Be Present in 2012
As 2012 gets underway and we all get a feel for where we stand in the new year, it’s important to note the areas where we need to improve our marketing endeavors and online appearance. And sometimes we need to start with the basics to get a strong start. Here are a few tips to make your business stand out from the crowd this year…
WINTER TO-DO LIST
1. Take inventory of where you stand online. 
Focus on the simple points first: ask yourself what you’re doing well, and make a list of what you want to improve in the coming months. Is your web content being updated frequently enough? How about the design of your pages and profiles – are they boring or engaging? After you have a pretty good idea of what you like and don’t like, move on to step 2:
2. Get a plan together to tackle your goals.
After you understand where your business stands, get your team on the same page so they can all work alongside you to effectively promote your company’s online presence in the months to come.
Each employee will bring different strengths and perspectives to the table, so divide up the responsibilities involved among yourself and your team members accordingly.
Agree to hold scheduled meetings to share progress reports, and keep each other in the loop about any new developments. In other words, pick a system that works for your team, and conscientiously stick with it.
3. Clean up the appearance of social sites that look dated.
Old designs and information are out, and your latest colors, themes, specials, and news are in. Attract customers to you by being interesting, engaging, and creative online.
Try changing your landing page layout, adding a few new colors to the palate, and making sure all contact information and other website URL links are correct. Make sure each of your pages are shareable on a wide variety of networks – this means providing readers with the option of sharing your websites and articles on places like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Google+ and LinkedIn, to name a few.
4. Strengthen your online visibility.
Take a look at your stats from last year and compare them with the year so far. Really pay attention to where you received the most traffic, the least traffic, and what kind of information viewers tended to respond to. Take this information and use it to your advantage in the marketing year to come.
Check out your site’s keywords and tags: are they relevant, searchable, intuitive? Take a few minutes to see if you are putting out the right tags to draw viewers in.
Start writing an e-newsletter for distribution to your mailing list, letting them know about your latest news, advice, and deals.
5. Create alternative sites.
Branch out: if you’ve had the same three or four social media sites for what feels like eons, it might be time to try something new. Do a little research into where your customers are hanging out online, and establish your presence there. For example:
-Create a mobile site. Google estimated that about 15% of online searches this latest holiday season would be from mobile devices, and as it turns out they had the right idea. More and more people want to access online shopping portals from their phone, rather than finding a computer or going into the store. So get together with your team and create a mobile-ready site that’s easy to navigate from a smart phone or other online devices.
-Amp up your ratings and review campaign by creating a custom ratings and review site and directing customers to it to leave feedback.
-Stake out your Google Place Page. Claim it for your own, make sure all the information on it is current, and start asking for positive reviews.
Make sure to provide incentives to customers who go the extra step or two to be a fan or check out what you’re offering.
6. Don’t forget offline.
At the end of the day, your customers exist in the real world, so don’t forget to meet them in that spcae, too. Decide how to promote your online presence through more traditional and physical media marketing avenues. For example:
Put your online social media site information on places such as business cards, company literature, TV ads, banners, and brochures. If you have an event going on, put that information on the pamphlets or flyers you hand out. Put your top two or three social media sites at the bottom of your online email signature.
Make sure to always follow up with your clients to make sure they are satisfied with their service, and like what they see from you online.
Be yourself, and let customers see the real you, new and improved, in 2012. Happy marketing!
Use Goals in Google Analytics to reach your 2012 potential
Use Google Analytics to help you reach your 2012 dealership goals.
Here’s a great article from DrivingSales about creating goals for yourself and your business in 2012, and pulling from Goals in Google Analytics to help you achieve them.
What is your dealership doing to succeed this year?
Why Setup Goals?
Goals in Google Analytics coupled with Multi-Channel Sales Funnels can start to give you insight into the influences that brought local consumers to your website.
For example, a company comes in to sell you a product/service that claims will drive more qualified consumers to your inventory pages. How do you measure that claim?
Another vendor claims that by adding video to your website, consumer engagement will go up 250%. How do you measure that?
You decide to invest more in direct mail campaigns for Fixed Ops. The vendor claims that online service appointments and visits to your “Service Specials” page will increase 150%. How do you measure that?
Goals, when setup to match your marketing objectives, can be a simpel way to consolidate data for an executive reports each month.
What Goals Should We Setup?
