Brian Pasch Blog | DrivingSales

BP

PCG Consulting Inc

Apr 4, 2010

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....it's free. Guess what. It's NOT free. It has a real Cost.

So, I wrote a post this week that I though would elicit more responses, but it didn't. I think I just gave too much information, so I'll say it one more time, using graphics. Dealers are allowing their inventory to be used against them.

They are allowing free websites to push their own websites off of Google Page One.

I did a simple search on Yahoo, which was: " Indianapolis Silverado for sale" and I documented Page 1 and Page 2 of the search results. You should test a few local phrases and see who comes up on Page One.

Take a look at the screen shots at the bottom of this page and take note that:

There are NO car dealers in organic search results on Page One or Two.
Go back and read point #1.
Free listing websites that sell your leads or show competitor listings are on Page 1 and 2 and NO car dealer websites are one Page 1 or 2.
KBB is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
1. Cars.com
2. FundingWay.com
3. Presenting competing dealer banner ads
4. Presenting banner ads that go to OEM websites
Oodle is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
1. Your competitors using Google Adsense
2. Presenting banner ads that go to OEM websites
LemonFree is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
1. Your competitors comparable listings in their network
2. Competitors using Google Adsense

Do I have to keep going?

Many dealers are PAYING Autotrader.com to advertise their cars and even AT is being pushed down in the ranking by free and pseudo-free websites that are NOT dealer centric models. The irony is that dealers are sending their inventory to free sites that are pushing even AutoTrader.com down in the rankings.

Anyone looking for a reason WHY Autotrader.com leads may be down in your market? It just may be your own actions!

How many leads a month are you getting from these FREE sites?

Driving Sales Members..please listen.

STOP SENDING YOUR INVENTORY to "free" sites that are using your inventory to create landing pages by car model that:

sell your competitors cars
create leads that are sold to your competitors
generate ad revenue for someone else
that push your own website pages off Google Page One

Call your inventory management service like HomeNet, Dealer Specialties, etc. and tell them to ONLY send your inventory advertising services that DELIVER results like Autotrader.com, Cars.com or any site THAT YOU HAVE PROVEN is not hurting you and is delivering real sales each month.

Get it in writing and then search for VIN numbers that you have in stock the following month. Need proof? See the images below.

Does ANYONE think that at least ONE Chevrolet Dealer should be showing up on Yahoo Page One or Page Two???

What is your response?

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

http://facebook.com/pcgdigitalmarketing

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

CEO

1434

No Comments

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

Apr 4, 2010

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....it's free. Guess what. It's NOT free. It has a real Cost.

So, I wrote a post this week that I though would elicit more responses, but it didn't. I think I just gave too much information, so I'll say it one more time, using graphics. Dealers are allowing their inventory to be used against them.

They are allowing free websites to push their own websites off of Google Page One.

I did a simple search on Yahoo, which was: " Indianapolis Silverado for sale" and I documented Page 1 and Page 2 of the search results. You should test a few local phrases and see who comes up on Page One.

Take a look at the screen shots at the bottom of this page and take note that:

There are NO car dealers in organic search results on Page One or Two.
Go back and read point #1.
Free listing websites that sell your leads or show competitor listings are on Page 1 and 2 and NO car dealer websites are one Page 1 or 2.
KBB is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
1. Cars.com
2. FundingWay.com
3. Presenting competing dealer banner ads
4. Presenting banner ads that go to OEM websites
Oodle is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
1. Your competitors using Google Adsense
2. Presenting banner ads that go to OEM websites
LemonFree is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
1. Your competitors comparable listings in their network
2. Competitors using Google Adsense

Do I have to keep going?

Many dealers are PAYING Autotrader.com to advertise their cars and even AT is being pushed down in the ranking by free and pseudo-free websites that are NOT dealer centric models. The irony is that dealers are sending their inventory to free sites that are pushing even AutoTrader.com down in the rankings.

