The holidays are quickly approaching. Do you have plans in place to make your dealership a stop on customer's shopping lists? Learn how to take your Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategies further. That's this week on Think Tank Tuesday.
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Customer Focused Training
► All Trainers Need To See This
► Specific Language To Avoid
► Develop Your Sales People
► Keep Your Focus On The Customer
If you are in a position to be leading and developing your sales force, I have some Hard Facts you won't want to miss. Learn to use the right language to keep the focus on the customer and create the best experience possible.
SCHENECTADY, NY- On November 22, Paul Potratz, founder and COO of Potratz, and Cory Mosley, Principal of Mosley Automotive Training, will be hosting Closing Ratios: A 20% Increase in 7 Steps. Held at 2:33pm EST, the Friday webinar will showcase all that dealers need to know about closing ratios, the figure that determines how many leads are turned into sales. Every month, dealerships analyze their overall sales as a means to measure their progress. However, if a dealership wants to accurately gauge a sales team’s success and determine a plan to get a higher closing ratio, they must configure a few different numbers. Highlighting the formula needed to calculate a closing ratio as well as the seven steps necessary to increase this ration. The webinar will feature insight from Potratz and Mosley on how dealers can improve their bottom line and determine what part of their sales funnel needs adjusting.
Both Potratz and Mosley boast noteworthy careers in the automotive industry. Paul Potratz is COO of Potratz, the industry leader in automotive advertising and Cory Mosley is the Principal of Mosley Automotive Training, a nationally recognized automotive training and consulting company. Throughout their careers, both men have participated in all aspects of automotive sales and marketing, making them knowledgeable and reputable leaders in the industry. Together, they have crafted this webinar to equip attendees with the tools to improve customer loyalty and draw in additional sales with minimal effort.
For more information on Closing Ratios: A 20% Increase in 7 Steps, click here or to receive more tips from Paul, click here.
Does Your Website Pass Or Fail?
► Test Your Website's Merit Today
► The Right Way To Do Product Reviews
► Purchase Justification Is Key
► Make Your Dealership's Website Stand Out
Use this week's Think Tank Tuesday video as a guide. Learn for yourself whether or not your website would pass or fail by the Potratz standard.
With the internet in everyone’s pocket, the old mantra of the manufacturer promoting the vehicles while the dealer promotes the deal is dead. It's up to you to promote your inventory to the right customer and make yourself the dealership to visit.
You already have the passion, drive, and excitement. Learn what you're missing to become a great salesman. Follow these four steps to success. That's this week on Think Tank Tuesday.
Over the past decade, advertising budgets across the country have been increasing in the automotive industry. A new eMarketer report projects that the US automotive industry will spend $5.07 billion on paid digital advertising in 2013, with that total rising to $7.80 billion by 2017.
As budgets increase so does the number of channels in which those ad dollars can be spent, making decisions about where to spend your dollars extremely challenging. One important channel that should not be overlooked is mobile advertising on Google.
For the first time, smartphones are currently on pace to outsell standard feature phones. To say that the mobile car-shopping population is growing is an understatement. A J.D. Power & Associates study found that the percentage of US vehicle shoppers who have visited an automotive website via a smartphone grew from 17% in 2010 to 31% in 2012.
This increased access to smart mobile devices in the hands of potential car shoppers is a largely untapped opportunity. Especially when you consider that mobile shoppers are proven to convert better than desktop shoppers.
A recent study of Nissan's digital traffic found that mobile car shoppers are 30% more likely to submit a lead than their desktop brethren. These potential customers tend to be on the go, in more of a rush, and looking to gain information--- and sometimes take action--- as quickly as possible.
If you're not advertising and promoting your brand to roving car shoppers, that will help you build a strong mobile brand
Here are four mobile musts for your dealerships website and ad campaigns that will help you build a strong mobile brand.
1. Consider Your Mobile Shopper's Experience
Before even thinking about advertising to drive traffic to your mobile site, you first need to get the site ready for proper viewing. The goal should be to make a simplified version of the full website that is user friendly and intuitive for your mobile shoppers.
First, make sure graphics and all content load quickly. Mobile users have limited time and attention spans. Aresearch study conducted by user experience expertsAkamai shows that mobile website bounce rate increases drastically if a site takes longer than 6 seconds to load.
Your next step should be to consider the varying screen sizes of mobile devices. Verify that appropriate formatting is in place to make the content appealing and easy to navigate while viewing on phones and tablets.
2. Appeal to Mobile Search Traffic
Now that you've streamlined your mobile site, it’s time to put yourself in the mind of the mobile shopper. Ask yourself:
What searches would a mobile shopper perform, and how can I utilize that search information to drive relevant traffic?
The user experience when performing a dealership search is different on a phone or tablet than it is on a desktop. For one thing the potential buyer is using a touch-screen, and therefore is less likely to type a long search query. Shorter searches mean that the keywords you need to bid on need to be very precise. It would be wise to consider possible shortenings or abbreviations. And be sure to avoid using keywords that are overly broad that will end up attracting irrelevant clicks.
