The Super Bowl has concluded for yet another year and for those of us within the automotive industry it sure was interesting to see the various automotive commercials that Toyota, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Audi, and Lincoln created. As we grabbed for more nachos while football took a break and the anticipated Super Bowl intermissions commenced. This year there was a strong winner, a motor company that made great strides to appeal to their demographic and put the driver first. The winner hands down for this year’s automotive Super Bowl commercial goes to… the Chrysler Group.

Marketing has changed. The consumer has been exhausted of the over selling and underwhelming performance that commercials continue to serve us, we want guts and glory, (not too far off from the Ram slogan) we want to get down to the heart of what matters to us, which is us…and our families.

Shallow commercials are for decades past and though each of the automotive companies made great efforts in making unique car commercials that touched on emotions; from happy, silly, exhilarating to humorous; Chrysler went for the heart strings.

Emotions have always been important within Marketing, but never more than now. Within a social world of emotionally sharing our thoughts and opinion’s in real-time across the world has emotional targeting been so relevant.

Each viewer knows that it is a car commercial, that their aim is to sell you a car or truck. However, the meaningful thought will override its intended purpose. Instead, it will evoke us to connect with the brand through its heartfelt connection it makes by emphasizing on our hard work, dedication and strong love for our families instead of just highlighting its vehicles.

Chrysler made the vehicles in both the Ram and Jeep commercials a part of our lives instead of forcing them within and made stories we could believe in because we live them, or know someone who does.

Making commercials that are about the people who ride in the vehicles instead of about the vehicle and showing their support to those we hold close touches on the roots of America; from our Farmers to our troops, those that help us eat and others who keep us free, that is what meaningful marketing looks like.

[Heart felt image via heartwallpapers]

The Super Bowl has concluded for yet another year and for those of us within the automotive industry it sure was interesting to see the various automotive commercials that Toyota, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Audi, and Lincoln created. As we grabbed for more nachos while football took a break and the anticipated Super Bowl intermissions commenced. This year there was a strong winner, a motor company that made great strides to appeal to their demographic and put the driver first. The winner hands down for this year’s automotive Super Bowl commercial goes to… the Chrysler Group.

Marketing has changed. The consumer has been exhausted of the over selling and underwhelming performance that commercials continue to serve us, we want guts and glory, (not too far off from the Ram slogan) we want to get down to the heart of what matters to us, which is us…and our families.

Shallow commercials are for decades past and though each of the automotive companies made great efforts in making unique car commercials that touched on emotions; from happy, silly, exhilarating to humorous; Chrysler went for the heart strings.

Emotions have always been important within Marketing, but never more than now. Within a social world of emotionally sharing our thoughts and opinion’s in real-time across the world has emotional targeting been so relevant.

Each viewer knows that it is a car commercial, that their aim is to sell you a car or truck. However, the meaningful thought will override its intended purpose. Instead, it will evoke us to connect with the brand through its heartfelt connection it makes by emphasizing on our hard work, dedication and strong love for our families instead of just highlighting its vehicles.

Chrysler made the vehicles in both the Ram and Jeep commercials a part of our lives instead of forcing them within and made stories we could believe in because we live them, or know someone who does.

Making commercials that are about the people who ride in the vehicles instead of about the vehicle and showing their support to those we hold close touches on the roots of America; from our Farmers to our troops, those that help us eat and others who keep us free, that is what meaningful marketing looks like.

[Heart felt image via heartwallpapers]

There was a promise silently made by social media a few years back. It was so prevalent at the 2009 round of conferences from NADA to Digital Dealer that many might have thought that social media would eventually encompass the entire internet marketing required by a dealership to be successful. The promise was this: “Everyone’s going to be on social media in the next couple of years and you’ll be able to reach them.”

The first part of the promise came true, perhaps even more so than most had anticipated. Everyone is on social media in one way or another. Even if they are not active, from a car buying perspective, it can be assumed that members of any family out there trying to buy a car today are touched in some way by social media. It could be as distant as some of the friends of the buyer or it could be as close as the spouse and children, but everyone in America is affected by social media whether they know it or not.

The second part of the promise hasn’t quite panned out for many. There are certainly many dealers who “get it” and are able to drive traffic, generate leads, and make sales as a direct result of their social media actions. Unfortunately, these cases are few and far between. In fact, I was recently approached by “gurus” to help them find examples of dealers who were showing these sorts of successes. Even they weren’t aware of many examples of the mythical “Facebook Sale”.

