Getting Ready for the Content Game

While speaking to a 20 Group last month, I was asked if transferring leads to the sales floor is the best way to manage online opportunities. Simply put, I prefer an Internet department still to this day. I understand many are saying "disperse leads to the sales floor because all customers are internet shoppers anyway and they should be able to assist them". Here is the flaw... constructing well-worded replies without spelling errors and well-thought out responses with grammatically correct sentences often takes a more educated, dedicated individual - and we know those are often not those handling customers on most showroom floors.

If you have been hiring from the beginning for that purpose then, by all means, put them in charge. Most likely, though, you have a mix of intellectual product junkies and stuck-in-their-ways old car dogs. There won’t be any autonomy in responses so you just aren’t ready yet.

Also, for quality customer interaction to take place, usually the responding party needs to be either well-versed at overcoming objections or be given the authority to price and negotiate with online consumers. Hence, this is why an actual Internet Manager is still so valuable. Yes, I like having a dedicated department performing those lead-handling duties.

Then I was asked if all of the salespeople should be in control of a dealer’s digital marketing / social media presence and content creation. “Heck no!” was my immediate answer to that. They should be “involved”, but certaily not “in control”.

That being said, just to enter the content creation game, your dealership will need:

1) An Executive (or executive-level entity) to manage the dealer's social presence, brand message, and content sharing.
2) One content creator writing blogs/stories, taking pictures, and shooting videos (vehicle, salespeople bios, customer testimonials, events, locally-driven material, walk-arounds, and fun stuff) and sharing the creations with the Executive
3) All employees to "Like" the primary dealership FB page, participate in a little of the content’s creation, and assist in the "sharing" of said content provided from the primary page off their own FB pages and into their sphere of influence.

So you really just need a minimum of two people to run it. If you are the executive in this instance, then great. You still need a content person. Find a college kid that takes theater or journalism, is comfortable in front of and behind a camera, and bring them on at least part-time (full-time if they're a college graduate). If you can't hire, look into the Automotive Internship Program.

Then find the right portal in which to manage your online presence. At NADA I saw a company called Social Dealer with a good product for this. ReachLocal's ReachCast looks good as well. AAN (Automotive Advertising Network) has a content-creation portal to help turning RSS feeds from the OEM quickly into blogs, press releases, and microsites). Exteres Auto and MyGoso are supposed to be very good as well, but I’m not as intimate with their products as the others. All offer some semblance of reporting and control that allow you to better manage your reputation, presence and content.

But it starts with the structure of your store and the people you designate to CONTROL the leads, the content, the technology, and your presence that will determine your online success.

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Comment by Brian Pasch on April 20, 2011 at 6:49pm: Joe

Great post and thank you for including mention of the Automotive Internship Program (AIP) which starts the 3rd week of May. Dealers looking for assistance in training and existing employee or attracting a college intern can leverage this 12-week online training program. More information can be found at http://www.automotiveinternships.org

If live training on content writing, blogging, and content syndication is preferrred, dealers can check out the four city educational tour we just announced at: http://www.pcgdigitalmarketing.com/pitstop/

Comment by Ryan Gerardi on April 19, 2011 at 7:32pm: Joe I really appreciate your message here. I have been doing blog and social media content for dealerships for more than 4 years now, and have witnessed first-hand the evolution of these ideas from being taboo, to mainstream, to everyone is an expert now.

In my experience, producing content for blog and social media requires more than just good writing skills. It requires a passion for the subject matter and for the audience, plus an ability to tell a story. In today's world it also requires knowledge of SEO and Social Media from a mechanical and abstract level. We could probably find examples of powerful and popular content that is not grammatically correct or the result of skillful writing. And we certainly could find examples of well-written content that goes nowhere.

In effect, the content game is an organic and dynamic process that does indeed require a few good executive-level men and/or women. At the moment, I believe that for car dealers, producing good content can be achieved when there are interesting things to talk about, such as an unconventional event at the dealership or a partnership between the dealership and a local business or charity. It also helps to make intriguing and useful videos.

Comment by Michael Abrams on April 18, 2011 at 9:42am: Joe: All good points.

If a dealership is investing in creating leads from the internet and they don't have a solid internet protacol in place, they might as well stick to the newspaper.

Even if there isn't an Internet Manager, per se, there has to be someone who orchestrates the the flow and keeps a vigilant eye on responding in a timely manner to all requests. Obviously, it has been proven time and time again, that the person(s) responsible for interacting with the internet customer, cannot routinely handle the sale from start to finish without seriously damaging their ability to be responsive to the customer. The rest of the salesforce absolutely needs to be broght in to handle the customer at the proper time (which can be different from customer to customer).

Comment by Amy Taggart on April 18, 2011 at 9:12am: Training is an excellent idea - providing you take into account the individual's aptitude for learning and interest in self-development. Some dogs don't want to learn new tricks, especially if they're forced to.

That being said, it's amazing how quickly some old dogs will pick up new things once they see the added value in the form of additional cash in their pockets.

Comment by Joe Webb on April 18, 2011 at 8:18am: John, what an excellent idea. I'm ashamed to say I've never looked at it that way. I've always been the one advocating to hire for the ISM position and find someone with the skills for the role. If there education was there, they can be trained on the technology, processes, philosophies, etc.

However, your idea of actually having an employee already that has the sales skills and sending them to a local college to get their academia side stronger is a GREAT idea. Well done. (I'm mad I never thought of that :) It would also show tremendous buy-in with the employee as well.

Comment by Tony Sutton on April 18, 2011 at 1:11am: I think you have summed it up perfectly.

Comment by James Easter on April 17, 2011 at 3:42pm: Thanks for the post Joe