IMN Social Driver Launches to Enhance Automotive Dealers’ Online Marketing Strategies

WALTHAM, Mass. – IMN, the digital marketing company that delivers branded newsletters and content for vertical markets, today announced the launch of IMN Social Driver™. This fully managed service extends IMN’s automotive industry intelligence and content publishing expertise beyond the digital newsletter to social networks. IMN Social Driver is designed to enable dealers to take advantage of social media-based reputation management, socially-driven marketing strategies and enhanced search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities by distributing custom content across blogs and social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.

IMN Social Driver is differentiated from other social media solutions based on IMN’s ability to provide and distribute compelling content, integrate reputation management and email communications, drive SEO results and create reliable return on investment (ROI) that delivers exceptional value to dealers. Participants in the IMN Social Driver TestDrive program reported, on average, a 2x increase in their social network audience and a 3x increase in social network engagement (which measures how people interact with content – likes, comments, shares and more). Additionally, several dealers gained dramatic increases in website traffic, ranging from 36-79 percent referred through search engines, and a 5-10x increase in traffic directed from Facebook. 

Social Engagement that Keeps Dealers in Control of Customer Relationships
IMN Social Driver extends the benefits of Loyalty Driver™, the most widely-used newsletter service for automotive dealerships. With IMN’s team of experienced auto and social media consultants working as an extension of dealers’ existing marketing teams, IMN Social Driver provides industry-leading capabilities across four key areas, all focused on keeping the dealer in control of the customer relationship:

• Reputation Management: IMN extends the dealer’s brand through a highly customized blog and social media presence promoting a consistent brand and voice. In addition, IMN’s social media consultants monitor more than 35 sites for dealer coverage and reviews, and work with each dealer on strategic responses and action.

• Content: IMN’s team of industry experts has deep experience developing high quality branded content as well as general interest, advice and trend articles that engage readers and ultimately increase dealer revenues. Focused on creating a seamless customer experience across email and social media channels, IMN provides the best, most relevant content to support customer loyalty and dealer interaction. What’s more, IMN optimizes this original content to suit the needs of each communications channel, including email, to increase social network engagement and improve SEO.

• Combine Email and Social: IMN’s industry-leading content is created specifically for each channel; yet, can be shared between the newsletter, the blog and social media. That content is also distributed in a social digest (an aggregation of recent blog posts), which can be shared with newsletter subscribers to create deeper engagement and increased participation across all channels.

• SEO: Addressing a significant digital marketing concern for dealers, IMN’s approach is to think beyond traditional paid search options and focus on generating new content that will drive organic search traffic. IMN’s expert team distributes relevant content more frequently than most dealers can.  

• Closed Loop Analytics: IMN Social Driver delivers in-depth reporting beyond fans, followers and likes. IMN Social Driver captures behavioral cues, providing intelligence on what topics generate the greatest response. Coupled with newsletter analytics, insight from social media interactions enables dealers to evolve from customer engagement to transaction. Dealers benefit from true performance reporting and ROI insight. 

IMN Social Driver Steers Auto Dealers Toward Social Media Marketing Success
In conjunction with the launch of IMN Social Driver, IMN conducted a survey with more than 500 North American auto dealers as well as nearly two dozen in-depth interviews with representatives from most of the major automotive brands. The goal was to benchmark marketing priorities and identify common trends associated with emerging social media requirements.

According to survey respondents, the number one marketing priority was reputation management, followed closely by email marketing and the need to integrate email and social media activities. Overall, there was a lot of confusion about how to leverage and manage social media effectively, while maintaining control of the customer relationship and optimizing performance and ROI.

“Based on our research, the majority of dealers expressed relatively low confidence when it came to their current social media strategies. They communicated the need for an experienced partner that could help with the content, distribution and analytics to enable them to use social media to become more competitive, and more connected, with their customers,” said Ben Levitan, CEO, IMN. “With IMN Social Driver, we are offering dealers a comprehensive, fully managed service that will not only increase their confidence about using social media tools, but also provide the reporting and analytics to prove its impact on customer loyalty and revenues.”

IMN Social Driver TestDrive Feedback
Since December 2011, IMN has been conducting a TestDrive program with both new and existing customers, representing dealerships from across the U.S. Following are several statements reflecting their experience:

“I am thrilled with all the valuable content that has been posted to our new blog, and our Facebook and Twitter followers feel the same. Hillside Honda is looking forward to seeing the increased benefits of involving IMN with our social media plan.” - Erin Ehrling, eCommerce marketing manager at Hillside Honda

“So far, we are loving IMN’s Social TestDrive. The blog articles are original and interesting. They are informative and get our name in front of customers without the pushiness and obtrusiveness of a hard sell. We’ve seen increased traffic flow to our social media sites, and the IMN team is great to work with!”- Heather Wheeler, social media manager at Lia Auto Group

Supporting Assets
• To view a brief IMN Social Driver video, visit http://www.imnsocialdriver.com
• Listen to an on-demand dealer webcast at http://bit.ly/I3J41R
• For more details on the results of the IMN dealer survey, download the executive summary, “Seven Social Media Trends for Auto Dealers”

Pricing and Availability
IMN Social Driver is available now for both new and existing IMN customers in the automotive industry. IMN will roll out IMN Social Driver to additional vertical markets later this year. Pricing available upon request. For more information, visit http://www.imnsocialdriver.com, email [email protected] or call 1-877-907-0323.  

About IMN
IMN is the digital marketing company that delivers branded newsletters and content for more than 4,000 organizations worldwide. By combining custom, vertically-oriented content with advanced publishing technology and services, IMN enables companies to engage with their prospects and customers to drive business results via email, mobile and social platforms. In addition to taking advantage of IMN’s expertise within the automotive, banking and direct selling industries, customers benefit from analytics-based intelligence that provides insight into buying behavior and purchase preferences to successfully encourage brand loyalty and generate leads. For more information, visit http://www.imninc.com or the IMN Blog. Follow IMN on Twitter @loyaltydriver or engage on the IMN Facebook brand page.

04/17/12