They exist. We’ve seen them. They’re not quite as few and far between as Bigfoot sightings, but they aren’t easy to find.

That’s not the point.

While many will talk about the “intrinsic value” of social media, one does not have to be a Bigfoot hunter to find tangible value. It lies in understanding the effects and realizing that just as television advertising is effective without being easy to track directly, so too does social media make it challenging to find the value. The key is to look at the results as a whole by doing two things: find the numbers that can be tied in by absence and to put real indicators into place to measure the ROI properly. I refuse to try to convince dealers that there’s a value without being able to demonstrate it and dealers should refuse to accept that there is a value without proof. Here’s how…

Tie in Numbers through Absence

A dealer once told me that the only way he was able to track the effectiveness of his television advertising was to turn them off. When sales dropped, he knew that the TV ads had been working. When he turned them back on, sales went back up again.

The same premise can be applied to social media, particularly if you’re investing enough time and/or money. The sad truth that few gurus will tell you about social media is that there’s a secret plateau. They won’t tell you this because they either don’t know about it or they know that it’s not beneficial to them. The plateau is the place between getting started with social media and hitting the tipping point. Unlike other forms of marketing, social media has a tendency to remain flat up until the point that you really start to hit it hard. The difference in results between a mediocre presence and a pretty good presence is almost unnoticeable. Those who have a pretty good presence aren’t seeing much more in the way of results than those who have one that’s a notch above poor. This is the plateau.

That’s the bad news, particularly since the vast majority of dealerships today fall in between being a notch above poor and pretty good. It’s also the good news. Those dealers who break through the realm of “pretty good” can see a sharp improvement very quickly once they get to good, great, fantastic, outstanding, and beyond. I’m using these esoteric terms because it would take multiple blog posts to try to define the difference between pretty good and outstanding. It’s not about numbers. It’s not even about engagement. It’s about results.

This is where the absence comes into play. If you have a doubt about the effectiveness of your social media, turn it off for a month. Tell your vendor to stop posting and promoting. Tell your internet manager to put up a status update on the various social media sites that you’re “taking a break from social media for the month as we work on putting together something great for all of our fans”. Then, do it. Get off of social media. Don’t post. Don’t reply. You’ll still want to monitor just in case, of course. If your social media is tied into a reputation management service, don’t stop that aspect.

Everything else, shut it down for a month. Look at the numbers. Do you see a dip in traffic, leads, and sales? Make sure to take other factors into account such as fluctuations in search marketing spend, offline advertising, etc. Take those into account and check your results. If your numbers move noticeably, you’re probably getting more benefit out of social than you knew about, so you’ll want to turn it back on. If you don’t see much of a difference, it may be time to explore other options.

Put Real Indicators Into Place

For fixed ops, this is easy. All you have to do is run events on Facebook while posting “social media only” specials simultaneously on the other social networks. If you create an event on Facebook for “$14.99 Social Media Oil Change Special” and then post it on your other networks, you’ll be able to see whether you’re reaching people with the message or not. You can create a coupon on your website that is not in navigation if you want, or simply tell them to mention that they liked your store on Facebook when they’re getting their oil changed. Make sure the service department is extremely well-aware that this test is important. You don’t want them telling their “buddy” customers about it while they’re at the store.

With sales, it’s a little harder but there’s a key performance indicator that can help you make a determination about the success of your social media effort. If you go strong on social media, advertising on Facebook and doing all of the things that we ask dealers to do, you will see one number rise on your analytics – searches for your dealership by name. Getting people to click off of Facebook to go check out your inventory is ineffective. Getting the branding out there, being at the top of mind, and making sure that when people in your area are in the market to buy a car that they’re checking you out on search and on your website – that’s a true test of your social media effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the same can be done for television and radio advertising as well.

Of course, there are more tangible ways to detect it, namely traffic to the dealership itself. This is an area that I can’t talk about quite yet because we’re still testing, but the results so far have been nothing short of fabulous.

* * *

Social media doesn’t have to be a mystery. It either works at your dealership right now or it doesn’t. It’s important to do the things necessary to check the effectiveness an understand whether or not you’re truly reaching your audience. Otherwise, you’ll never know if you can dramatically improve it by making the right changes.

