Can Social Shares Help my Dealership?

If the last Oscars was any indication when Ellen DeGeneres broke the record for most retweets on Twitter; attempting to go viral is trending these days. The words “going viral” means people are retweeting your post or sharing your post with their connections which essentially makes your post go viral by expanding its reach to other social circles. Social shares are highly valued. The more social shares, the more credibility you, your dealership and your post are given. Car buyers are seeking qualified information from professionals and experts that they can trust to buy their next vehicle from. If you can create a post that will get shared amongst different social circles, you have now found a new way to expand your consumer reach to increase leads to your dealership. Sharing a post is similar to sharing a referral amongst social media connections. We all know how important and how valuable referrals are, so if you can expand your reach to obtain more referrals, why not?

The key to increasing your social shares is to know if its working. Click-through rates is one way to measure the success of a social share. A high click-through rate or CTR means that many people are actually clicking on the post and going to the website to review the post further. All this is great, but this also means that the content associated with that post needs to be great. If the content does not do the post justice, than all your social sharing efforts could go down the drain. Connections will not read your future posts and they will definitely not consider sharing your post again. The content you decide to post has to be high quality, and offer information that your consumers are looking for. Ever heard the saying, “its like putting lipstick on a pig”? Well you do not want to get caught doing that. In this case, putting lipstick on a pig would be you coming up with a great post but then fall short on the content behind that post. The posts you decide to put on your social media networks needs to represent your dealership and needs to offer information that your consumers and potential car buyers will want to read.

The Different Phases of a Car Buyer

Prior to making a vehicle purchase, the majority of car buyers conduct online research. In fact, close to 90% of car buyers conduct an online search prior to making a purchase. During the research process, the type of research conducted is dependant on which phase the car buyer is in. Buyers who are just starting to look for vehicles online will be in more of a passive mode where they will conduct a lot of research and store information. As their need becomes clearer, buyers will go into an active mode. They will gather more detailed information, such as models, read reviews, weigh their alternatives and compare prices and promotions on dealer websites. At this point, they then head to the dealership for a test drive. Lets take a look in more detail, the various phases of a car buyer:

1.    Passive Phase:

In the passive phase, car buyers work on getting answers for what they want and what they can afford. To help answer these questions, they will think about the purpose of what they need the car for and what type of vehicle will suit those needs. Based on the answers, they will hopefully be able to determine their price range (of course what’s in the bank account will also play a huge factor in this decision). While determining their budget, insurance rates, gas, monthly payments (in case of loans), repairs and maintenance are also taken into account. Once they have answered all these questions and weighed different possibilities, prior to moving on to the next phase, they will have narrowed their vehicle choice down to a select few.

2.     Active Phase:

In the active phase, buyers get into a more serious mode to look for dealers who can give them the information they need. Car buyers in the active phase are seeking more detailed information and data from trusted sources. And this is where your dealership website plays a major role in providing that information and trusted data to potential customers. If your dealership website does not reflect your dealership, than customers will not contact you because you failed to build that trust with them through your website. Car buyers are also looking for websites that offer special deals and financing because this is also the phase where they compare prices once they have narrowed down their car choice to 1 or 2 choices. They compare the prices across different websites and shortlist the ones that meet their requirements and budget. Once the desired car models are shortlisted, comparisons are made to finalize the best suitable ones.

3.    Dealership Interaction Phase:

This is the last phase of a car buyer before purchasing a car. This is the phase where the car buyer makes contact with dealerships to make test drives, check the features of the vehicles, compare insurances and warranties. As a used car dealer, we need to make the process of a website visitor contacting the dealership to book a test drive as easy as possible. Which is why on all Pro Auto Manager websites, we include a ‘Book a Test Drive’ feature directly on each car listing. When the car buyer is ready for a test drive, they can easily submit a booking time through the website.

Reviews are also really important through the car buying phases because people like to read about other people’s experiences. Having the ability to read Edmunds Reviews directly on your website makes the buying process seamless for car buyers because this eliminates the car buyer having to leave the website to read a review.

When designing and building dealership websites, we take into account these phases in order to have an understanding of how the car buyer thinks and what they are looking for in a website in order to make the car buying process easy and streamlined.

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The Pro Auto Manager application helps automobile businesses keep track of the day-to-day activities and manages their dealership back-end so that the dealers can focus on selling! As a result, it helps in driving more traffic to your site and convert website visitors into customers. Visit http://www.proautomanager.com/
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What Does Automotive Digital Marketing Mean For Dealerships?

14% of the adults in the United States have plans to buy an automobile in the next 6 months revealed IAB based on the results of their recent study. This study was conducted to analyze and compare the behavior of general population and auto intenders. Auto intenders are 18+ adults who shared the desire of buying or leasing a car within the next six months. The insights of this survey have also highlighted the value of digital marketing strategy in building auto dealership. Given below are some of the points that can help you in targeting your potential customer in a better way.

Online Presence

In comparison to general population, auto intenders are 29% more likely to go online to research on different cars and dealerships. This further reinforces the significance of having a strong online presence. Whether your visibility is on a third party website or you own auto dealership website, your online presence will have significant role in fetching new leads to your dealership business.

Influencing Through Ads

If an auto intender is researching cars online, he or she is 71% more likely to get influenced by your ad in the purchase process. If your dealership does not have a paid search campaign, you will be missing major part of your prospective lead market. On the other hand, if Pay per Click is already included in digital marketing strategy of your dealership, using retargeting ads can sway auto intenders to build a business relationship. Using retargeting ads, you can strategically display ads to the visitors who have interacted with your website earlier. Thus, retargeting enables you to draw higher potential leads.

Marketing through Smartphones

With the increase in number of people accessing Internet through their mobile devices, mobile responsiveness of your dealership website is a significant factor. 75% of the auto intenders have Smartphones in the pockets. So, you need to ensure mobile responsiveness of your website on devices like Android, iPhone, iPad and tablet users.

Influencing Through Email Advertisements

Email advertisements sway auto intenders 87% more than the general population. While attempting for email advertising, it is vital to have auto-responder in addition to quality email templates. Once your dealership receives a lead through Internet, the response time and quality of response that you give will determine whether the customer will prefer you to the competitor. Also, tracking all the leads can help you in your future marketing efforts as well.

Influencing Through Social Media

While working on your digital marketing strategy for your dealership, never overlook the social media platform. It might be difficult to track the ROI through social media, yet it helps you keep the dealership top-of-mind of your customers. In addition, offering valuable information, updates and news will help increasing the customer loyalty as well.

Digital medium plays a significant role in fetching leads to your business. So, implement effective digital marketing strategies to influence the auto intenders and draw more leads.

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