Car Dealers of the Future Will Blog, Podcast and Video Blog
By: Mike Stewart, Digital Dealer magazine
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For the last 10 years I have been working with dealers on how to best utilize video and audio content they produce themselves. With just a few clicks of a mouse I teach them how to broadcast content to the world that anyone can read, listen to, or watch online.
So what does this have to do with car sales, and how am I qualified to comment on this? There is a trend on the Internet that anyone selling anything must pay attention to, or be consumed by those who do. Geeks are labeling it Web 2.0, social networking, the third screen, conversation marketing, the long tail, and a plethora of other terms that mean something, but confuse the 50-plus year olds because they were raised with television, print and radio, not the Internet. Yet they are too young to retire, and were dragged to all this techno-babble kicking and screaming. Sound like you?
I, on the other hand, wanted to see what is there and learned how to point, click, and make friends who become customers and buy from me for life.
That is Web 2.0. Make friends using technology while you sleep. It isn't hard, you just have to do it because the market is changing and interruptive advertising does not work as it did in our generation. People buy from people they know, love and trust. Sales and management must be willing to take the easy steps to learn how to do online relationship-building technologies like blogs, podcasts, video blogs, and social networks or witness the whippersnappers who do it while they eat your lunch.
Why do I know about the car business and why this will work? Because I did more car advertising in the last 25 years than I care to remember. I wrote and produced radio, TV, and saw every print ad trick in the book. I heard over and over again: price, service and selection have always been what made my advertisers' dealerships different. But they all said that, because everyone had the right price, the deal of the week, the best service, and the biggest selection. I remember dealing with ad agencies whose only agenda was to tell you, the dealer, that your current advertising stunk; as a means to get in your door and then said how they would make it better. I remember doing a Nissan dealer jingle three times one year because the dealer changed ad agencies three times and those three different agencies happened to be my clients; so we were hired to write new radio jingles for the same client. The dealer never knew we did the competing agency ads and that the replacing agency convinced the dealership the previous advertising stunk. Hogwash! Don't be a victim of this insane "it doesn't work anymore" advertising with high price tags.
In 1996, I got so burnt out on the cutthroat insanity of the advertising production business, I found a new passion - the Internet. I wanted to learn everything that could be done on the Internet with audio and video. Early on, I began designing dealership web sites, and then I designed the first automotive consulting web site, which was www.ZieglerSupersystems.com. That's right, I was Jim Ziegler's first Webmaster, and I learned a lot about how to market online, and what works versus what doesn't. Now I am a featured speaker at Internet marketing conferences all over the world, living my dream life, just sitting on my dock on Lake Lanier selling products and services on the Internet to a worldwide audience.
Jim Ziegler is still one of my very best friends and has agreed this industry needs to understand and get on board with Web 2.0 marketing strategies; hence, Jim and Mike asked me to write this article. My plan is to mentor and help those who heed my advice. Ziegler himself is learning this powerful marketing and customer retention tool and he totally agrees with me.
It's no longer simply enough to get your message out there about your products, services and qualifications. Your customers need to know you, trust you, and feel comfortable with you. That's where blogging "humanizes" and creates relationships.
That is why I blog, podcast and video blog. A microphone, computer, and camcorder that you can buy off-the-shelf just about anywhere for under $500, a domain name and a web hosting account, which cost less than five dollars a month and you're in business. You could begin blogging, podcasting, and video blogging almost instantly.
But why should you learn to do that? Radio has taken since 1926 to get to the point it is today, an industry in recession. MySpace, YouTube, iTunes, Google video and WordPress blogging are bursting at the seams with eyeballs and ears. Google isn't stupid; it spent 1.7 billion dollars on YouTube because it has eyes and ears, 180 million of them in less than 18 months. This is new media, and if you don't market with new media, you lose. If you cannot make a video file, an audio file or type text, then you don't get to play in new media marketing. You don't get to the young buying market's first screen, mobile devices. You are not reaching the market if you stay on their third screen, which for them is television. By the way, if they watch at all, more and more are fast-forwarding through your marketing message with TIVO, DVRs and even VCRs, after you paid thousands of greenbacks just to have that message ignored.
How do you blog? Typing. Even with one finger - if you failed typing like me, you can be blogging in less than five minutes. I recommend WordPress, which is free with most web hosting accounts.
WordPress creates audio and video blogging. Just point, click, talk and make new relationships with people. Blogging is the human element added to the technology marketing equation that gets them to know you, love you and trust you enough to come in and buy a car. When dealers understand the power of advanced business blogging, a subject too vast to discuss in a single article, you will learn to create customer relationships that last a lifetime. Dealerships can connect in a matter of minutes with hundreds, even thousands of prospects, customers that would otherwise be impossible to do any other way.
You see, blogging does not require anyone else do the technology; it builds itself without the need of a Webmaster, design firm, production company or ad agency. It becomes the dealership's Internet podium to build relationships with people, as a trusted resource creates loyal customers.
Mike Stewart is the president and founder of Soundpages, Inc., a complete multimedia production facility located in the Atlanta area.
This article originally appeared in the Sept. 2007 issue of Digital Dealer magazine, and has been edited for the AutoUSA Newsletter.
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