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. 

One of the newest place to leverage a car dealer's video testimonials in on Google Maps. 

I recommend that you load a new car, used car and service testimonial video to your Google Maps listings. 

You should also add 3 or 4  good photos of customers getting delivery of cars and delete those photos of your building.  When you enhance you Google Maps listings with positive eneergy, watch what happens to your click through statistics.

Pioneers in this field of FlipCam videos include Tim Jennings, Ken Beam, Christine Knowles, and a host of advance thinkers who have made their websites come alive with multimedia.  One of the rising stars in automotive videos is Acton Toyota who first made me laugh with their A++ Toyota Warranty videos.

Get Ready To Laugh - Can You Translate Boston Speak?

If you want to see a great video for a revenue source that most dealers ignore, click on this link:  Toyota Extended Warranty

Toyota Dealer Shines for FlipCam

One innovative car dealers has been nationally recognized for their innovative videos using a FlipCam is Acton Toyota.  The Boston Toyota dealership was recently featured in the national magazine "Toyota Today" for their spoof videos that were inspired by the popular Mac vs PC TV commercials.

Acton Toyota had no previous film or editing experience yet their videos have attracted thousands of visitors to their websites. The recent article in Toyota Today highlights that car dealers are just beginning to embrace social media communications that include these creative viral videos.

With the ease of which the FlipCam can create videos, more car dealers should investigate how they can bring their static websites alive with tutorials, testimonials, better display of the cars they sell and warm introductions for the services they offer.

I would estimate that less that 10% of all car dealers in the United States have testimonial videos on their website or integrated into their social media processes.  He who acts first will increase their marketshare and brand awareness.  Are you ready? 

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. 

One of the newest place to leverage a car dealer's video testimonials in on Google Maps. 

I recommend that you load a new car, used car and service testimonial video to your Google Maps listings. 

You should also add 3 or 4  good photos of customers getting delivery of cars and delete those photos of your building.  When you enhance you Google Maps listings with positive eneergy, watch what happens to your click through statistics.

Pioneers in this field of FlipCam videos include Tim Jennings, Ken Beam, Christine Knowles, and a host of advance thinkers who have made their websites come alive with multimedia.  One of the rising stars in automotive videos is Acton Toyota who first made me laugh with their A++ Toyota Warranty videos.

Get Ready To Laugh - Can You Translate Boston Speak?

If you want to see a great video for a revenue source that most dealers ignore, click on this link:  Toyota Extended Warranty

Toyota Dealer Shines for FlipCam

One innovative car dealers has been nationally recognized for their innovative videos using a FlipCam is Acton Toyota.  The Boston Toyota dealership was recently featured in the national magazine "Toyota Today" for their spoof videos that were inspired by the popular Mac vs PC TV commercials.

Acton Toyota had no previous film or editing experience yet their videos have attracted thousands of visitors to their websites. The recent article in Toyota Today highlights that car dealers are just beginning to embrace social media communications that include these creative viral videos.

With the ease of which the FlipCam can create videos, more car dealers should investigate how they can bring their static websites alive with tutorials, testimonials, better display of the cars they sell and warm introductions for the services they offer.

I would estimate that less that 10% of all car dealers in the United States have testimonial videos on their website or integrated into their social media processes.  He who acts first will increase their marketshare and brand awareness.  Are you ready? 

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 CarFax was adding this number? Do you want CarFax into your pricing equation?  Share your thoughs.

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 CarFax was adding this number? Do you want CarFax into your pricing equation?  Share your thoughs.

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:
 

1. There are NO car dealers in organic search results on Page One or Two.
2. Go back and read point #1.
3. 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.
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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

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:
 

1. There are NO car dealers in organic search results on Page One or Two.
2. Go back and read point #1.
3. 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.
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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

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

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

• 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

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

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

• 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