The FINANCIAL — Kia Motors has been working with Accenture to develop and execute a strategy to significantly increase the effectiveness of its social media marketing. The new strategy has raised the engagement of followers and influencers with the Kia brand and optimized Kia’s social marketing spend – with results showing more than twice the level of positive interactions with followers at less than half (47 percent) the cost.
Accenture used its proprietary Social Media Diagnostic solution provided by Accenture Interactive Research & Development to identify Kia’s social media strengths and areas of improvement. Accenture clustered Kia’s social media followers based on analysis of Kia’s data on user engagement in social channels, using different car models and different post types as the criteria. This is allowing Kia to more precisely target paid posts to social media users who are most likely to engage with the content, according to Accenture.
“We‘ve been very successful in growing our base of fans and followers on social channels to approximately 21 million, which has made a huge contribution to our rapidly expanding brand value for the past several years,” said Soon-Nam Lee, VP of Overseas Marketing Group, Kia Motors. “With the help of Accenture, Kia is now taking social media marketing in the automotive industry to the next level with increased customer engagement that ensures we are best placed to meet consumers’ changing requirements. We will continue our efforts to provide more personalized and relevant messages for our customers.”
New Accenture research shows that 80 percent of car buyers are now using some form of digital technology to research their purchase. Chief marketing officers in the automotive industry rank social media as a top priority for marketing investment, according to another survey from Accenture Interactive.
“Digital technologies such as social media are transforming marketing from something you do to consumers to something you do with them – and for that you need to really know their likes and needs,” said Hyun-Jung Kim, managing director of Accenture’s Products practice in South Korea. “Original equipment manufacturers and dealers have to focus on engaging the ‘connected customer’ by establishing a pervasive digital presence, engaging customers through all available digital channels with car-buying information that will take into consideration customer sensitivity and be relevant to their particular car-buying needs.”
She added: “They also need to establish and sustain a seamless, integrated customer experience, combining the physical touch points of auto retailing with those of the evolving digital marketplace, maintaining the integrity of a meaningful car-buying experience.”
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