What Do You Need From A Car Dealer?

My entire career has been in advertising, specifically automotive advertising. The landscape has changed dramatically in this time period. TV and newspaper were the dominant media and that has certainly changed.

I'm presenting a workshop next week on Social Media for the local Milwaukee area dealers through their association (ADAMM - Automobile Dealer Association of Mega Milwaukee).

Obviously, Social Media is about listening and engaging before you transact. Yet, Razorfish's latest research shows customers sign up for brands to get a special offer. On Twitter, 44% follow for specials and it's 37% on Facebook/MySpace. What they fail to mention is about 60% don't sign up for that reason. It's still important to build a relationship before you ask for something in return. It's not an "all or nothing" situation.

What I'd like to know is what you'd like to see on a car dealer's social media sites? I have plenty of ideas (outtakes from TV ads, info about the product, "how to" videos, etc.), but would like your input.

Please e-mail me (mallemon@me.com) me or send me a message (@mallemon) on Twitter.

Digital Relevance

I attended an amazing free seminar yesterday on "Writing for the Web." I thought it was going to be about search engine optimization techniques for your copy. It was so much more.

The presenter shared a tremendous amount of research information about consumer habits online. They key focus of the presentation was making your site easy to understand and easy to use for the consumer. It's sound obvious, but many sites are cluttered and difficult to navigate. The bottom line is stay relevant to the consumer.

Why do we forget this? Why do advertisers hear "video on YouTube is hot," and conclude posting their TV spots is what consumers want to see? We should never forget about the customer. Instead of a :30 TV spot, I'd like to see a "how-to" video on using or buying the product. Tell me about your company, why I should buy from you, etc. As a consumer, that's what I care about. What about you?

What Is Social Media?

Social media is getting all the buzz these days. Here's a quick two-minute presentation that will give you a quick overview.

If you haven't seen this, you should. If you haven't shown your clients, you should.

For those who don't want to bother to learn anything new, why are you still in the advertising business? The whole idea of just focusing on "traditional" media reminds me of the name of a :30 TV spot the agency I worked for produced in the early '90s. It featured Lee Iacocca (on behalf of Chrysler) and was titled, "Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way."

The Need for Relevance

Savvy marketers know your company/product/service needs to be relevant to your customers in order to survive. It's shocking, however, how many smart people get too caught up in what they've always done and forget this.

In the last few years, my focus has shifted from negotiating the best TV CPP's (of course it's still important) to relationship marketing. It started with database marketing using CRM tools. It's evolved to involved social media. The ultimate goal of these forms of targeted communication is to build relationships with your customers and stay relevant.

I attended a social function recently with some friends who I consider talented marketers. We were discussing social media and a friend pointed out the value in what I was learning because, "no one else wants to take time to learn it." I'm still stunned by that comment. A lot of people are taking the time to learn it. In this business, you have to stay current or you become...irrelevant.

The Oldest Form of Advertising Goes 21st Century

The oldest form of advertising is word-of-mouth. Difficult to control, but the price is right.

Twitter can help small businesses - many without ad budgets - take their game pro.

An article in the NYT highlights some examples.

This social media tool is certainly not a threat to mass advertising, it just helps businesses create relationships with their customers, for sales and customer service.

Even if someone doesn't think they have time for it, they should at the very least set up alerts to see if customers have negative comments. It's better to address them quickly before they tell everyone they know - online and off.

Online Advertising Needs to Be Interactive

I don't use the "interactive" term often anymore. It seems so 1997. Yet consumers strongly prefer their marketing message on demand online.

New research shows viewers don't like pop-up ads, ads that expand when moused over or not. From Adweek.com.

Advertisers are realizing this because the growth budget areas are in search engine marketing and social media. From emarketer.com. The consumer is interacting with the search engine or choosing to join a company's social network.

The concern now for print media is keeping revenues while their readers consume their product online. Consumers still want news and information, they just don't want banner ads covering the content. If only the sites could ask the reader what they were interested in and then send behavior/interest related ad content with it. The Google content network attempts this, but there needs to be a better way for the newspaper sites.

It will need to happen for the industry to survive and thrive.

Focus

Now that I've been blogging for a few weeks, I've decided it's time to focus on a few advertising/marketing issues, instead of just random issues I browse upon.

The five areas I will continue to blog about are:

1) Brand image versus value in a recession economy.
2) Online media trends. How does shifting budgets from traditional advertising generate better results?
3) Finding new markets in this economy. This includes elder care, medical records, environmental technology and other areas that are growing.
4) Customer retention programs. How to stay relevant to your existing customers, whether it's through social media, CRM programs or events.
5) The use and application of research to marketing/advertising decisions. This includes TV ratings, DVR usage, qualitative versus quantitative information, and measuring results against objectives.

The other items that don't fit these parameters have been deleted.

If you have questions or insight about any of these topics, please feel free to contact me by posting a comment.

Happy reading!