Short-term thinking is a dangerous practice no matter what business you are in. For auto dealers, however, it seems that the consequences for it are not as dire. Or are they?

Earlier this year, an auto group was formed which acquired a handful of dealerships. Naturally, along with the acquisitions also came vendor relationships and term contracts. In an effort to maximize resources, most (if not all) of these agreements were renewed without consideration for their long-term impact. Within the first 6 months this auto group ended up canceling more than one of the re-newed agreements and signed up for similar (and hopefully better) agreements with other vendors.

You could argue that the decision to re-new these existing agreements was short-sighted. You could also argue that doing so was appropriate and that canceling them so soon afterwards was inevitable. The point is that anytime a decision is made that impacts the long-term business operation and which is then negated shortly there afterwards is the result of POOR PLANNING and SHORT-TERM THINKING.

Recently I met with a dealership interested in a new online marketing strategy, or so I thought. What they really wanted, it turned out, was a “website”. While there, my team explained that our services were designed to promote a dealer’s website through organic search engine marketing and social media and that while not having a website in tact to properly represent the dealership would be an obstacle, the importance of putting together an online marketing strategy for their website-to-be was of equal if not greater importance than the website itself. The dealership seemed to agree at the time but then a week later it was explained to me that they had decided to just focus on getting a website launched and then get with us on the marketing sometime in the future.

The outcome could be attributed to a variety of things, including ineffectiveness in our own representation or communication, but the unspoken response I heard from the dealership was that they had their sights set on building a website and that everything after that was a distraction they would deal with afterwards.

This is an all-too-common scenario in the car business and I think it demonstrates the way many dealers think. The Internet is an overwhelming and ever-changing medium for many people and so it is intimidating to for some to approach it in ways not familiar to them, or at least in ways not yet popularized by their peers. Five years ago, many dealers we still fighting with the idea of whether or not they should have a website for their dealership. Three years ago dealers were jumping on the PPC bandwagon.

Today, dealers are faced with the reality of using the Internet to built lasting transparent relationships with their customers. It’s everything they have been able to avoid for the past several decades now staring them in the face like was depicted in the epic poem Beowulf.

ps - Shouts out to Brian Hoecht of Ai-Dealer for his wizardry in reflecting on this great tale of our time.

When you explore the topography today on the topic of search engine marketing throughout the auto industry, you will find there are common misuses and misunderstandings about certain key concepts and terminology. This causes long-term problems for dealers because they are getting caught up in contracts with the wrong expectations. It’s like PPC all over again.

One example of this is Automotive SEO. When you look at the marketing copy of SEO providers, the main themes and expectations being set are:

• Keyword research
• Content Authoring
• Tagging
• Link Building
• Search Engine Submissions
• Site Analytics
• Increased Site Traffic

SEO providers have geared and pitched their SEO product as something that drives traffic and increases leads. Ok, good. But they are selling you short. These are all great things and are indeed features and benefits of SEO, but there is one thing missing across most all marketing copy you will find on the Web in automotive land - YOUR ONLINE BRAND MARKETING STRATEGY.

Online Brand Marketing, or iBrand Marketing, is important to grasp because SEO is permanent part of your dealer operations.

Consider other areas of your business such as the Service Department and your CSI. Or the F&I department with your upgrade incentives and warranty packages. You don’t just pay some random vendor a few grand to make it work. You put thought and time and training into these things in how they impact your dealership long term because they are forms of reputation management.

The Internet is no exception and these things must be considered and incorporated at an even greater capacity because your online presence is more than just a lead generating conversion tool. It’s a representation of your brand, i.e. the unique qualities and character of your dealership.

Technorati Tags: auto marketing, sem, search engine optimization, organic search, ibrand, brand marketing, marketing strategy, car dealers

Your site is well-optimized. Your page titles are well-researched and carefully selected. Your keywords are consolidated, dense, and relevant. You are now in position to quickly become the authority in your targeted search markets. In fact, a few weeks go by and you are climbing the ranks, “top of the pile” as some say. But the leads are not increasing? Your conversions are not increasing. What is wrong? Could it be that you are not converting your site traffic?

Converting site traffic in to prospects and customers is probably more challenging than getting them there. In fact, with so may variations of search markets and tools and techniques to dominate them, conversion is probably the more difficult aspect of your search engine marketing strategy.

Now that you have attracted so many visitors to your site through effective search engine marketing, it is vital to not lose them by failing to convert, or connect. Visitors have different priorities, needs, and interests for reaching your site. In order to keep your bounce rates low and to maximize conversion, you must consider your site’s calls to action.

Studies show that choices and selections confuse visitors. Therefore, your landing pages not only need to be well-optimized for your target search markets, but also they need to be clear and focused on one or very few calls to action.

