Social Media Marketing – Successful Promotional Strategy For Auto Dealerships

By Author: Nate Rodney
Total Articles: 499
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A survey conducted by Wildfire Interactive in November 2011 revealed that 97% of the marketers (who participated in the survey) found that social media provides value and benefits to their businesses. These statistics state that social media is the rapidly growing and successful marketing platform for businesses. In this article, we will know how this marketing strategy helps in the growth of auto dealership businesses.

Popular social media tools
Social media is the latest buzz on the Internet. Popular social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, Blogger, etc., have created a new opportunity in Internet marketing. As majority of the Internet users are hooked on to these social networking sites, these sites are becoming the latest target for the businesses to promote their businesses.

Gives great exposure
Social media is one of the best platforms to increase your auto business' visibility and brand awareness. Create a social profile and offer the visitors useful information about your products and services. Social media also has great potential ...
... to get customer referrals, which for sure is a smart way to expand your business.

Wider reach and generate leads
Social sites are more than advertising tools that only develop awareness of your brand; they are highly helpful in gaining new customers, retaining the existing ones and reaching the customers faster. Having a huge customer base from all across the globe, these sites enable a wider as well as targeted reach for your business. Standard business profiles and informative updates help in engaging the audience, hence creating high chance to generate leads.

Platform to interact with audience
Social media enables two-way communication. It allows the business owners to get instant feedback from their customers on their services, new launches, offers, etc. By answering the customers’ queries and concerns in a timely manner, they can offer good customer service. Also, most of the customers prefer to post their criticisms directly on the profiles. Further, when a customer complaints/posts negative comments, you can respond immediately and rectify your faults and when your customer gives a positive feedback, thank him. This kind of active and direct communication brings you close to the customer.

Update with new models, services and offers
An auto dealer can tweet or post or create regular updates on new models, promotions, services, coupons, contests, events and offers. Updates spread faster in these sites due to the active sharing and follows of the people, hence don't keep your profile static, keep updating. Some business owners even create their own apps which will allow the best deals and latest offers to be posted right on the home pages of the customers, without having them to search through the net or having the need to leave their profile page.

Builds reputation of your dealership
By having a profile in the social networking sites, an auto dealer can develop his reputation and business contacts. These sites are the places where people love to express their opinions; hence, these sites not only help in building goodwill, but also help in spreading it. As the name goes, these social media sites enable socializing. Socializing enhances the confidence of the customers in your business, and creates long lasting customer relationships.

Inexpensive marketing strategy
Of the various online marketing strategies, social media marketing is inexpensive. The cost of generating social media apps that are the effective means to promote your business is less. In contrast to the traditional marketing techniques like trade shows, company events, etc., which require huge resources to implement, the social media tools are user-friendly, inexpensive and generate high ROI in a least possible time. The results of the social media ad campaigns can be easily tracked and quantified; hence, facilitating immediate improvements in marketing strategy.

An effective social media marketing strategy, designed as per the business's goals and objectives will prove to be a successful promotional strategy by increasing site traffic, customer acquisitions, customer retentions and sales.

Search Optics, Inc. is a leader in digital marketing solutions for the automotive industry. Search Optics interactive marketing services include custom websites, search engine optimization, paid search and mobile solutions that generate leads which result in sales opportunities. Search Optics specializes in automotive internet marketing and automotive marketing services.