3. Enhance Your Campaigns
Enhanced Campaigns in Google Adwords is a powerful feature than can help you organize your different mobile campaigns and set your mobile bids to ensure your ads perform better. Think about the size of a mobile screen and how important it is for mobile ads to rank high. On a desktop there are ten ad positions that take up close to one third of the screen, while phones and mobile devices might only feature three ad positions that occupy 50% of the screen.
That's some valuable real estate right there! This monopoly on screen space is another reason why mobile ads tend to have higher click-through rates.
And in case you were wondering... Yes, Google has effectively monopolized the mobile search market. According to Global StatCounter, Google's mobile search market share was 96.9 percent as of May 2012. This alone is more than enough reason for dealers to embrace Enhanced Campaigns in their mobile strategy.
4. Optimize Your Landing Pages for Mobile
Potential phone and tablet customers deserve the same experience as desktop shoppers. Directing users to designated landing pages with strong, relevant content--- and not just dropping shoppers on the home page--- is a big part of providing that seamless experience. These landing pages should be mobile optimized, easy to navigate and in line with the site’s overall style and layout.
These steps may seem basic, but there are still brands out there that ignore the simplest things that make the biggest impact on their dealership advertising.
What steps have you taken to make sure your advertising is reaching the growing mobile shopping community?
SCHENECTADY, NY- This month, DealersEdge featured a webinar on the “Tricks of the Trade” for search engine marketing. Nan Mossey, Director of Digital Marketing at Potratz, led the event which featured advanced insights on implementing and optimizing paid search campaigns. Many were in attendance as she covered detailed strategies on effectively using Google Adwords, Bing/Yahoo! and other search engine marketing services.
Mossey has over 20 years of experience in automotive marketing and is fully certified in all aspects of SEM including Google AdWords Certifications for Search, Display, and Analytics. She has administered several apprenticeship programs as head of Potratz’s digital marketing and has thus attributed to the certification of over 18 individual members of the Potratz team.
During the webinar, participants were supplied with proven tactics for improving campaigns and statistical data referencing industry trends in the world of digital advertising. Mossey presented attendees with the tools necessary for establishing campaigns and best practices for optimizing performance. Attendees gained exclusive insights on the ins-and-outs of display advertising and retargeting, keyword optimization, and bidding strategies along with many other vital areas in campaign implementation and management.
“I really enjoyed getting a little bit more in-depth about aspects of search engine marketing that people had heard about, but had little exposure to," said Mossey regarding the webinar.
The live webinar was one of several held by DealersEdge that featured the Schenectady advertising agency, which specializes in everything from digital and traditional advertising to website platforms.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s an extremely complex and effective methodology behind utilizing Facebook as a true marketing and advertising tool that requires some specialized training, a strong sense of creativity, a willingness to experiment, and an unrelenting focus on keeping up with the latest and greatest from experts and Facebook itself.
Then again, there’s a simple way as well. As much as I would love to turn this into a lengthy blog post, I would only be adding fluff. It’s too easy.
Here are the steps:
- Post really amazing content on a regular basis
- Do NOT post anything that isn’t absolutely amazing just for the sake of getting a post up
- Support all of it with Facebook ads
- Reply to everything that people post in reply or on your wall
That’s it. Sorry to disappoint those who specialize in social media as a career (I’m one of them) but those are the steps required to make Facebook sing for your business. If you do those steps, you’ll be doing better than literally 99% of your competitors.
With that said, there’s a caveat. This will get you to the top. It won’t keep you there. The truth about Facebook marketing is spreading and more people are starting to get it. This is why there’s hope for people like me. The next 17 steps in the process are much more complicated and result in a stronger Facebook presence designed to drive business. Thankfully, these are the steps to make clients stay ahead of the 99% now as well as next year when 10%-20% start to “get it” with Facebook.
Today, the best way to do it is to hire a professional or to diligently perform the 4 easy steps above.
If there is one thing that you could do to increase your opportunities and profits, what would it be? What if this one thing was free and already available to you? That's this week on Think Tank Tuesday .
The only way to become better is to practice. It never hurts to practice the most obvious and the things we know until they become perfected. Dennis explains which words to use and how to use them to increase sales from your website. Check out this week's Hard Facts about selling with text.
Do your sales people know how to fish? They should. I ask you, when was the last time that you wished there was something you could "personally" do to increase your selling opportunities? Have you every thought "just if we could spend more money on radio or TV advertising to increase walk in customers?" Watch this week's Think Tank Tuesday to see where you should be fishing to get more sales than you could ever handle!
There are two basic types of advertising: branding and traffic now. Each has its own objectives and potential pitfalls. How can you avoid common mistakes made in each form?
There is a big debate about SEO, or "Search Engine Optimization." Is it worth the time and financial investment? The recent Google Hummingbird update has confused the debate even further. Watch this week's video and then tell me what you think.
More than anything, you want traffic in your showroom. Most shoppers will view five dealer websites before ever making the effort to visit just one of them. How do you make sure your inventory entices them to take the extra step and choose your lot above all others? Find out in this weeks Hard Facts.
