The Car Salesman, Social Media and Lead Generation

It’s been drilled into our heads, word of mouth advertising is the best form of advertising, we’ve heard it for years. Quite a few of us have lost faith in this form of advertising for a number of reasons but the biggest reason is because it’s just too difficult to get started.

You can treat people fair, give them a great deal but still they don’t send any referrals your way. In fact you can go above and beyond after the sale by following up, sending birthday cards and oil changes in the mail, and even send them anniversary gifts but it’s just too time consuming and the return isn’t that great. Sure you will get referrals out of it but not the amount you want, not the amount that will keep you off the lot searching for the next up.

For word-of-mouth advertising to truly work the way we all envision it you must learn how to build solid relationships with your customers. I’m not talking about the kind of relationship that you are the only one giving I’m talking about the kind of relationship where both sides give and both sides get.

I know what your thinking, “I don’t have time to build those kind of relationships with everyone of my customers!” and you know what, you would be right if this was just 4 or 5 years ago but it’s not, it’s now and Social Networks give us the opportunity to not only build relationships  with our past customers but with complete strangers as well!

Take Facebook for instance, there are roughly (at the time of this writing) 355 million registered users, with over half of the people in the United States with a Facebook profile. Did you know that the average internet user spends 19 minutes a day on Facebook and only 3 on Google?

There are conversations going on right now, by people in your market, that are talking about buying a car, telling their friends and family how they got turned down for an auto loan and asking where to go to get the most for their trade. The best part about all of this is that you can find these conversations if you look for them.

Social Media Etiquette

Never pitch yourself or your product before you have earned the right to do so. Imagine you and a handful of your closest buddies are all talking in a big group in the middle of the mall and a salesman, seeing an opportunity to make a pitch, walks up and starts pitching you on his widgets. How would that make you feel? How would you react?

Social Media mimics real life, if something will label you as a jerk in real life the same thing goes for social media. That’s why it’s important to build your relationships with care and treat people how you would like to be treated.

People Would Rather Buy From Other People Before They Buy From Brands

Lets face it, we’re social creatures and we love nothing more than to interact with other people and social media gives us that opportunity. It use to be that marketing consisted of trying to start the conversation, now with the internet and ever expanded social networks we have the opportunity to find the conversations already going on. That gives us a unique advantage and if used wisely can generate you more ready-to-buy customers than you could ever imagin. Do keep in mind though that it does take some time and effort to build your network, but if done right YOU will be the person other people want to buy from.

A Simple Strategy

Create a series of videos that teach the art of negotiating a good car deal, the benefits of extended warranties, how best to research and find your next car online, or anything else that might interest people in the market for a car. These videos can be created with a web-cam and need to only be 3 to 5 minutes each.

Lets say that you created a 3 part series. Put part one on Youtube, Part one and two on your blog (you can get a free blog at Wordpress.com or Blogger.com) and part one, two and three on Facebook. The goal here is to get people to request you as a friend to see the 3rd video. If these videos are done correctly they will have access to both your blog and Facebook page.

To really drive people to these videos sign up for Twitter (its quick and easy to build) and direct people to your videos. Using search.twitter.com you can search the last two weeks of tweets and using the right keywords can easily find people that are local.

Learn a Proven Strategy for Local Lead Generation that Can Double or Triple your Income, FREE

The Social Media Revolution — A Car Sales Persons Guide To lead Generation is in its final stages of production and will cover everything from setting up a blog to driving local traffic to your Facebook Page using simple search engine optimization tactics along with techniques on how to build powerful two way relationships.

The course will also be followed by short, powerful instructional videos that will aid you in building your lead generation network. If you would like to be one of the first to receive your FREE copy just fill out the short form below.

Email: I HATE spam, your info is safe with me!

Related posts:

1. If It Can Help a Man Get Elected President, Social Media Can Help You Sell Cars
2. Increasing Customer Retention With Social Media
3. Social Media, BHPH and Decreasing Delinquency Rate
4. Social Media, The New Top Of Mind & 5 Tips To Help You Create It
5. Social Media is all About the Relationship