By contacting a dealership’s customers as a third party, my staff has the ability to be an agent for building customer satisfaction and also to “hear” and document what their customers are saying.

Take a moment to read an excerpt of an email that Jessica wrote to one of our clients after her calls from the previous night:

On another note there was one customer that seems to be a loyal customer to you (purchased 3 cars from you) but mentioned a few things to me that could cause him not to write a totally positive review at this time – I did not send him details on how to post as a result. Here are the details of his comments:

I spoke to a gentleman named David, who was with Jennifer _______ during her purchasing experience – Jennifer is the name on the customer list you provided to me. First, David mentioned that he felt as though the Sales Manager over-estimated things during the process, even after they were already finishing up the contract.

Second, they are still waiting for a new key remote for the vehicle because the original key remote doesn’t seem to work all the time – he mentioned 8 out of 10 times it doesn’t work. After a couple weeks now, they still never got the other key and the one time they went in to get the service done they were told that they didn’t have the key. David dealt with John, the service manager – red team, that day.

David did not seem extremely angry, just concerned as to why this hasn’t been taken care of yet. I felt as though he would not be able to give you the high rating we are looking for in this IRM campaign, at this time. However, if things get settled with David please let me know because a 3-time customer is always a great candidate to write a review.

Intercepting Negative Reviews

The beauty of a monthly IRM process, that we provide for car dealers, is that in addition to getting customers to post positive reviews on websites like Google Maps, InsiderPages, DealerRater, Yelp and CitySearch our clients get feedback, if there are problems.

This customer felt comfortable to share their frustration with an independent agency because we made them feel that their opinion was important. We asked them about their experience and they told us their concerns. This issue most likely would never have been escalated to the General Manager of the dealership. Worst, this could have resulted in a negative review being posted or the dealership losing the confidence and business of a loyal customer.

Now the dealership can respond and resolve the concerns of a multiple purchase customer.

IRM Must Be Part of Your 2010 Internet Marketing Budget

I bring this up because in 2010 the power of the consumer will continue to dominate automotive digital marketing articles and strategies. Car dealers should be implementing an IRM strategy that utilizes defensive and offensive reputation management strategies. Social media strategies and IRM strategies have to be tied together in the coming year if not already.

Ignore this part of your 2010 Internet Marketing strategy and any disgruntled customer will go online and light your dealership on fire! If you have not invested in a good IRM strategy, those negative posts will be all that consumers see and you will be missing valuable sales.

Google Maps is one of the most powerful sources for dealership phone calls. How many positive reviews are showing on your Google Map listing? Negative?

That’s your PUBLIC billboard and that’s not the  one that people are seeing.

If you don’t like what you see, get the help from an IRM professional and don’t forget to clean up your internal processes at the same time.

Happy New Year and I’ll see you at Boot Camp in February!

Brian Pasch, CEO
Pasch Consulting Group
www.dealer-seo.com
http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

Having a strong social media strategy is a key for car dealers wanting to be successful in 2010 and beyond. While using social media for marketing isn’t new, it has hit a tipping point this year that has brought it into focus and made it a “must have” aspect of any car dealer’s advertising arsenal.

This is one part of a five part series that will be posted on various sites. It covers the basics: a 30,000 foot view of the various social media sites as well as easy, practical ways that the sites can be used.

Why Do Car Dealers Need Social Media?

If you haven’t heard, social media is big. It’s getting bigger. In America, more time is spent on either Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or blogs than the rest of the Internet combined.

The challenge is that these sites do not have a straight-forward approach to marketing in the automotive sector. People do not visit these sites normally with the expectation of find their next vehicle purchase. Having a strategy that utilizes the strengths and tendencies of these sites rather than spamming on them is the key to success.

In other words, don’t try to beat them. Join them. Here’s how:

Involvement, Conversation, Engagement

It’s not what most businesses want to hear. Most would prefer to write a check and wait for the leads and sales to start rolling in. Social media doesn’t work like that. These sites are built around the I.C.E. principle. To reach the right people and have them hear your message, you (or someone at your dealership) must get involved, participate in conversations, and engage people on their terms.

