I lead a social media team for an automotive group so I know social media from a retail marketing perspective. And I’ve created something good there.  I’m interested in being involved in social form an agency angle so decided to broaden my experiences. I’m passionate about digital marketing and social relationship management, and not looking to lose touch with social.  I am assuming a position more tightly honed than ever on digital marketing and reporting.

I left my last digital marketing position inside a dealer-group after my mother died for much needed change and hopes of professional/career development.  But in terms of my last job, what I miss most after the people I worked with is the  interaction with people over our brand social network. In my three years leading social for an automotive dealer-group, I have learned some things.  Here’s how I was involved in social alongside some lessons I’ve learned:

My past duties related to social:

1. Lead weekly social media team discussion to identify and implement ways to grow social visibility of brand and increase customer density of social audience
2. Foster customer engagement using a mix of low cost/ high impact content, relevant to both customer and business.
3. Monitor and measure the effectiveness of social strategies over Facebook and Twitter.  For weekly contests, I would measure simple Return on Social Spend (Customer Sales Value / Social Costs)

I advocated for less direct car sales promotion over social because social is not the proper channel.  Social is best for extending our brand relation with customers and prospects beyond the sale, beyond the dealership, beyond business.  Think of social as the delicate threads in the fabric customer trust and relevancy.  We learned the hard way that it is best to be careful by keep sales off social.  Social is full of enough noise and irrelevance after all.  Why add to the pile?

The best tools in the toolbox were those which helped us pursue local market engagement. We would often pose questions, host trivia and contests with giveaways, publish branded but engaging (i.e. entertaining/ controversial/ fun) videos and photos, offer incentives and promotions on service and automotive detailing. We sought a balanced approach towards meeting diverse brand audience content expectations by mashing repetition with surprise which helped keep our brand presence on social media interesting. You need a fresh supply of engaging content else your pool will quickly run dry. We did very little direct car sales promotion over social because social is best reserved for extending the brand relation with customers beyond the sale, beyond the dealership.

Sell your brand. Sell your experience. But don’t sell your merchandise.

Social is like a delicate thread woven into the fabric of trust and relevance belonging to your brand network. We have learned that it is best to be careful by keeping sales off social less become irrelevant. For smaller brands, selling merchandise over social can jeopardize the “top of mind” placement of brand as audiences can quickly “turned-off” by the sales message. Many people within a brand network can quickly find the sales message impertinent to their daily lives than the “person-to-person”, “brand-to-person” or ”person-to-brand” dialogue that had drawn them onto social in the first place.

Know thyself.

Automotive vehicle ownership is so widespread that cars have become just another commodity that a sales message in this vertical is noise to the consumer.

A dealership’s social audience is a diverse mix. As the dealer-group social/digital thought leader, we tried to present a diversified social strategy that would broaden our social visibility inside our market vertical.  This allowed us to reach both customers and prospects with engaging content, allowing us to gain better traction, then build momentum and grow audience engagement over time.  Our approach was holistic and took time.   After all, it’s a challenge to engage a diversified mix of customer/audience groups, especially when they don’t want to be sold over social.  The lack of promise for sales over social can cause a lack of executive management buy-in. However brand managers should not despair, social is a good channel for reinforcing “top of mind” brand placement in the market.

We found our best success by simply being different from other dealerships in the market, by not being a “car dealers” and aligning our business needs with our audience needs on social to keep top of mind. People don’t want to be sold cars over social.

In the automotive market-space, social is excellent channel for customer retention, especially when used in conjunction with CRM because social then can be made most effective for targeting and rewarding your most valuable customers in terms of revenue and Klout.  These happen to be your biggest brand advocates.

I just wanted to share this.  What happens when you think  you are smarter than your customer is that your entire reputation, or the little that’s  left of it,  crumbling apart like dry feta cheese on salad.

Here is a link to a Colorado based Channel 9 News story about  shady business practices against a senior citizen couple  by Heritage Ford of Loveland, CO.  This report lends example to how mainstream media can incorporate social media to report alleged questionable business practices by dealerships like Heritage Ford of Loveland, CO. 

