PITTSBURGH -

Twitter recently unveiled the Lead Generation Card for businesses to promote their products' services. Marketing with ROI is about leads, and this new platform is solely focused on that premise.

Here's how it works: You send out a promoted tweet in the Lead Generation Card Format. Users that you target can see the post from their Twitter feed and enter their email address if they’re interested in the offer. The user’s information is then securely submitted to you along with their Twitter handle and name. You pay a fee for each user that submits his or her information.

For dealerships, this presents a great opportunity to promote service specials, dealer incentives and manufacturer specials in a new channel and to a new audience. It also offers social validation, which is more powerful than ever with how consumers today shop online.

The differentiation and why it's potentially so valuable for your dealership is the direct return on investment you'll receive with a Lead Generation Card. You know very well that likes, comments or retweets don't necessarily bring in effective leads for your salespeople. With the Lead Generation Cards your prospective customers are engaged and interested in a specific offering, and you can begin building that relationship with them with an offer or content they want.

Unfortunately, Twitter's Lead Generation Cards are still in Alpha-mode: Twitter is testing it with a few large advertisers before releasing it to the general public. Twitter has been moving quickly with its business products, so there's a good chance the Lead Generation Cards are only a few months or even weeks away.

There are other restrictions on Twitter advertising as well; you can only advertise by larger metropolitan areas and by state. As the platform grows, you'll be able to do more location specific advertising.

You can also segment by gender, device, follower type, and interest. If you know other popular local businesses or organizations in the area that are active on Twitter, they’re likely good Twitter accounts to put in the “Similar to followers” of those users that will target their followers and others that follow similar accounts.

You can also sort by interest categories such as “Home and Garden”, “Education” and many others if you’re running a specific promotion, event, etc.

If you'd like to read more about using Twitter Advertising, check out this post. If you'd like to see some case studies about businesses using Twitter Advertising, check this out.

At AutoRef.com, we are working with our network of dealers to maximize the ROI of their marketing dollars and to assist in staff training. If you're interested in AutoRef, visit AutoRef.com/dealers  or email michael.bailey@autoref.com.

Michael Bailey is director of marketing at AutoRef.com.