Monthly Archives September 2011

Are you utilizing video of your happy customers?

Posted by tadortch    Posted in News    Posted in September 28, 2011    |    No Comments

Are you trying to decide what your Social Media process should look like?

Are you trying to decide where to begin and what to do?

One of the easiest and most effective ways to use social media to enhance your dealership’s presence is to utilize video of your happy customers either taking delivery of their New or Pre-Owned vehicle, or video of their experience in your service department!

You first have to understand, social media is like a family BBQ. At the family BBQ, everyone gathers around and talks about what is going on in their lives. Everyone trades stories of the positive things in their lives and the negative things. At the family BBQ, a positive or negative story about a retail experience, could persuade you to either give that business an opportunity or stay away from that business!

Wouldn’t you want your happy customers to persuade their friends and family to give your dealership an opportunity to earn their business??

When your happy customers are taking delivery of their New or Pre-Owned vehicle or getting their vehicle out of your Service Department, get the entire family together in a well lit environment. Have them gather around the vehicle. Whether they are inside or outside the vehicle, it makes no difference. As long as they are smiling and having a good time, the video will be positive.

Keep the video short! No more than 60 seconds! No one wants to watch a long drawn out video!

Don’t make the video seem scripted or planned. Make your video appear as casual and fun as possible! Most people want to do business with a place that is both professional and fun!

Make sure you introduce the family and the dealership at the very beginning of the video.

Example: “Here we have the Smith family taking delivery of their new (model) here at ABC Motors!”

Then ask the family just ONE question for the video. This will ensure you keep it to 60 seconds or less in length.

Questions such as:

 

  • Tell us about your Sales experience!

 

  • What do you like best about your New/Pre-Owned vehicle?

 

  • What is the first thing you will do with your New/Pre-Owned vehicle?

 

  • Where is the first place you will go with your New/Pre-Owned vehicle?

 

  • How did you enjoy your Service experience today?

 

  • If you could tell your family and friends just one thing about (ABC Motors), what would it be?

 

Explain to the customer you are then going to upload the video to the Dealerships Facebook page, your Dealerships YouTube channel and on your Dealership website. That way they can share the video on their Facebook page or e-mail the link from YouTube to their friends.

Make sure you give them a reason to do this video for the Dealership. After all, there should be something they receive in return for their endorsement of your Dealership. In return for the video, you may want to give them a free oil change or a discount for any further service or accessory purchase.

You want to make sure you have their permission to use the video in writing to protect yourself and the Dealership. Have your attorney construct a simply worded “release form” for your customer to sign.

Once you start building a series of videos, you can use them in your Social Media marketing and networking plans. You will have a video “why buy here” book.

Once a month, showcase a particularly great video on your Dealerships website, Facebook page or YouTube channel. Make sure you contact that customer whose video you are showcasing and thank them again for their business. I would encourage you to once again offer your customer an additional discount or service for allowing them to “feature” them on your sites!

An attitude of gratitude will go a long way! And everyone likes receiving gifts!!

Utilizing video, to start your Social Media presence and process, is both easy and fun to do. There is nothing more convincing to a perspective client of your Dealership than seeing happy and contented customers doing business at your store! The more videos you have, the better!

Make sure you have a way of continuously playing these videos in your showroom or your Service waiting area. It will be a reassurance to your customer or perspective customer that your Dealership is an awesome place to do business!

Start utilizing video of your happy customers to use in your Social Media presence!

There is no better testimonial you can receive! A video with smiling faces and satisfied customers that tells a story of a happy and pleasant experience at your Dealership is Social Media GOLD!!

By: Jim Kristoff

Analysis Paralysis Relief for Dealers Suffering Social Media Overload

Posted by tadortch    Posted in Blog    Posted in September 16, 2011    |    No Comments

Is all the talk about social media leaving you bewildered, frustrated and, yes, skeptical? You’re not alone. I see it in the eyes of dealer after dealer – social media information overload.

Is the information and its promises pitched your way every day by social media vendors and pundits right? Is having a Facebook page really something your dealership needs? Have your initial forays into social media measured up to what you’ve been led to expect?

Why does there seem to be, for so many dealers, a disconnect between what they’ve been sold about social media and how it is working for them? Unfortunately, this is indeed the case for many dealers. As a result, even you may be pulling your proverbial toes from the social media pool.

This is a normal response when we can’t make sense of things, when we become paralyzed from trying to figure out often-elusive ideas and concepts.