There are four conditions that represent a goal in Google Analytics:
- A specific page is viewed
- A period of time on your website
- Pages are viewed per visit
- An event
Check out the DrivingSales.com article here to read the full story!
Happy New Year!
From all of us at WorldDealer, Inc., we wish you a happy, successful, inspirational, and rewarding 2012!
We look forward to sharing our journey through automotive website marketing with you in the months to come. Stay in touch!
Millennials Require Reward for Brand Loyalty
Over a billion and a half consumers are pushing companies to rethink the way they establish brand loyalty. As social platforms and ease of sharing push back the boundary between company and customer privacy, more consumers are inclined to remain loyal to brands they like — provided those brands in turn offer them rewards for their efforts.
The following article, from DrivingSales.com, offers some telling statistics and further insight into the minds and behaviors of ‘Generation Y.’ How does your business rise to the challenge of rewarding customer loyalty in the younger generation?
Read the post in its original location here.
How Gen Y Will Reshape Customer Loyalty
Mike Gorun
Representing more than 1.7 billion consumers worldwide, of which 77 million are in the US, the so-called ‘Millennial’ generation (aka. ‘Generation Y’) is presenting marketers with some new challenges and changes as it comes of age and takes the reins of the global consumer economy, according to a study by Aimia (formerly Groupe Aeroplan).
To compare the attitudes and behaviors of Millennials (born between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s) with older consumers, Aimia commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct an online study of more than 6,000 consumers in Canada, the UK and the US. The study – recently released in the United States as “Born This Way: The US Millennial Loyalty Survey” – concluded that Millennial consumers will certainly change the way companies and brands build sustainable customer loyalty.
Generation Y is bigger than the Baby Boomer generation, and is three times the size of Generation X. With Baby Boomers retiring, it’s critically important for marketers to understand how Millennial attitudes toward technology, data privacy and rewards will change the way brands build strong, profitable relationships with their best customers.”
Among the high-level findings are these important insights:
Loyalty Behaviors
Over three-quarters (77%) of Generation Y claim participation in loyalty and reward programs, compared to four in five (82%) non-Millennials consumers.
Over three-quarters (78%) of US Millennials are more likely to choose a brand that offers a loyalty or reward program over a brand that doesn’t offer one.
In unprompted responses, US Millennials rate loyalty rewards as the top incentive they look for in exchange for sharing personal information with marketers.
Nearly half of US Millennials (44%) are willing to promote products or brands through social media in exchange for rewards.
Mobile Technology
Generation Y is skeptical of the value of location-based marketing offers delivered via smart phone, with only one in ten (13%) claiming to have responded to such an offer.
Using a mobile device as a substitute for carrying a plastic loyalty card is the top requested mobile payment application for Millennials, (26% express interest); meanwhile, only one in ten (13%) express interest in using a mobile device as a credit or debit card.
Privacy
US Millennials are significantly less concerned than non-Millennials with data privacy and security overall. Of all named marketing channels in the survey, loyalty and reward programs are perceived as the most privacy-friendly by Millennials: only 14% of Millennial loyalty program members are concerned about sharing personal information with loyalty programs.
Nearly half of US Millennials (47%) agree that they are more likely to share personal details with a brand that offers loyalty and reward incentives.
This blog is condensed from Driving Retention and the Aimia report on Millennial Loyalty, “Born This Way: The US Millennial Loyalty Survey.”
How Fresh Is Your Content?
Google is a great place to get your business noticed. And with its most recent updates to search queries as related to ‘fresh’ website content, businesses are being rewarded for keeping their page current and interesting. Automotive Digital Marketing author Greg Gifford gives some pointers on how to pick up higher site ranking on Google – read the excerpt below, and continue on to the Auto Digital site to learn more.
How are you keeping your site’s content engaging?
Keep your site content fresh and rank higher on Google
Greg Gifford | Dec 15 2011
Google’s recent Freshness Update is designed to give more weight to “fresh” website content on certain queries. Google has always rewarded fresh content, but last month’s update has given freshness even more emphasis in its ranking algorithm.
Google has been pretty clear about which searches will rely heavily on fresh content. For example:
- Recent events or hot topics – Example search: “NBA lockout” or “Occupy Oakland”
- Regularly recurring events – Example search: “NFL scores” or “Dancing with the Stars”
- Frequent updates – Example search: “Subaru Impreza reviews” or “best slr cameras”
Did that last one get your attention? This has huge implications for the auto industry. In their own blog posts explaining the way their Freshness Update has changed their search results, they’re using an example from the auto industry. Every year, new cars models are released, and brands are constantly receiving reviews online.
