Social marketing for transparency

How you present your dealership online to active and inactive car shoppers has become an important part of the Internet marketing strategy for car dealers today. In fact, in a recent J.D. Power study, it was reported that,

While all new-vehicle buyers hope to get a good deal, customers are receptive to spending more than they originally budgeted provided that the salesperson does a good job of educating the customer about the features and benefits they are receiving. Source AutoRemarketing.

With this in mind, the smart car dealer will seek to find cost-effective and time-effective ways to bring this added value to their customers.

One way to accomplish this is by way of social media marketing. With social marketing, dealers are now able to meet their customers at the virtual level and provide an added layer of service and rapport. In fact, with the advent of some social media sites such as Twitter, Pownce, or even digg, dealers can learn to speak with their customers in mass using alternative methods to email. This is not to suggest that email marketing is not useful, but that dealers do not have to limit their outreach to just email and direct marketing.

The important thing to keep in mind when utilizing social media marketing for sales and marketing purposes is to sustain a level of transparency with your customer audience. This means that you want to refrain from trying things that might come across as misleading or deceptive. For instance, when posting information on the Web in places not branded to your dealership, be sure to make it clear who you are and why you are there. This includes things like leaving comments on peoples’ profiles, or in discussion forums, or on other peoples’ blogs.

Anytime you go online in the name of or on behalf of your dealership, engage with people in a professional and honest manner. Using different nick names and screen names for various things can be ok, but the last thing you want do is give someone the impression that you are trying to trick them in to visiting your dealer site or giving you their info when normally they would not. The rapidity of these negative impressions circulating across the many social networks can become a viral catastrophe if it gets out of hand.

But don’t let risks like this discourage you from going in this direction, unless of course you have no intention of being honest.