Want a chance to win $100.00 off dealer registration at the upcoming DrivingSales Executive Summit October 9-11th in Las Vegas?  How about a chance to win a FREE REGISTRATION altogether?  Well, now’s your chance and it’s super easy.  We’re conducting a survey about social media and how it compares to traditional media, but to do that, we need dealers like you.  Don’t worry, completing the survey is easy and takes 3-4 minutes, but it will help us learn about social media strategies and share with you how to build them.

So how do I enter?

All you have to do is fill out this survey and enter an email address to have a chance to win the $100.00 off.  Ten lucky people with completed surveys will be chosen at random as winners.  AND if we reach 175 participants, one lucky dealer participant will receive FREE REGISTRATION at DSES.  FREE!!  That’s right, this type of research is so important to us, that we're will to offer a $699 value just for taking the time to honestly complete a 4-minute survey.  Sweet deal, if you ask me. 

The purpose of this study is to examine potential uses of social media in comparison to traditional media in order to develop an understanding of what impact a social media strategy can have on dealership profitability.  In particular, we will look at social media marketing from a budgetary standpoint, as well as online reviews from a loyalty perspective.  You can learn more information about the research project here.

So, if you’re a dealer (only real dealers are eligible) complete this survey for a chance to win a FREE registration at DSES or $100.00 off!

* Only legitimate emails will be accepted and only one legitimate email address per survey.

Your anonymity is important to us.

*Email addresses will in no way by used to attach identity to information provided in completed surveys.  They are solely for the purposes of the drawing and will otherwise be discarded.  Any information presented in the release of results will be done so as aggregate data, with no reference to any one store's survey information.

*If you don’t want to leave an email, you are not obligated to, but we won’t be able to confirm your participation and thus, you won’t be entered into the drawing to win FREE registration or $100 off.  But we’d love your participation nonetheless!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them here or email me at Lindsey@DrivingSales.com.

Want a chance to win $100.00 off dealer registration at the upcoming DrivingSales Executive Summit October 9-11th in Las Vegas?  How about a chance to win a FREE REGISTRATION altogether?  Well, now’s your chance and it’s super easy.  We’re conducting a survey about social media and how it compares to traditional media, but to do that, we need dealers like you.  Don’t worry, completing the survey is easy and takes 3-4 minutes, but it will help us learn about social media strategies and share with you how to build them.

So how do I enter?

All you have to do is fill out this survey and enter an email address to have a chance to win the $100.00 off.  Ten lucky people with completed surveys will be chosen at random as winners.  AND if we reach 175 participants, one lucky dealer participant will receive FREE REGISTRATION at DSES.  FREE!!  That’s right, this type of research is so important to us, that we're will to offer a $699 value just for taking the time to honestly complete a 4-minute survey.  Sweet deal, if you ask me. 

The purpose of this study is to examine potential uses of social media in comparison to traditional media in order to develop an understanding of what impact a social media strategy can have on dealership profitability.  In particular, we will look at social media marketing from a budgetary standpoint, as well as online reviews from a loyalty perspective.  You can learn more information about the research project here.

So, if you’re a dealer (only real dealers are eligible) complete this survey for a chance to win a FREE registration at DSES or $100.00 off!

* Only legitimate emails will be accepted and only one legitimate email address per survey.

Your anonymity is important to us.

*Email addresses will in no way by used to attach identity to information provided in completed surveys.  They are solely for the purposes of the drawing and will otherwise be discarded.  Any information presented in the release of results will be done so as aggregate data, with no reference to any one store's survey information.

*If you don’t want to leave an email, you are not obligated to, but we won’t be able to confirm your participation and thus, you won’t be entered into the drawing to win FREE registration or $100 off.  But we’d love your participation nonetheless!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them here or email me at Lindsey@DrivingSales.com.

*The following is a contribution by a real dealer who has asked to remain anonymous (you'll understand why), so I've posted the content to respect their wishes.