So you’re thinking that having a car dealer website gives you a leg up – your inventory will change monthly, so your site will always have fresh content. Which is correct… but your competition up the street has the same “freshness” benefit. You’ve got to concentrate on your entire website, not just your inventory pages.
Most dealers will set up their dealer website and never change any of the pages other than their inventory. Most of the pages have only a few sentences referencing the fact that they offer financing and a few warranty options.
Forget Google for just a minute – pull up your dealer website and look at it like you’re a potential customer. Click through your website and see if it’s useful and relevant. Can you find information on financing rates or options? Can you read about the warranty packages and what’s covered? Is there any information about the dealership other than the location?
If potential customers don’t find value and relevance, the search engines won’t either. We talk to dealers all the time who don’t understand why they’re not showing up for “used cars City” – but they don’t have the actual phrase anywhere on their website (check back to our post Used vs. Pre-owned for more on this).
It depends where you’re located too. It’s a lot easier to rank high for “used cars Clarksville” than it is to rank high for “used cars San Diego.” Bigger cities and metro areas will have more auto dealers, so there’s more competition. You’ve got to have useful, relevant content on your website in order to rank higher than the other dealers, and you’ve got to keep that content updated.
…….
Study: Consumers Are Buying Cars and Spending More For Them
Recent car-buying highs have led many to believe that there is more life in the economy than was originally thought. Automotive sales are higher overall, and several companies have reported all-time records in November.
Take a look at the latest findings int he article below, from MSNBC’s ‘Bottomline.’
Car buyers not only buying, they’re paying more
By Joseph Szczesny, The Detroit Bureau
Chrysler, led by sales of its Jeep nameplate, was among the biggest sales gainers in November.
In the best showing in months, sales of new cars, trucks and crossovers climbed to an annualized rate of 13.5 million during November as virtually all the domestic, Asian and European brands posted double-digit sales increases.
In fact, several makers — including both Audi and Hyundai—announced all-time records for November.
But the impact of the strong monthly showing is being felt well beyond the auto industry. Following a solid October, when sales were driven by so-called pent-up demand, many analysts feared the November numbers would slide along with the rest of the economy. But the strong showing in the automotive market suggests there’s more life to the overall economy than many had anticipated.
Among Detroit’s Big Three, Chrysler Group LLC reported a 45 percent increase in sales last month while Ford Motor Co. posted a 13 percent increase, including a 20 percent increase in its retail sales. General Motors Co. sales increased 7 percent on strong retail sales.
Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen/Audi , Mercedes-Benz also all reported increases of 40 percent or better, while Nissan, Mazda, Suzuki, Porsche and the BMW Group had to be content with double-digit increases.
Black Friday Green for Some Auto Dealers
Black Friday weekend, followed by Cyber Monday, is traditionally a very important weekend for retailers. The holiday season is officially underway, and consumers are being bombarded with advertisements from every direction.
This year, the weekend saw marketing efforts pay off for a number of industries – and the automotive sector was no exception….
Some auto dealers find green in Black Friday
Danielle Emerson
Automotive News — November 30, 2011 – 1:38 pm ET
DETROIT — The long weekend that starts with Black Friday is the time traditional retailers kick off the start of the holiday season by making big bucks from bargain-hunting consumers.
And car dealers apparently earned a piece of the action this year, too.
Light-vehicle U.S. sales in November, which will be announced tomorrow, could be at the best rate since the “cash for clunkers” program in August 2009, Bloomberg reported today.
“It was very successful,” Chris Huston, general sales manager for Andy Mohr Ford in Plainfield, Ind., said of his dealership’s Black Friday turnout.
Over the weekend, some dealers tried their luck at bringing customers into their showrooms by offering iPads or TVs with the purchase of a new car, on top of manufacturer and dealer incentives.
The Bloomberg report said light-vehicle sales for the month may have run at a 13.4 million seasonally adjusted annual rate, by the average of 14 analysts it surveyed. If that’s the case, that would top the 12.3 million pace of a year earlier and October’s 13.3 million rate.
Do you YouTube? You should.
This week: a short and to-the-point article from Dealer Elite on the subject of visual marketing for dealerships.
