Today the Automotive SEO Study kicks off.  Over 100 car dealers from the United States and Canada will depart for a 16-week adventure.  In the past two weeks, interested dealers have been attending webinars and packing their digital luggage for the trip.  The packing process was well defined so that they had the necessary digital garments to endure the voyage. Part of that pre-travel process was to prepare their travel documents so that they would know where they started.  We asked all members to print PDF snapshots of their Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Google Page One Rankings (GPOM), Google Places Analytics for their current website.  Members created a free Google Docs account so that they could load the historical snapshots for safe keeping and later review. No Digital Accountability It was sobering to witness the disruption that these requests created. Many members of the study worked at dealerships that never produced or viewed these typ...

As many of you already know, Yahoo has started to use Microsoft's search engine technology to power their search results. Have you compared your existing search dealership results in Google to the "new" Yahoo? Try some simple search patterns on Yahoo today.   For example, if you are a Chevrolet dealer in Paramus New Jersey test out a few basic phrases: New Jersey Chevrolet Dealer Paramus Chevrolet Dealer Chevrolet Impala Paramus Chevrolet Service Paramus There are differences in how the Microsoft technology and Google technology work and after you have studied this for a while, those differences become clearer. I would like to challenge all readers to take a moment to take 10 popular search phrases that are part of your SEO strategy and check your rankings in Yahoo. You can place a "star" beside each listing to see which listings your business controls. Work to raise those positions over the next few months.  Print copies ...

I have been helping car dealers fine tune their Internet marketing strategy through my blogs and lately I have been getting a number of emails on Microsites. The focus of these inquiries: How can I use microsites for lead generation? Eventually the conversation always includes one important question: "What domain name should I use?"
The focus of this article is to help you with that decision making process. Domain names can make or break your marketing budget. A few assumptions have to be made for this discussion to be meaningful.
Mega Bucks Projects
The first assumption is that you are not building a multi-million dollar project that will be a national brand that has a HUGE marketing budget. An example would be Uggs and the domain www.uggs.com. No one was typing that word into Google before the brand launched. This is both good and bad. The good part is that the name had little competition once the word got out. The bad part is that it costs money to get the word out.
Short Term ...

As we get ready to kickoff the Automotive SEO Study on September 1st, I was reflecting on both the enthusiasm of the 75 dealers who have committed to the program to date and also the low participation rate for a curriculum worth over $10,000.  By the way,  it is being offered for free. One of the barriers that I see is that there limited educational resources that are building a bridge between veteran automotive executives (decision makers) and the vocabulary used by digital marketing and social media advocates.    You may often hear a young Internet Sales Manager say; "My GM doesn't get it!" but in fact few companies have made it easy for that "bridge" education to take place. I'm sure at one point, many GM's and dealer principals tried to get a better understanding of digital marketing but they were quickly immersed in funny acronyms and words that might as well have been in Fr...

I would like to encourage employees of car dealerships who want to learn more about Search Engine Optimization to join a historic study sponsored by PCG Digital Marketing and DrivingSales.com. The Automotive SEO Study will take 100 car dealership employees through a 16 week SEO curriculum.  There is no cost associated with participating in the study but members will need to commit to 4 hours of work a week. Depending on the dealership, they should expect to spend approximately $100 in various setup fees to setup a WordPress blogs, buy a domain, etc. Whitepaper To Be Published The results of the Automotive SEO Study will be published and presented at the 2011 NADA Convention in San Francisco.  We expect to have a good diversity of website platforms represented as well as OEM brands. The initial registrations are strong so many dealers have embraced the study with oepn arms.   I expect the Automotive SEO Study to be full by Friday August 20th.  It is impo...

Car dealers are turning to a second career to jumpstart their online sales: movie director.  Consumer engagement in social media coupled with the popularity of online review sites has forced car dealers to rethink their automotive advertising strategies. Video production which was once was cost prohibitive for dealers to do themselves has now become an affordable tool for creative automotive professionals. In growing numbers, car dealers are turning to FlipCam video cameras to create video testimonials for their customers, walk around car videos and now a move to create social media viral videos. These videos are being integrated into their websites, Google Maps, Facebook and loaded on popular video websites like YouTube to extend the reach of their brand.  Customer testimonial videos are becoming standard operating procedure as studies show that consumers trust their peers five times more than a statement from an automotive dealer.&nb...