Dear OEM:  

Really?  You are in bed with a website vendor and are forcing my hand in using it?  Yes, your SEO truly stinks, your sites take long to load, your bounce rates and overall usability is poor – yet you are forcing my hand to use the site you as an OEM has deemed most acceptable.

I did try to move away with another vendor who I have used prior – everything I know about this website vendor is ten fold better than what you offer and about half the price.  You say it is ok for me to leave…but what do you do, big bad OEM?

You penalize the dealership with infraction after infraction because I don’t have the right wording buried eight pages deep in our site?  We fix what you wanted to fix – you approve the site… and then come back and re-review my site and deny it… again!  NOTHING HAD CHANGED!

After jumping through countless hoops, I finally was able talk with someone at the OEM level and find out there seems to be a mass exodus with your current website vendor.  Therefore the OEM will continue to go through my current (non-OEM recommended) site with a fine-toothed comb looking for the smallest infractions to penalize us…

BUT – what you tell me is that if we go back to your current website vendor, you as an OEM will ease up on our dealership AND you will erase my current infraction you gave me!  Seriously?  

So Mr. OEM – there is a mass exodus leaving your current provider and you have yet to ask yourself why.  The dealers are speaking, yet you are forcing their hand to use a sub-par website due to your current relationship with them.

OEMs – you are KILLING your dealers in the digital marketing arena!   Progressive OEMs and independents will CRUSH us in SEO and SEM strategies if you continue to go down the path you going. 

Not all websites are created equal – take a look, Mr. OEM, at why I wanted to go with someone else.  Here is a snap shot of your OEM recommended site’s analytics for 30 days:

Now – below is analytics of our site I had up for all of 30 days.  138% more visitors and each of those visitors ON AVERAGE spent another 2 minutes on the site, went 2.5 pages DEEPER, and less of them bounced off my site.  Let’s not talk about conversion rates as that would REALLY make way too much sense.

So, Mr. OEM – I am going back to your site for fewer visits, less page views, shorter site time, and more customers are bouncing because this is what the executives think will be best.

So here’s to you, Mr. OEM!  May your digital marketing strategies continue to be obsolete, overpriced, and down right piss poor.

Signed,

Just about every dealer in the country

*The following is a contribution by a real dealer who has asked to remain anonymous (you'll understand why), so I've posted the content to respect their wishes.

Dear OEM:  

Really?  You are in bed with a website vendor and are forcing my hand in using it?  Yes, your SEO truly stinks, your sites take long to load, your bounce rates and overall usability is poor – yet you are forcing my hand to use the site you as an OEM has deemed most acceptable.

I did try to move away with another vendor who I have used prior – everything I know about this website vendor is ten fold better than what you offer and about half the price.  You say it is ok for me to leave…but what do you do, big bad OEM?

You penalize the dealership with infraction after infraction because I don’t have the right wording buried eight pages deep in our site?  We fix what you wanted to fix – you approve the site… and then come back and re-review my site and deny it… again!  NOTHING HAD CHANGED!

After jumping through countless hoops, I finally was able talk with someone at the OEM level and find out there seems to be a mass exodus with your current website vendor.  Therefore the OEM will continue to go through my current (non-OEM recommended) site with a fine-toothed comb looking for the smallest infractions to penalize us…

BUT – what you tell me is that if we go back to your current website vendor, you as an OEM will ease up on our dealership AND you will erase my current infraction you gave me!  Seriously?  

So Mr. OEM – there is a mass exodus leaving your current provider and you have yet to ask yourself why.  The dealers are speaking, yet you are forcing their hand to use a sub-par website due to your current relationship with them.

OEMs – you are KILLING your dealers in the digital marketing arena!   Progressive OEMs and independents will CRUSH us in SEO and SEM strategies if you continue to go down the path you going. 

