KPI Cafe's Dane Saville brings back Reunion's CEO Dave Spannhake to further the discussion about SEO and SEM by covering the biggest opportunities dealerships have in each strategy.

—— Topics Covered ——

Setting the Stage for the Conversation (0:40)

What Dealers Can Do to Best Leverage the SEO Strategy (1:12)

Emphasizing SEO is for Used Cars, Fixed Ops, and More (2:30)

Biggest Opportunities in Paid Search (3:00) Emphasizing SEM for Used Cars (4:00)

Reiterating the Importance of SEO and SEM Synergy (4:45)

Previewing the Next Episode (6:20)

I'm excited to introduce the second season of our original education video series, the #KPICafe. We've compiled questions and feedback from actual dealers -- our clients, prospects, and KPI Cafe viewers -- to make the content relevant to your current needs. This yielded a specific focus for our second season:

The Importance of Digital Synergy

And if you haven't yet, please be sure to subscribe to our Youtube channel: https://bit.ly/2DtHz2a

Let’s get something out of the way.

No lacks challenge. No lacks inspiration. No lacks grit.

Many people spend much of their time perfecting the are of dissuasion. They use a number of reasons — from finances to fear — to convince themselves that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. You may be one of those people. I certainly was.

I was asked to teach overseas. “No.”

I was asked to move away from family and friends. “No.”

I was asked to give up a job to travel for money with no guarantee. “No.”

There are many other situations in my life that read like this. As a result, I lost out on great memories, great friends, and great opportunities. Now, don’t read this like a letter of regret. It’s not. I’m thrilled with my life both professionally and personally. It’s because I finally found my “Yes.” I discovered the courage to stop dissuading myself from the possibilities of tomorrow because of the fear of uncertainty. That was my reason for “No.”

I was asked to help start a company. “Yes.”

I created other great memories, made other great friends, and created new wonderful opportunities. There were no circumstances that really separate the yes from the no other than finding the courage to embrace uncertainty. This isn’t a license to abdicate responsibilities you have or to drop everything on a whim. It’s to prepare yourself for the next event, circumstance, or opportunity that arises so you can commit and make things happen for yourself, not to move back to things you passed on or to beat yourself up for the what could have beens.

To find your Yes, you need to find what causes the No. In order to do so, you need go through a few rounds of asking yourself the root. More often than not, mine was fear. You may find yours to be the same.

TEACH OVERSEAS

No — Being too far from my relationship.

The fear of loss. I focused on all of the things that I would lose, especially the long-term relationship I had built. I was convinced that she wouldn’t move to a foreign country. I was convinced that long-distance would absolutely not work. I was convinced that I’d sacrifice what future I thought I had for a completely different future.

I could’ve found my Yes in the fact that, if she couldn’t make things work for me to pursue this great opportunity, we weren’t meant to be. That I would find new people, make new friends, and build new relationships in this new opportunity. The fact that I would be able to put this on my resume and return to the states with an experience few other educators would have.

MOVE FROM MY FAMILY

No — I wouldn’t know anybody.

The fear of loneliness. My attention immediately fell to the idea that I’d be a plane ticket away from my family and friends; thus, I was convinced that it would be too much to start from scratch for new friends and too arduous to make trips home in order to see my family. I was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to establish myself, my identity, in a completely new city.

I could’ve found my Yes in the fact that the job paid well enough to even fly family to me. That communications tools would allow virtual face-to-face conversations with friends. There really wasn’t much to sacrifice other than the fear that I’d wake up and go to bed hundreds of miles from familiarity.

LEAVE MY JOB

No — Too challenging for my circumstances.

The fear of failure. I told myself everything: I have bills, have a responsibility, have little time, have not enough talent, have not enough money to begin with. I convinced myself of the horrors of leaving a 9-5 to sleep in my car or a motel, to endlessly travel from city to city, to really grind and hustle. I was convinced that, no matter what I did, I would fail in this endeavor. And I allowed myself to get lazy and further cement that fear. Now, I didn’t even have the work ethic!

I could’ve found my Yes in the strength of others. That what I would embark on wouldn’t be solo journey of self-defeat, but an adventure among friends to, if only for a few years, live a dream that we all had as kids.