Then check out the comments thread to read the comments left by people here. Local media would be eager to play the “elderly consumer advocate” and do a story on a dealership’s alleged questionable business practices (or elderly consumer folly depending on audience point of view).  Advertising with local media for me seems tactical in the sense that local media channels are faced with a dilemma and perhaps reluctant to report alleged/unfounded accusations made by customers. However against unhappy customer-created content published on social media, there is little a dealer can do aside from exploring legal options to prevent an unhappy customer’s message from potentially reaching thousands. Unlike with local channels with whom we spend our ad dollars, we cannot use our channel advertising spend to sway a single unhappy customer from publishing their negative review, YouTube video, or attack website.  What we can do now is be proactive in establishing an active but branded presence on social media, employing video and social networks to reach and positively engage every person willing to interact with us online.  The weight of having a positive and prolific but branded active presence will help offset any future negative sentiments or attacks made towards us that may arise across social media.

Good seminar at #DD10 Session 110 though Jeff Wyler’s message wasn’t the “destroyer of social media” as expected for a seminar entitled “Likes or Links, Which One Stinks and Why Social Media is BS.”  His  presentation title however, did  result in the packing of the floor at his presentation.  Though it was sort of a “bait and switch” message since many in the audience (perhaps all)  anticipated a  message that would forever end social media as a piece of the automotive digital strategy pie. In fact Jeff supports Social.  Just not for direct sales and ROI.  Guess what.  He’s right.

Social as we know it isn’t about direct sales and ROI but branding, visibility and customer relations – even SEO and content strategy.  Rewarding non-prospects and non-customers with gimmicky prizes makes no sense for a long term holistic social strategy when focusing on ROI.

Small but practical incentives that engage customers and reward customer loyalty can help keep the dealership brand “top of mind” beyond the dealership, between businesses at little cost in light of customer lifetime value (CLV).   You just have to do it right.

To do it right, I recommend dealers try to use CRM to drive existing customers to a dealership branded social spaces like Facebook to increase audience customer density there before getting into promotions.  Think about it. CRM and Social can be used in concert to reach and reward customers with a meaningful CLV over Facebook.  Incentives can be part of the mix as long as they are of some perceived value and usefulness (think relevance and quality) to the audience, and that audience has a relationship with your brand.    Any dollar spend should reach and reward your more valuable customers having higher Social Reach and Clout, as these customers are more likely to advocate your brand across their networks in addition to having reinforced your relationship with these customers.  And if you are giving away prizes, always measure campaign attrition to keep yourself honest. People will do what you want to get free stuff.  Just make sure they are customers with a high CLV.  If you’re not measuring attribution when incentives are used then you cannot effectively manage Social.  After all, you may be engaging the wrong segment.   Don’t fall in love with your own invention. Keep yourself honest by measuring attrition.

So there is no argument for making a direct ROI attribution back to Social.  A healthy dealer social media strategy puts branding and customer relations ahead of ROI.  And if honestly positioned as such to upper management, Social won’t raise false expectations and can win buy-in on the basis of its own merits, and the merits of a competent team.   Small but practical incentives that engage customers and reward customer loyalty can help keep the dealership brand “top of mind” beyond the dealership, between businesses at little cost in light of customer lifetime value (CLV).   You just have to do it right.

Social is emerging as a Search driver. To what extent a Search driver we do not know.  Google still requires a user’s to setup and be logged into a Google Profile account. This account must be integrated with the users other social accounts like Facebook and Twitter.  So the caveat with Social as a Search driver in an era where most search engine users still prefer surfing anonymously is this.  It’s coming but it’s not quite there.

John Cisar @socialevisible

Here are essential tools any digital marketer will need to survive working in automotive retail:

1. Bolt cutters
2. KPI know-how
3. Google Adwords Certification
4. Google Analytics Individual Qualification
5. An inclination for professional development
6. Strong work ethic
7. A strong social support network (there are no “thank you’s” in this business. In fact nobody will recognize the work you do, but not because they are jerks, but because they just don’t know enough about what you do to recognize its value and appreciate it.)

I’m only going to touch 1 thru 4 here.  The rest is self explanatory.

Bolt-Cutters: Don’t wait for the Zombie Apocalypse to roll around to order a pair of these. Not for chopping off zombie heads; but for slicing thru cultural obstacles.  Many car dealers are emotional creatures and will resist the concept change for a data driven culture. But a seasoned digital marketer knows the advantages of asking for forgiveness over permission. When you meet resistance to your marketing methodology, conduct small tests to prove or disprove your hypothesis. If the test results prove favorable, present the results to your employer and show them evidence of opportunity and win your argument.  Facts and direct evidence is far better tools at winning support than supposition; especially when money is at risk.