Not all websites are created equal – take a look, Mr. OEM, at why I wanted to go with someone else.  Here is a snap shot of your OEM recommended site’s analytics for 30 days:

Now – below is analytics of our site I had up for all of 30 days.  138% more visitors and each of those visitors ON AVERAGE spent another 2 minutes on the site, went 2.5 pages DEEPER, and less of them bounced off my site.  Let’s not talk about conversion rates as that would REALLY make way too much sense.

So, Mr. OEM – I am going back to your site for fewer visits, less page views, shorter site time, and more customers are bouncing because this is what the executives think will be best.

So here’s to you, Mr. OEM!  May your digital marketing strategies continue to be obsolete, overpriced, and down right piss poor.

Signed,

Just about every dealer in the country

A recent study conducted by SEOmoz on ranking factors indicates that 90% of SEO experts believe that social signals at the page level will be the most important ranking factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.  This trumps even exact keyword match, which significantly dropped in perceived importance over the last two years.

So what does that mean?  Basically, SEO-privy individuals imagine that things like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz will have a high impact on getting your website to the top of the rankings list.  Although StumbleUpon and Digg weren’t the most favored sites and were in fact listed lowest, they expect things like tweets, particularly the authority of tweets, will impact Google’s algorithm.

Facebook's Share

SEOmoz simultaneously conducted a correlational study to see if the survey results fell in line with these expectations.  They found that the #1 factor associated with higher Google ranking was the number of Facebook shares.  This even trumps external links and unique IP addresses that visit the URLs!  They also found that 60% of the over 30,000 URLs they examined had at least one Facebook share.

But can Facebook shares really increase your ranking according to Google’s algorithm?  Not so fast, my Facebook-eager friends.  Further examination showed that the correlation between Facebook shares and Google ranking was spurious, meaning there’s something else that is influencing both.  Don’t get me wrong, Facebook shares are great, but it’s likely that linking to Facebook probably also means that the URL is getting linked to, tweeted about, and shared on a variety of other social media communities.  So getting deeper engagement is important, but not necessarily a cause for high Google ranking.  Perhaps it is an indication that the link is content-rich and there are other things that are driving the rank in Google – an indication of quality and interest, but not something that Google is looking at directly.

Take-away

Listening in on the Webinar that SEOmoz shared last week was super insightful in helping us understand at least a little bit of Google’s algorithm, which is constantly changing and becoming more complex.  Some of these results point to activities that directly relate to high rankings in Google, such as more links linking back to your site from more diverse sources, higher traffic from unique IP addresses, and these.  Some of these characteristics, however, show attributes that are possessed by top ranking sites, but aren’t directly affecting their rank, such as Facebook shares.  The bottom line is both are characteristics that successful sites have and are worth considering if looking to strengthen your marketing efforts and potentially bring your rank up.

Thanks to SEOmoz for sharing this insightful data.  You can check out the study in its entirety on SEOmoz's blog.  Keep an eye on those social signals and your social networking efforts.  There’s no denying the impact that social signals have on Google rankings now, and the potential for their increased influence in the future.  

A recent study conducted by SEOmoz on ranking factors indicates that 90% of SEO experts believe that social signals at the page level will be the most important ranking factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.  This trumps even exact keyword match, which significantly dropped in perceived importance over the last two years.

So what does that mean?  Basically, SEO-privy individuals imagine that things like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz will have a high impact on getting your website to the top of the rankings list.  Although StumbleUpon and Digg weren’t the most favored sites and were in fact listed lowest, they expect things like tweets, particularly the authority of tweets, will impact Google’s algorithm.

Facebook's Share

SEOmoz simultaneously conducted a correlational study to see if the survey results fell in line with these expectations.  They found that the #1 factor associated with higher Google ranking was the number of Facebook shares.  This even trumps external links and unique IP addresses that visit the URLs!  They also found that 60% of the over 30,000 URLs they examined had at least one Facebook share.