HELP START A COMPANY

N… — Wait a minute.

The thrill of potential. I knew the root cause was that I would have no safety net. I still had those same bills, same responsibilities, a new and wonderful relationship — everything that was on the line for each No was on the line now. The difference is that I found my Yes. I found it in the faith of my fiance. I found it in the resolve that I would do all that I could to make this work. I found it in the notion that, even if we did fail, we did was so few people ever take the chance to do. I found it in the limitless potential of how this could grow, how I could grow, and what I could do. I found it in friends. I found it in family.

I found Yes in myself to see the things that could be, not the ones I manifested would be.

Now it’s your turn to look yourself in the mirror the next time an opportunity comes your way. A challenge. Something uncertain. Something you have a passion for. And you need to cast aside whatever is holding you back and find your Yes among the things and people around you, what’s within you, and work hard as hell, inspire yourself and others, and overcome challenges every step of that way.

Yes is challenging. Yes takes inspiration. Yes requires grit.

It should come as no surprise that sales are down this year, per sales reporting from the manufacturers like the “Detroit 3”, Toyota, and Nissan. This makes an efficient, lean marketing budget more important than ever. If your marketing cost per car sold is at or above the industry average of $629 for mass-market vehicles and over $700 for luxury vehicles, ask yourself a few questions.

Question #1: Am I spending investing in programmatic media?

Programmatic media are channels — such as Pandora, video pre-roll, and social media — where bids are automatically adjusted as a campaign runs to create the most effective spend possible. That isn’t the only advantage: these channels have targeting capabilities that other channels cannot match. In addition to demographic and specific geographic data, you can also leverage behavioral and contextual signals that help you truly understand your audience.

When you use programmatic media, you’re selecting the exact car buyers that you want to reach instead of also paying for people outside of your primary marketing area and outside of your demographics, which is an unfortunate reality of traditional media like television and radio.

Furthermore, you can already see the evolution of television to becoming a programmatic channel (e.g. HBO Now, AMC Premiere). By investing in programmatic, you're creating a better return on investment for today's channels, as well as preparing yourself for tomorrow's.

Question #2: Has my internal team or agency partner created an effective paid media strategy?

If you're not prepared for responsive search ads, you have fallen behind the curve. Google's AI selects from among 15 headlines and 4 descriptions (43,680 combinations) that you craft, with some automation, to deliver ads that have 3 headlines and 2 90-character descriptions that best match search intent.

The more granular that you create your ad groups, based on hundreds or even thousands of keywords, the better you can align ads with car shoppers’ search intent. By doing so, you’re also helping to boost your Quality Score, which can help save money on every single click by requiring a lower bid price to be competitive for the top spots in paid SERPs.

Also, are you deep linking on those ads to take consumers to highly relevant landing pages that satisfy the expectations they had when they clicked on the ad?

Question #3: Am I implementing a data-driven strategy to drive highly qualified organic traffic to my site?

By leveraging tools within Google Analytics, you can cut your dependency on third-party sites that cost you money for traffic you can earn yourself. Google Analytics provides insights to understand what people are shopping for and how they’re shopping for it.

This information will allow you to examine content across all your digital assets, starting with your website, to ensure that you’re ranking for low-funnel searches that have intent modifiers like “near me” and “for sale.” This helps you take up organic SERPs at the top of page one for the types of searches most vital to your digital strategy.

When you start analyzing the right channels and strategies to implement within them, you can start chipping away at that marketing cost per car sold to combat those falling gross profit margins and weaker market demand.

“What is negative priming?”

If you ask that before you opened the article, you wouldn’t be the only one. It’s a term that you don’t often hear in today’s discussion about marketing, yet it’s vital to avoid creating hesitation in a consumer’s mind.

Negative priming is defined as “an implicit memory effect in which prior exposure to a stimulus unfavorable influences the response to the same stimulus.”

So — Our history dictates how we react to current circumstances. If it was negative, we have a negative feeling going into it.

