By Brian Pasch

At the 2013 DrivingSales Executive Summit, Jared Hamilton's opening keynote address challenged dealers to invest in a "Fixed Ops First" strategy.  Jared clearly outlined the opportunities dealers have to increase Fixed Ops revenue and customer retention by implementing a Service BDC. 

Jared also passionately encouraged dealers to invest in a digital marketing strategy for Fixed Operations.  When consumers use Google to find local Fixed Ops services does your dealership show up for oil changes, discount tires, brakes, and alignment?  Take a minute to search a few phrases and see if your dealership is in the first 3 listings on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.  

Consumers are spending hours a day on Facebook, scanning their news feed. Is your dealership using Facebook and Polk vehicle ownership data to present Fixed Ops promotions to local car owners?  Why not?

Fixed Ops Managers Not Invited To The Party

Many dealership budgets omit a comprehensive digital strategy for Fixed Ops by design.  In fact, Fixed Ops Managers are often left out of the "digital party" and rarely are they invited to digital conferences.  Dealers cannot afford to allow this dysfunction to continue.

Jared suggested that dealers need to revise their organizational charts to include a Marketing Manager, which competently serves Variable and Fixed Ops. I would suggest that DrivingSales members request a copy of Jared's presentation to see his proposed org chart and discuss creating a Fixed Ops First strategy at your next managers meeting. 

Framed Solutions Create Blind Spots

When Marketing Managers tackle Fixed Ops marketing, they will quickly learn about one "challenge" that most dealers face. Their service appointment scheduler has a blind spot. Most of the online scheduling tools are "framed in" solutions; the scheduler is not part of the dealer's website.  

In the graphic above, this popular "framed in" solution blends into the dealership website. A consumer visiting the page would not realize it was framed in. Framed solutions can be attractive and effective, but some platforms make it hard to track ROI from a dealer's digital advertising investments.  

When solutions are "framed in" the consumer's activity using the scheduler cannot be seen by Google Analytics.  If a click to the scheduling page does NOT result in a completed service appointment, Google Analytics cannot see how far along the scheduling process a consumer was before leaving.  Your scheduling tool therefore needs advanced analytics!

Even if an online appointment is scheduled, some solutions do not trigger a Google Adwords/Analytics "goal" to show that a successful conversion occurred. Dealers reading this post should reach out to their current vendor to discuss how their scheduler can integrate into Google Adwords and Analytics to track the ROI of their marketing investments.

A 100% Bounce Rate Could Be Awesome

Dealers looking to create a Fixed Ops First strategy need to understand the cost to create a service appointment lead.  If a dealer decided to use Google Adwords to increase service leads, a dealer should calculate the cost per service appointment phone call or online scheduled appointment.

To improve Google Adwords campaigns for Fixed Ops, vendors should be testing ad copy, keywords, and bidding strategies.  But when it comes to landing page optimization, should dealers take the clicks directly to the online sheduling page?  Should a separate landing page be created for each popular service with a button linked to the scheduler?

Take a look at the bounce rate of the online service scheduler page that displayed earlier in the post.  Is a 71% bounce rate good or bad?  Since this is a framed solution, you may not be able to answer that question!  

If every customer that came to the service page actually scheduled his or her service, and left the page, Google would see it as a 100% bounce rate. The campaign would be a runaway success!  Of course, the actual number of visits to conversions is actually very low.

Readers should ask their service appointment scheduling vendor if they can trigger a "conversion" when an appointment is made online so that it can be seen in Adwords and Analytics.