Some tips for accomplishing this are:

1. Make sure your home page has a good balance of sales and retention interest.
2. Make the navigation and links obvious.
3. Use clear unambiguous wording. Avoid hiding or obscuring text for the sake of SEO.
4. Make choices and next steps obvious.
5. Remove wording or imagery that is not necessary, confusing or distracting.
6. Be consistent with your conventions and techniques throughout the site.
7. Include site search and a site map.

People visiting your site are anywhere from 6 months to one click away from purchasing a vehicle. Your home page needs to have options for these visitors and those in between. Your sub-pages should be formatted specifically for its intended visitors with clearly visible exit links for non-intended. Little things like this make a difference. Study your traffic and visitor analytics and get to know who is arriving, how, and what they are doing.

Technorati Tags: auto marketing, car dealer marketing, dealership website marketing, sem, seo, conversion, increase site traffic, search marketing

Since the rise of the Web, dealers and vendors have scrambled to find ways to use the Internet to sell more cars and increase ROI. While much has been accomplished in the past 10 years, there seems to be a growing gap between where consumers are and where dealer inventory is displayed.

A recent article published on MediaBuyerPlanner suggests that,

“More than 40% of all social networkers said they use social networking sites to learn more about brands or products that they like, and 28% said at some point a “friend” has recommended a brand or product to them.”

Few website/marketing providers today have the tools and technology in place to reach these consumers which means that your advertising dollars are not reaching the eyes and ears of large volumes of prospective buyers. They are only reaching those that consciously seek what you sell.

The priority then for dealers and advertisers is in finding ways to reach these audiences.

Much like with conventional advertising such as radio, T.V., and print where your dealership is made visible to audiences actively engaged in a car-buying quest as well as those not even thinking about it. The Internet should not be treated any differently. Dealers need to focus their marketing efforts on both spectrums - generating leads AND building their brand.

Building a dealership brand is fun and exciting and adds a whole other level of business to your cause. In a recent Nielsen study reporting that 77% of people shop online to save time, dealers can not resort to strictly lead generation if they intend to penetrate today’s buyer market.

While Search Marketing has reached parity with OEM sites and Third-Party Automotive sites as a top destination of choice for their research, there is still and always will be something to be said for marketing to your current customers to. This of course is accomplished through CRM efforts that include newsletters, direct mail, blogs, and discussion forums.

Technorati Tags: automotive marketing, internet marketing, social media, smo, search engine marketing, oem, blog marketing, blogging for car dealers, crm

Social media marketing is a new form of marketing quickly appearing on the automotive front. There is an overwhelming number of social media sites that can be leveraged by car dealers to assist with their strategy, so many in fact that it is not realistic to utilize them all. So how should car dealers discern which ones are best for them? Success in social media marketing is not an overnight thing so you want to be sure to choose your tools wisely so as to avoid wasting months of time and money.

A post was made recently on Search Engine Land that is meant to serve as a getting started guide of sorts, some of which we have re-iterated here for you with an automotive spin.

1. The first thing to consider is the functionality of the site. While most social sites offer similar features, how they are applied and the result they produce can vary. For instance, digg and del.icio.us are both social bookmarking sites, but the utility is drastically different. We use digg to network with other diggers and promote articles, but we use del.icio.us to help manage out content creation and management process with our writers.

2. What are your intentions? Car dealers want to sell cars. Service managers want to fix them. Both want to make money. If you enter into a social media site intent on your sole purpose then you will quickly become an isolated cat. Therefore when take part in a network, make sure it is an environment complimentary to your dealership and those at your dealership participating. You are going to spend a lot of time on these sites so they need to be ones that genuinely appeal to you and your team.

3. Be mindful of your network audience. You are there to promote your dealership by engaging with the interests of others. If you do not meet their core interest levels then you will have a hard time getting them to meet yours.

4. Be there because you care, not for the sake of being there. If you log on to social sites, set up your profile and then occasionally chime in to see what’s new then you can not expect to see much success. You have to really get involved with the community and get to know the audience and this take time and genuine interest in learning about others.

As a car dealer, it can be difficult to look at something like this as beneficial to your dealership. The reality is, social media marketing is going to be a challenging form of marketing for car dealers. Which is why it is important to know what you are up against before plunging in.

Earlier this month we posted a series of segments about specific uses and benefits of social media marketing. These included things such as the SEO benefits and online brand awareness. Our approach to social media marketing at web2ologies is to help auto dealers realize these benefits as a type of search engine brand marketing.

There is a form of engineering involved for your dealership to be fruitful in these things and the more you can apply these aforementioned guidelines in your strategy then the more impacting will be your results.