Unfortunately, for many industries like car sales and dentistry, there’s a historical precedent of a bad experience. That means we’re not off to a great start. Still, many marketing specialists and content writers for small businesses make the mistake of compounding this by using negative priming words. You’ll never see major corporations fall into this trap because the advertising industry has been positively priming consumers, particularly since the 1957 publication of The Hidden Persuaders. In it, the author states that “Priming refers to the incidental activation of known structures, such as trait concepts and stereotypes, by the current situational context.”

Again, that sentence should ring some bells for people who work in industries with a stigma.

You still might wonder how the memory of a prior stimulus is related to written or verbal communication. American Express actually conducted a great experiment that I’d like to use. I’m going to give you two lists. Tell me which one is the good person and which one is the bad person.

Giving. Helpful. Others. Selfish. Taking.

Taking. Selfish. Others. Helpful. Giving.

You likely said that the good person is #1 and the bad person is #2. That’s because of the context of the words — the way we learned what they mean — that influenced our decision.

The same can be said for words that I often see used on automotive and dental sites. There are terms that, because of our understanding of the word, creates a subliminal aversion and negatively influences our purchasing decision.

Here’s another example that used visuals and words (sounds a lot like a website):

Some participants in a University of Minnesota were primed with the word “money” and visuals of money that accompanied it. Others weren’t. The people who were primed about “money” donated less to a request for charity than the others (39% vs. 67%).

The subjects of the study primed about money had the notion of dollars and cents in their conscious, so they began thinking about finances and other expenditures and were less likely to give it away.

So to the point of my article here. Negative priming words that I see on a lot of dealership and dental websites. It’s very simple and subtle, but this is terminology that negatively influences people as they make decisions on where to purchase a car and where to receive dental work.

Dentistry — Pain-free

Automotive — Hassle-free

The intent is to communicate that prospects will not feel pain and will not feel hassled, respectively. But by using those terms — our understanding of which is a negative consequence — we immediately begin to think (just like those primed about money) about the “pain” and “hassle” that we want to avoid.

We want to think of alternatives that positively prime customers.

Dentistry — Gentle

Automotive — Smooth or Enjoyable

There are, of course, other options. There are, of course, other terms that may be on your site that are negatively priming consumers. Check over your site. See what you find. Make adjustments.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dane Saville

Reunion Marketing

dane@reunionmarketing.com

919-413-1975
 

REUNION MARKETING NAMED ONE OF THE “BEST ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPANIES IN AMERICA” BY ENTREPRENEUR MAGAZINE’S 2018 ENTREPRENEUR360 LIST

Raleigh, North Carolina – Reunion Marketing was recently recognized as one of the “Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America” by Entrepreneur magazine’s Entrepreneur360™ List, a premier study delivering the most comprehensive analysis of private companies in America. Based on this study forged by Entrepreneur, Reunion Marketing is recognized as a well-rounded company that has mastered a balance of impact, innovation, growth leadership and value.

“From starting our company off by working out of apartments and houses just three and a half years ago to building one of the five fastest growing digital agencies in Google’s Premier Partnership program, it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to work with such a dedicated team of professionals who continually push for more,” says Dave Spannhake, Founder and CEO of Reunion Marketing. “We are proud and honored to have received this recognition that helps to showcase that drive for greatness.”

“Our annual evaluation of vetted data offers a 360-degree analysis of top privately-held companies across a multitude of industries,” explains Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. “They are deemed successful not only by revenue numbers, but by how well-rounded they are. The companies that make the list have pushed boundaries with their innovative ideas, fostered strong company cultures, impacted their communities for the better, and increased their brand awareness.”

Reunion Marketing was built on the notion that too many digital marketing agencies did not offer the transparency or strategies to truly serve their partners. The results Reunion yields come from a robust process that leverages data collected from the company’s entire national business network that is consistently communicated to every partner through a dedicated consultant.

Honorees were identified based on the results from a comprehensive study of independently owned companies, using a proprietary algorithm and other advanced analytics. The algorithm was built on a balanced scorecard designed to measure five metrics reflecting major pillars of entrepreneurship—innovation, growth, leadership, impact and business valuation.

To learn more about Reunion Marketing, visit www.reunionmarketing.com.