KPI Know-how: Key Performance Indicators help decision makers track digital marketing performance. Sometimes, indicators need to be invented or need changing. Make sure to keep KPI indicators relevant.

Google Adwords Certification: Listen, if you advocate that your dealer-group offshore digital advertising to an agency you’re not acting in the cost interest of your dealer.  Quality Score is partly determined by account and campaign age.  Assuming that you were not in managerial control of your Google Adwords account’- bids and keywords in all,  every time you transitioned SEM vendors  a new Adwords account would have to be created. That would leave you’d back at “square one” starting over with building up quality score.  Don’t be fooled. Even though the upfront cost of outsourcing SEM may be cheaper, in the long run you will be paying a premium CPA or CPC by not managing your SEM in house.

Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ): If you do not own your data, you will not own your marketing experience. Don’t settle for vendor-generated analytics alone. 

Here’s why: Listen, you are going to want to launch, own and control your own analytics (and I recommend Google Analytics but its not the only solution) because as you transition website digital marketing vendors, you will always have a historical baseline for performance comparison. Data Analysis and Reporting is a cornerstone for every successful digital marketing strategy.

Here are two key performance indicator (KPI’s) to help you manage your automotive ecommerce.  They are:

1. Day /View  Ratio
2. Day/Lead Ratio

Fact: I’m an impatient person and it’s Superbowl weekend.  So for now I’m only going to talk only about the Days / View Ratio and explain to you its significance for guiding ecommerce merchandising decisions.  I will show you how to report and  t interpret the ratio.  The rest you can figure out yourself, or follow up with me in the comments section.  Larger ecommerce sites with higher lead volume  (i e. a guarantee of 1+ website leads for each vehicle per day) will benefit greatly from the Lead/View Ratio  than  smaller outfits in a sparsely populated locations where website leads on each vehicle is unlikely. Without lead volume, making sound use of the Lead/View Ratio is  impossible.  A given amount of  daily lead data above “1″ must be present for Lead/View reporting to make sense. Anyway, sometime down the road I will follow up with some example reporting because I can be a difficult person to follow  when I give explaination.  I’m a visual learner and a visual teacher. So be patient, please bear (bare?) with me.  And forgive me if I confuse you.  It’s just how my mind works free flow writing.  I’m open to  offer clarification. Just comment away!  I’ll surely answer. Anyway….

It’s been over a decade since ecommerce and automotive retail fused together to give us our modern day automotive digital marketplace.  Traditional metrics used in our industry to manage online  inventory include a) average inventory age, b) sales closing rate, c) online inventory turn, d) lead conversion rate e) cost per sale, and f) ROI/ ROAS to name a few.  These are longstanding champions to ecommerce  management. These metrics while relevant, alone cannot lend complete insight and guide business decision making without context.  Metrics without context are nearly-meaningless, which is why I advocate you find ways for pursing and adding context into your data by analyzing data in both a multi-dimensional and qualitative light – beyond the quantitative.

Introducing the Day/View Ratio:

The Day/View Ratio is a simple expression of the relationship between a period of time and the number of pageviews made to the vehicle details page.   The Day/Lead Ratio is the same formula with the exception of using Leads in place of Pageviews.

First figure out what inventory milestone interval time periods are important to study.  Ask yourself what time perod intervals are meaningful and why they are important.

The time period in question could be anything considered important to you for inventory management.  It could be the number or days a vehicle has been listed on your website (Total days published online).  Anyone who manages inventory is going to be concerned about days in inventory. After all, it’s not a concept regarded by the automotive retail industry alone. Figure out what your inventory milestone interval time periods are and apply the Day/View ratio using that time period and pageviews accrued within that time period.  For example:

1. Do you consider 14 days in inventory to be the milestone before making your first advertised retail price adjustment?   Within that 14 day period did Stock # F32453 only get 7 pageviews?
   • 7 / 14 = 0.5  or (0.5 x 100) = 50%
2. After 30 days do you normally revisit price and make a second price adjustment?  And within that 30 day period did Stock #: F54567 receive 60 pageviews?
   • 30 / 30 =  1.0  or (1.0 x 100)  = 100%
3. Is 90 days the cutoff date before sending a used car to auction?  Or maybe that number is 90? And during the course of that time did Stock #: F32453 receive 20 pageviews?  Maybe you received 120 pageviews?
   • 120 / 90 =  1.33  or (1.33 x 100)  = 133%

So as you can see the Day/View ratio is a simplified expression of the relationship between two metrics a) range of vehicle days,  and b) vehicle Pageviews made in the same period of time.  It will be easier for you to consume and digest the Day/View ratio than to look at vehicle Days and Pageviews as separate metrics.