Landing Page Strategies

An entire series of articles can be written on Fixed Ops landing page strategies for digital marketing campaigns.  However, let me give readers a few things to consider when starting a Fixed Ops First strategy:

1. Your best Adwords landing page is rarely the installed "bare bones", framed-in scheduler page that does not educate consumers on your "Why Buy Here" message.  Having ten custom landing pages for the 10 most popular services will increase conversion.  For example, if a consumer searched for "jeep wrangler tires", and clicks on your ad, the "tires landing page" should explain why the dealership is a great place to buy tires.
2. If your online scheduler does not estimate costs online, conversion will be anemic. Why would a new local consumer "commit" to sheduling their service or buying tires wthout knowing the cost?
3. Your landing page should educate the consumer on your service process.  The landing page should explain where a consumer should go when they arrive and how they will be handled.  Outline if the dealership offers loaner cars or a shuttle service.  Explain the ammenities in the service waiting area and if you have WiFi.  A video is a great way to communicate this information passionately.
4. Service page visits should be followed by a short retargeting campaign.  Since a majority of visits to the service page DO NOT result in an appointment, dealers should have a retargeting strategy to get the consumer back in their consideration set. 
5. Visit national franchise websites that offer oil changes, tires, brakes, and alignment and learn from some of the best operators.  Look at the graphics and call to action messages on their websites. Test new ideas and please make your fixed ops pages shine by getting a designer involved. 
6. If you want to take Fixed Ops Marketing to another level, you may want to consider a Fixed Ops microsite.  There are a number of companies that specialize in this strategy, and I have seen great results.

Jared's keynote was a wakeup call for dealers to invest in a Service BDC and a comprehensive digital advertising campaign for Fixed Ops.  It is time to rethink our digital obession with Variable Ops and invite Fixed Ops to the party.

For the record, the campaigns for Fixed Ops have a great ROI and are fun to create since most local franchise dealers are not in the game.  Get in the game! 

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

One of the benefits of Big Data research in the automotive retail industry, is the direct correlation that Vehicle Detail Page (VDP) views on vehicles have on the velocity by which they sell.  As Scott Hernalsteen from Autotrader pointed out at the 2013 Driving Sales Executive Summit, dealers must have a clear merchandising and pricing strategy that makes their vehicles stand out from the competition. 

A recent automotive study conducted by Cobalt, clearly shows that vehicles that have more VDP views sell faster.  The chart, shown above,  tells dealers that cars with more than 30 VDP views, sold on average in 76 days compared to 135 days when they had less than 20 views.

If dealers want to sell more cars, they need to get their inventory VDP's in front of as many Internet car shoppers as possible. A strategy that increases VDP views will increase the velocity of cars sold at the dealership. Thus, dealers should be focused on one question:

How do I get more consumers to select and view my Vehicle Detail Pages?

Adjusting Our Focus to VDP Views

Dealers who want to increase VDP views, have to be careful about the costs to drive consumer traffic to their VDP's.  

Dealers drive traffic to their website by using traditional media (radio, TV, newspaper), as well as digital marketing strategies (Adwords, Craigslist, Autotrader.com, Cars.com, Social Media).

Dealers normally evaluate their marketing investments in terms of Cost Per Lead (CPL) or Cost Per Sale (CPS)  metrics. However, the majority of consumers do not submit a lead or call the dealership before they walk in the showroom.  

Dealers who focus on VDP trends on their website and VDP trends on third party websites are tracking the shopping behavior of all shoppers; not just the ones that submit a lead.  

Dealers need to look at VDP View trends on their website, like shown below: For this dealer their marketing investments are increasing VDP views on their own website. In two seconds this dealer could see that they were heading in the right direction!

Since it is easy to see which strategies are increasing VDP views,  they can look further into each traffic source to see the costs associated with that traffic.  

In the graphic below, dealers can easily see which referral sources are generating the highest number of VDP views:

Calculating the Cost Per VDP View

Once you see trends, dealers need to focus on the cost to drive a VDP view!

Google Adwords is one digital advertising strategy used by most dealers. Few dealers receive monthly reports on how well their Adwords campaigns are working to drive consumers to view their inventory.  

Adwords campaigns that are evaluated on a Cost Per Lead (CPL) can be further OPTIMIZED when dealers seek to find ways to lower the Cost per VDP View with their Adwords vendor.