Anyone looking for a reason WHY Autotrader.com leads may be down in your market? It just may be your own actions!

How many leads a month are you getting from these FREE sites?

Driving Sales Members..please listen.

STOP SENDING YOUR INVENTORY to "free" sites that are using your inventory to create landing pages by car model that:

sell your competitors cars
create leads that are sold to your competitors
generate ad revenue for someone else
that push your own website pages off Google Page One

Call your inventory management service like HomeNet, Dealer Specialties, etc. and tell them to ONLY send your inventory advertising services that DELIVER results like Autotrader.com, Cars.com or any site THAT YOU HAVE PROVEN is not hurting you and is delivering real sales each month.

Get it in writing and then search for VIN numbers that you have in stock the following month. Need proof? See the images below.

Does ANYONE think that at least ONE Chevrolet Dealer should be showing up on Yahoo Page One or Page Two???

What is your response?

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

http://facebook.com/pcgdigitalmarketing

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

CEO

1434

No Comments

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

Apr 4, 2010

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 dealer inventory optimization and digital marketing strategies for the past five years. In recent months I have decided to take those years of experience and create the first dealer-centric inventory advertising platform.

As part of my research, I have observed the Google search results for automotive searches in national, regional, and local markets. Every month it seems like a new inventory advertising website appears and many have initiated their service by offering free listings of cars for sale. As a result, Google Page one search results are showing less dealer websites and more lead collection and advertising portals.

Some of the more recognized “free” inventory advertising websites are: Vast, Oodle, EveryCarListed, Trovit, BackPage, and Lemonfree.

Back To the Dealer Question

So back to the initial question: Is it beneficial for the dealership to participate in these free advertising offers?

Every dealer inventory advertising website needs to be individually evaluated on the number of leads (calls and emails) that resulted in a sale based on what a dealer can track in their CRM system. If the number of sales is not significant, I would request from your website provider that they stop sending your inventory to non performing websites. The more places that you send your inventory that don’t generate sales, the more you are hurting your own search results, sales and brand equity.

Looking at 77 Dealers Over 90 days

I reviewed the Internet email leads for 77 car dealers that push their inventory out to free services. Over a three month period, these 77 dealers received a total of 128,000 email CRM leads from all lead sources.

The number of leads that came in from select advertising websites over a three month period is shown below:

457 Everycarlisted.Com
21 Vast.Com
15 Lemonfree.Com

EveryCarListed is tough to measure since they offer both paid and free services, but they are by far the best of breed solution in this free space. Their paid services may yield higher results.

Before you judge any inventory listing service mentioned in the article, you should do your own research at your next 20 Group meeting or call a few industry peers. Then contact the service providers directly and ask for local peer data.

These lead counts do not account for phone calls, but not all free sites list the phone number of the dealer anyway.

Is this the type of results you expect when you are pushing out your entire inventory every day to these free advertising models?

What About SEO Value?

Since most of the free inventories listing websites do not provide back links to the car dealer’s website, they also provide NO SEO benefit. Dealers may “think” they are getting a link because they have a link on the car page that says “Visit Dealership Website” but the link has a “no follow” tag which kills any SEO benefit.

The Multi-Million Dollars Advertising Model That Dealers Fund

If you haven’t noticed many free inventory listing websites are filled with Google Ads, cross-sells from related industries like insurance companies, and even OEM banners. In some cases, your car listing pages have competitor ads or lead forms that encourage consumers to get multiple price quotes from local dealers.

Think about what is really going on in this model.

Your car may actually match a consumer long tail search and the consumer lands on your car detail page on a free listing website. The page is designed to capture a lead OR to encourage the consumers to get multiple quotes from local dealers. So, since it’s a free listing, the website owners have no problem selling the leads generated from YOUR car detail page to your nearest competitors.

So your participation in this free website generates leads for ready to buy consumers to your competitors. Have any doubts?