Looking at Age and Pageviews as a combined expression offers more context than looking at Age and Pageviews as single metric values apart from one another.

Whatever the circumstances, factor the number of days in your Day/ View Ratio and benchmark against their historical values.  I advise exploring and benchmarking all periodic Day / View Ratio intervals and key performance indicator in a spreadsheet to look for hot or cold trends in the data.

Benchmarking:  What can the Day/View ratio tell me?

Nothing!  Haha.

Listen, the Day/View ratio shows you the “What”.  Like I say, you have to add context to your data, i.e. the “Why”. On the surface, the Day/View ratio shows you that for period X, a Y number of pageviews were made to that vehicle details page resulting in a Z % Day/View ratio.  As a rule, I recommend you benchmark using two methods side by side to improve ratio context in light of your whole inventory and in light of the vehicle’s historical performance:

1)      Average Day / View ratio: Objectively benchmark each specific vehicle’s Day/View Ratio against the Average Day/View ratio for your entire inventory.  If you are reporting Day/View ratio on a used vehicle, then use the Used Inventory Average Day/View ratio only.  Do the likewise with New or Wholesale, etc.  We want to compare apples to apples.

KPI Performance Benchmarking:  Key Performance Indicators are used to measure the vehicle’s Day / View ratio in the current reporting period against that vehicle’s corresponding Day / View ratio from the previous reporting period.   Benchmarking Day / View Key performance indicators (KPI’s) on a bi-weekly reporting schedule allows for enough data to accrue between reports (two weeks), and will help you spot trends in vehicle Day / View performance.   I recommend you do a KPI Performance Benchmark of the 7 Day / View ratio and the 30 Day/View ratio to identify underperforming vehicles.  In your report, measure the % change between these two periods against their corresponding periods from the prior reporting period.  Underperformance is certain when a vehicle’s Day/ View ratio is:

1. Is less than the Average Inventory benchmark
2. Shows negative % change across both 7 Day / View ratio and 30 Day/View ratio KPI metrics.

The existence of both under-performance and negative trends appearing in benchmark KPI’s can indicate a problem vehicle. Corrective merchandising may be required.  I recommend reporting on a bi-weekly basis because it’s a long enough time period for data to accrue over a couple of few weeks. Buts it is short enough a time period for quick merchandising insights and actions to take place using resulting reporting data as your guide.

You could also assume that for each work day, at least one pageview should accrue per vehicle. I’m not a fan of assumptions however. But there is no absolute rule for benchmarking.  The more sensible dimensions you can bring to benchmarking I say the better. As a rule, make sure to become consistent in your benchmarking model and disciplined in your reporting frequency. Let consistency in model and discipline in reporting frequency become your mantra.  These are keys to finding success thru Day/View reporting and analysis and corrective merchandising.

Data Interpretation:

So you’ve determine that Vehicle Age, 60 Days, 30 Days and 7 Days are important to you.  Vehicle Age / View ratio is significant because it factors in all other Day View ratios.  For you, the 60 Day / View ratio is important because at 90 days you send a used vehicle off to auction so you use the 60 Day / View ratio to as your last “hurrah”  to attempt corrective merchandising.  And you follow the 30 Day / View ratio because you make an important price reduction after 30 days.  You then use a sensitive 7 Day / View ratio as an indicator ratio for benchmarking the % change in the past week when compared to the 7 Day / View ratio from the prior reporting period.  The 7 Day / View ratio comes in handy.  It allows you to take measure of near term change opposed to other Day / View ratios.  Others explore longer time intervals.  Now you have identified a Used 2008 Toyota Prius III in your recent Used Vehicle Day / View Report having a series of underperforming Day / View ratios across all ratios in your report. These include the vehicle Age / View, the 60 Day / View the 30 Day / View, and the 7 Day View ratios.  Your comparison of the 7 Day / View ratio and 30 Day / View ratio of the current reporting period against the prior reporting period of two weeks ago reveal a negative growth.  The 7 Day / View ratio fell by – 60% and the 30 Day / View ratio fell by – 30%. The existence of two negative results within the 7 Day and 30 Day % Change KPI Indicator reveal a negative trend.  The Used 2008 Toyota Prius III is in a negative trend because short term and long term Day / View ratio performance has been declining for some time and is also under-performing the Used Inventory Average Benchmark.