For this dealer, you can see a wide range of VDP view costs starting at $1.67 per VDP view and going as high as $9.72 per VDP view. By looking at Adwords campaigns through this lens, dealers can ask their Adwords vendor to test landing page changes, keyword choices, or ad copy to increase the percentage of clicks that look at Vehicle Detail Pages.

The Rewards When Dealers Focus on VDP Views

Why is a focus on VDP views this important?  If dealers can lower the cost per VDP, they can accelerate car sales at a lower cost!  That is not a trival result when you consider how much money dealers spend on marketing per month.

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

By Brian Pasch

Do you know that you can advertise to local consumers on Facebook based on what car they own?

You can't do that level of targeting in Adwords!

Facebook offers dealers a unique opportunity to connect their marketing message with local consumers based on the vehicle that they own.  Dealers can present their message to local consumers who spend hours a month on Facebook scanning their News Feed.  

Do you think people spend more time on Facebook or reading the local newspaper?

Is Facebook advertising powerful?  When you construct a campaign with the correct message, create a device independent landing page, and track conversions ( calls and leads) you might be surprised that Facebook advertising can be 1/5 the cost of Google Adwords.

So, let's start the discussion.  

Is your dealership using Facebook advertising and Polk vehicle ownership data?  If you are not, tell me why.  

If you are, tell me about your experience and the ROI you have documented. 

For the dealers that I am working with, I am seeing Cost-Per-Clicks at a fraction of what the same reach would cost in Adwords.   The ROI of Facebook PPC reminds me of Adwords prices many years ago before every dealer was in the mix!  

Let's see what DrivingSales.com members have to say about Facebook advertising....

​Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

By Brian Pasch

Google Webmaster Tools is a free software program that has great information about your website, yet few people actually look at Webmaster Tools every week.  I wanted to see if the trend, that I have been witnessing in Webmaster Tools, applies to members of DrivingSales.

Take a minute to log into Webmaster Tools and select the "Index Status" report from the menu, which is shown below.  For this dealer, their indexed website pages are down 200%. 

Are your indexed pages, for your primary website, on the decline or are they increasing?  

I would love to see if we could get a 100+ data points from dealers across the country to see if Google's indexing of car dealership website pages has changed.

Will you share your trend today?

Please login to Google Webmaster Tools and find out.  Then post your results in the comments section and if you will, please post which website platform you are using.

Also, take a minute to tweet out this post or share it on Facebook so we can get more dealers to share their trend data.  Your anticipated cooperation is greatly appreciated. 

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

By Brian Pasch

The creativity behind great social media engagement differentiates companies that are successful with social media to grow their business.  This is compared to companies that claim social media is "a wasted investment."

I recently visited a number of auto dealership Facebook pages, at random, to prepare for a social media advertising webinar. What I found was discouraging, but I know that many readers of DrivingSales are interested in bringing their social media strategy to the next level.

I have provided examples of Facebook posts below that represent strategies that you should not replicate. 

In the example above, someone decided to link to an article on Autotrader.com.  I am sure that the article was well written, but I doubt any General Manager would be happy to see a post like this.  There is no reason to take a consumer off your Facebook page and drop them into a car shopping network.

The lesson here is to make sure that the articles you share take consumers to websites that would not conflict with your sales objectives. Yes, many people use Autotrader.com for car research.  I just don't think you need to push social media traffic to their website.  

It may seem like a good idea to share OEM promotions on your Facebook page, but NOT when they take the consumer to a landing page like this Nissan promotion. In the bottom right corner of this landing page there is a call to action to "Find Your Dealer"!  This is basically a lead generation tool for service that could drive revenue to local Nissan competitors. 

My take on this may be extreme, but let the OEM promote their social media campaigns on their own Facebook page.  Your posts should be hyper-local for your customers and local car shoppers that will drive to your location.   Do not pass your customers to a lead form trap.

These two posts were simple and had eye grabbing photos but these posts have no links to help the consumer get additional information.  The first photo talks about the "Toyota National Clearance Event" so why not have a link to the dealership website that explains the event?  

