is. I need to get you to come in and talk to our owner. Just sent you an email.

  2. Just read the case study and want to chat with you to figure out how we can do some of this stuff on the Bay Area. We have 7 dealerships up here and I want to start with doing some of this at 3 of them. DM you on Insta or on Facebook.

    1. Just responded, Gerry. I’ll draw it out for you in an email and we’ll connect soon up in your area – a great reason to head up to the Bay and eat some good food.

      Cheers.

    1. Lol. They’re good people doing their job. I just need to show them how to get more out of it and get better at it!

      Good things.

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