Jumpstart Automotive Group

The marketing model has flipped and through the power of Web 2.0, consumers are now able to fully interact with brands through the use of social media. We know that traditional media will always play a critical role in a brand’s marketing model even as new communication and engagement platforms emerge.  However, the role of each media will change to reflect its unique ability to solve a specific marketing problem in the context of a richer media mix. With the emergence of social media, shifting roles for each media type are accelerating. While traditional media is about your product, social media is about your consumer.  Social media is about unlocking a consumer’s passion, involvement, interaction and ownership of the brand.

Savvy brands are unleashing the power of social media and the industry is taking notice. Best-in-class organizations are using social media to better predict consumer behavior. 

According to a January 2008 study by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks company, the following are listed as top motivations for using social media:

• Need better consumer insight (50%)

• Need to improve customer satisfaction (27%)

• Need to increase return on marketing investment (26%)

• Need to gain competitive intelligence (21%)

• Need to develop new products and services (19%)

For the automotive industry, social media provides great benefits and creates unique opportunities for brands and publishers to leverage.  Social media provides a forum where consumers can communicate with your brand and with each other.  This forum is a place where valuable consumer insights and intelligence can be harnessed. 

Brand differentiation can also be achieved through the power of social media.  In a crowded marketplace, brands need ways to stand out from their competition.  Creating compelling and unique user experiences is key to keeping your consumers engaged, motivated to share and top of mind.  The conversation is taking place if your brand is a part of it or not. Give your consumers the tools they need to build your brand by providing them an outlet where you can harness the conversation. 

Social media also inherently provides an engine to drive new name acquisition and create more qualified leads. The leads received are more personal and as a result more qualified, as people are sharing stories, reviews and insights.  For automotive brands, it is paramount to build passionate consumer advocates who are able to influence their vast online social circle.  This serves as a very effective method to deliver on your acquisition, retention and growth objectives.

A comprehensive marketing approach which incorporates the use of social media into your online and offline marketing mix will also yield positive results. For example, consider promoting your on-premise event marketing efforts by spreading the word virally online with the use of social networks, email marketing and search.  Then take the on-premise content, whether it be customer reviews or event photos and populate your branded online site.  This activity from the event gives your consumers assets to share your brand organically and invites them into a personal dialogue.

How people interact socially with your brand will provide you with true insight and actionable data.  Capturing and leveraging consumer activity on your site can help you create a behavioral database of what people are looking for, desire and need most. You will be able to target your consumers in a deeper and more meaningful way and serve them a robust experience.

According to a 2008 Nielsen study, 78 percent of consumers trust the opinion of peers over all other information sources and advertising. Consider taking the stories, insight and activity of your passionate consumers and leveraging it with those who may be in-market to make a new automobile purchase.

Social media is not a passing trend and is moving into the marketing core for brands. Clients need solutions that help them activate programs based on the here and now, and take advantage of the control consumers now have with this new marketing medium.