Rules for reading Performance Indicators:

1. If the Day/View Ratio for a given vehicle falls below the inventory average for the 7 Day and 30 Day periods, then corrective merchandising may be required.
2. If the 7 Day / View Indicator % change, and the 30 Day / View Indicator % change are both negative, your vehicle is in a negative trend. The number of leads accrued for this vehicle is below the Inventory Average. Take corrective merchandising action immediately.
3. If the 7 Day / View Indicator % change is negative and the 30 Day / View Indicator % change is positive, then possible reversal from a positive trend to a negative trend may soon occur.  The number of leads accrued for this vehicle is at or below the Inventory Average. Review vehicle merchandising measures to find areas for improvement.  Corrective merchandising may or may not yet be necessary.
4. Leads:  When benchmarking Day/View ratios, it’s also imperative that you take into consideration the number of leads accrued for each vehicle.  It is possible that your vehicle poorly performs on the level of Day / View ratios but out performs your inventory. If this is the case, than perhaps there is something wrong with the vehicle as it appears on the Vehicle Listings Page.  But for the few that do view the Vehicle Listing Page, more accurate and compelling information is revealed and shoppers are comfortable with submitting leads for the vehicle.

Corrective Merchandising:

Merchandise Your Vehicle Listings Page:

If Day/View Ratios are under-performing, then shoppers aren’t clicking on that vehicle’s listing.  Find ways to correct or improve the information contained for the vehicle on the vehicle listing page.

• Is the headlining photo clear, well illuminated and attractive?
• Is the photo of the correct vehicle?
• Is the vehicle taken indoors or if outdoors reflective of  the current season?
• Are there distracting elements in the photo as oil stains on the ground or trash?
• Are vehicle year, make, model and trim information accurate?
• Is the vehicle priced competitively against the market?

Summary:

Like I said, the Day/View Ratio and Key performance Indicator can tell you “what”.  It does not tell you “why.”    You are going to have to do some digging to answer any questions as to why Day’s/View ratio numbers are lower than both inventory benchmarks and underperforming against itself for two consecutive periods.  So don’t focus on all your vehicles showing low Days View ratios.  I highly recommend that you use historical benchmarking to spot a vehicle living in a negative trend.  A negative trend is any trend comprising of negative performance over two consecutive reporting periods. For vehicles in a negative trend, you may want to visit vehicle listings pages to identify merchandising improvements. But remember, metrics can only identify the “what”. Metrics cannot identify the “why”. Adding context helps.  Perhaps the vehicle needs updated photos. Maybe the vehicle has incorrect headline information on the vehicle listings page.  Perhaps vehicle price is too high or low for market comfort.  Or maybe the market in which you are marketing simply isn’t that interested for what you are willing to sell it for.  Make merchandising improvements.  Survey your online inventory shoppers for qualitative feedback.

I just finished the article in Dealer Magazine about how used car auction prices have become available to consumers via a mobile phone app.  Consumers will soon learn how much you have paid for your used car at auction.

My thoughts:

The internet soon showed itself as no longer being optional. And so will m-commerce (mobile-ecommerce)

15 years ago, an information revolution occurred with the advent of the internet for commercial purposes.  That revolution is still going strong today largely due to innovations made in the consumer-oriented mobile technology market over the last five years. New research shows that the market climate is ripe for mobile.

• In 2008, a study by Forester Research revealed that Americans spend as much time online as they do watching TV.  
• Mobile technology will surpass desktops and laptops in broadband internet consumption by 2012.
• Mobile phones are now more popular than personal computers.  A recent study by Pew Internet  found that 85% of all Americans own a cell phone whereas 76% of Americans own a computer. 

