On Google's quarterly earning call this week, Larry Page mentioned something that reminded me to go back and read more on Google's Authorship tags.

Larry posted the transcript of the call to Google+ and with all the things going on with Google these days, it was interesting that he mentioned authorship tags.

If it was mentioned in an earnings call, it is important so take note.

Authorship markup uses the rel attribute (part of the open HTML5 standard) in links to indicate the relationship between a content page and an author page.

My HTML author tag is: <a rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/105688670174869390692">About Brian Pasch</a>

If you have not setup your Google Profile, do that today. It's free and part of your Google account and will also be used in Google+.

Make sure you fill it out as completely as possible. Add a great photo and include links back to your blogs, websites, and resource that you often post content to.  

Authorship Markup Information

I have provided the link to the page that outlines Google Authorship Tags syntax and recommendations.

With all the writing that I do on automotive digital marketing and with recent moves to socialize the SERP with user thumbnails, this is a must for all bloggers and writers.

So, start making sure that all your content either adds the authorship tag automatically or save it somewhere where you can easily add it to the signature block of your post.

There are implications that these tags will impact SEO, more to come on this. The tags will also allow Google to clarify original source content vs copied content. The future impact is still unknown but I will be following it and sharing my findings with you.

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

About Brian Pasch

I'd like to start a discussion on the value of a Googlized consumer to car dealers; someone that has an email account associated with Google services. Dealers need to look at the value of their customer base in terms on the new power given to Googlized consumers.

In fact, I suggest that business owners need to implement processes to ask and identify consumers with Google accounts. Why?

Google Consumers and Reviews

These Googlized consumers can place a review directly on Google Places which impacts your business every day. For many businesses, Google Places is the #1 source of free referring traffic to their website.

Reviews posted by Googlized consumers can also be used in Google Boost advertising to make your PPC ads stand out from local boring text ads. Google Boost does NOT include reviews posted on 3rd party review sites.

Google Consumers +1

These Googlized consumers can now "+1" your website pages, videos, press releases, testimonials, and the list of digital assets goes on. Once they "+1" your digital assets, their thumbnail image will appear to their network of friends. These thumbnails will catch the eye of consumers and increase click activity.

If you compare the power of Googlized consumers to increase brand awareness, click traffic, and enhance your digital advertising EVERY DAY, then their worth soars over a non-Googlized consumer that sends you a note card of thanks.  

550,000 Google Accounts a Day

When businesses realize that 550,000 Android mobile devices are activated a day and that each has a Google account, the tsunami of influence Googlized consumers will grow.

It's time to get serious about tapping into the digital marketing influence a Googlized consumer can do for any business.

It's time to ask happy customers to post their reviews using the Google Places App. It's time to "socialize" your search marketing advertising strategies.

The boring SERP of years past is how a Technicolor quilt of thumbnails and stars. Opportunity is here for those who see change before the masses.

Dealers who want the exclusive strategy in their market, just need to call me. That's 732.450.8200.      

Jump In - I'll Send You An Invite!

I'm very optimistic about Google+. If you have not received an invite, send me an email to brian@pcgmailer.com and I'll send you an invite so you can get started.

You need to get started!

The ease at which you can setup and organize your social network is amazing. The interface is well designed and frankly is better that Facebook. It's funny, but there has never been an alternative to Facebook until now and I believe that Google+ will catch fire.

Aside from setting up your network again, I'm not sure how much loyalty people will have to Facebook once they see the superior interface in Google+.

Businesses Will Drive Google+ Adoption

Why? Because all business owners will benefit from a Googlized consumer. A Googlized consumers is one that has a gmail account or email account linked with a Google service.

Google consumers can post reviews on Google Maps. Googlized consumers can +1 website pages, videos, and social posts. Googlized consumers can connect with businesses very easily on Google+ as well.

With 500,000 Android mobile devices activated a DAY in June 2011 and each phone requiring a gmail account, you can see why the Googlized consumer will be valuable to all businesses as the merging of search and social comes on the Google platform.

All dealers must get serious about identifying Googlized consumers.  They are worth 10x more than non-Google consumers because of their powr increase your search and social relevance and visibility.

Gen Y and Z Will Drive Google+ Adoption

The youth of our world will love the improved interface and enhanced features of Google+. The Video feature, if that catches on, will ignite the gold rush to Google+. Once again, as Android mobile devices flourish, the phones will be automatically configured with Google+

That means all photos and videos can be privately and automatically streamed to their private storage locker in their Google+ account where they can decide, at their leisure, which ones to share.

Google+ will be big this time around. If you need an invite, I'll send you one!

The +1 button which has been added to organic search results is now coming to your Adwords campaign. I love how Google continues to "socialize" SERP pages and it also changes the game in regards to being on Google Page One.