The second photo promotes the 2014 Corolla. Again, I ask why this dealer could not have a page on their website that this post could drive interested consumers to read?  Do they realize that this post is a tease?

In this example, the dealer has half of the strategy correct.  They created a post that went to additional information; content that they created.  The only draw-back was the post that created was bland.  It had no photos nor did it have any links back to the dealership website to research Nissan Quest vehicles.  There was no call to action, just in case anyone wanted morte information about Quest.

Social Media Landing Pages

These four examples demonstrate that any business can make a post on Facebook but is does not mean that their posting strategy will have a good ROI.  Showing up on Facebook is not sufficient; you must have a consumer centric strategy.  It would be like showing up for work and not answering the phone or greeting customers when they hit the lot.

It is time to re-think how we are training dealers and OEM's on how to engage on Facebook.  

Do you have any other advice for dealer on not what to post on Facebook?

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

By Brian Pasch

We have all seen how quickly fashion changes.  Last Saturday I took my son Connor to a Kaskade concert at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. At the show I was laughing at the current "EDM" fashions worn by the female teenagers.  Neon colors, tight fitting spandex, furry leggings, and muscle t-shirts over an exposed bra. The guys were dressed similarly, just without the bras.   

Old styles can come back into fashion too! However the Kelso Earth Shoes I wore in the 70's might not make it back.  This year there is a fashion trend for military inspired clothing, which has been cycled through a few times in my lifetime.  

This article is not about fashion but the need to bring back something that was once "fashionable." Phone training, phone measurement, and phone call accountability are back is style in a big way and it is critical for your business to be aligned with this trend. 

Most dealers have paid for phone training in the past but few have had the discipline to stick to the training process.  Do we invest more energy each day making sure that every car is clean and shiny on delivery than we invest in phone training? 

Phone Calls vs. Lead Form Submissions

If you haven't taken the time to inspect your digital advertising and social media investments in regards to phone call traffic, you should do that today.  As more consumers use their mobile phones to shop online, they are submitting less lead forms and making more phone calls, on a percentage basis.  

In the example below, you can see that this dealer was averaging 105 website lead form submissions a month.

But notice how many phone calls associated with their website advertising come in each month.  This 6-7x ratio is one that is common across the country.  Take a minute to look at your last Adwords campaign report and see the ratio of forms to calls, and I bet you will see significantly more calls than leads. 

Since, most dealers are paying thousands of dollars a month in digital advertising, social media engagement, and traditional media investments, isn't it time to get back to the basics and make sure they are answering the phone correctly?  If the majority of our consumer contacts are phone calls, why are we so focused on counting leads?  

Leads are important, don't get me wrong! Dealers spend so much time on CRM lead processes, templates designs, and reporting that we might be missing the bigger opportunity with phone skills.

Dealers ask me all the time "How can I sell more cars with the traffic that is already coming to my website?"   The answer is simple.  Invest in phone tracking, phone training, and hold your staff accountable to follow proven phone scripts and processes.  Those people who ask me that question often do no like that answer because it requires leadership.  It's not easy. 

Make The Investment

One of the first steps your dealership should make, it you have not done so already, is to install phone tracking for organic and referral website traffic, as well as tracking advertising investments like radio, TV, and newspaper.

Phone tracking technology will allow you to see which sources of traffic are generating the most calls and conversions.  Dealers investing in Google Adwords, Social Media Advertising, Craigslist, etc. should have unique phone numbers for these campaigns to track their ROI.

Once you have phone tracking, you need to work on phone training and accountability.  There are a number of companies on the market that provide this service and you can look at DrivingSales Vendor Rating for some guidance.   There are also companies that will listen to your phone calls and identify problems with the calls that can be remedied immediately with a call back from a manager. 

You need to decide which phone training partner to use and make the commitment to get back to the basics this month.  You should make sure that the vendor partner you select makes it easy for the dealership to get feedback on how the calls are being handled.  Of course the management team must be bought in 100% to make phone training work.

Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising is in its infancy and dealers will soon be testing Facebook Advertising and promoted Twitter Tweets.  If you have reviewed the user metrics from these two popular sites you would know that the majority of the traffic is from mobile devices.  This means that social media advertising and engagement, that has a call to action, will draw more phone calls than lead forms.

All the data trends point to the fact that dealers need to significantly increase their focus and investments on phone skills.  

How would you rate your dealership's handling of phone calls? 

What are the barriers for signifiicantly increasing the quality of phone handling?  

Let's talk about it here on DrivingSales and please share this conversation on your social networks to increase the engagement on this topic.

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

By Brian Pasch

As digital marketing and social media investments become a larger percentage of dealer operating budgets, some operators are considering hiring an internal Digital Marketing Manager (DMM).  Many of the mid-sized automotive groups and most of the larger auto groups already have this position in place.

However, finding the right person to fit this newly minted role can be a challenge:  

• What does the job description for a Digital Marketing Manager look like?  
• What should the Digital Marketing Manager be doing each day? week? month?
• How does a Dealer Principal hire for a position that requires skills that they most likely don't understand? 
• What personality traits make the ideal DMM?
• How will the General Manager inspect the work of the Digital Marketing Manager and mentor them to enrich their career?
• What does the pay plan for a DMM look like?

Defining The Role and Work Plan

You may be a Digital Marketing Manager or have this role in your organization.  I'm working on a new project and would love to start a conversation based on the questions listed above.  I am confident that many members of DrivingSales will be interested in the responses from dealers who have tackled these challenges or who are starting down this path.

Related to this discussion is employee retention for this specialized role.  Dealers may find it challenging to keep the DMM challenged so they are not scooped away from a local competitor.  This happens with good sales professionals and managers however there few competent automotive Digital Marketing Managers on the market today. 

Their Own Island

For many Digital Marketing Managers they are the only person in the organization that understands the complexity of their job responsibilities. They may at times feel alone, unsupported, and unfairly criticized.   As Google changes on a dime, so must these marketing professionals adapt.  

How can dealers bridge this gap to leverage the experience of the management team with the new tools brough to the table for a DMM? 

Please share your thoughts on the questions I posed in this article below. If you have any supporting documents, share the links.   Please share this article on your social networks to expand to conversation to other automotive professionals. 

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

By Brian Pasch

If you have been in computing since the begining of the PC area, like me, then you must watch this interview with Bill Gates.   It is worth your time to get some insights into the amazing growth of Microsoft and Bill's leadership. 

I hope you enjoy this video. Share your reaction(s) after watching here on DrivingSales.com.

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

By Brian Pasch

How many times have you posted something to Facebook, only to see that you missed a few spelling errors? 

Well it looks like Facebook has been watching my typing lately! Facebook has finally answered my prayers...and maybe yours as well.

You can now edit the text on a Facebook post by clicking on the drop-down menu, as shown in the example on the right.

Is there a downside regarding this new feature?  For the most part the answer is no but of course this feature could lend to some forms of "bait-and-switch" marketing.

For now, I'm just happy that a post that had good engagement, can be edited for grammatical or spelling errors.  When posts have spelling errors it does create a poor first impression, agreed?

Do you have any editing to do on your Facebook page tonight?

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google

By Brian Pasch

As Google reduces the visibility in Google Analytics to see which keywords are driving the most organic traffic, there are other ways to continue your SEO research.  

One of those tools is free called Google Webmaster Tools (WMT).

Google Webmaster Tools is an invaluable resource for checking the health of a website, and is not limited to just this one example of keyword research.

I recorded a short video to review one of the ways WMT can be used to see which keywords are driving clicks to your websites and to spot areas for improvement. 

Watch The Video on Search Queries in WMT

Again, this is just one way in which WMT can be used in a marketing and search strategy.  If you enjoyed this post, please share this article on your social networks. 

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google