Jack Loechner wrote a great article for Borrell Associates about the shift towards digital marketing for automotive dealers.  He postulates that automotive as an ad category is responsible for changing the local media landscape with regards to the growing digital marketing spends and lessening of newspaper, radio and TV advertising.  Now that newspapers and radio have given up their ad revenue to digital solutions, traditional TV is thought to follow suit.

Automotive is the largest ad category behind general merchandise.  According to the article, overall car sales are up 5% and ad budgets up 17%.  Digital marketing accounts for 95% of this budget increase.  With less dealerships overall, a lower cost-per-vehicle with regards to digital advertising, and a surge in used car purchases, dealerships are quickly taking advantage of the high quality traffic that digital marketing can deliver.  Since more than 90% of car purchases start with online research, dealerships are becoming more like fulfillment locations than full-fledged stores.  This means that every walk-in is more likely to buy.

Despite the online landscape becoming crowded with every dealer devoting budget to getting zero moment of truth customers, digital marketing definitely presents an efficient and affordable way to advertise a dealership's vehicles.  As marketers, do you still run into dealerships that are decidedly "old school"?  Any that still run print and radio ads?

Many digital marketing agencies are great at sending leads to a dealership website. Typically, if sales don't improve, these agencies will be quick to say that the marketing works fine, but that the dealer isn't taking full advantage of the leads.  However, a true full-service digital agency includes a vital piece of the puzzle with regards to this - performance management.

Performance management is generally not a part of the suite of services one gets from a digital marketing agency, because most view themselves as purely in the business of increasing traffic, leads and conversions. Adding performance management to their list of benefits would mean adding agency employees that are so familiar with the way a well-run dealership works that they can help dealers effectively take their leads to the next level, translating them into sales.

It is easy enough to see what days and times leads are most plentiful, but sometimes it takes performance management to indicate that this means to staff more heavily during those hours to take full advantage.  Sometimes, processes are broken at a dealership, and a performance manager can spot the areas that need improvement internally and help a dealership close gaps to create a more efficient car sales process.  Does your current marketing agency offer a performance management service?

It is now widely known that Google has changed their algorithm for displaying search results to weigh more heavily on "content”.  It is important to continually add website content if one is to show up in the most used search engine in the world.  Unfortunately, not many understand what their options are to increase content on their website.  This is where content blogging can come in very handy.

People with personal, niche-related blogs, have it easiest as Google is always looking for relevant, specific information to display to it's searchers.  If people don't find Google's searches relevant, they will search elsewhere, and Google will not be able to monetize the loads of traffic it receives.  Thus the focus on new, quality content.

Many dealerships might struggle with how they can add content to their site on a continual basis.  Sales and specials come and go, and so does inventory.  Certainly neither of these are suitable in the long term to qualify for new content in Google's algorithm.  Content blogging can alleviate the pressure of finding a way to add new material to a dealer site without interfering with the rest of the site structure.

The vehicles that dealerships carry often have lots of information floating around on the internet that can be continually researched and repackaged as blog content on a dealership site.  A dealer might concentrate on doing this once or multiple times per week.  In this way, content blogging should work to increase SEO for the various automobiles on a dealership's lot - as long as the content doesn't blatantly duplicate any existing articles that are published already.

Content blogging can definitely give dealers a way to add new content to their sites and increase their Google search profile.  It can be a lot of work creating and/or curating this content.  What ways are you all adding content to your sites to help with SEO?

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Still, many dealers do not have video marketing set up for their inventory. If a business is not available in some way via YouTube search, it is bound to miss a lot of opportunity.

While creating a video for every vehicle might seem tedious, it is the best way to appeal to clients who consume information in this form. Luckily, many dealerships are already taking a ton of inventory photos for their VDPs. While it may not be as impressive as a custom video, a slideshow of VDP photos with overlays of relevant information will work in a pinch to deliver some form of video marketing to the masses.

The main point is for the inventory to be searchable on YouTube. Marketers should be sure to make the best use of the video title, description and meta tags to ensure that the vehicle can be found and is linked back to the VDP. Video marketing doesn’t require fancy production for every car on the lot, it just requires that each vehicle can be found on YouTube.

A lot of great traffic can be driven to a website using video marketing - how are you all using video marketing to get your vehicles out there?

Many of us were taught as children that sharing is one of the best and most adult things a person could do. In the digital world, this goes double – and takes almost zero effort! Our social media tip today has to do with sharing Facebook posts and why it’s important.

It’s no secret that Facebook conducted it’s IPO in 2012. What this meant for businesses on their platform was that the fans of their pages would no longer be guaranteed to see their posts. For the widest reach possible, businesses would have to boost their posts and create Facebook ads – Facebook had become a pay-to-play advertising platform. However, since virality is an aspect of Facebook and the popularity of posts affects what is shown, sharing Facebook posts has become a way that fans of a business can help get that business’ message out there.

If you are an administrator of a Facebook page, you should notice that beneath your posts but above the Like/Comment/Share links is a count of how many people were reached. As more people share the posts that you put up, this number goes up exponentially! Therefore, it is a best practice for beginning posters to encourage their followers to share their content to help spread the word! Sharing Facebook posts helps the business expand it’s reach without having to spend additional dollars to fund advertising.

What are some ways you get your fans to share your advertising and increase your reach?  Very interested!

Simply put, a Zero Moment of Truth buyer is one who is at the point of decision to buy a product or service. Discovering when this moment occurs and targeting the ZMOT buyer at the Zero Moment is a science – a combination of the right marketing message, and targeting of web search traffic patterns to maximize conversions (unique actions such as phone calls, web leads, and live chat) directly into a businesses’ website or telephone center.

The primary component of successfully targeting and converting a Zero Moment of Truth buyer is ensuring proper representation where ZMOT buyers search. Google search (both paid and organic) and social media are highly desirable targets. A strong YouTube presence also boosts awareness and drives leads. For car dealers, classified listings such as Craigslist and CertifiedCars.com deliver ZMOT automotive customers all the time!

The second part of uncovering Zero Moment of Truth buyers online is analyzing the current shopping and traffic patterns of your in-market ZMOT buyers. Deep funnel analysis of this pivotal data allows the enhancement, integration and alignment of a digital selling strategy which provides an increase in ROI.

How are you all capturing ZMOT Auto customers?  It's kind of tough sometimes, right?  Let me know in the comments below!

This article originally appeared on our ZMOT blog!

It’s common knowledge that a bulk of the selling on a dealer’s website occurs on a vehicle display page (VDP). Inventory photos of the actual vehicle are an aspect of a VDP that many dealers fail to give enough credit. Many times, this is the main selling point of the entire VDP!

The first thing a dealer should do is look for stock photos in their website VDPs. These should be replaced with photos of the actual vehicle being sold as soon as possible. One does not need an expensive camera to take great inventory photos. Most modern cameras (including phone cameras) should suffice – provided the photos are all taken at uniform aspect ratios and in decent lighting.

The best VDPs have 10 or more photos of the vehicle. The main photo should show the best angle of the automobile, and could be a profile shot or a 3/4 shot of the driver’s side.

For dealers that are unsure of what other kinds of inventory photos to take, some options for exterior shots might include straight on, lower-up, and tightly zoomed shots of the front, rear and sides of the vehicle. Interior photos could be “entry” shots with the door open, unique elements such as a sunroof, door panel switches, model badges, owner’s manual, odometer, center console, trunk etc. Mechanical shots can include engine, wheel and spare tire shots.

What are some suggestions for photos besides what I have above?  Let me know in the comments!