For additional details on the E360 List and the companies recognized, visit: entrepreneur.com/360 ###

ABOUT REUNION MARKETING. Reunion Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency, specializing in SEO, SEM, social media marketing, and automotive consulting. Since its inception, it has provided comprehensive strategies to increase its partners’ website traffic and conversions. Reunion Marketing also works with local nonprofits to give back to the community that has fostered its expeditious growth and development. To learn more, visit reunionmarketing.com. Follow us on Twitter at @reunionmktg, Instagram at @reunionmarketing, LinkedIn at linkedin.com/reunion-marketing, and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/reunionmarketing.

ABOUT ENTREPRENEUR MEDIA INC. For 41 years, Entrepreneur Media Inc. has been serving the entrepreneurial community by providing comprehensive coverage of business and personal success through original content and events. Entrepreneur magazine, Entrepreneur.com, GreenEntrepreneur.com and publishing imprint Entrepreneur Press provide solutions, information, inspiration and education read by millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners worldwide. To learn more, visit entrepreneur.com. Follow us on Twitter or Instagram at @Entrepreneur and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/entmagazine.

In the not-so-distant past, many dealerships neglected their own websites in favor of paying third-party sites like AutoTrader and Cars.com to promote their inventory. As dealers educated themselves on digital marketing, they realized the power that their own sites and strategies wield.

This created a conflict: Dealerships compete in paid search against those same third-party sites, who have responded by spending more aggressively for the same SERP real estate.

So what’s the best way to move forward?

The answer isn’t simple, but it works.

The Way You Can Beat Third-Party SEM Strategies

Let CarGurus and AutoTrader fight over broader terms like “2018 Toyota Camry.”

You should focus your budget on the lowest funnel search terms. Searches that include modifiers like “for sale” and “lease offers” should receive the largest portion of your paid search dollars. Once you dominate these search queries, you can pursue broader terms and adjust the budget accordingly.

Unless you’re located in a major metro, like New York City or Chicago, third-party sites aren’t in the local market and aren’t reviewing local search terms. If you focus on these queries and apply the right strategies, you’ll have a higher Quality Score and pay a lower cost per click.

To achieve this, look no further than Google Analytics and Google Ads to understand local car shopping search behaviors. Ask yourself:

• What searches bring in highly qualified traffic?

• Which Ads perform better?

• How do people behave on your site after they click through?

  • Do they bounce?

  • Do they view SRPs and VDPs?

  • Do they spend time on the site?

You can leverage this data to prioritize or remove keyword sets.

If your efforts reach the benchmarks you set, you can spend as much money as you want.

Content Is the Key

You need custom content built around your market’s search volume to make your paid search campaigns as effective as possible. The content should focus on new cars, used core series, service and parts, lease information, and finance offers — things that customers search for every day.

By routinely creating, updating, and refreshing your content, you can earn positions that rank above Cars.com and other third-party sites like AutoTrader and CarGurus. That’s because you’re giving customers reasons to visit the site, stay on the site, and come back.

Content is more than just landing pages. It includes the following:

Correct metadata

Easy navigation

Homepage to inventory

Comparison pages

MRPs, VDPs, SRPs

Full inventory

High-quality photos

If you make sure your content follows Google’s best practices, you can create remarkable results. Below are two dealerships that followed these simple guidelines.

What’s stopping your site from achieving results like these? Take some time to re-evaluate your approach to paid search and the content on your dealership’s website.

With how quickly trends and behaviors can change in digital marketing, it’s often tempting to jump on the next “big thing.” But a savvy marketer must understand when emerging platforms and strategies are profitable or when they are too premature and risky.

These days, you’ll see many thought leaders championing voice search. Yes, voice search is “sexy.” It, however, hasn’t evolved as quickly as some people contend. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to research the topic or stay current with how it’s progressing.

You need to recognize that change is coming, but you don’t want to chase a shiny object that’s ill-defined and questionably effective.

Any digital marketing agency worth its salt will continue to regularly watch trends like this.

It’s just as important that they do so without sacrificing the strategies that connect your dealerships with how people are shopping now.

While we would love to tout the greatness of voice search, we have to keep our feet on the ground and perfect the strategies that fall within the current scope of what sells products and services.

Let’s take a look at a breakdown of what another industry professional has found.