There was a promise silently made by social media a few years back. It was so prevalent at the 2009 round of conferences from NADA to Digital Dealer that many might have thought that social media would eventually encompass the entire internet marketing required by a dealership to be successful. The promise was this: “Everyone’s going to be on social media in the next couple of years and you’ll be able to reach them.”

The first part of the promise came true, perhaps even more so than most had anticipated. Everyone is on social media in one way or another. Even if they are not active, from a car buying perspective, it can be assumed that members of any family out there trying to buy a car today are touched in some way by social media. It could be as distant as some of the friends of the buyer or it could be as close as the spouse and children, but everyone in America is affected by social media whether they know it or not.

The second part of the promise hasn’t quite panned out for many. There are certainly many dealers who “get it” and are able to drive traffic, generate leads, and make sales as a direct result of their social media actions. Unfortunately, these cases are few and far between. In fact, I was recently approached by “gurus” to help them find examples of dealers who were showing these sorts of successes. Even they weren’t aware of many examples of the mythical “Facebook Sale”.

They exist. We’ve seen them. They’re not quite as few and far between as Bigfoot sightings, but they aren’t easy to find.

That’s not the point.

While many will talk about the “intrinsic value” of social media, one does not have to be a Bigfoot hunter to find tangible value. It lies in understanding the effects and realizing that just as television advertising is effective without being easy to track directly, so too does social media make it challenging to find the value. The key is to look at the results as a whole by doing two things: find the numbers that can be tied in by absence and to put real indicators into place to measure the ROI properly. I refuse to try to convince dealers that there’s a value without being able to demonstrate it and dealers should refuse to accept that there is a value without proof. Here’s how…

Tie in Numbers through Absence

A dealer once told me that the only way he was able to track the effectiveness of his television advertising was to turn them off. When sales dropped, he knew that the TV ads had been working. When he turned them back on, sales went back up again.

The same premise can be applied to social media, particularly if you’re investing enough time and/or money. The sad truth that few gurus will tell you about social media is that there’s a secret plateau. They won’t tell you this because they either don’t know about it or they know that it’s not beneficial to them. The plateau is the place between getting started with social media and hitting the tipping point. Unlike other forms of marketing, social media has a tendency to remain flat up until the point that you really start to hit it hard. The difference in results between a mediocre presence and a pretty good presence is almost unnoticeable. Those who have a pretty good presence aren’t seeing much more in the way of results than those who have one that’s a notch above poor. This is the plateau.

That’s the bad news, particularly since the vast majority of dealerships today fall in between being a notch above poor and pretty good. It’s also the good news. Those dealers who break through the realm of “pretty good” can see a sharp improvement very quickly once they get to good, great, fantastic, outstanding, and beyond. I’m using these esoteric terms because it would take multiple blog posts to try to define the difference between pretty good and outstanding. It’s not about numbers. It’s not even about engagement. It’s about results.

This is where the absence comes into play. If you have a doubt about the effectiveness of your social media, turn it off for a month. Tell your vendor to stop posting and promoting. Tell your internet manager to put up a status update on the various social media sites that you’re “taking a break from social media for the month as we work on putting together something great for all of our fans”. Then, do it. Get off of social media. Don’t post. Don’t reply. You’ll still want to monitor just in case, of course. If your social media is tied into a reputation management service, don’t stop that aspect.

Everything else, shut it down for a month. Look at the numbers. Do you see a dip in traffic, leads, and sales? Make sure to take other factors into account such as fluctuations in search marketing spend, offline advertising, etc. Take those into account and check your results. If your numbers move noticeably, you’re probably getting more benefit out of social than you knew about, so you’ll want to turn it back on. If you don’t see much of a difference, it may be time to explore other options.

Put Real Indicators Into Place

For fixed ops, this is easy. All you have to do is run events on Facebook while posting “social media only” specials simultaneously on the other social networks. If you create an event on Facebook for “$14.99 Social Media Oil Change Special” and then post it on your other networks, you’ll be able to see whether you’re reaching people with the message or not. You can create a coupon on your website that is not in navigation if you want, or simply tell them to mention that they liked your store on Facebook when they’re getting their oil changed. Make sure the service department is extremely well-aware that this test is important. You don’t want them telling their “buddy” customers about it while they’re at the store.

