Social Media for Dealers

A resource from HuebnerPetersen's Dealer Marketing Services

December 23, 2011 • 10:28 am 1

The Art of Listening

One of the biggest mistakes made by RV dealers when starting out with social media is talking without taking the time to listen. Social media is all about creating a real relationship between your RV dealership and your customers. These types of relationships can’t be fostered when one party does all the talking.

A recent blog post by Eric Harr, “Myth: To Be Heard, Talk. Truth: To Be Heard, Listen.” is full of great information on the importance of listening. In his post Eric details the ways in which you can spend more time listening and still be heard. Here are some of our favorite points:

1. 80/20 Rule - You should be 80% listening and 20% talking. It’s hard to write back or produce valuable content if you’re not listening to what your customers are saying.

2. Quality Counts – Don’t stop talking completely, but when you do respond, make sure what you’re saying is valuable and engaging.

3.  Listen to Learn – You should be listening to your customers so you can know better how to improve their lives. You’re building loyal followers by offering information that makes them feel special or is valuable o them.

4. Get Personal – Ask questions about your customers. Make them feel like they are in a personal conversation with you. Social media is a great tool for making mundane conversation personal. Find out about your customers and engage them in conversations that apply directly to them.

5. Caring is Sharing – If you make people feel like you care about them, they’re more likely to spread the word about your dealership. And, we all know that it’s hard to beat good word of mouth.

Filed under: Quick Tips, , , , , ,

June 23, 2011 • 2:47 pm 0

Internet 101

As promised after our presentation at Jayco’s Homecoming earlier this week, here is the Internet 101 presentation for use in your dealership! The Social Media presentation will be posted early next week so check back in to access that one! Also, remember to leave questions in the comments or email us if you have any questions or interest in a specific topic!

Filed under: The Basics, Why social media?, , , , , , ,

September 29, 2010 • 2:00 pm 1

Social Media & Word of Mouth.

Using social media as your word of mouth tool

A lot of dealers swear by WOM marketing. Word of mouth. It trumps any other marketing medium and in some cases it’s all they use (or hope to use). Customers talking, sharing stories, having a positive memory of their experience and passing it on. Neighbors talking to neighbors, co-workers talking to co-workers, friends talking to friends. Spreading the word about your dealership via conversation.

Here’s the newsflash! That’s exactly what social media is all about! Social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) are word of mouth powerhouses.

There are a lot of questions about social media, fears associated with learning something new, and an overall uneasiness with getting started. But why? Why are you hesitating. Direct mail is down in a lot of markets, consumers are skipping TV ads with TIVO, newspapers around the country are dropping like flies… not only are your traditional marketing mediums not longer effective, they’re being ignored by your customers.

Social media and meaningful online conversations are causing a stir, they’re creating leads, businesses are marketing online and the best part is, they’re having success. AND social media harnesses the power of word of mouth.

Don’t let social media’s powerful word of mouth potential pass your RV dealership by. Start engaging and exploring! Start developing meaningful connections online. Up the ante with a word of mouth (READ: social media) strategy at your dealership.

Need info on how? Check out all of the rvsocialmedia.com archives or get in touch by commenting on any post!

*Photo Credi: ansik

Filed under: Why social media?, , , , , ,

September 8, 2010 • 10:07 am 3

A cupcake case study.

A cupcake social media case study
We love social media success stories and sharing case studies in which businesses have triumphed using social media as a key marketing tool. If that business also happens to sell cupcakes? Even better.

Now we know that the world of RVing and the world of cupcake bakeries differ in more ways that can be counted on one hand, but bear with us. There are very few businesses that base their entire marketing strategy on social media, and this case study highlights one of them (make sure to read it!).

While we understand that you can’t go about selling RV’s like you go about selling cupcakes, but there are great takeaways from Foiled Cupcakes focused social media strategy that can guide and inspire you.  Here are key tips we’ve pulled out of this delicious cupcake case study:

1.  Connect with the right people
You can find tons of followers the wrong way, but the only way to succeed is to find people that think your story and message is interesting.  This means don’t use a robot to build followers and do your legwork to find your customers online.

2.  Reply
Make sure you’re interacting, replying and conversing with every single comment or message that comes your way. Be genuine, be helpful, and give (not sell) as much as you can.