I have some good news for you today. Car dealers can now respond positive and negative reviews on Google Maps! The feature that many dealers have been waiting for is finally here. If you have verified your Google Maps listing proving that you are the owner, you can now respond to any comments, positive or negative, when you are logged in to your account. This is great news for dealers who have an Automotive Internet Reputation Management (IRM) process setup and who have been monitoring reviews on sites like Google Maps, Yelp, CitySearch, InsiderPages and Dealerrater. I also like the strategy of thanking people who place positive comments! Here is the official notice from Google:

It's been a while since I published some "how to" articles on link building and Automotive SEO strategies.  Many people have said that that "Content is King" and I would like to append to that adage "and links are the Queen". 

Car dealers who would like to increase the number incoming links to their primary domains can read further to see if any of my suggestions are new ideas.  If so, add them to your digital marketing strategy to increase the search authority of your digital assets.

The sites I have listed below perform two basic functions: content publishing to get additional listings on Google Page One and secondly, to build links back to your website(s).  The more organic listings that you have on Page One for popular search phrases, the higher your chances that you will get a call, a lead or a walk-in.

Before we address those strategies, do you know how many links point

Once you start playing with FlipBoard, one of the biggest revelations is how it transforms Twitter into a really powerful content presentation tool. 

I started to think about how companies could leverage FlipBoard technology for sales support and customer service.

My idea was that a salesperson or company could create a Twitter account for the sole purpose of creating an inventory of articles that assisted their sales process.

In effect, creating a Twitter account for the purpose of creating a digital media magazine. The company or salesperson would use this Twitter account to tweet out any articles that they found online to support the purpose of the social media magazine. 

FlipBoard for the Automotive Industry

Since I assist many car dealers with their digital marketing strategies, I would like to give an example of how FlipBoard could assist a salesperson in a dealership showroom.

In this example, a fictitious salesperson called Annie Stone working for Classi

I was speaking with Alex Snyder today and he reminded me of a statement I made in 2009 which was:

"The most important person a car dealer can hire in 2010 will be a content writer."

With half of 2010 now past, I thought I would revisit why this statement made in October of 2009 has never been so timely.  Regardless of which digital marketing strategy is your favorite at this moment, Content is Still King to develop relevance for your website.

If Content is King then Link Building is the Queen. 

So the question for today is:  Do you have the Royal Family as part of your automotive marketing team?



Choices For Content Writing

If you are a single rooftop dealership, it will be difficult to justify a full-time content writer to be on your payroll but there are options.  You should inquire at local county colleges for marketing interns that often will work for free as long as they have the opportunity to work with a live digital marketing

Robert Scoble on his blog Scobleizer.com broke a story about some new technology called Flipboard and it included the video included below which I was drawn to watch to completion.  The Flipboard software running on an iPad is a perfect example of how many innovations will be coming for the iPad in the coming year. Flipboard is very exciting for me since I use social media regularly and have many people I want to stay in touch with; personally and for business.  The Flipboard software is a social media aggregator and presents the social media streams in a magazine format.  It is mind-blowing how cool this application take an ugly stream of data and turns it into something very easy to read and with full content.  For example, Flipboard takes a 140 character tweet and follows the link and finds the related story and presents it in an attractive format. Take a moment to view the video and tell me if you agree that Flipboard is a really cool way...

As car dealers look to increase profits and revenue, their marketing agenda lately has focused on social media and how this communication channel can grow their business. Social media of course is important but a proven money maker for car dealers is being ignored by many dealers as part of their digital advertising strategy. When I am called into dealership meetings to review their online marketing strategy, rarely does a dealership ask about increasing service revenue through SEO and SEM. Dealers seem to be content with service direct mail and email campaigns which work very well in most markets. Over the past few months I have been working on an SEO strategy to increase the visibility of car dealers for common service searches in Google. It is an eye opener to see just how I have been able to increase visibility for car dealers by targeting popular service keywords. A good way to test the service visibility for any car dealer is to type in a common service for a brand ...

