Blog Archives
Your Agency is Social but Your Company isn’t?
Have you ever walked into a store to inquire about a deal that you came across in a magazine, or heard on TV only to come across eager salespeople that have no idea what deal you’re talking about? This unfortunately happens a lot not only in big franchises but I would guess the majority of small businesses and franchisees. Now with social media and digital marketing as a whole growing to be a dominate portion of ad dollars a lot of businesses are turning to outside agencies to spread their brand in all online channels. Which is not a bad thing especially if you do have an in house “digital quarterback,” they can’t possible do all of it on their own. Now that isn’t the issue, it’s really just the lack of communication internally which is the biggest fail of why sales teams aren’t informed of marketing deals in traditional and digital ads. But, that’s an entirely different topic all together.
The biggest mistake I see businesses make is getting gungho that they finally have a solid digital marketing strategy and have incorporated social media into the mix successfully, but treat it as though it’s on pilot drive and fail to revisit their digital storefront exposure. This is how companies can really appear to be, well…. dumb. For example if your agency is managing your social community, and they’re posting and advertising contests to get fans engaged, but internally no one in your company knows what’s going on. How does that make the business look?
Social Media has allowed us to get information out to the masses in seconds. This makes it even more important for companies to have that internal communication. So many businesses treat digital as a separate thing that’s just kind of out there, (especially the car business). Really if you follow this rule of the thumb: If it’s on the internet chances are someone saw it! So if you do have that “digital quarterback” in house or at least an internal liaison for your outside relationships be sure the strategy is thought out first and all communication has been spread through out the company before posting it first!
Have you come across this before?
Ciao~
Your Diva @taneshawhite
Auto Industry Outdated
When looking at the title of this blog it made me think a little be I started writing. You can’t really blame the Auto space for it’s slow revolution. You’ve seen in previous posts that Auto is always a step behind most industries. So why is that? When you think about it most have been around for years with the same blood running through it’s veins. Which isn’t bad, but the same thing gets repeated year after year after year. And well, what happens in the outside world (society) as these old business models continue to repeat themselves?
You begin lose touch with how to connect with your evolved market. And well the strong and the adaptable survive. Come on we’ve all been taught evolution in science!
So ask yourself are you willing to adapt or stay the same and hope that the new GEN will conform to you?
Cheers,
Your Diva
A Look into the Automotive Mobile Future
A Look into the Mobile future
For those of you who know me all know how passionate I am about the ever evolving technology and what it holds for us in the future. Coupled with how much I love the auto industry it’s exciting for me to brainstorm on how these technologies will be plugged into this space or how long it will take for consumers to apply these new technologies to their car shopping behaviors.
According to a recent Gartner report, mobile advertising is poised to grow 74 percent this year to $913.5 million. It’s then predicted to accelerate in 2011 and then reach $13 billion in 2013. The increased consumer use of smartphones is said to be the contributing factor for the explosion.
This of course is all across the board, but remember it all starts with consumer behaviors. Just to give you an example of what I mean by this is. For many years before the internet revolution dealers have relied on traditional marketing to throw out in the market to hopefully find buyers. Then as the internet came along and just a fun fact for you, it only took the internet 5 years to penetrate 50% of US households and it took T.V. and Newspapers over 75 years! So moving along in the timeline, with the internet becoming more of the norm companies came along to capitalize on this by uploading dealer inventory on their websites and promoting it heavily for consumers to shop for cars. The internet became a tool that contained CAR BUYERS that are in the market so it’s how do I get those buyers to come the dealers. So then of course came along third party lead gens, SEM done by the manufacturer and then dealers caught on in doing SEM for their own websites, etc etc… the list goes on. Now comes along the mobile market and with all the smartphone technology it allows consumers to take their internet on the go.
Now trust me I know it may be hard to picture that consumers will be shopping for cars on their devices. But take this scenario you’re out and about with some friends and you want to find a restaurant there are so many different GPS-aware apps out there to help you find places in your area such as, Yelp, Around Me, or Urban Spoon to choose from to fit your taste. And these apps will pull up those restaurants near you and may even allow for reviews and comments online. Remember it all starts with consumer behavior and keep in mind how quickly internet searching evolves and is adopted by consumers. This all started with the search engines and then moving into the directories online and now we’re able to do it mobily. Take this same restaurant scenario and apply it to car shopper that just left a dealership and wants to research other dealers in the area.
Don’t you want that shopper to be able to find you? But, another note to leave on when they find you will they be able to view your inventory or view your site on their mobile devices? I will touch on this in part two.
The Digital Diva 