New Orleans - "I don't know what to do." It's a refrain echoed by small businesses, large corporations and everyone striving to generate sales and fame using social media. But did you know 80% of YouTube views come from outside the United States? Or that over 260 million Americans don't use Twitter? And how about that 51% of traffic on the Internet isn't created by humans? You haven't heard this because, every day, the news is filled with stories about social media. All of them featuring alleged experts and gurus discussing why you must use the latest platform, and how you're going to "leave money on the table" if you don't.
The only story being told doesn't involve the truth, it's one that only benefits the gurus, and for them, the truth is bad for business.
But for car dealerships across America, the question remains: Is social media the be all and end all for their marketing efforts the way the gurus claim? Or is the answer more complex? Do they even need social media at all?
B.J. Mendelson, author of the top-selling and controversial book, "Social Media is Bullshit", has the answer. "It's not a question of whether or not the platforms are useful or useless. It's a question of why you're using them in the first place and whether or not you can achieve your objects quicker, easier and less expensively by using something else. In most cases, it may be that the best solution is looking you right in the face. It's the unsexy stuff like direct mail, search and television that offers a better return on your marketing investments. Not to mention, a higher rate of recall among your customers."
Todd Neidorf, President of Ross Digital Direct, concurred. "There's a rush going on where young marketing professionals, and those who should know better, are asking dealerships to shelve their traditional marketing plans and measurable metrics for success, and replacing them with fuzzy metrics. Ones that might be nice to have, but don't do much to sell cars and keep the lights on."
As thousands of auto dealers converge on the New Orleans Ernest M. Morial Convention Center, many of them will be in search of that one key takeaway that will bolster sales and other key performance indicators for 2014. In a joint workshop offered by B.J. Mendelson and Ross Digital Direct, that item and others will be discussed. Including:
How dealerships can translate Internet traffic to showroom traffic.
How they should hire a marketing professional who will do what they claim they can do.
And most important of all: What social media platforms should they be using, if any?
B.J. Mendelson will give the play-by-play and Todd Neidorf will add real-world dealership applications to put NADA attendees on the path of understanding and provide information that can be acted upon immediately. One thing is certain for conference attendees who visit Mendelson and Ross Digital Direct's workshop at NADA: They'll leave the conference knowing where to invest their marketing budgets. And they will be able to perform activities that will produce sales, not likes.