At PCG Digital Marketing we monitor the leads that come in on the websites that we build for clients to cutdown on spam and to measure the effectiveness of our marketing programs.  Periodically, we see massive spam attacks on our forms which we continue to tweak to stop spam from coming through to dealer CRM systems. Today one of my clients received a lead from Jennifer M. Sorrells who is a  PERS Marketing Executive.  Ms. Sorrells is a salesperson and somehow she thought it was a good idea to use a car dealer's quote form to sell here goods.  The choice of using a car dealer website form for soliciting business is in bad taste and in my opinion, paints a very poor image her company: Preferred Call & Response LLC. Jennifer Sorrells Email Here is the message that Jennifer sent: customerfirstname : Jennifer customerlastname : Sorrells customeraddress : 399 E. 29th St. customercity : Buena Vista customerstate : VA customerzip : 24416 cu...

Automotive retailers and their employees could significantly benefit from reading two powerful books.  Many of the stereotypes that plague the car industry could be mitigated if employees of car dealerships practiced the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success that are outlined by Bob Burg and John David Mann. I highly recommend that every member of the DrivingSales.com community reads these two books this month: The Go-Giver Go-Givers Sell More These great, easy to read books will significantly impact the way you view the sales process and increase your success with communicating with people.  Sounds too good to be true? Get the books and read them, it is well worth the investment. The books can be purchased on Amazon.com for under $14 each. Buy on Amazon.  These two books outline the author’s philosophy about selling and success which goes against the grain of common sales training. The authors challenge the traditional sales ...

Facebook is a great communication tool for car dealers as they can stay connected to their existing customers and meet new customers by providing value. When done properly, they become a Trust Agents as described by Chris Brogan in his book with the same title. With this great opportunity so comes spammers and scammers.  Companies have found that many business owners, including car dealers, don't want to invest in social media.  They would rather create INSTANT Facebook and Twitter fans to increase their "counts", regardless of the quality of those followers. A Lesson I Learned: When someone you don't know asks to be a friend, be careful on who you accept.   On June 29, 2010, I accepted Dayna Jaqeline as a friend. Since that time I have received over 10 recommendations that I "like" various businesses on Facebook. Today I noticed this one-way pattern of communications from this new "friend". Dayna Jaque...

Last year I reviewed 35 popular automotive website platforms and published the results in the first ever Automotive Search Marketing Architecture (ASMA) study.   Of the 35  platforms reviewed, nine companies were recognized for excellence based on criteria that I set for the study. We are now finalizing the applications for the 2010 ASMA Awards that will be presented this fall. I would like DrivingSales.com members to offer feedback on some of the criteria you would like to see in the comparison grids this year. We will review about 40+ website providers this year and part of the study will be a chart that compares the base feature set of their website and add on modules the vendor offers.   This year we will include line items for mobile sites, mobile apps, Facebook apps, CRM, market pricing tools, etc. As we compare and contrast the 40+ car dealer website platforms, what type of side by side data and comparisons would you like to s...

The Internet as a communications tool for car dealers is evolving and never before has the changing landscape been more challenging for dealer principals and General Managers.  As car dealers seek to develop online brand messaging their advertising budgets are being pulled in many directions.  Every month a new digital strategy is being presented as the next “big thing”. Dealers are struggling to validate the benefits and implementation costs of social media, chat, streaming video, reputation management, SEO, SEM and a dozen other digital marketing pitches that come across their desk each month.  With little track records or case studies to help dealers with the education process, seasoned mangers are scratching their heads and looking for advice and support from the companies that they have leaned on in the past. Unfortunately, these products are coming from more single source vendors and not their current automotive advertising agency.  Most trad...

This past week there was a buzz about a patent that was awarded to Google that is being referred to as the Reasonable Surfer Patent. The specifics of the patent reveal that it was filed 6 years ago and awarded in May 2010.   The first thing I questioned was the relevance of the patent since so much has changed in the past 6 years in search. The patent data include this text: Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data Invented by Jeffrey A. Dean, Corin Anderson and Alexis Battle Assigned to Google Inc. United States Patent 7,716,225 Granted May 11, 2010 Filed: June 17, 2004 SEO pundits have differing opinions on the specific value of this patent but to save you the internal banter, I will try to distill what I think is most important. This patent is focused on how Google will “weight” links on a web page. The weighting may include predicting what a consumer would most likely click on a web page. So a text link in the first paragraph of a blog...

Google Places, formerly called Google Maps, has a new feature that allows to you add customized, time sensitive text on your business detail page. For the average car dealer, consumers will view your detail page on Google Maps over 500 times a month.   If that is the case, then why not add a personalized "post" that you change each month to match your current sales promotions and incentives. You can only type in 160 characters but the placement of the text is locate perfectly for a consumer to see.   Login to Google Places   To see where you make these posts, login to Google Places and click on your store listing. The page will look something like this:       In the upper right hand corner, you will see a new area to add a post to your comments that will appear on your Google Maps page for up to 30 days. Here is a close-up:     Once you create the call to action message and click on the Post button, it ...