3.  Have goals
Set goals or figure out what you hope to accomplish with social media. With a clear plan in mind you’ll stay focused and start connecting with the right people in the right way.  Are you trying to build a local following?  Are you trying to educate consumers on RVs?  Are you trying to generate website traffic?  Think about what you want your social media efforts to do for your dealership.

4.  Don’t waste time
Your tweets, updates and blog posts are suppose to be genuine and honest. If it takes you hours to make something up, it’s a waste of time. If you’re passionate about what you post and what you write about, time will fly and your passion will be apparent.  Establish an angle for your writing, one that fits your dealership.

Look how much we learned from cupcakes today — don’t you want one right now?!

*Photo Credit: megpi

Filed under: Small Business, Why social media?, , , , , , , , ,

August 17, 2010 • 1:38 pm 1

Target RV customers on Facebook.

If you’re feeling pretty good about your dealership’s Facebook page, you might be ready to get serious with your Facebook marketing.  You might be ready to run a Facebook ad.  If your Facebook page is up and running, you have a good amount of fans, you’re posting regularly, and you have good (current & catchy) info available on your Facebook page you should give Facebook ads a go.  Facebook ads can be very cost-effective and provide you with powerful marketing insights.

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to put a simple Facebook ad together.  It’ll take you less than ten minutes, you can set a limit to your budget, and you’ll gain access to “insights” and tracking metrics to see how the ad performs.

Step 1: Build your ad

Visit your RV dealership’s Facebook page, click on the “Promote with an Ad” button (under your profile picture).

Click on "Promote with an Ad"

Step 2: Enter the specifics of your ad

Choose to have your ad either link to your dealership’s Facebook page or to your dealership’s website.  A tip: we recommend starting off linking to your Facebook page, this will help build fans and community.

Give your ad a title, this will display at the top of your ad.

Write your body text. Focus on what you want to communicate to your audience.  Examples: “Southern Iowa’s top RVing and camping resource” “We have the info and product to kick-start your family camping fun” “The best deals on Jayco RV’s west of the Mississippi”

Make sure to ad an image.  A tip: clear photos and pictures of RV’s, camping, families, etc. will work better than your logo.  These will connect and attract attention much better (a logo is easily ignored in a Facebook ad).

Facebook ad step 2

Step 3: Target your RV demographic

Facebook offers several levels of filtering to ensure that your dealership’s ad reaches potential RV customers.  First, target by your location, choose the “By City” option and type in the cities/towns in your area that make sense.  A tip: The more focused of a location you set the better, if you are too broad your ad cost may get to high and you won’t be targeting local prospects.

Second, set your demographics.  Choose an age range, sex, marital status, and language.  A tip: Don’t select English (All), this will include Facebook’s joke “pirate” English and “backwards” English, which you don’t need!  Specifically choose English (US).  If you are in a Spanish, French, or other language dense area, make sure to select those languages as well.

Step 3 for your RV Facebook ad

Step 4: Target RV customers

With Facebook ads, you can go beyond targeting a general demographic and target prospects by “Likes” and “Interests” they have listed in their Facebook profiles.  Add in “Likes & Interests” that match what your dealership offers.  Based on what you add, Facebook will generate a list of ideas that you can also choose to use. Examples: Camping, RVing, Outdoors, Road Trips, Motorhomes, Family Vacations

Step 4 for your RV dealership's Facebook ad

As you narrow down your locations, demographics, and “likes & interests” Facebook will keep a running total of how many people fit your parameters, your “Reach”.

Your facebook ad's reach

Step 5: Set a budget

Once your ad is designed and you’ve set up who to target it’s time to set your budget.  Set a daily limit and then choose to run a continuous ad (that you manually stop), or set a date range.  After you set your budget, you’ll review your ad and pay (paying is as simple and secure as any other Internet transaction).

Step 5 set your ad budget

Step 6: Track

Once your ad is up and running, check into Facebook “Insights” to see how your dealership’s ad  is performing.  Check impressions, click-through rates, and activity.

Filed under: Facebook, , , , , ,

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This information is brought to you by HuebnerPetersen's Dealer Marketing Services and Front Lines Marketing Programs. Please visit http://HuebnerPetersen.com for further information.

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