18 months ago being on Page One was the goal of most Automotive SEO strategists. Today, you need to make sure your online reviews, social media "likes", and now "+1's" also show next to your listing. At the risk of sounding like a broken record:

Being on Google Page One with poor reviews is actually hurting your brand. Now, being on Page One with nobody recommending your page is going to be negative as well!

Email From Google About Adwords +1

Here is the email from Google I received today: (in italic)

In the coming weeks, your search results and ads on Google will include a +1 button, which users can click to recommend your ads. You don't need to make any changes to your account in order to take advantage of them. The final landing page URL of your ads can also appear on the Google profile of any user who +1's your ad.

Here's how the +1 button works: Let's say you own a hotel in Madrid. Brian had a lovely stay at your hotel last summer. When Brian starts researching accommodations for his next trip to Spain, he searches on Google while signed into his Google account, and sees your ad. He clicks the +1 button on the ad to recommend it to his contacts.

When Brian's friend Ann plans her trip to Spain, she signs in to her Google account, searches, and also sees your ad – plus the personalized annotation that Brian +1'd it. Knowing that Brian recommends your hotel helps Ann decide where to stay during her travels.

Think of the +1 button as a way for fans of your business to recommend what you offer, for all their friends and contacts to see. By helping searchers see more personal, relevant ads, we believe you'll see more qualified traffic. You can also add the +1 button to your site to give your customers the opportunity to +1 your site after visiting it.

What +1 Means To Your Dealership

Do you have a process to leverage the Google +1 feature for your business? The +1 is the next "gold rush" for Page One relevance and conversion. Imagine what happens when your organic listing for your dealership home page have 100 +1 votes. In this example, what happens when your ads get recommended. I hope you can see the clear opportunity and now you just need a strategy.

Automotive Advertising and Google search marketing is continually evolving to provide the most RELEVANT and DESIRED result for consumers. That said there are creative ways to empower your customer base to make sure you get the attention you need on Page One. You need an online marketing strategy and these continued changes should be proof enough that dealers need to be paying attention and reacting.

Time to get this on your blogs as well. If you haven't added the +1 to your own blog yet, now is the time!

Internet Marketing Strategy - Do You Have One?

I'll be reviewing the opportunities for the Google +1 tool at all of the upcoming PCG Pit Stop Conferences. I will also be addressing the impact of social media links and likes, which continue to influence SERP's. Dates and locations can be found at http://www.pcgpitstop.com.

I was intrigued by a blog post written by Brian Carter entitled "SHOCKER: 3% To 7.5% Of Fans See Your Page's Posts" and I recommend that you read the entire article as well as consider Brian's tips to increase engagement.

With everyone's obsession about collecting high number of Facebook Fans these stats remind me that high quality engagement and building the right fan community are so important. The stats above were collected from Facebook Pages that had a combined 400 million fans.

More Fans Equals Less Engagement

The chart shows that as the fans "increase" the visibility of your posts drops. Could this be a wake-up call for business owners that are pushing for numbers and not quality? You've heard the phrase "Junk In = Junk Out" so maybe this is the social media version of that warning.

Now aside from arguing these numbers if your page has higher stats, it's still a reminder about the potential direct impact of any one Facebook post or short term campaign.

Heck, in fact these numbers are less than the visibility you get with an email campaign which have open rates around 10-15% on non-segmented lists. I'm not thrashing Facebook, I use it regularly. These stats just show that it can't be the holy grail to solve all your consumer marketing needs.

Building Segmented Communities On Different Marketing Channels

My takeaway from this article is that building focused, segmented marketing strategies is the way to approach the diverse base of consumers looking for your goods and services. Business owners need to have engagement with consumers using multiple digital channels:

• Chat
• Texting Campaigns
• Facebook/Social Media
• Email
• LinkedIn/Digital Networking
• ReTargeting/PPC
• Mobile Websites/Apps

I have been amazed with the jump in leads when a dealer adds chat to these website. Dealer eProcess shared a great chart at a recent PCG Pit Stop that showed all age groups are using chat. See chart below:

Are You Using Opt-In Text Campaigns?

I have also "seen the light" on texting campaigns since most people under 40 prefer to receive a text than an email or phone call. It's amazing how fast a business can build a text marketing campaign. When you consider that most people don't change our cell phone number often and that the phone is always with us, even in the bathroom, text marketing has an amazing delivery rate.

If you have ever watched the attrition on your email lists, you know how often people change their email. 15% of the US population moves every year and add to that how often people change jobs. Keeping email contacts up to date is laborious. Now consider how little attrition you will have on your text campaign database if you don't abuse it.

Offer and Manage Multiple Engagement Channels

To me fair, I have also seen great engagement on Facebook. Anyone who has tested different posting techniques knows that some posts start a fire of comments and others die on the vine. Facebook is another channel, but it's value should not be inflated to greater than the data shows.