I am still amazed how many dealers have less than 20 reviews on their Google Maps listings. Even worse are dealers who have Google Maps listings with incorrect information and/or missing their website link. Dealers with low review counts often will find that they are mostly negative posts which creates an unfair picture of any dealership. I was thinking why some dealers have ignored Google Maps and the reviews that show on their listing. I have come to the conclusion that they don't realize how many times each month their Maps listing is shown to consumers. For a dealer in an active metro area, their Google Maps listing is shown over 15,000 times. Normally at these number of impressions, dealers will get over 300-500 visitors clicking to their website and dozens of phone calls.  As a reminder, put a tracking number on your Google Maps listing. Poor Reviews Decrease Leads When a consumer clicks on the Reviews link on a dealer's maps listing and sees very nega...

Imagine negotiating with a consumer and when you get to talking about the price of the car, your customer tells you that you need to take $370 off your price because CarFax said so. The consumer tells you that ON YOUR OWN website, they clicked the CarFax report and it told them that the car was worth $370 less. The question that begs to be answered is: Less than What??? This is not a fantasy. Check out this CarFax link to a car that is offered at Checkered Flag in Virginia. The Checkered Flag Group was unaware of this great "NEW" feature offered and implemented by CarFax. Every car has an icon to print a free CarFax report. Ouch. When you look at the CarFax report, there is NO explanation to where this deduction in value comes from. There are no accidents or damage according to this screen. The backlash has started.  Dealers have emailed me to say that their CarFax representative did not have any solid answers to their questions. Were you aware that CarF...

Dealers spend thousands of dollars a year on designing a good website. Then they spend thousands of dollars a year to add video, chat, vAuto, SEO and SEM to their websites. They invest in branding on radio, TV and newspaper as well. Then dealers unknowingly make decisions to make sure consumers DO NOT GET to their website for popular search phrases on the search engines. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? One day, dealers were told it was a "good" idea to send their inventory to 3, 5, 8 or 10 "free" inventory listing websites that promised to create significant leads and relevance to their business. Inventory feed providers, website providers all bought the sales pitch. Funny, not many dealers have gone back to look just how many leads are coming in from these "free" sites? Even less have decided to take any action once they saw that these free sites were NOT producing meaningful results. Dealers concluded, what can it hurt me to send my inventory....i...

Recently, I was conducting a training seminar at an automotive conference when a dealership employee asked me:

 


“What is your opinion on the effectiveness of sending a dealer’s inventory to be published on free listing websites”.


 

I have been researching inventory listing websites as part of the launch for the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN). The AAN is a membership based inventory advertising service which delivers unique benefits to its member dealers. 

 

For a low monthly fee, member benefits include Facebook social media integration, blog integration, press release publishing and search engine optimization which will benefit the car dealer’s main website.

 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am the chief architect of the AAN model which display cars for sale on a national level at CarDealerSale.com as well as on hundreds of regional and local advertising websites.

 

I have been testing car

Is Fear Holding Back Your Digital Marketing Success?   “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear – Frank Herbert - Dune     I’m writing this post at 35,000 feet as I am approaching Sydney, Australia on United Flight 863 from San Francisco. I have been traveling 13 hours of the 15 hours flight, and with land not too far away I started to reflect on the flight because of how I felt earlier in the day.   This afternoon, while in San Francisco, I actually had a short period of anxiety about flying which is not normal for me. I couldn’t exactly figure out why. But as I reflected on this discomfort, I started to understand th...

As part of Reputation Management program for our clients we encourage them to film satisfied customers at the dealership so that we can leverage that good press on the Internet. We created the concept of a Reputation Management Portal (RMP) which consolidates the top place where consumers can post a review to make it easier for your clients to post their comments. As part of the process, we will also take customer testimonial videos and load them in a custom YouTube Testimonial Channel for the RMP home page; see www.iloveprestigevolvo.com. We also load their testimonial videos on their Facebook Fan Page. (If you haven't purchased a FlipCam yet, do it immediately!) As we were checking the Google Page One Management for a new client, Prestige Volvo we were surprised to see how many things are starting to appear in the Google stream for social media websites. Take a look at the screen shot below: Facebook Videos in Google SERP In this case an actual customer testimonial...

