Thanks To Driving Sales, I wanted to share this with you:)

1. Focusing on the Wrong Thing

Let’s set the hype aside for just a minute and think about how people shop for cars today. Know of anyone who says, “I think I’m going to buy a new car. I better go to Facebook and see which dealership has the best deals.” What customers do today is research, which includes doing homework specifically about each dealership. A recent study* found that one-half of Internet users research online before making any kind of purchase – on the Web, in a store or through any other method.

The study goes on to note that existing customer reviews had a strong influence on purchases by 71% of respondents, while only 25% said the same about Facebook fan pages. What is really interesting is that the same study polled a variety of retailers to learn what tools they were planning on deploying for their social strategy, and the number one response (91%) was a Facebook fan page.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Facebook has a place in your strategy, but it should be primarily centered on connecting with your existing customers, not primarily focused on acquiring new ones. Put the focus on growing your reviews instead.

2. Focusing Only on Sales Reviews

Ratings and reviews play a significant role in driving new sales; that’s not new news. If you’re like most dealerships today, you are doing all you can to increase sales department reviews – but don’t forget about service department reviews. They are critically important for two reasons: first, your service department has the opportunity to obtain a significantly higher number of reviews, and more importantly, the reviews actually help drive new car sales. You read that correctly. Service reviews impact car sales.

New data by DriverSide/Kelton Research reveals that over six in ten (61%) Americans would opt for a specific dealership to buy a new car from if they read positive service department reviews about that store – assuming price and location criteria had already been met. Think about that the next time the guy down the street has you beat by a few hundred bucks. Could your positive service department reviews compared to their lack of service department reviews make the difference? You bet they would. Grow your service reviews.

3. A Sales-Centric Website

What’s the biggest problem with most dealers’ social media strategy? It’s their website. Most everything we do with social media is created to get people to visit our site, right? The problem is most dealer websites are 80% focused on sales. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you consider that fixed operations drive 80% of the profits for most dealerships.

Sure you might have a “service page” with a service scheduler or even a generic coupon or two, but what percentage of overall content on your website is focused on topics of interest for owners versus prospects? If your site is sales-focused, what reason are you giving your existing owners to visit it?

Owner-focused website content will improve customer retention.

4. Conquest versus Owner Focus

Want your social media strategy to really take off? Think relationships. That’s the core of a successful strategy. It starts with leveraging your existing customer base.

An ongoing service and maintenance reminder and customer communication program, like DriverSide, is the easiest way to automatically stay connected with your existing customers. Don’t make the mistake of sending impersonalized non-service specific communication either. Remember it’s about building and then maintaining a relationship, and to do that you need to send relevant, timely information – not generic “one-size-fits-all” spam.

Remind them when their car needs its 50K service, tell them what is included in that service and give them a discount coupon as an incentive. And don’t stop there. Provide articles relevant to owners of vehicles with 50,000 miles – like how to save money on new tires or how to cut car insurance costs.

Do this via your newsletter and your automated service reminders with tie-ins to your social pages and watch your social media results grow.

Strong existing customer relationships will attract new prospects almost on their own. How? Your customer base will communicate their satisfaction with your dealership to their network socially to the benefit of both your service and sales departments.

Cheers!