Business owners need to establish a multi-channel communication strategy for their market. If you ignore any one of the methods listed above, you are missing an important part of your market.

Now that PCG has added these channels to our consulting services, I could not be more excited for dealers who want to invest and engage in digital marketing. For me, there are many efficient and profitable ways to connect with consumers and that gives dealers more choice.

Enjoy your day!

Brian

I recently had the pleasure to sit in on a workshop Joe Webb presented at the Chicago PCG Pit Stop conference.  Joe gave attendees a number of solid processes to help increase the effectiveness of responding to email prospects.

One of the tips Joe gave attendees was how to reverse engineer lead data and how to research a customer online BEFORE responding. 

I like Joe's comment that taking ONE extra minute to do some simple research would NOT impact the opportunity measurably. 

I could not agree more since research will create a more intelligent and more engaging response.

In the past month, I've been exploring new ways to reach out and connect with "prospects" which in my case is car dealers.  As I travel around the country speaking at conferences and 20 Group I normally meet dealers who need assistance with their online reputation, SEO, SEM, or social media strategy.

But what has been a challenge recently is contacting dealers in a specific local market and inviting them to attend one of the regional PCG Pit Stop events.  This is where I have been testing new contact methodologies since email, cold calls, and direct mail really are weak.

Leverage LinkedIn For Your Dealership

One marketing tool that I have found effective is LinkedIn.  There are a number of effective ways to leverage your existing customers, friends, and business associates to create a targeted marketing list to sell more cars. If your sales team is not leveraging LinkedIn, they should be.

With email delivery rates dropping, LinkedIn has very impressive email delivery rates that are many times higher than normal email.  Also, keep in mind that your customers change email addresses on a regular basis but will update their LinkedIn profile with their current contact information.  This means you can stay connected with your customers much longer than your current DMS will allow.

I know that there is high turnover in car sales but seasoned sales professionals that use LinkedIn properly will be way ahead of their peers.  In just 60 days, I have added over 500 targeted dealership employees to my network. 

Imagine what your sales professionals could do with developing lists that include local teachers, doctors, lawyers, business owners which all can be created off their EXISTING customers.  LinkedIn has rules that "govern" how fast you can build your network, but adding 20 people a day is very reasonable.

Once sales professionals build their lists, LinkedIn can allow them to "tag" the contacts with keywords that can be used to create targeted email messages or tips each month.  So people who purchase a Honda Civic can be tagged with keywords like "Honda", "2011 New Car Buyer", "Family With Kids", etc.  

Sales professionals can search these tags to create targeted email lists or invitations to special events.

Developing a Digital Networking Strategy

I will be adding a workshop on leveraging digital networking tools for automotive sales professionals at the upcoming PCG Pit Stop Conferences .  I will also work with Jared to get a workshop of innovative digital sales networking strategies at the DrivingSales Executive Summit starting October 9th in Las Vegas. 

Paul Potratz and I have been brainstorming on this type of workshop which I think car sales professionals will love.

LinkedIn email is not the only method that is working.  LinkedIn Groups also shows great promise along with Facebook which many conversations have already covered.  

I have also been very pleased on the ROI of creating better quality promotional videos for PCG events and services.  Video marketing for sales professionals is an green field opportunity for progressive dealerships. 

So any sales professionals that would like a workshop of digital branding and network strategies should check out the upcoming schedule of conferences at http://www.pcgpitstop.com and Paul Potratz and I will show you the ropes!

P.S.  Please join me on LinkedIn!  I would love to connect with you.

The yellow banner ad that may appear on this website advertising the PCG Pit Stop is not a remarketing advertisement, but if you have visited the PCG Pit Stop website, (http://www.pcgpitstop.com) you may have noticed that our ads are following you around the web.

If you have seen our yellow ads popping up on website, rest assured that I did not win the lottery; my online advertising budget for the Pit Stop Conferences is very small. Since dealers do not make decisions immediately on educational investments, I decided to remind them about the opportunities they have throughout the year for education.

It all comes down to leveraging website traffic.

Do you know how many unique visitors come to your dealership website each month? Have you ever wondered how you could increase the conversion of that existing traffic? How about increasing the conversion of showroom and service visitors?

As dealers look for new ways to leverage their existing traffic into greater leads and sales, there are three strategies that business owners should embrace and test. These strategies are inexpensive and very effective. The three strategies that we are most excited about today are:

• - Remarketing campaigns
• - Website chat
• - Text marketing campaigns.

All three marketing strategies will leverage your existing traffic (website and/or dealership) in new ways to increase your connection with in market consumers.

Automotive ReMarketing Defined

Today, I'll address the topic of remarketing and I have created a video that demonstrates how remarketing works. Remarketing is inexpensive and is similar to running a pay-per-click campaign with one exception; consumers have to re-visit your website by clicking on the banner for you to be charged.