With sales, it’s a little harder but there’s a key performance indicator that can help you make a determination about the success of your social media effort. If you go strong on social media, advertising on Facebook and doing all of the things that we ask dealers to do, you will see one number rise on your analytics – searches for your dealership by name. Getting people to click off of Facebook to go check out your inventory is ineffective. Getting the branding out there, being at the top of mind, and making sure that when people in your area are in the market to buy a car that they’re checking you out on search and on your website – that’s a true test of your social media effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the same can be done for television and radio advertising as well.

Of course, there are more tangible ways to detect it, namely traffic to the dealership itself. This is an area that I can’t talk about quite yet because we’re still testing, but the results so far have been nothing short of fabulous.

* * *

Social media doesn’t have to be a mystery. It either works at your dealership right now or it doesn’t. It’s important to do the things necessary to check the effectiveness an understand whether or not you’re truly reaching your audience. Otherwise, you’ll never know if you can dramatically improve it by making the right changes.

Anyone who has been involved in automotive internet marketing for a while knows that despite all of the fancy new techniques and intriguing social platforms, search engines remain the most important source of relevant traffic to your website and physical dealership. It has replaced the phone book, augmented the map, and is the place that the majority of your customers go first when in the market to buy a vehicle.

We also know that organic search is still the dominant traffic driver, but with the rise of mobile devices and Google’s favoring of Google Local listings over organic (and in some cases, paid search), there is a lower percentage of clicks to websites from organic searches than ever before. This trend will continue, but not nearly fast enough to worry; well-optimized sites that were seeing over 80% of their traffic coming from organic search are still seeing over 75% today, so mobile is changing the game at a good pace. There may come a time when organic search is much less relevant, but that day has not come quite yet.

One trend that is rising quickly is the trust factor in Google’s organic listings. People understand Google and Bing much better today than they did even a year ago. They realize that the organic listings are ordered based upon importance, authority, and relevance. They are starting to trust that Google and Bing are excellent filters against the “spammy” pages out there and they believe that ranking high organically is not something that can be easily manipulated the way it used to be. Quality on the search engine results pages (SERPs) has improved dramatically over the last couple of years. Regardless of whether they know about Google’s Panda or Penguin updates isn’t important. They’ve seen the improvement and as a result they use Google and Bing to determine real relevance.

Take that comprehension a step further and you’ll start to see what Google and Bing have hoped for over the years and are finally achieving. They both have always viewed their organic rankings as a trust-building tool. That’s how they’re able to sell ads, by having a product that the people trust. They’ve reached that tipping point and in many ways organic search has become as much of a public relations tool as a pure traffic driver.

When people do searches and see an unexpected result in the organic listings, they are intrigued. We’ve seen results like the one displayed above generate the type of traffic increases that we do not normally see with “expected” high ranking results. In this case, the dealership in question that’s ranked #1 for “Milwaukee Chevrolet Dealers” is well outside of Milwaukee. There are plenty of Chevrolet dealers in Milwaukee, but the fact that Google ranks a dealership in Fond du Lac at the top is telling.

It’s the people’s understanding of search that is really at play here. They know that the ads are ads – pay to play, so to speak. They know that the local listings are based upon proximity to them (if on a GPS-enabled mobile device), their area (if on a WiFi connection), or the city in which they searched. They know that Google selects the “winners” based upon some authoritative algorithm that they don’t fully understand but trust based upon the hundreds or thousands of other searches they’ve done over the years.

Consumers widely consider a search engines top ranked results to be the most relevant and authoritative pages on the web. ~ Website Magazine

Ranking high on search engines is no longer just about getting traffic. It’s a true PR play, now.

There are all sorts of opinions and strategies that have been pulling away from SEO over the last year. Many have said that SEO is dead. Others say that it can no longer be done. The truth is that SEO is extremely alive, growing in prominence, and more challenging than ever. The last part is a good thing. As companies start falling off the SEO bandwagon due to failures to adapt to the changes, strong SEO strategies are emerging that can make a greater impact than ever before for savvy and discerning dealers. Those who want to truly succeed are embracing SEO for the traffic as well as the PR. Don’t get me started on the reputation management aspects of SEO. That’s for another article.

Anyone who has been involved in automotive internet marketing for a while knows that despite all of the fancy new techniques and intriguing social platforms, search engines remain the most important source of relevant traffic to your website and physical dealership. It has replaced the phone book, augmented the map, and is the place that the majority of your customers go first when in the market to buy a vehicle.