Take a look at the bottom of this car listing page on EveryCarListed which has similar cars from local competing dealers on this dealer’s listing page. These competing cars can lure consumers away from your page listing which can result in a purchase from another local dealer.

On the Vast car detail pages the name and address of the selling dealer is omitted. The page tells only the name of the city where the car is located. This begs the consumer to submit a lead or call. The Vast lead form collects the consumer’s name, phone number and email information to send the dealer.

The privacy policy states that they can keep your information collected on the lead form and that they can give this information to other companies and subsidiaries. This implies that your car inventory is building someone else’s lead and marketing database and these leads can be resold. One good note is that competing dealer inventory is not shown on the detail page.

This Model Is Not Dealer Centric

The irony about the “free” advertising model is that car dealers generate millions of dollars to the advertising site owners for free. Dealers send these advertising websites their most valuable assets which enables the site owners to capture and sell leads in addition to lucrative banner ad sales. Dealers don’t share in that revenue. The more dealers that participate in this model, the more money these websites make from advertising.

If the majority of these advertising models don’t generate meaningful sales, why do car dealers keep sending their inventory out each night?

Once again I will restate that if a “free” website is generating dozens of leads a month which are converting into real sales, you should continue posting. In most cases, when I look at lead sources on Dealer CRM systems, these free sites are nowhere to be found.

Diluting Organic Search Results

Most dealers may not even be aware that their inventory is being sent to 3, 6, or even 8 different free listing websites that yield no sales. Why is this bad? There are only 10 organic listings on Google Page One. Dealer websites are becoming a minority on the first page of search results for the most popular search phrases. The more pages that are created based on Make, Model and Year in your PMA the greater the chances that dealer websites will be pushed off Google Page One.

Why would this happen? As thousands of dealers participate on these free listing sites, the websites grow in PageRank and authority. This makes it very hard for a local dealer to compete for placement on Google Page One. All the time they have invested in on-site SEO, website design and consumer call to action is being sabotaged by their own actions.

Most dealers who have taken the time to create a beautiful website will agree that their website presents cars and a call to action much better than these free sites. If you believe you have a better display mechanism for your cars, then why would you send them to places that may rank ahead of yours for long tail searches? Why would you send your inventory to sites that will push down your own sites and yet produce no measurable leads?

What Should Dealers Do?

Dealers should print put a sales report for the last three months and see how many cars were sold by a lead source. Dealers should call their inventory management company and ask them to which websites they are sending your feed. Ask them to check this information carefully.

If your inventory management vendor gives you a list of websites that are not generating sales, I would send them a letter in writing, as well as an email, asking that your feed not be sent to any non-performing website platforms.

The Ideal Advertising Model

Here are my thoughts about what makes an ideal inventory advertising model:

Car detail pages are free from competitors’ banner ads.
Car detail pages are free from Google text ads
Car detail pages have live links back to the dealership website
Car detail pages that clearly show dealer name, address and phone number
Car detail pages are optimized for organic search in the dealer’s primary PMA

In addition to the functionality of a car detail page, the website should be easy for consumers to navigate and find the information they need without so many distractions.

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

CEO

1897

No Comments

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

Apr 4, 2010

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 dealer inventory optimization and digital marketing strategies for the past five years. In recent months I have decided to take those years of experience and create the first dealer-centric inventory advertising platform.

As part of my research, I have observed the Google search results for automotive searches in national, regional, and local markets. Every month it seems like a new inventory advertising website appears and many have initiated their service by offering free listings of cars for sale. As a result, Google Page one search results are showing less dealer websites and more lead collection and advertising portals.

Some of the more recognized “free” inventory advertising websites are: Vast, Oodle, EveryCarListed, Trovit, BackPage, and Lemonfree.

Back To the Dealer Question

So back to the initial question: Is it beneficial for the dealership to participate in these free advertising offers?