GPS enabled mobile apps are changing the way in which consumers leverage social media and one fast growing application that has been discussed on DrivingSales.com is FourSquare.com.

This week FourSquare.com announced that it will be offering business owners business intelligence tools which would show them who is "checking in" to their business and how to market to their local visitors.  The data set will be very interesting to analyze.

A sample screen shot below is a teaser of what is to come.  Think of it as Google Analytics for location based digital marketing.


I'm Addicted to FourSquare.com
I've been actively using FourSquare and I have to admit I'm becoming an addict.  I don't mind that my trail of places I visit are recorded for my followers to see.  This trail can also be automatically posted to Twitter and Facebook.

Here is an example of how FourSquare.com recorded my path over the past two days:



However, I have been trying to figure out how this can ...

I was out in Southern California last week and had the pleasure of visiting a premier BMW dealer on the West Coast; Irvine BMW.

I was given the opportunity to drive a 2008 BMW M6 Convertible as well as a 2010 BMW 550 GT, also known as a Grand Turismo.   Both cars were a dream to drive and each had their distinct personality.

The M6 Convertible had an MSRP over $110,000 and the MSRP of the 2010 BMW 550 GT was around $80,000.  I was a bit nervous driving these cars on the freeways of California.

The M6 Convertible's automatic shifting technology allowed me to adjust the feel of the transmission and the associated engine roar.  The car was as fun to drive as it sounded.  The Grand Turismo is a cross between the 5 Series and  7 Series with 550 horsepower.  It was simply a moon rocket in the disguise of a luxury performance sedan.
First Year Without a BMW
I've owned BMW cars since 1994 but this month will be the first time we passed on having at least one BMW in the hou...

 

[caption id="attachment_832" align="alignright" width="282" caption="Top 10 Digital Marketing Strategies"][/caption]

DrivingSales.com members who want to get the inside line to build a strong gameplan for

their digital marketing strategies in 2010 are encouraged to participate in a webinar entitled: 
 Top 10 Digital Marketing Strategies for 2010". 
 

Be one of the first50 people to register for a webinar lead by Brian Pasch, CEO and founder of PCG Digital Marketing and get a chance to grow your skills and knowledge for free.  The webinar is scheduled for March 9th at 1:00 PM EST and will run for three hours.

Normally, a three hour webinar would cost a dealership $500 for the information that will be presented.  In a special limited time offer for DrivingSales.com members, the webinar is being offered without cost for the first 50 automotive professionals that register and attend the webinar.

After the first 50 spots are reserved,  additional attende...

On Tuesday February 9th at 4:30 in the afternoon, a Continental Airlines representative casually told me that all flights from Newark on Wednesday would be cancelled due to the pending storm.  I was in a state of shock because just hours earlier I received an email from Continental indicating that I was upgraded to first class.  In a matter of hours my vision of a relaxing flight to Orlando to get ready for the NADA Convention and the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp the day earlier was shattered.

I called select members of the PCG Digital Marketing team into my office who were heading to Orlando and told them they had two hours to go home, pack and get ready for a road trip through a blizzard.  I informed them that I had called all area airports and that all outbound flights on Tuesday evening were booked solid.  Since I was co-organizing an Automotive Marketing Boot Camp that started on Thursday Night, I told the team that we had no choice but to drive to Florida.  It was their...

The Automotive Marketing Boot Camp, held in Orlando on February 12th, one day prior to the official start of NADA, brought together top professionals from the industry that supported and sponsored the educational event.

The Boot Camp is a hands-on skills based training program which covers the most important elements of automotive digital marketing strategies: social media, blogging, video, link building, content creation, SEO and pay-per-click marketing.  The classes offered attendees hands-on classes which will deliver the abilities dealers need to understand, manage and catapult their online marketing strategy to the next level. 

The five industry sponsors included:

Thursday Dinner Sponsor - http://www.bzresults.com
Friday Breakfast Sponsor - http://www.dominiondealersolutions.com
Friday Lunch Sponsor - http://www.dealer.com
Friday Dinner Sponsor - http://www.tkcarsites.com   
Saturday Breakfast Sponsor  - http://www.dealertrend.com

Brian Pasch is the CEO o...