 A mobile tsunami is fast approaching

The sooner we accept this reality that consumers have access to information that they didn’t have 15 years ago, the better able we can successfully do business under new market conditions.  We have to accommodate consumer expectations.   Dealer websites can see a triple digiit increase in mobile derrived visitor traffic year-over-year for the next three years. The internet and mobile have converged. Web enabled mobile communication devices will continue to drive commerce – even at the level of our dealership lot, showroom, and service lane and parts counter. 

We can expect to find more mobile-wielding used car consumers walking our car lots and visiting our showroom or service lanes to check our prices, honesty and integrity online in real time.  If public schools systems across the country cannot keep smart-phones out of the classrooms, then how will delaers?  The answer is not to pull from the internet. Over 80% of used car shoppers consulting the web each day to research buying opportunities before making a purchase decision, and they expect us to be there.  Dealers must acommodate consumers needs, 2) anticipate change  3) plan and prepare for change.  3) embrace, adapt and learn from change.

With so many choices, many consumers are first looking to disqualify dealers. To do that they are going to turn to the internet and read independent consumer reviews to gauge dealer integrity on both product and price, service and honesty. It can work against us if we are negligent. But can really work in our favor if we embrace it.  I am of the opinion that a leading online presence keeps us top of mind and farther away from consumer disqualification. It’s the sleepy dealer without concern for online visibility of brand, product and price that will fail.

With an even more empowered used car consumer surely arriving on dealer lots in the future, I certainly believe sales persons and managers in the heat of negotiation will need to reveal reconditioning costs to the consumer to justify asking price.  Every car bought at auction must be transported, reconditioned and services in our service center, body shop and automotive detailing centers to made retail ready.

On behalf of dealers, manufacturers needs to place pressure of ecommerce tech vendors to more closely support third party analytics integration and customization across dealer technologies. An automotive manufacturer that gives the stamp of approval” to any website solution provider needs to push vendors to abandon the virtual service model in favor of an hybrid model involving on-site services. Account managers must to be less a sales instrument and more of an educational instrument, and an empowerment instrument. Automotive website solution providers must ease up energies used imposing and up-selling proprietary web analytics and web marketing solutions in favor enabling dealer adoption of more community supported, open, robust, flexible, yada yada yada, third party web analytics solution as Google Analytics because, as it stands, automotive vendor products and support services do not consider automotive digital marketers and web analysts part of a significant end user segment.

 In light of the material presented during recent Toyota E-Business Series focusing on Google Analytics (GA) calling for an embrace of web analytics and KPI reporting as central to ecommerce and digital marketing management strategies, I must voice my frustration with proprietary web solution providers whose products are closed off to full third party web analytics integration and customization, maximizing the benefits of those feature that a true web analyst would require when measuring the impact that onsite and offsite content and marketing efforts have on conversion rates and ROI/ ROAS. Many automotive website venders do not directly support 3rd party analytics integrations to best meet the shifting ecommerce knowledge reporting needs of dealers. Powerful GA features such as goal tracking, event tracking, and ecommerce reporting can yield critical metrics to assist in digital-dealer with data-driven decision-making.

Automotive dealers who want to take full advantage of these features find more challenge than accommodation. As a result, Google Analytics reporting over contemporary automotive web environments remains superficial and basic. Basic metrics alone offer little contextual, substantial value for intelligent decision making for digital marketing and content strategies.

Ideally, a full Website/CRM/ Web Analytics integration would exist.  Recommendations made by ebusiness adoption consultants however essential, are not entirely possible to execute under the existing conditions inherent across automotive retail technologists.  Automotive retailers and consumers are increasingly digitally- driven so a complete integration of [Ecommerce Store / Web Environment] <– –>  [(Analytics Environment <-- -->  CRM/ DMS Environment)] makes sense.  But I’m not sure if there is a vendor who today facilitates  integration. Cooperation between CRM providers and Web Solution providers has to happen to pull it off and it is the responsibility of automotive manufactures  to initiate and facilitate that conversation.

 I’m of the mindset comparing cost metrics to earned $ value of lead type isn’t an apples to apples comparison despite an apparent correlation that social influence marketing may promise low cost/ high impact marketing when effectively planned and executed.

After I read what was released of the study in the PDF document, a few questions were raised on my end, perhaps because I wasn’t clear on how the parts of the whole $137 “fan value” metric were calculated?
1. Spend
2. Loyalty
3. Recommendation
4. Earned Media Value
5. Cost Offset of Brand Acq.