But can Facebook shares really increase your ranking according to Google’s algorithm?  Not so fast, my Facebook-eager friends.  Further examination showed that the correlation between Facebook shares and Google ranking was spurious, meaning there’s something else that is influencing both.  Don’t get me wrong, Facebook shares are great, but it’s likely that linking to Facebook probably also means that the URL is getting linked to, tweeted about, and shared on a variety of other social media communities.  So getting deeper engagement is important, but not necessarily a cause for high Google ranking.  Perhaps it is an indication that the link is content-rich and there are other things that are driving the rank in Google – an indication of quality and interest, but not something that Google is looking at directly.

Take-away

Listening in on the Webinar that SEOmoz shared last week was super insightful in helping us understand at least a little bit of Google’s algorithm, which is constantly changing and becoming more complex.  Some of these results point to activities that directly relate to high rankings in Google, such as more links linking back to your site from more diverse sources, higher traffic from unique IP addresses, and these.  Some of these characteristics, however, show attributes that are possessed by top ranking sites, but aren’t directly affecting their rank, such as Facebook shares.  The bottom line is both are characteristics that successful sites have and are worth considering if looking to strengthen your marketing efforts and potentially bring your rank up.

Thanks to SEOmoz for sharing this insightful data.  You can check out the study in its entirety on SEOmoz's blog.  Keep an eye on those social signals and your social networking efforts.  There’s no denying the impact that social signals have on Google rankings now, and the potential for their increased influence in the future.  

DrivingSales is trying something new.  Before joining this amazing team, I worked as a researcher, most recently as a research assistant at Stanford University.  Now, we’re combining that previous experience and dedicating ourselves to finding solutions to industry questions.  One of the things Jared wanted me to focus on when joining DrivingSales was starting unique market research to serve dealers.  Nobody knows dealer questions better than you, the dealers, so we’re asking you what new market questions dealers are facing.  Each quarter, we’ll take on a new research project to shed some insight on the industry with real data, real numbers, and real, actionable solutions.  You pose the problem; we’ll find the answers.

We recently had a large dealer group contact us with a market question that is most certainly affecting all of us.  Social media tends to be a hot topic, of course, but how does it impact dealerships in particular?  Together, we’re looking to understand the influence social media has in our industry compared to traditional forms of media.

The purpose of this study is to examine potential uses of social media in comparison to traditional media in order to develop an understanding of what impact a social media strategy can have on dealership profitability.  In particular, we will look at social media marketing from a budgetary standpoint, as well as online reviews from an exposure and loyalty perspective.  

This is where we need your help.  We're interested in collecting real numbers - real data - from dealerships all over the country to get the most accurate picture of what social media looks like in our industry today.  With these numbers, we're aiming to see what benefits a social media strategy can produce, and from that, build strategies or investigate current strategies that are effective in increasing profitability.

Participation in this study is easy and pain-free.  All we ask is for you to complete this quick online survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CSIRM. It will take less than 5 minutes!  Of course, all data will be securely stored and completely anonymous.  Any information presented in papers or presentations will be done so as aggregate data, with no reference to any one store's scores.  The more accurate responses we can get, the better information we can get back to you, the dealers, and the more useful it will be.  

Thanks for your brief participation!  Please share this with anyone and everyone!  Of course, if you have an issue you’d like to get to the bottom of, please feel free to contact me at Lindsey@drivingsales.com and we’ll work it in for a future quarter’s research project. 

DrivingSales is trying something new.  Before joining this amazing team, I worked as a researcher, most recently as a research assistant at Stanford University.  Now, we’re combining that previous experience and dedicating ourselves to finding solutions to industry questions.  One of the things Jared wanted me to focus on when joining DrivingSales was starting unique market research to serve dealers.  Nobody knows dealer questions better than you, the dealers, so we’re asking you what new market questions dealers are facing.  Each quarter, we’ll take on a new research project to shed some insight on the industry with real data, real numbers, and real, actionable solutions.  You pose the problem; we’ll find the answers.

We recently had a large dealer group contact us with a market question that is most certainly affecting all of us.  Social media tends to be a hot topic, of course, but how does it impact dealerships in particular?  Together, we’re looking to understand the influence social media has in our industry compared to traditional forms of media.