Will Critchlow of Distilled on Voice Search

Will Critchlow has often been on the right side of digital marketing history. Here are a few of his observations and insights:

• - 75% of voice searches were incremental and not “real” searches.
• - They are things like, “Ok, Google, set a timer for 20 minutes.”
• - There is no intent to discover information or learn anything.
• - They are only searches because you’re Googling them.
•  

A breakdown of “search” volume from Distilled:

300 million: control actions

- Set a time

- Remind you of an event

- Play a song

- Add something to your shopping list

120 million: informational repeated queries

- What’s the weather?

- What’s my commute?

- 30-60 million: Personal requests

- Listen to [X] podcast

- Hear [news from previously listed source]

Our Findings of How Car Shoppers Search

We know that voice search isn’t a current commodity for dealerships. That’s why it’s important to understand how they do conduct searches, which is exactly the data our team analyzed from our nationwide dealer network. We already have an informative blog that details this information, but here’s the gist of it:

95% of car shopper queries consist of five or fewer words.

They are intent-based, looking for direct feedback about a model, make, or dealership. It’s important that you have the content that satisfies these searches and that you’ve streamlined the process for car shoppers to click through to SRPs and VDPs — the less friction, the better.

Let’s continue the conversation. What are your thoughts and feedback regarding voice search and car shopping behaviors?

There is no shortage of digital marketing agencies, but there is a shortage of transparent ones. As your choices expand, it’s more important than ever to identify when your agency isn’t being open with you.

Some cheap tactics are obvious. Others, not so much.

Luckily, our leadership team has firsthand experience in the retail side of the automotive industry.

Let’s take a look at some of the more obvious schemes. The agency doesn’t give you:

- Ownership of and/or access to Google Analytics (GA)

- Ownership of and/or access to Google Ads

- Responses to calls or emails

- Authentic reporting from GA

With regard to the last point, a lot of agencies will use their own reporting platforms. It helps them hide the real data and highlight or manipulate data to make them look more favorable. If you’re not seeing raw Google Analytics data, what are they hiding?

Subtle Clues Your Agency May Not Be Transparent

The first issue that comes to mind is knowledge.

Your point of contact should be able to articulate a one-month plan versus a three-month plan. He or she needs to be an expert at the job. If you cannot get answers at the moment to general questions without their needing assistance, it’s time to look elsewhere.

“I'm not sure.”

“Let me check, and I’ll let you know in a day or two.”

Next, it’s important to know if and how you’re making gains. Ask yourself the following questions:

- Is your organic traffic increasing?

- Are you seeing Quality Score go up and cost go down on paid search?

• - Are you getting more phone calls and form submissions?

From SEO to PPC to social media, you want to gain traffic and leads in the right markets. If you’re a client in New Jersey and getting a ton of traffic from Boston, check your Google Analytics goals. Chances are good that you’re getting no phone calls or leads from it.

Now let’s assume that you’re getting some new leads, phone calls, or traffic. Your agency partner celebrates those wins with you. Are they still discussing where they are falling short? A true and healthy partnership should make an agency comfortable enough to admit when things are not where they are wanted to be — and offer a plan to improve.

Other Things to Look For

Look for steady increases over time as opposed to a roller coaster. Overnight shots may not be legitimate or may indicate the agency jumps in, then sets and forgets.

Also look for your point of contact to have a finger on what the competition is doing. Do they benchmark data in some way? This is the sign of a transparent and savvy partner who’s aware of factors that may influence variations beyond marketing.

Final Thoughts...

Does your agency charge a commission for paid search? Make your partner explain why spending increases are needed because commission-based agencies will often recommend that you spend more for the sake of spending more. Ask them to show you decreases in impression share and who’s taking it from you. Test them with questions that will gauge their integrity.

Know what questions to ask.

Pro-Tip on PPC: You can ask your provider for a paid search activity history report. This will show historical changes so you can see whether or not they’re actively working on your account.

You invest a lot in digital marketing (or you plan to). Find a partner that matches your goals. And make sure that you work with the agency to help them achieve those goals. Don’t just pick up a phone when it’s convenient or when things are trending downward. A good agency wants you to be involved and be active.