Consider How People View Car Dealers

Car dealers are infamous for their marketing short-sightedness, so they make a great social media example. New and used car sales organizations live or die in short bursts of business. Their inventory is usually financed using a “floor plan”, and if the inventory is not selling, the bank will make it very uncomfortable for them. This creates a challenge that is not so unlike the urgency felt in other businesses. It causes a lot of companies to focus more on an eight percent increase in new business and overlook the eighty percent increase they could achieve if they look ahead and give people reasons to buy from them.

Topeka, Kansas has fourteen pages of car dealers and related automotive ads in the telephone book Yellow Pages. I had to ask my wife if we have a telephone book, and I was delighted to find that we actually do. I do not know how many car dealers still advertise in the Topeka newspaper, because I do not subscribe. The last time I saw a newspaper, it was a lot thinner than it used to be. The auto industry was hit hard by the economy in the last couple years, and car dealers sought a better way to reach their market, just like everybody else.

It is not surprising that there are at least half as many results for car dealers in Topeka, Kansas returned in a Google search than there are residents of Topeka. A car dealer without a website would be like a car dealer without cars for sale. Everybody knows that the Internet is where people buy things, right? The automotive industry caught on, and all of the sudden the job of Internet marketing shifted from the part-time receptionist to the “Internet Sales Manager”. That is often the fancy title for the guy who fiddles with a computer all day and tries to sell cars online. He emails his buddies and asks them to come and test drive a car, just so he looks busier. He is afraid for his job, and it is really important to show the boss that the Internet is a good investment. After a few more doughnuts, he will put the latest finance rates on Facebook. After lunch, he will plan to tell Twitter users how he can save them a ton of money if they get there for the big tent sale this weekend. The successful car dealers are on Facebook. At least that is what they said at the last Car Dealer Internet Sales Manager’s Convention. Wait, maybe it was LinkedIn … I forget. In any case, getting the latest advertised specials out to the people is of the highest importance, right?

This Marketing Style is Not Limited to Car Dealers

This is not only about car dealers, so make no mistake. I am just using them as a fun example. If you read carefully and think about this, you can probably relate it to many other industries. What drives me absolutely crazy is that I watch so many companies treat their business like my example of the Internet Sales Manager. They do all that they know to make their advertising visible and be sure that everybody knows their name when they are looking for a car. They frantically try to shorten their sales funnel while the importance of brand recognition and brand loyalty lose ground due to immediate needs. You could blame the Internet Sales Manager, but much of his focus is imposed by managers above him, the general manager, or dealership owner. Dealers are car guys, not marketing guys, and not Web Guys. Under the pressure of a competitive market, they completely lose sight of what motivates people to buy things. They look at the Internet the way they look at the big inflatable gorilla and colorful balloons they put out on Saturdays to make passing traffic do a double-take (and if they are lucky, crash their car right out front). These are all fine and dandy, but they lack the sustained marketing value of social media.

These are the companies you see with a Facebook Profile instead of a Facebook Page, think Digg refers to an arcade game by Namco, and never understood the reasons to blog. They usually have about 90 friends on Facebook and perhaps 14 Twitter friends to tweet stuff to. They are so wrapped up with search engine optimization (SEO) that they never understood how SEO and social media are inextricably paired. They neglect that social media makes SEO a whole lot easier and more effective. They do it the hard way and just know that with enough SEO, the Internet will deliver more hot leads and they will sell more cars. They try to learn from their peers who are making the same mistakes, and then wonder why it did not work.

Is Your “Car Dealership” Being Creative?

Thinking is often underrated and undervalued. Marketing takes a lot of effort, and the numbers matter. What you do with the numbers also matters. Instead of just looking forward to the next email blast or rewriting your h1 tags, it may be useful to think about a social media strategy. Everybody is using tactics, but strategy takes real marketing talent, creativity, and looking beyond the next 30 days.

Consider your own examples in place of the car dealership. Have you thought about why people love their cars? Have you considered holding a poker run with your Facebook fans and friends? Have you thought how cool it would be to integrate Foursquare when you do a scavenger hunt with potential buyers? Have you ever thought of holding a ride-along with a race car driver at your local race track? Did you ever consider that you could build more incoming links if you were the first to craft a story about something important to your industry? Did you ever think to monitor social media to see if somebody is talking about your dealership, your products, or your industry? Do you ever wonder what happens if your competition gets it right first?

I started thinking about this after two different instances of friends in the automotive industry who told me of two different car dealerships in the Topeka area in need of a better marketing plan. I looked at their online efforts and found lack of strategy. It appeared that they approach their online efforts and offline efforts as two completely divergent markets, rather than integrating them. Although there were some pretty websites, they were hard to navigate and lacking a call to action. Worse yet, they display their companies about as interesting as a car salesman in a leisure suit rushing across the lot to shake my hand.

Maybe it is time for me to perform a social media and SEO case study on a Topeka, Kansas car dealer. I think it could be really interesting to share what will happen when one of them leads the way. On the other hand, in Topeka, we have what I see as the worst stereotype of car dealers. I would probably do better to create a marketing plan for your car dealership than to beat my head against the Topeka wall of ignorance.

To Car Dealers: Car dealers always express urgency to buy today, so let’s spin the table and see how urgent you are about increasing your car dealership’s profit using effective social media and SEO. I will be happy to run through the Internet version of a four square presentation and introduce you to my F&I guy. The good news is that this will make your dealership a lot more money than you will ever spend with me. Ring me up at 866-a-web-guy (866-293-2489) and let’s see what we can do to get you in that driver’s seat today.

I told him what I do (massive exposure and brilliant marketing), and he kind of had that “duh, I don’t understand” glazed over effect. Many people just don’t understand that they will not improve their dealership’s new and used car sales volume until they stop trying to sell cars the way their father, and his father sold cars.

The world has changed, and car dealers seem to think they can hold back the change. This is why so many of them are going out of business. They do not want good advice. They just want another person to explain how “right” they are. It is a sad loss for them.