The good news is you’re normal, Mr. Dealer, but I believe you’re wrong if you want to get out of social media. I’m certain what’s most needed now is relief for this social media analysis paralysis. Consider these two observations: 

  • Not everything social media vendors and pundits claim about social media will prove right. It’s too early in the application of social media to auto dealership marketing to conclude one way or another. However, it seems clear that as a marketing venue, social media has great potential to brand the dealership in new and creative ways. 
  • Don’t allow social media information overload to stop you from engaging your dealership at some level in this promising and compelling marketing opportunity. If you put your social media adventures on hold the delay will come back to haunt you.

It doesn’t matter whether your current social media efforts are being planned and executed by your son or your Internet department or an agency. Regardless, your best course of action, despite any uneasiness about an inability to get your arms fully around this social media “thing”, is to stick with it.

Regardless of how sophisticated or basic – or effective or ineffective – your social media effort is today, if you decide to end it you are setting up your dealership for future failure in this coming and powerful marketing revolution. If you do, you will forever lag behind competitors who despite their own misgivings about social media’s value to their business choose to continue to stick with it.

Do not stop evaluating the social media you’re now engaged in doing. Don’t stop talking to other dealers about it, attending conferences that can educate you about, or from reading articles and books that can clarify how you might make social media effective for you. Please consider: 

  • Try something – dip your toes or move them deeper. Whatever direction your social media activity seems to be going, stick with it.
  • Whatever results your Facebook or Twitter site is achieving – “friends”, “likes”, et al – trust that the social media audience is indeed huge and where many of your customers are interacting daily. Trust that regardless of your individual success or disappointment with your early social media ventures, that it is certainly the big new marketing wave, the game-changers when it comes to dealership branding today.
  • To gain perspective, look at history; we have a model for social media acceptance and its precluded influence on auto dealership business and that model is the Internet and the Web. Both have reshaped the industry and how consumers shop for and buy vehicles and vehicle services.

How can I be so certain of this change? As just mentioned, we have an example to study, the emergence, rise and acceptance of web technology to redefine radically how you sell automobiles. Consider that at NADA ’99, an industry expert made the following statement: “There’s a great deal of confusion about what the Internet is going to do to this business.”

If you were around the industry in those days, you recall the dialog, worry and doubt that surrounded predictions about the Internet’s impact on this business. Some of those concerns came true and many did not.  Few today are confused about what the Internet did to the car business though.

One clear lesson that we can take from this earlier period of change and apply to today’s social media fog is this: 

Social media is here to stay. It is not all hype nor is it a fad. Yet the knowledge, application and ROI curve is not unlike that experienced by dealers more than a decade ago as computers and the Internet slammed into the car business in a big way. What social media models and modalities will emerge from the fog as the standards – leaders – and which social media companies will survive the consolidation of providers sure to come – isn’t what truly matters right now.

I promised some relief for social-media analysis paralysis. I offer the following ideas, which I’m borrowing and modifying based upon a physician’s blog about medical information overload. 

  • Keeping ahead of the curve is hard: As fast as technology itself changes, you’ll probably never keep up with the pace of change. You’ll likely never have the luxury of making decisions based on having all the right information about the best social media platform, strategy, plan or implementation.
  • Understand what you need to know and what want to know: Define a goal for social media for your dealership and focus the information you gather toward that and filter out what is irrelevant to the current decision or task.
  • Let it ferment: Once you know your goals and are working toward their fulfillment, take time to ponder possible futuristic uses of social media.
  • Use filters to get the best information: Develop a trusted resource from within or without who can help you develop a better understand of social media and its varied applications to the retail auto business. Vendors, consultants, seminars, publications, the Web and yes, probably even social media itself, can provide valuable insight.

If you remove yourself from social media today, you’ll miss it when social media’s big payoff for auto dealerships comes into focus. Your competitors who have remained active at some level though won’t miss it and they’ll leapfrog ahead in social media. You’ll find yourself scrambling to catch up.

Playing catch up is never a good strategy. It causes one to panic, make poor decisions and spend lots of money to correct earlier bad decisions. You’ll launch a rushed effort to catch up, a social media site that might get you in trouble with things like Facebook conditions or the same customers you’re trying to woo and engage.

Now is the time to develop resources you trust and then trust them to help you make sense of this emerging new marketing channel. Try it; see what happens, and then try something else. Taking this approach, however social media for auto dealerships shakes out down the line, you’ll be closer to it than if you let analysis paralysis set in and take a wait-and-see posture.

By: Rob McClurg