Technorati Tags: car dealer marketing, dealership website marketing, brand marketing, search marketing, social marketing, social media, Search Engine Land

If your dealership website is not one of the top 3 listings in searches that include your dealership name, then you need to take action on your search marketing strategy. However, for most dealerships this is a non-issue unless of course you have a generic or common name such as “Friendly” or “Courtesy”.

No matter what your dealership name though, it needs to be appearing in the top listings when people are entering it into their searches. Studies show that people do not spend too much time locating companies online because there are plenty of others from which to choose.

The best way to make sure you appear in the top of organic listings when people search for you is to build keyword density on your dealership name and the local area, and not just on your home page. You want your site to be the complete authority when it comes to your company name and this can be accomplished rather easily by ensuring search engines have no question of your dealership name and local area.

In cases where there are multiple other dealers with the same or similar name as yours, then you definitely want to target your geo market with authority by making the metro area and surrounding towns dense with keywords on your site.

In addition to this you might also want to have a some PPC advertising in place so that your dealership has natural and paid authority, which drastically increases your clicks-through according to a recent Nielsen ReelResearch study:

When a brand name was found in both the paid and organic results, the brand attracted 92 percent of total clicks on the page vs. 60 percent of clicks without paid results.

Focusing on things such as your dealership name and geo market is a form of short tail marketing, basically the idea of targeting search markets specific or even exclusive to your business.

Technorati Tags: auto marketing, dealership website marketing, search marketing, search engine optimization, short tail, sem, Nielsen, ReelResearch, organic search, PPC

The following information is provided to you almost verbatim from Dealer Marketing Magazine. Unfortunately, there is not an online point of reference to provide as it was delivered via email. However, you may request a copy of this email by submitting to us your request to do so here.

Research by Yahoo! and The Cobalt Group shows that 88 percent of new car shoppers research auto dealerships before making their first visit to a dealer lot. In fact, search engines have become the method of choice for dealership research.

According to the study, 79 percent of consumers use search engines to research auto dealerships. Not including physical drive-bys, online search now trumps all other media as the number one source consumers use when locating a dealership.

Consumers now visit an average of six dealerships during the buying process. One-third of those surveyed say they traveled more than 20 miles to visit a dealership, and online shoppers were the most willing to travel long distances to shop. This means a dealer’s sphere of influence in the marketplace can increase significantly simply by using online marketing tools effectively.

The research also uncovers a growing trend…the effect of social media outlets. These consumers are brand advocates, and it’s becoming increasingly important that dealers pay attention to them and their behaviors online.

For information about how your dealership can benefit from search engine brand marketing, please contact us today.

Technorati Tags: auto marketing, automotive marketing, car dealer marketing, internet marketing, search marketing, search engine marketing, brand marketing, brand awareness, social marketing, social media marketing, social network marketing, Yahoo!, Cobalt Group, Dealer Marketing Magazone

When optimizing your dealership website for search engines, there are two primary focuses that should be considered in your meta info and in your web copy:

1. Short tail search
2. Long tail search

Short tail search refers to keywords and phrases specific to your dealership. For instance, if your dealership name is Chad’s Ford and you are in Omaha, NE then the words “chad”, “ford”, “omaha”, “ne”, & “nebraska” are all short tail keywords on which you should have authority on in the search engines. Of course, your authority will likely be specific to more distinct phrases such as “chad’s ford” or “omaha ford”.

With a properly optimized site, or web page, the “short tail” keywords such as the company name and your geo markets should be an inherent part of the information, thus you should not have to campaign specifically for them because the search engines will pick up on them naturally, especially if the domain name contains the company name.

Long tail search refers to the idea of what we call “relative search”, which is on the lines of products, services, and other keywords related to your dealership but not specific to it. For instance, “ford dealer” or “nebraska dealer” could be considered long tail key phrases because they are related to but not specific to your dealership. Technically speaking, long tail refers more to the idea of targeting numerous low-search volume markets versus fewer high-volume search markets. More information can be learned on that by going to this blog.

With long tail search, you need to dedicate individual web pages for select and related key phrases you wish to penetrate in search. Thus, “omaha ford dealer” and “new ford trucks” should not be combined onto a single web page because there are thousands of other web pages dedicated to those search markets alone that you will have a difficult time dominating. The more narrow your niche the better when it comes to long tail search, especially if you want to penetrate high-volume search markets.

These two search emphases cover the outer shell of search engine marketing. A well-optimized site distinguishes between the two and optimizes accordingly, while also drawing distinction between related and non-related long tail SEO on a page-by-page basis.