Every dealer inventory advertising website needs to be individually evaluated on the number of leads (calls and emails) that resulted in a sale based on what a dealer can track in their CRM system. If the number of sales is not significant, I would request from your website provider that they stop sending your inventory to non performing websites. The more places that you send your inventory that don’t generate sales, the more you are hurting your own search results, sales and brand equity.

Looking at 77 Dealers Over 90 days

I reviewed the Internet email leads for 77 car dealers that push their inventory out to free services. Over a three month period, these 77 dealers received a total of 128,000 email CRM leads from all lead sources.

The number of leads that came in from select advertising websites over a three month period is shown below:

457 Everycarlisted.Com
21 Vast.Com
15 Lemonfree.Com

EveryCarListed is tough to measure since they offer both paid and free services, but they are by far the best of breed solution in this free space. Their paid services may yield higher results.

Before you judge any inventory listing service mentioned in the article, you should do your own research at your next 20 Group meeting or call a few industry peers. Then contact the service providers directly and ask for local peer data.

These lead counts do not account for phone calls, but not all free sites list the phone number of the dealer anyway.

Is this the type of results you expect when you are pushing out your entire inventory every day to these free advertising models?

What About SEO Value?

Since most of the free inventories listing websites do not provide back links to the car dealer’s website, they also provide NO SEO benefit. Dealers may “think” they are getting a link because they have a link on the car page that says “Visit Dealership Website” but the link has a “no follow” tag which kills any SEO benefit.

The Multi-Million Dollars Advertising Model That Dealers Fund

If you haven’t noticed many free inventory listing websites are filled with Google Ads, cross-sells from related industries like insurance companies, and even OEM banners. In some cases, your car listing pages have competitor ads or lead forms that encourage consumers to get multiple price quotes from local dealers.

Think about what is really going on in this model.

Your car may actually match a consumer long tail search and the consumer lands on your car detail page on a free listing website. The page is designed to capture a lead OR to encourage the consumers to get multiple quotes from local dealers. So, since it’s a free listing, the website owners have no problem selling the leads generated from YOUR car detail page to your nearest competitors.

So your participation in this free website generates leads for ready to buy consumers to your competitors. Have any doubts?

Take a look at the bottom of this car listing page on EveryCarListed which has similar cars from local competing dealers on this dealer’s listing page. These competing cars can lure consumers away from your page listing which can result in a purchase from another local dealer.

On the Vast car detail pages the name and address of the selling dealer is omitted. The page tells only the name of the city where the car is located. This begs the consumer to submit a lead or call. The Vast lead form collects the consumer’s name, phone number and email information to send the dealer.

The privacy policy states that they can keep your information collected on the lead form and that they can give this information to other companies and subsidiaries. This implies that your car inventory is building someone else’s lead and marketing database and these leads can be resold. One good note is that competing dealer inventory is not shown on the detail page.

This Model Is Not Dealer Centric

The irony about the “free” advertising model is that car dealers generate millions of dollars to the advertising site owners for free. Dealers send these advertising websites their most valuable assets which enables the site owners to capture and sell leads in addition to lucrative banner ad sales. Dealers don’t share in that revenue. The more dealers that participate in this model, the more money these websites make from advertising.

If the majority of these advertising models don’t generate meaningful sales, why do car dealers keep sending their inventory out each night?

Once again I will restate that if a “free” website is generating dozens of leads a month which are converting into real sales, you should continue posting. In most cases, when I look at lead sources on Dealer CRM systems, these free sites are nowhere to be found.

Diluting Organic Search Results

Most dealers may not even be aware that their inventory is being sent to 3, 6, or even 8 different free listing websites that yield no sales. Why is this bad? There are only 10 organic listings on Google Page One. Dealer websites are becoming a minority on the first page of search results for the most popular search phrases. The more pages that are created based on Make, Model and Year in your PMA the greater the chances that dealer websites will be pushed off Google Page One.

