MINNEAPOLIS -

Citing industry research showing that 80 percent of social media users prefer connecting to brands through Facebook, one digital marketing company is driving a new product straight into social media, to help dealers achieve sales results.

Outsell, which offers Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), on Tuesday announced the release of Outsell Social in its Digital Engagement Platform.

This platform allows auto dealers and manufacturers, agencies and marketing associations to share in the development of brand-consistent, analytics-driven marketing programs via personalized communications orchestrated across email, SMS, mobile, chat and now social media channels. 

“Social is a platform that has become increasingly important to the brands, manufacturers and dealers that we work with who want to engage with their customers in a meaningful way with offers they care about on the channel they prefer,” said Dan Smith, vice president of product at Outsell. 

“We’ve thought through every component of launching a campaign successfully on social networks, including relevant ads, content, analytics and measurement, and added them to this new social product,” he said. 

“We’re excited for the marketers that we work with to have a new channel to leverage through Outsell Social, so they can take a proactive multichannel approach when launching very targeted online marketing campaigns, and reach customers and prospects on their preferred network, whether that’s email, mobile or social, all through the Digital Engagement Platform,” Smith said.

Outsell noted a recent Arbitron survey in which 80 percent of social media users said they prefer connecting to brands through Facebook, in developing Outsell Social to enable dealers to engage with consumers across multiple social sites from a single interface, while providing the analytics and insights necessary to optimize their brand presence.

Key features of Outsell Social include:

—Social Scheduler, which allows dealers to automatically gather relevant news from across the Internet and post it to their social pages and networks. Dealers can also choose to allow the agency to review content for brand consistency and share approved content on behalf of the dealer.

—Ad-Based Messaging, which is powered by Outsell’s predictive algorithms and enables brands to send custom messages and individual offers to customers on Facebook.

—Social Status, in which brands can share customer reviews for other customers to see. This feature also monitors popular review sites such as Yelp, Google+ Local, and DealerRater to alert dealers to new reviews about their store, vehicles and services. 

—Social Scorecard, which allows brands to understand which of their social efforts are performing most strongly, by calculating an average review score by social site, helping dealers to understand their brand image, how their content is performing, the effectiveness of Facebook ads, and even which days of the week are best to post. Dealers can also use the feature to gather information on active followers and reviewers, including influence scores, Twitter handles and geo-location, to better understand a customer’s profile.

 

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