Leverage Mobile Devices with Facebook Deals

posted by Glenn Jimerson

March 31, 2011

When was the last time you left the house without your mobile phone? Today's consumer has more access to information than any group in history. In an instant, a person can grab a map to your business, peruse your reviews, and see deals your competitors are offering all from their smart phone. The dealership that successfully leverages mobile technology has an advantage in today's market because many companies are not aware of its potential. In this article we'll discuss how you can use mobile devices to help drive more customers to your showroom.

There are several players in the mobile space such as Facebook Places, Gowalla, Foursquare, and Google Latitude. These services enable people to broadcast to their social network where they are by "checking in" to a location. People are starting to make checking in a part of their daily routine. They check into restaurants, night clubs, and stores they frequent. For this tutorial we are going to focus on Facebook's popular Places service.

The first thing you need to do is claim your Facebook Places location. You can do that by following the instructions on Facebook's help page.

Facebook allows businesses to offer special "Deals" to people who check into their locations. This is indicated on their phone by a little yellow icon. When they select your dealership they will see an offer like this:

Offering Deals is useful for three reasons:

You create an incentive for an in-market customer to engage with your Facebook page. This engagement will allow you to reach them long after they have left the dealership.
Whenever a person redeems a deal, the details are posted to their Facebook "Wall" which in turn appears on their friend's "News Feed". This acts as a peer endorsement of your dealership as well as increases the visibility to potential new customers.
You can easily track the impact of this campaign.

Now that we know some of the benefits, it's time to follow Monte Hall's lead and "Let's make a deal". Once you have control of your Places location, navigate to the Admin area of your Facebook page and select "Deals" on the left-hand side. Click the link "Create a Deal for this Page >>". There are 4 different deals you can offer. The type of deal you select is important depending on your strategy.

Individual Deal

An individual deal works like a traditional coupon. Someone checks into your business and shows their phone to the service adviser or farther down the line at the cashier's desk.

An individual Deal is a great, straight-forward way to incentivize customer engagement with your social media account.

Friend Deal

A friend deal is only triggered when the number of people you specify check into your location. For example, you can create an offer that says check in with 3 friends and receive a $5 gift certificate to Starbucks.

The friend deal would be most beneficial for the new and used sales side of the business. People often bring friends and family when they go car shopping. Offering a Friend Deal leverages the social network of several people by incentivizing all of them to check in. So, the benefits of a Friend Deal are:

With multiple people checking into a location you've expanded the number of people who will see this announcement on Facebook.
The multiple check-ins creates greater social proof/reinforcement of the person's endorsement of your dealership. Think of it like a movie recommendation. If one of your friends says a move is good you'll consider watching it, but you may not take action since you aren't yet convinced it's worth the time. If 5 of your friends tell you a movie is good then you have multiple points of social proof backing up the claim which can tip the scales.

Loyalty Deal

As the name implies, you can offer a special deal for people who visit your location more than once. For example, on the 5th check-in receive 50% off your oil change. A popular tactic is to scale the value of the reward based on the number of check-ins. One thing to keep in mind is to take a look at their buying history to ensure they are indeed a loyal customer and not someone gaming the system.

Charity Deal

A Charity Deal is a powerful tool that can be used to reach a broad audience. For instance, some people wouldn't specifically shop at your location just because of a small monetary gesture like a $5 discount. But they would be willing to consider your establishment if that $5 was going to charity.

Take the recent disaster in Japan as an example. Everyone is touched by the post tsunami disaster they are enduring. This would be an excellent time to offer a deal where you will donate $5 to the Red Cross for every check-in. The customer, who previously did not distinguish between your service center and your competitors, now has an added incentive to choose you. Additionally, you can publically display your commitment to charity.

Tweak your Deal Settings for Maximum Control

Regardless of the type of deal you select, you can dictate the start and end date of the offer. You can also specify how many deals you are willing to honor. For example, can set the maximum number of redemption's to 500. Setting a cap is important if you are offering a steep discount or high dollar promotion. Limiting redemption's will ensure you won't lose your shirt if the viral nature of the campaign grows too fast. Finally, you can keep people from gaming the system by restricting the frequency of redemption. You can allow a customer one Deal redemption every 24 hours. Or, you can restrict it even further to one redemption per person for as long as the offer exists.

The Art of the Mobile Deal

Now that you know how to use each Deal, you can customize it for for your specific needs. If this is your first Deal, go with an Individual Deal. Friend Deals and Loyalty Deals require more leg work to administer. Finally, make sure to time Charity Deals for maximum exposure and the amount of good you can do for the cause.

The mobile phone is a powerful tool in the social media marketing space. Using Facebook Places is just one way to harness the power of mobile devices and social networks to drive real customers to your door. Companies that embrace this technology will have a clear advantage over the competition. The ability to reach a socially connected on-the-move customer base should not be underestimated. A person can reach out to the entire world from any place there is cell phone coverage. Give that person a reason to talk about you. Offering a Deal on Facebook Places is a great way to start.

If you would like more information about leveraging social media for mobile devices please contact TheDigitalCarGuy.com .

Thank you,
Thomas Ieracitano

229.251.2462

Thomas@Ieracitano.com

TheDigitalCarGuy.com