Why would this happen? As thousands of dealers participate on these free listing sites, the websites grow in PageRank and authority. This makes it very hard for a local dealer to compete for placement on Google Page One. All the time they have invested in on-site SEO, website design and consumer call to action is being sabotaged by their own actions.

Most dealers who have taken the time to create a beautiful website will agree that their website presents cars and a call to action much better than these free sites. If you believe you have a better display mechanism for your cars, then why would you send them to places that may rank ahead of yours for long tail searches? Why would you send your inventory to sites that will push down your own sites and yet produce no measurable leads?

What Should Dealers Do?

Dealers should print put a sales report for the last three months and see how many cars were sold by a lead source. Dealers should call their inventory management company and ask them to which websites they are sending your feed. Ask them to check this information carefully.

If your inventory management vendor gives you a list of websites that are not generating sales, I would send them a letter in writing, as well as an email, asking that your feed not be sent to any non-performing website platforms.

The Ideal Advertising Model

Here are my thoughts about what makes an ideal inventory advertising model:

Car detail pages are free from competitors’ banner ads.
Car detail pages are free from Google text ads
Car detail pages have live links back to the dealership website
Car detail pages that clearly show dealer name, address and phone number
Car detail pages are optimized for organic search in the dealer’s primary PMA

In addition to the functionality of a car detail page, the website should be easy for consumers to navigate and find the information they need without so many distractions.

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

CEO

1897

No Comments

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

Mar 3, 2010

“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 the root of the problem. When I had told friends and colleagues about my trip to Australia, almost all of them had commented on the length of the flight. They acted as if I announced that I was going to run across the country.

Many said that they would never travel 15 hours on a plane. Others were convinced that flying coach class would be miserable, but in fact it wasn’t at all. These and other excuses actually have no reality except in the mind of the fearful. So since I have regularly traveled eight hours back and forth from Europe, I never felt that fifteen hours would be a far leap

Unaware of the influence of my friends’ negative projections on my trip, I had started to have cautionary reservations about getting on my flight today, but until now I didn’t realize how their feelings affected me in subtle ways. I was beginning to doubt my proven instincts and my vision for a trip with my son Connor in the land down under.

But actually, I slept the first 7 hours of the trip, watched some movies and read a book and now with 2 hours left to go I’m laughing at how easy the trip has been. I don’t feel any worse than any flight to Europe

Is Fear Holding You Back?

I wonder how many people are held back from experiencing new adventures because of fear; internal or external.

My flight to Australia brought to mind what is happening in the auto industry. I have participated in numerous executive strategy sessions that discuss digital marketing opportunities and budgeting. Fear or panic is often dealers’ common reaction to the suggestion that they increase digital marketing spending.

The tried and true advertising models of TV, radio and newspaper have created a sense of security for automotive retailers, best compared to traveling domestically. Not many dealers are afraid of a quick trip to Vegas or to place another ad in a local newspaper. It’s something that they understand and have experienced first had.

Digital marketing spending is just like traveling to Australia; dealers have heard it is beautiful and a “must” in their travel portfolio but can’t see themselves getting on the plane. It is not uncommon for dealers to react with fear when I suggest that they increase their overall advertising budget dedicated to digital marketing from less than 15% to 30-50% over the upcoming year. Their reaction is normally followed by:

“What will I have to cut in order to spend more on digital marketing? My General Managers will freak out if I reduce their traditional advertising budget!”

This article is not meant to answer this specific question because it is different for each dealership location but let me ask you a question:

Is the reason why the average automotive retailer spends less than 15% of the advertising budget on digital marketing because of the fear or because they have carefully measures the ROI of all digital marketing strategies and have chosen wisely?

Related to that question, are sub-questions:

1. Have dealers become too comfortable with what was successful in the past?

2. Does engaging in discussions about digital marketing strategies make dealer principals feel awkward or even stupid?

3. Has the lack of historical ROI data and published case studies on digital media strategies prevented dealers from embracing new opportunities or is that just an excuse?