If your dealership does not have a YouTube channel yet, you are missing out on a valuable outlet to reach fans, entice potential clients, and get some good information about your brand out to the masses. Furthermore, your YouTube-less dealership is being outdone by any number of other dealerships who are taking advantage of this free service service for everything from educational interviews to engaging advertising.
As author Ali Amirrezvani explains, there are four main reasons why you should have a Youtube account for your dealership: Popularity, Cost, Timing, Blended Search.
We at WorldDealer believe that traditional and digital marketing strategies must work together to create a successful dealership marketing campaign. One of the digital services we offer is the creation of custom videos for our automotive clients to help get their audience enthusiastic about their brand. YouTube is a free and effective outlet to share these videos – if you haven’t done so yet, we encourage you to sign up your dealership now!
Check out the article below, from dealerelite.com, and view it on their site here.
Why Your Auto Dealership Should Have a YouTube Channel
Having videos on your auto dealer website has been shown to increase website leads, and when done with video search engine optimization (VSEO), helping your site climb the search engine result pages. If your dealership has videos on your website, you should have those videos uploaded to your own dealership YouTube channel.
Here’s why:
Popularity: YouTube is the world’s largest video search engine (and the second largest search engine) and growing every single day. People all over the world use it to find videos, so if someone searches for a vehicle that your dealership sells, don’t you want a video from your dealership to show up?
Timing: Like most search engines, YouTube tends to give older entries a little extra edge when returning search results. The sooner you create your channel and upload videos, the better.
Cost: YouTube is free. Aside from the time cost of uploading (though it’s possible your auto dealer website or video provider will do this for you), YouTube has no financial cost. This means you get all of this exposure without an additional marketing cost.
Blended Search: Google, Bing and Yahoo are integrating mixed media (images, news, videos, etc) into their search engine result pages, so having your VSEO dealership videos on a separate domain can provide an additional link on Google’s results page for any search relevant to your dealership brand or your inventory.
Visit dealerelite.net for more automotive resources.
Subaru’s Facebook Fans Choose Make-A-Wish Foundation
Subaru embraced their social media followers for their latest campaign – they allowed their Facebook fans to choose where Subaru’s “Share The Love” donations should be sent. It’s a great example of how the automotive industry is using social networking and online marketing strategies both to promote their own brand, as well as to give back to the community.
This article can be read in full in its original location on socialcarnews.com.
Subaru’s Facebook Fans Choose Make-A-Wish Foundation
By Joel Feder Reporter September 20th, 2011 | socialcarnews.com
Each year Subaru runs its “Share The Love” sales promotion, where it donates $250 to a charity for each car it sells in a specified period of time. This year, Subaru wanted to let its Facebook fans help decide on one of the charities that will receive a donation. After three weeks, Subaru’s fans chose the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation will be one of five charities to receive a collective $5 million in donations from the annual event. Facebook fans voted on charities for three weeks between August 25 and September 15.
Consumers who purchase or lease a new Subaruduring the Share The Love Event will get to choose which of the five charities listed below will receive their $250 donation:
- American Forests
- The American Society For Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals
- Make-A-Wish Foundation
- Meals On Wheels Association Of America
- Special Olympics
Subaru has yet to announce the dates during which buyers can make donations through the 2011 Share The Love Event.
Hone the be-Back Process
Great article from Automotive Social Media Marketing – how to makesure you get customers coming back to the dealership. This is an issue that’s old as dirt, but a new twist is added in our digital age, where there is more to generating leads and landing clients than calling them on the phone. Take a look at the excerpts below, and follow the link to view the full article.
Create the Be-Back
Picture this…you are a sales consultant working at a dealership. You have gone through all of the steps and you are going through the negotiation process. After all is said and done the customer decides that it is time to leave and a deal cannot be made. It got down to the customer not being satisfied with the trade or the deal that is being offered to them.
Does this sound familiar? It should. This is what we deal with the most in our business if we are not making deals. There are many reasons why customers end up not making a deal on the spot. In some cases, sales consultants or BDC reps end up trying to get the customer to come back. In other cases, the customer leaves and never gets contacted again. This all depends on how the dealership is structured with process, CRM, and management styles.
It is all about process, process, process, process, and you guessed it PROCESS!!! Along with process comes the training on handling these opportunities. Along with the process and handling these opportunities comes effective communication between sales and BDC departments in order to have effective follow up.
Read the full article from From Automotive Social Media Marketing