Technorati Tags: search marketing, search engine marketing, sem, search engine optimization, seo, long tail search, short tail search, dealership website marketing, chris anderson

When you are driving in your car and hear a radio ad for a car dealer, you are not likely to put much thought in to it unless you are on the market for a car, at which time you are likely to hear the dealer’s web address (if it is even announced). And if you are on the market when you hear the ad, you also are likely to realize at that time how frequently (or infrequently) you have been hearing that dealer’s radio ad on this and possible other radio stations.

This is brand marketing and the same theory applies to television, print, and, yes…search marketing too.

While the dealer’s ultimate goal is indeed to increase sales by driving people to its website or into the showroom, the dealer knows that he must make his dealership visible and accessible so that car buyers and car owners can be aware of his business. Considering the increasing number of people taking their car shopping and service needs to the Internet to get things started, brand marketing on the Web is becoming increasingly more essential for auto dealers.

There are several ways for dealers to market themselves on the Web, and organic search marketing has become a significant form of doing so. In a recent study performed by Google and Compete, Inc. Search was valued at “near parity” with OEM Sites and 3rd Party Automotive Sites. The study also showed that

• Nearly 3/4 of new Vehicle Buyers used search at some point in the process and were referred to an OEN Site or 3rd Party Automotive Site
• In the last month prior to purchase, 42% of New Vehicle Buyers used search

While paying to have your inventory listed on 3rd party sites such as AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, Vehix.com, etc. is an effective way to generate leads, the reality is that this is all you are doing is generating leads. Listing services like this are not designed to build or promote your dealership. You are paying to have your vehicles listed in a directory of millions of other autos and thousands of other dealers and in the end are helping to build the brand awareness of the listing provider, not your dealership.

Search marketing provides a way for dealers to attain not just levels of visibility but penetration and even saturation when carried out effectively.

Technorati Tags: Automotive Marketing, Search Marketing, Brand Marketing, Organic Search, Car Dealer Marketing, Website Marketing, AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, Vehix.com, Google, Compete.com

Most people equate the term Search Engine Optimization to Organic Search however if you think about it SEO could more accurately be described as “optimizing” your website for all forms of Search Marketing, i.e. Organic Search, PPC, Blog/RSS Marketing, and for Social Marketing purposes. In other words, while SEO is indeed a form of SEM, it is not necessarily limited to just Organic Search. SEO could also be considered a form of Search Marketing Optimization, or SMO.

How important is it to get these terms straight? Hard to say, but probably important. For years, car dealers and automotive marketing providers have misused the term Search Engine Marketing as specific to Pay-Per-Click Advertising and the cumulative result has been a complete misuse and application of Search Marketing all together. Because of PPC and 3rd-party automotive sites, dealers today perceive Search Marketing as a lead generator, whereas really there is much more to Search Marketing than just generating leads.

Take brand awareness, for instance, or market positioning, and other forms of Search Engine Visibility. Similar to off-line advertising such as radio, T.V, and print where your objective really is to create awareness of and familiarity with your brand or company throughout targeted physical geo-markets, Search Marketing should really be approached in a similar fashion - as an ongoing and long-term marketing strategy rather than a try-this-try-that lead generation approach. Increased sales is the intended result, but the increase is not always measured on a cost-per basis. It can also be evaluated holistically in regards to the entire dealership operation, not just the Internet or BDC function.

3rd-Party automotive sites such as Autotrader.com, Autobytel.com, Cars.com, Vehix.com, etc. have incidentally created a cut-throat mentality throughout the car dealer community that Internet Marketing is about lead generation and “ups”. Unfortunately, car dealers and auto shoppers suffer as a result. Dealerships are obscured to buyers because the search engines are riddled with 3rd-party automotive sites attempting to produce qualified leads they can sell to dealers. It can be overwhelming for buyers to find car dealer websites unless they consciously set out to locate them. This brings up a whole other concern.

If Internet Marketing is essentially concentrated around visibility to those seeking out specific products, services, and information then what is (or is not) happening with those not intentionally seeking out an automotive consumption interest, or market potentials.

Car dealers embracing Organic Search have a better chance at success when tapping in to these search market “potentials” not dominated by 3rd-party sites. Then, by doing so, as their dealer sites gain credibility with the search engines they can point their Search Marketing efforts towards more competitive areas presently dominated by lead generators. Email marketing, despite its effectiveness, can not accomplish this because by its nature it is a sit-and-wait approach. PPC does not either, because it is too sporadic for cost-effective saturation. Only Organic Search has the capability of saturating relative search markets in a cost-effective residual manner. But with the right balance of all these things, a truly “optimized” Search Marketing strategy can take effect.

Technorati Tags: search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, organic search, search marketing, automotive marketing, car dealer marketing, market positioning, AutoTrader.com, Autobytel.com, Cars.com, Vehix.com