I know a few dealer principals that have admitted to feeling awkward about engaging in digital marketing discussions when they don’t understand it themselves. They feel vulnerable. In these cases, my participation in planning meetings is to act as a bridge, creating analogies from traditional advertising to introduce the new paradigms of the digital and social media era.

A rising number of dealers are pushing through fear and realizing that to reach new highs for their business they must let go of the past and embrace the future of automotive retail marketing.

In many cases, the advertising team that brought dealers to their initial pinnacle of success will not be the team that brings them to their next mountaintop experience.

Since traditional media is difficult to measure true ROI, advertising agencies have had a free pass to continue dealer spending without fear of losing budget share but that is now changing. Dealers are now developing models to hold all methods of advertising to a standard cost/reward model. The agencies that can’t provide a fully integrated menu of traditional and digital marketing services will perish.

The Digital Compass

The automotive industry does need guidance for the constantly changing digital terrain. Dealers need a “Digital Compass” that directs their decisions and helps them “test the waters” for the new advertising opportunities that exist in the digital world.

A “Digital Compass” initiative should hold all methods of marketing to the same standard of excellence and ROI. The dealership of the future will have marketing budgets based on data and not fear of change.

Educational forums, social networks, digital conferences and reputable consultants can act as a dealer’s “Digital Compass” in the same way the pilot of US 863 knows how to take me to Sidney.

However, dealers have to make the first step and get on the plane so they are not left behind. The transition will never happen until dealers let go of the past. Dealer principals have to put aside their fears and excuses and embrace digital marketing, social media and reputation management with gusto.

The digital marketing plane is leaving the airport…will you be on it?

Write your post here

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

CEO

1483

No Comments

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

Mar 3, 2010

“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 the root of the problem. When I had told friends and colleagues about my trip to Australia, almost all of them had commented on the length of the flight. They acted as if I announced that I was going to run across the country.

Many said that they would never travel 15 hours on a plane. Others were convinced that flying coach class would be miserable, but in fact it wasn’t at all. These and other excuses actually have no reality except in the mind of the fearful. So since I have regularly traveled eight hours back and forth from Europe, I never felt that fifteen hours would be a far leap

Unaware of the influence of my friends’ negative projections on my trip, I had started to have cautionary reservations about getting on my flight today, but until now I didn’t realize how their feelings affected me in subtle ways. I was beginning to doubt my proven instincts and my vision for a trip with my son Connor in the land down under.

But actually, I slept the first 7 hours of the trip, watched some movies and read a book and now with 2 hours left to go I’m laughing at how easy the trip has been. I don’t feel any worse than any flight to Europe

Is Fear Holding You Back?

I wonder how many people are held back from experiencing new adventures because of fear; internal or external.

My flight to Australia brought to mind what is happening in the auto industry. I have participated in numerous executive strategy sessions that discuss digital marketing opportunities and budgeting. Fear or panic is often dealers’ common reaction to the suggestion that they increase digital marketing spending.

The tried and true advertising models of TV, radio and newspaper have created a sense of security for automotive retailers, best compared to traveling domestically. Not many dealers are afraid of a quick trip to Vegas or to place another ad in a local newspaper. It’s something that they understand and have experienced first had.

Digital marketing spending is just like traveling to Australia; dealers have heard it is beautiful and a “must” in their travel portfolio but can’t see themselves getting on the plane. It is not uncommon for dealers to react with fear when I suggest that they increase their overall advertising budget dedicated to digital marketing from less than 15% to 30-50% over the upcoming year. Their reaction is normally followed by:

“What will I have to cut in order to spend more on digital marketing? My General Managers will freak out if I reduce their traditional advertising budget!”

This article is not meant to answer this specific question because it is different for each dealership location but let me ask you a question:

Is the reason why the average automotive retailer spends less than 15% of the advertising budget on digital marketing because of the fear or because they have carefully measures the ROI of all digital marketing strategies and have chosen wisely?

