Let me ask you a question: What would happen if you stopped all the marketing you’re currently doing for your dealership? I mean, if you stopped your paid search ads, your Google Adwords ads, your Facebook ads, and any print, radio, TV or direct mail. What would be left about your dealership on the Web or in the real world to help you generate leads and capture prospects attention?
Sounds like a weird question, but it’s an important one you should ask yourself every month if you don’t want to be playing snakes and ladders with your dealership’s marketing. Remember the game? You begin on square one at the start of the game, and you try to move up. You catch a ladder, and you move up a few rows. You catch a snake, and you move back towards the bottom.
Producing Residual Content For Your Dealership
Many dealers run their dealership’s marketing the same way. They pay for search ads, and they get ahead on the first page of Google. They pay for Facebook ads, and they’re in everybody’s newsfeed. But at the end of every month, they catch that long snake close to the top that sends them right back to square one when the new month starts because, other than their paid positions, they have no residual content that could keep their dealership in front of their audience.
So let me ask you again. What would you have left online and in the real world to keep your dealership on the radar of potential prospects if you stopped paying for ads?
Now don’t worry if the answer is very little. Most dealerships we work with are in the same situation you are. If they stopped paying for marketing, they would be left primarily with their Website and an OK to decent dealership Facebook page. Very few have endeavored to make their Facebook page, their YouTube channel, their Instagram, Twitter and other social media properties the automotive authority in their area.
Turn Your Dealership into a Publishing Company
Not too long ago, a dealership would pay thousands of dollars to have a 30-second ad on TV, a 30-second spot on the radio or a few square inches of space in the newspaper. But today, you have the ability to upload hours of video featuring your vehicles on YouTube. You can broadcast hours of audio explaining your incentives through podcasts. You can publish an unlimited amount of material in written form on blogs to help vehicle owners throughout their ownership experience and educate them regarding their next vehicle purchase, and disseminate all that content featuring your dealership on multiple social media sites for free!
Pardon my excitement, but THAT’S CRAZY!!! And what’s even crazier is the fact that very few dealers are taking advantage of the opportunity, leaving the door wide open to savvy operators.
Gary Vaynerchuk said on one of his DailyVee (and I paraphrase) that cell phones are the new TV and Instagram, Facebook YouTube and Snapchat are the new NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX. Some people are moving in quickly to be the next Seinfeld or celebrity. Who are you going to be and what is your dealership going to represent?
The field is wide open, but the players who are doing well are not seeing themselves as a dealership advertising on social media but as a publisher producing the best automotive content in town on all platforms.
Go Big or Go Home
With the lifetime expectancy of a post in a user’s newsfeed counted in hours on Facebook and minutes on Twitter, you have to discard any strategy that will require you to post a few times a week. Even posting every day, on most platforms, is far from enough to stay top of mind in your marketplace.
Your goal should not only be to have a presence but to dominate. For example, your Facebook page should be the automotive authority in your town and should be the go-to place for anyone owning a vehicle. You could feature tips to help vehicle owners drive for less, tactics to help them better maintain their vehicles, funny automotive-related jokes to put a smile on their face, vehicle reviews, customer testimonials, traffic updates, road construction updates, and “live” events when your manufacturer announces their new incentives. It’s your “TV” channel!
Do that then spread your posts using your other channels inviting people back to your Facebook page and it won’t be long before people and Google see you as the automotive authority on Facebook in your town. And if you’re diligently back linking all your content to your main Website it won’t be long before it also benefits from the increase in authority.
Now repeat the formula on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn respecting the nuances of each platform, and you have a good plan to start.
Find The Tools & Techniques That Will Make Your Life Easier
Dealers often ask me after I explain what they need to do: “Sean, isn’t this going to be a little overwhelming?” And my answer to them is always: “Your life as you know it, it’s gone. Doesn’t mean that the new one is bad, but it will sure be different!”
I will encourage you with the fact that there are a few techniques and tools you can master that will make your life mush easier like content syndication, content curation, content multiplication and documenting your journey instead of creating content from scratch that will save you time and money.
Also, initially, don’t worry too much about your dealership’s voice or content style. First, find your legs by creating the processes that will allow your team to post regularly and frequently. Your dealership’s “social swag” will come with practice.
If you’re in need of content ideas, our campaigns are a great place to start. Each one of them will provide you with multiple videos, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn social posts that you will be able to multiply in over forty pieces of content that will live forever on the Web even after the campaign is over.
Add that to your content arsenal, and it’s close to 500 pieces of content more each year published by you on the Internet that will keep you on the radar of prospects forever, even if you stop all your paid marketing.
If you need help with the automotive content marketing of your dealership, don’t hesitate to call one of the content marketing experts at Turbo Marketing Solutions every weekday at 1-800-262-0081. They will provide you with the expertise you need to dominate social media in your marketplace.