Driving With Digital

Northstar Ford reached out wanting to increase community engagement, manage their online reputation and generate leads through social media. By utilizing video software, custom branded content, targeted advertisements and tracking tools, our agency was able to generate 130 leads across the three sales locations in a single month using a modest budget of less than $1,000.

The largest Ford-affiliated dealership groups in Alberta, Canada, comprising of seven different sales and service locations, each location required custom branded artwork and messaging. The northern locations, located near and primarily financed by the Athabasca oil sands industry, have a very different message and audience than the southern locations, which are located in more urban environments. This geographic disparity presented our agency with the challenge of designing and implementing two different marketing strategies for one client.
Our agency worked diligently to set up tracking systems via Google Analytics, Facebook pixel and trackable links to better understand any and all traffic. We also communicated with managers at each of the seven sales and service locations to market current specials as well as push their product inventory and services. By utilizing video software, custom branded content, targeted advertisements and tracking tools, we were able to generate and attribute leads to the various locations with advertisements that promote new vehicles, pre-owned vehicles and service specials. In a single month, our agency was able to generate 130 leads across the three sales locations. Furthermore, the success generated by our creative and advertising efforts at one sales location led sales managers at the other two locations to request similar campaigns and an increase in the marketing budget.

The client’s secondary goal of maintaining their online reputation required constant monitoring and engagement with customers that left both positive and negative reviews. Negative reviews were acknowledged publicly and provided the proper contact information in attempts to resolve the issue and provide good customer service. Positive reviews were promoted across various channels as a way to thank customers for choosing our client.