Dog Gone It, Social Media Works for Car Dealership

Like most dealerships, i25 Kia in Longmont, CO, relied heavily on radio ads for brand recognition and to drive potential buyers to our store.

Wanting to explore marketing strategies beyond traditional advertising, we boldly decided to double down on digital marketing. It increased website and referral traffic.

Starting with an all new custom-designed website featuring a responsive theme, improved architecture and regularly updated and optimized content, we expanded our digital strategies to focus on social-media profiles and began advertising on Google, Bing and Facebook.

In the first three months of this new approach, site traffic increased 179%, organic- search traffic 54% and social traffic nearly 1,300%.

According to Pew Research, 74% of adults with Internet access have at least one social-media account. We at i25 Kia committed to marketing efforts around this engaged audience.

What followed was one of the most robust and active social-media campaigns of any dealership in the Denver area.

Whether people are looking to buy a new vehicle right now or not, they constantly consume social media.

If a dealership maintains active and interesting social profiles that provide helpful and interesting information (not just constant ads), it will come to be a trusted and known brand that a buyer is likely to visit when ready to shop for vehicles.

To capitalize on this captive audience, i25 Kia enhanced its social media profiles and began actively optimizing and posting to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Google+ several times a week.

The dealership also invested in in-house video production, allowing us to highlight recent car deals and create videos on local sponsorship and charity events we’re involved with.

These approaches add value to the buyer’s experience and position the dealership as a committed member of the community.

Since focusing on social-media engagement, i25 Kia has seen Facebook likes increase from 528 to more than 1,800 in three months and has more than 16,000 views on YouTube.

We make the most of using an in-house team to produce videos and photos for use on multiple social platforms to increase reach and marketing ROI. Ads often can be quickly changed. Posting on social media is a simple way to share a particular message or target a group of people.

For example, Colorado is a dog-loving state. So i25 Kia became a pet-friendly dealership. This engenders goodwill with local potential buyers, but it isn’t worth spending expensive ad dollars on. Instead, we’ve spread the message through live events, social posts and YouTube videos.

While it may seem like dogs don’t have anything to do with their owners buying a car, understanding what the local audience cares about and using digital marketing to spread this message helps i25 Kia connect with real buyers.

It has also allowed us to stand out in the competitive Denver market.

Phil Marzolf owns i25 Kia, one of the leading volume Kia dealerships in Colorado