In the worst case scenario, the study reports a fan is worth $0. But I don’t believe this takes into account fan impact made by negative brand influencers who end up causing opportunity loss by turning people away from a brand. Earned media value vs. Lossed media value.
Yes social media is largely “earned advertising” via holistic brand ambassadors comprising persons of peer influence and brand affinity. That being said, this study only concludes the unique earning value generated by a brand fan, and offers no direct measure of fan value thru fan influence, to measure the dollar impact a brand ambassador creates on their network of peers who then in response become a fan and purchase brand goods or services.

If there is a more comprehensive released version of this report and you have access to it,   I would love to read it!

I fist came across discuss on the Value of a Facebook Fan study here on ADM.

Click here for Value of a Facebook Fan study report.

With a looming ADP-Cobalt merger, what can we expect in terms of innovation and value?  I cannot be sure. Time will tell.  With Ralph Paglia at the helm of digital strategy at ADP, a man who fights for innovation amid big corporate culture,  a post ADP acquisition of Cobalt seems promising, but can an even larger company re-orient themselves towards innovation?  Can an even larger company adapt more proactively, efficiently and effectively to shifts in the product market and needs of the dealer?

Last winter I attended a Dealer dot com hiring event where Industry Relations Director Mike DeCecco made a insightful statement to the effect of the following:

Nationwide, Dealer dot com is now the number one automotive ecommerce website and digital marketing solutions vendor among 120 competitors.  And the primary reason why Dealer dot com has grown to the number one automotive ecommerce website and digital marketing solution provider is due to a focus on the dealer and a commitment to innovation.  Dealers demand Dealer Dot Com because our reputation is built from the dealer-up not the manufacturer-down.

Now these weren’t Mike’s actual words as I’m recalling by memory an event that took place nearly 6 months ago.  But the essence is dead-on.

Companies like Cobalt, a market leader and main competitor, owes much of their growth to a single strategy:  land sweeping contracts at the automotive manufacturer level using product price to win, not product innovation.  Automotive manufacturers imposed a homogeny of Cobalt products and solutions on their dealer franchisees; most dealers didn’t have much of a say or choice unfortunately.  And because Cobalt secured wide swaths of dealership market-share via contract at the manufacturer level, they ceased to value innovation  because they simply didn’t need to in order to win over the dealerships.

And that’s why Dealer dot com grew so popular; by focus and commitment to the needs of the dealer – not the manufacturer.  Dealers want to retain the free-enterprise  liberty of choosing a customer-driven solution from an innovative solution provider for themselves, and not be forced to homogenize with their competitors under one umbrella.

From one  automotive digital marketing professional to another, I wonder how ADP’s looming acquisition of Colbalt will shape the post-merger company and if a new spirit of  innovation and dealer-focus will  prevail  by a fresh ADP philosophical infusion.

What are your thoughts?

Sellers notes (or custom comments if you prefer to call them) is a savvy way to “kill two birds with one stone”. Custom comments are as important element among cookie cutter, VIN exploded stock copy for vehicle search engine visibility then anything else by:

• Allowing you to optimize your inventory search engine visibility for the “long-tail” through unique, relevant and descriptive page content
• Enhance the “merchandising” factor.

So if you are not leveraging sellers notes / custom comments, you are likely missing a broad market of search engine car shoppers; prospects who want to find your product and use search engines as a means for letting criteria-based keywords find purchase opportunities.

Top things to keep in mind when writing vehicle sellers notes:

1. Write with the prospect consumer audience in mind
2. Work in market geography
3. Provide a quantitative description as vehicle year, make, model, trim
4. Provide a qualitative description of exterior color, interior color, notable features and equipment.  Examples may include, but are not limited to:
   a.  Tow package – perfect of the farmer, hunter & outdoor recreationist
   b.  Sunroof – excellent for those weekend summer road trip getaways
   c.  Remote car starter with heated leather seats
   d. Convertible soft top
   e. Six speaker JBL Stereo sound system with Bluetooth connectivity
5. Provide and describe the warranty type
6. Write to appeal to the end users – incorporate practical and emotional benefits to ownership that help sell the car
7. Some people search for Carfax vehicles.  If the vehicle history report is included, say so.
8. Is it a one owner vehicle? State so