• Involvement – Being conscious of the heartbeat of a social network is imperative if you want to know how to go forward. In other words, knowing what a hashtag does on Twitter, where someone’s wall is Facebook, how to annotate on YouTube, and who to put on your blogroll on WordPress is as important as knowing 5-liner or a 4-square is in the automotive industry.
• Conversation – Most car dealers are laser-focused on getting their inventory and specials out to as many people as possible. As a result, they miss the most important aspect of social media – the conversation. It’s a strange paradox, but the more inventory you post, the less it will be seen.
• Engagement – Social Media is all about engagement. People don’t just want to hear about you and your dealership. They want you know and hear what they are saying as well. Engagement “earns’ you the right to do more marketing on these sites. Without it, your marketing efforts will not be heard.

These are very general descriptions, but the comprehensive training and understanding will be available in more detail later. For now, it’s important to grasp the concepts, and there’s no better way to grasp the concepts than by seeing how it all works in practice.

Putting It All Together

There are literally hundreds of valid social media sites that can be useful to car dealers. Here, we’re going to focus on the 4 most important: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and blogging.

If you have those 4 covered, you have a nearly complete car dealer social media strategy. Sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, and hundreds of others also have their uses in the automotive industry, but the 4 mentioned above are the “must haves” in car dealer social media.

Luckily, they can all work together.

Below you will see an example. We take one event, a weekend tent sale and cookout, and demonstrate how these 4 social media sites can be combined into a fluid and comprehensive social media campaign.

Car Dealer Social Media Example

Scenario: Your dealership is having a tent sale this weekend. You will have a couple of grills going with burgers and hotdogs, loads of balloons, and some prizes to give away.

Before the Sale

• Post to your blog describing what/when/where. Be sure to mention anything special about the event, ie prizes, food being served, 1-day-only discount prices, etc.
• Post the event to your Facebook fan page linking to the blog post. Make it a short paragraph focusing on the key points and mention one “quirky” item. For example, you could end it with, “Stan claims to be the Grill Master Supreme of Cincinnati. Take the Stanburger challenge before your test drive!”
• Post the event to Twitter once or twice a day linking to the blog post. Make each tweet unique focusing on different aspects – prizes, special prices, Stan’s burgers, etc.
• A day or two before the event, put together a video on YouTube describing everything. Post the video to your blog, Facebook fan page, and Twitter.

During the Sale

• Make sure there you (and possibly others at the dealership) have a video camera and a regular camera ready. Get lots of footage of both the event and those buying vehicles.
• Encourage buyers when they are being delivered to post pictures of themselves with their new car on their Twitter and Facebook if they have them
• If the event is big enough to have a megaphone or speakers and a microphone, have giveaways associated with Twitter or Facebook. For example, “The 1st, 5th, and 10th person to Tweet something about this event get 2 gift cards for free oil changes. Make sure to put @dealername in the tweet!”
• Get quotes from happy customers to be posted in the followup blog post.

After the Sale

• Write a blog post about the event. Make it fun. Post videos and pictures from the event itself.
• Post a link to the blog post on your Facebook and Twitter.
• Be sure to thank everyone and respond publicly to everyone who engaged with you before, during, and after the sale.

The results of all of this work will not be easily noticed. It may or may not be instant. What it WILL do for certain is give branding, exposure, and improved reputation to those who are listening. It’s not only what you’re saying, but also the responses and interactions by which you will be judged.

Remember, social media is about putting the human aspect into your dealership’s online presence. While it isn’t as straight forward as other forms of marketing, the effects are often intangible. When people are able to get a good feeling about your dealership based upon your Web 2.0 activities, they will be much more likely to recommend you or buy from you themselves.

While this was a general overview of one situation, it’s impractical to go into too much detail within a single blog post. For more in-depth, hands-on training, I will be participating in an Automotive Marketing Boot Camp on February 12th in Orlando just prior to the NADA Convention. Brian Pasch, Paul Rushing, and I will be teaching 50 dealers how to take these and other marketing principals and apply them directly to their dealership.

For now, you can continue to the next part of this series, Car Dealer Social Media Basics: YouTube.

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Read more about TK Carsites on this blog.