We also know that organic search is still the dominant traffic driver, but with the rise of mobile devices and Google’s favoring of Google Local listings over organic (and in some cases, paid search), there is a lower percentage of clicks to websites from organic searches than ever before. This trend will continue, but not nearly fast enough to worry; well-optimized sites that were seeing over 80% of their traffic coming from organic search are still seeing over 75% today, so mobile is changing the game at a good pace. There may come a time when organic search is much less relevant, but that day has not come quite yet.

One trend that is rising quickly is the trust factor in Google’s organic listings. People understand Google and Bing much better today than they did even a year ago. They realize that the organic listings are ordered based upon importance, authority, and relevance. They are starting to trust that Google and Bing are excellent filters against the “spammy” pages out there and they believe that ranking high organically is not something that can be easily manipulated the way it used to be. Quality on the search engine results pages (SERPs) has improved dramatically over the last couple of years. Regardless of whether they know about Google’s Panda or Penguin updates isn’t important. They’ve seen the improvement and as a result they use Google and Bing to determine real relevance.

Take that comprehension a step further and you’ll start to see what Google and Bing have hoped for over the years and are finally achieving. They both have always viewed their organic rankings as a trust-building tool. That’s how they’re able to sell ads, by having a product that the people trust. They’ve reached that tipping point and in many ways organic search has become as much of a public relations tool as a pure traffic driver.

When people do searches and see an unexpected result in the organic listings, they are intrigued. We’ve seen results like the one displayed above generate the type of traffic increases that we do not normally see with “expected” high ranking results. In this case, the dealership in question that’s ranked #1 for “Milwaukee Chevrolet Dealers” is well outside of Milwaukee. There are plenty of Chevrolet dealers in Milwaukee, but the fact that Google ranks a dealership in Fond du Lac at the top is telling.

It’s the people’s understanding of search that is really at play here. They know that the ads are ads – pay to play, so to speak. They know that the local listings are based upon proximity to them (if on a GPS-enabled mobile device), their area (if on a WiFi connection), or the city in which they searched. They know that Google selects the “winners” based upon some authoritative algorithm that they don’t fully understand but trust based upon the hundreds or thousands of other searches they’ve done over the years.

Consumers widely consider a search engines top ranked results to be the most relevant and authoritative pages on the web. ~ Website Magazine

Ranking high on search engines is no longer just about getting traffic. It’s a true PR play, now.

There are all sorts of opinions and strategies that have been pulling away from SEO over the last year. Many have said that SEO is dead. Others say that it can no longer be done. The truth is that SEO is extremely alive, growing in prominence, and more challenging than ever. The last part is a good thing. As companies start falling off the SEO bandwagon due to failures to adapt to the changes, strong SEO strategies are emerging that can make a greater impact than ever before for savvy and discerning dealers. Those who want to truly succeed are embracing SEO for the traffic as well as the PR. Don’t get me started on the reputation management aspects of SEO. That’s for another article.

Anyone who has ever owned a Facebook page knows the value of Facebook Insights when used correctly. Most new Facebook pages could use the valuable insight when first starting out but what some do not realize is there is a stipulation.

In order for any new Facebook page to gain access to their free Facebook Insights to gain analytical data that can and will help target your audience and assist in providing you with marketable information to share with team members as well as use to market on an array of platforms, you first need 30 likes.

This might seem easy, since the average Facebook person has more than 150 friends, but you will be surprised at how difficult to get people to like a Facebook page and stick with it. Although Facebook profiles and pages use the same platform they are meant to be used differently in the intent that a Facebook page will attract more people to your business.

Therefore, if you have a brand new Facebook page and are unable to access your Facebook insights it may be because you do not have enough people who have liked it just yet.

Anyone who has ever owned a Facebook page knows the value of Facebook Insights when used correctly. Most new Facebook pages could use the valuable insight when first starting out but what some do not realize is there is a stipulation.

In order for any new Facebook page to gain access to their free Facebook Insights to gain analytical data that can and will help target your audience and assist in providing you with marketable information to share with team members as well as use to market on an array of platforms, you first need 30 likes.

This might seem easy, since the average Facebook person has more than 150 friends, but you will be surprised at how difficult to get people to like a Facebook page and stick with it. Although Facebook profiles and pages use the same platform they are meant to be used differently in the intent that a Facebook page will attract more people to your business.

Therefore, if you have a brand new Facebook page and are unable to access your Facebook insights it may be because you do not have enough people who have liked it just yet.