There is an art to creating remarketing banners. I won't go into a long dissertation on banner design, keep in mind that the banners should address why they should come back to your website.

Having a banner that says in effect, "We add hundreds of cars a month to our website" is an example of a message that might bring a car shopper back to your site who was looking for a specific vehicle.

ReMarketing Video Demonstration

Take a minute to watch this video on how remarketing works and I think you will agree that it is a novel way of maximizing the existing traffic that you have coming to your website.

See For Yourself

See remarketing in action by visiting http://www.pcgpitstop.com or http://www.cardealersale.com and watch how our remarketing campaigns follow your web surfing behavior to keep us top of mind.

Remarketing is one of the topics we will be teaching at the Pit Stop Conferences as well so if you want to leverage your existing website traffic in new ways, we will be addressing all three strategies at each conference.

Stay tuned for part II and III of this article as I discuss chat and text marketing campaigns with DrivingSales members.

Google has always enabled you to track what people say about you online with Google Alerts but they have now made it easier for anyone to track their online reputation with a new feature in the Google Dashboard called "Me on the Web".

I've stated this many times but it is worth repeating.  All your advertising dollars that drive consumers to search your business name are impacted by your online reputation.  Google has socialized the web experience and your "stars" will impact whether a consumer will engage with your business or call a competitor.

Free IRM Tools

The new set of tools makes it easier for anyone to see what is posted on the web using their name. The dashboard also has features that includes a link entitled "How to Remove Unwanted Content" which will assist companies dealing with their online reputation management.

Here is an exerpt from that page:

"If you find content online--say, your telephone number or an embarrassing photo of you--that you don't want to appear online, first determine whether you or someone else controls the content. For example, if the photo you want to hide is part of your Picasa account, you can simply change your photo visibility settings. If, however, the unwanted content resides on a site or page you don't control, you can follow our tips on removing personal information from the web and removing a page from Google's search results."

Me On The Web

The Google Accounts dashboard, shown below, has the "Me on the Web" summary and helpful links:  

To access this feature, login to your Google Account Dashboard and it will be active.

The introduction of this feature is a clear signal to any business that Internet Reputation Management is a mandatory business process that should be part their standard operation procedures manual.

This feature will also help to educate the general public on reputation management.  In fact, on XM and local radio, you may have been hearing commercials from a company called "Reputation Defender".  Reputation Management is going mainstream and our phone has been overheating with companies asking for help with their online reputation management.

So, check out the new features and I am confident that this will be expanded in the year ahead to make it easier for people to check what people are saying about them online.

One of my weekly routine tasks is to reserve time to conduct searches on the major search engines from desktops and mobile devices. Today, I was reminded how just important consumer reviews are becoming for any marketing and branding strategy.

Compelling arguments have been made supporting the new requirements for dealers to have an active Internet Reputation Management (IRM) process. This post includes a visual confirmation as well.

Today, my search engine results page (SERP) for a local dealer name was filled with "stars", These stars are not there by accident; Google is socializing search results.

Google is rewarding consumers who volunteer their time to post reviews. It created the Google Places App to make it easy to post a review. You should be using this App inside your dealership.

Google is also rewarding business owners who encourage customer reviews with Google Boost.

Google Marketplace includes stars showing for e-commerce vendors who advertise their products using Adwords.

The web has gone to the stars! In the screenshot below, there are five sections of the page that are integrated with consumer reviews.

How does your Google Page One look?

Reputation Management Impacts All Advertising Dollars

I've said this in the past and it is worth repeating. Your online reviews impact ALL your past, current, and future advertising dollars.

Since a "dealer's name" is a very popular search that brings consumers to the dealer's website every day, what appears on Google Page One is doing one of two things.

It's reinforcing a positive brand message or it's negatively impacting new customers that are considering your brand. For some dealers, what appears on Page One is helping their competitors.

So whether these reviews are displayed on Google Places, or on dedicated review websites like DealerRater or Yelp, reviews are influencing your local market. In the case of Circle BMW, these reviews are very positive and consumers seeing 143 reviews on DealerRater with a 5 Star rating is a strong statement.

For dealers that have STRONG online reviews posted on Google, I encourage them to start testing Google Boost, which can advertising their business and include positive reviews on Google Places.

So, take a minute today to Google your exact business name and sit back and play the role of an undecided consumer.

Would they call you or visit your dealership based on your "stars"?

According to rbr.com "Cox will be borrowing $100 million on its current credit lines to close the deal."

This does not mean that the Autotrader.com purchase of VinSolutions was valued at $100 million, it just needed this cashflow to complete the deal. 

There were so many numbers thrown out there about how much VinSolutions sold for, but we may never know that exact number right now.  This article shed some light on the background financing of the transaction so I wanted to share it on DrivingSales.

Here is the full scope of the article, and if you click on the image you can go to the original story.