Related to that question, are sub-questions:

1. Have dealers become too comfortable with what was successful in the past?

2. Does engaging in discussions about digital marketing strategies make dealer principals feel awkward or even stupid?

3. Has the lack of historical ROI data and published case studies on digital media strategies prevented dealers from embracing new opportunities or is that just an excuse?

I know a few dealer principals that have admitted to feeling awkward about engaging in digital marketing discussions when they don’t understand it themselves. They feel vulnerable. In these cases, my participation in planning meetings is to act as a bridge, creating analogies from traditional advertising to introduce the new paradigms of the digital and social media era.

A rising number of dealers are pushing through fear and realizing that to reach new highs for their business they must let go of the past and embrace the future of automotive retail marketing.

In many cases, the advertising team that brought dealers to their initial pinnacle of success will not be the team that brings them to their next mountaintop experience.

Since traditional media is difficult to measure true ROI, advertising agencies have had a free pass to continue dealer spending without fear of losing budget share but that is now changing. Dealers are now developing models to hold all methods of advertising to a standard cost/reward model. The agencies that can’t provide a fully integrated menu of traditional and digital marketing services will perish.

The Digital Compass

The automotive industry does need guidance for the constantly changing digital terrain. Dealers need a “Digital Compass” that directs their decisions and helps them “test the waters” for the new advertising opportunities that exist in the digital world.

A “Digital Compass” initiative should hold all methods of marketing to the same standard of excellence and ROI. The dealership of the future will have marketing budgets based on data and not fear of change.

Educational forums, social networks, digital conferences and reputable consultants can act as a dealer’s “Digital Compass” in the same way the pilot of US 863 knows how to take me to Sidney.

However, dealers have to make the first step and get on the plane so they are not left behind. The transition will never happen until dealers let go of the past. Dealer principals have to put aside their fears and excuses and embrace digital marketing, social media and reputation management with gusto.

The digital marketing plane is leaving the airport…will you be on it?

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BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

CEO

1483

No Comments

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

Mar 3, 2010

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 video was indexed by Google from inside of Facebook. You will also notice that it ranked well, page two for now, for a search on their business name. As we have discussed in previous article, Google Page One Management (GPOM) is key to protect your brand and push lead collectors off page one and two.

This observation indicates the growing relevance that Facebook is having in search results. I wonder if the custom TABS in Facebook will be indexing that include our new CarPort App which posts cars inside of Facebook. You can see an example of CarPort in action on Marlboro Nissan's Fan Page.

Four Square Tips Indexing

Facebook is not the only social media website that is indexing in Google. From the screen shot below you can see that our "Tip" that was posted at Newark Airport is showing up in search results.

If you have any doubts on the potential of social media for additional benefits for IRM and Automotive SEO strategies, the proof is shown above. The rules of digital marketing seem to be changing every week and new strategies need to be tested all the time.

It keeps me busy!

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

CEO

1148

No Comments

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

Mar 3, 2010

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 video was indexed by Google from inside of Facebook. You will also notice that it ranked well, page two for now, for a search on their business name. As we have discussed in previous article, Google Page One Management (GPOM) is key to protect your brand and push lead collectors off page one and two.

This observation indicates the growing relevance that Facebook is having in search results. I wonder if the custom TABS in Facebook will be indexing that include our new CarPort App which posts cars inside of Facebook. You can see an example of CarPort in action on Marlboro Nissan's Fan Page.

Four Square Tips Indexing

Facebook is not the only social media website that is indexing in Google. From the screen shot below you can see that our "Tip" that was posted at Newark Airport is showing up in search results.

If you have any doubts on the potential of social media for additional benefits for IRM and Automotive SEO strategies, the proof is shown above. The rules of digital marketing seem to be changing every week and new strategies need to be tested all the time.

It keeps me busy!

BP

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

CEO

1148

No Comments