The purpose of this study is to examine potential uses of social media in comparison to traditional media in order to develop an understanding of what impact a social media strategy can have on dealership profitability.  In particular, we will look at social media marketing from a budgetary standpoint, as well as online reviews from an exposure and loyalty perspective.  

This is where we need your help.  We're interested in collecting real numbers - real data - from dealerships all over the country to get the most accurate picture of what social media looks like in our industry today.  With these numbers, we're aiming to see what benefits a social media strategy can produce, and from that, build strategies or investigate current strategies that are effective in increasing profitability.

Participation in this study is easy and pain-free.  All we ask is for you to complete this quick online survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CSIRM. It will take less than 5 minutes!  Of course, all data will be securely stored and completely anonymous.  Any information presented in papers or presentations will be done so as aggregate data, with no reference to any one store's scores.  The more accurate responses we can get, the better information we can get back to you, the dealers, and the more useful it will be.  

Thanks for your brief participation!  Please share this with anyone and everyone!  Of course, if you have an issue you’d like to get to the bottom of, please feel free to contact me at Lindsey@drivingsales.com and we’ll work it in for a future quarter’s research project. 

DrivingSales is excited to announce that the 2nd Quarter edition of the 2011 Dealership Innovation Guide is officially here!  The Dealership InnovationGuide is a free publication from DrivingSales.com full of good stuff for dealers looking to improve.  It's packed full of the latest vendor ratings and articles that will help dealers identify and adopt best practices that affect their bottom line.  We’ve fielded many requests for a more frequent publishing schedule, so we’ve transitioned from publishing the magazine bi-annually to quarterly.  Now you can get more great content, more often!  

Congratulations to Jon Sherrell for making this edition’s cover article with a fantastic story about how he won a brand new Fiat franchise with his stellar SEO strategy!  You can read this article RIGHT NOW at Dealership Innovation Guide - Jon Sherrell. 

Other great articles include:

“Dear Vehicle Manufacturers:  Three Ways You Are Killing Your Dealers” by Jared Hamilton

“Dealers Must CLOSE THE SALE” by Grant Cardone

“More Changes at Google in the Last Six Months than in the Last Six Years” by Richard Winch

Additional authors featured in the edition include:

Rob Fontano

Bryan Armstrong

Marc McGurren

…and MORE!

Gain access to these articles and the entire magazine for FREE at DrivingsalesInnovationGuide.com.  Want the actual magazine in print?  Subscribe to receive your free copy here.  Read the Dealership Inovation Guide hot off the press!

DrivingSales is excited to announce that the 2nd Quarter edition of the 2011 Dealership Innovation Guide is officially here!  The Dealership InnovationGuide is a free publication from DrivingSales.com full of good stuff for dealers looking to improve.  It's packed full of the latest vendor ratings and articles that will help dealers identify and adopt best practices that affect their bottom line.  We’ve fielded many requests for a more frequent publishing schedule, so we’ve transitioned from publishing the magazine bi-annually to quarterly.  Now you can get more great content, more often!  

Congratulations to Jon Sherrell for making this edition’s cover article with a fantastic story about how he won a brand new Fiat franchise with his stellar SEO strategy!  You can read this article RIGHT NOW at Dealership Innovation Guide - Jon Sherrell. 

Other great articles include:

“Dear Vehicle Manufacturers:  Three Ways You Are Killing Your Dealers” by Jared Hamilton

“Dealers Must CLOSE THE SALE” by Grant Cardone

“More Changes at Google in the Last Six Months than in the Last Six Years” by Richard Winch

Additional authors featured in the edition include:

Rob Fontano

Bryan Armstrong

Marc McGurren

…and MORE!

Gain access to these articles and the entire magazine for FREE at DrivingsalesInnovationGuide.com.  Want the actual magazine in print?  Subscribe to receive your free copy here.  Read the Dealership Inovation Guide hot off the press!