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On this week's Think Tank Tuesday learn how to keep your cool and avoid panic marketing. Without a plan and without a process you could find yourself left in a panic. These three tips will ensure that you have a plan in place to start strong so you always end strong and profitable.
Yume and IPG Media Lab just released a really interesting study regarding how viewers engage with online video ads differently than they do with television ads. To draw their conclusions, they took measurements of facial expressions, eye movement and placement and biometrics to determine the interaction and engagement levels of both TV and online video...and the winner is...
Do Viewers Interact With Online Video Ads Differently From TV?
First thing first: the what, why, and how. They set out to answer three major questions in their research:
Do people pay attention to online video differently than they do when watching TV?
If they are different, should an online video ad impression be valued the same way that TV ads are?
What are the quantitative and qualitative differences between TV watching and online video?
It seems that these guys really got it because their basic assumptions included the fact that a controlled environment adds bias to the behavior. Ad avoidance is normal; an ad on-screen doesn't mean a view. How people watch is as important (or more) than what.
Now this was a very limited study, there were only 48 participants who were chosen based on demographic diversity and their viewing of online and traditional TV.
They they showed them an hour of video and did facial tracking analysis and some biometric analysis.
That's as technical as I'll get for you. Let's get to the results!
Online Video Ad Recall Vs. TV: The Results!
It seems that short attention spans and instant gratification needs have teamed up in Americans to show that we can't just watch most shows for their entire length. Or maybe the content of the shows just isn't totally engrossing and so we fill the attention gap with other media. Our mobile phones are the biggest distraction in regards to ad avoidance with 60.4% of subjects using it and DVRs play a big part of that as well with 45.8% using that. Having a laptop in the room is also a major distraction for TV viewers.
For online media, the phone still reigns supreme but surprisingly, 27% of the subjects had no distractions while online. One might say that online video content is far more engaging, or it could have been a fluke (remember, only 48 subjects in the test).
Using a DVR often brought attention levels up, but that was mainly to actively avoid commercials by skipping over them.
Overall, online ad retention and recall were far higher for online than they were for TV. This is mostly because of the DVR-memory gap effect (my term) where people are actively avoiding ads with the DVR, after all, that's half the reason to use one right?
Catch programs you might miss and skip the ads.
This graph is really quite strange if you think about it and shows that DVR memory gap effect. For TV the unremembered ads is increased by the DVR and yet, unaided ad recall is about the same level while aided ad recall is lower than both. It almost seems counter-intuitive. Perhaps what's happening is that people are actually seeing the ad images while DVR ad-skipping and because they weren't completely bored, as they didn't have to sit through the whole ad, they remembered a single frame with branding on it which flashed by as they were fast forwarding.
The New TV Ad Format?
That could be something really interesting to investigate more thoroughly. I've noticed a lot of remotes don't have ad-skip buttons so that means if you're actively ad-skipping you're going to push the FF button until you see a frame of the show you're watching and then hit play.
What if advertisers were to know exactly how many frames were generally skipped, how often a frame showed up on screen and how often a viewer stopped short? Those would then be the ideal places to stick big, branded, static images because then those frames would be seen, even somewhat passively, by the viewers and could be far more effective than fancy live-action ads which don't show the brand much of the time.
This might be the new way to start designing ads for TV.
The Big Win for Online Video Ads
For the online video crowd, i.e. us, this is far easier to deal with. Anytime a video is fast-forwarded over an ad or where an ad would be placed, the ad simply plays when the viewer stops scrubbing or presses play. I've seen this on places like Hulu, who actually show you where the ad will be. Since Hulu is giving me the content free, I don't even bother skipping the ads (see how tolerant I am sometimes).
Here are the big results from the survey if you ask me: online ad recall was twice as high as TV ad recall, both aided and unaided. Check out the chart below.
Perhaps that's the anti-DVR effect. You generally can't get past the ads online whether you're scrubbing or fast forwarding, so it means you'll see them more often. However, I think that the ads also need to still maintain both a short length (15 seconds) or be entertaining and not too frequent.
Because the other thing this research shows is just how easy we, as online video viewers, might simply start multi-tasking far more and mentally blocking out the ads. So advertisers...be warned.
Source: Video Advertising Recall 2X Higher Than TV, According to Study http://www.reelseo.com/tv-online-video-attention-levels/#ixzz2giggkbFw
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I'm joined on this week's Think Tank Tuesday by auto industry thought leader, Cory Mosley, to discuss how to keep your customers engaged in your dealership with all five senses. It's time to hear, feel, smell, touch and taste why you need to know about sensory marketing. Tweet along with hashtag #alonetimewithcory and tell us how your dealership enhances the experience!
Edmunds just announced their Hackomotive 2014 contest where folks come up with ideas on how to improve the car buying process etc., and as a former employee I was initially excited to see this but within 60 seconds something caught my eye that was disappointing.
Last year's #1 Winner - My Motive which paints the picture that up until now the Dealer has made the consumer their "Bitch" yes, that's in there, and that this new My Motive lets the consumer turn the tables and finally make the Dealer their "Bitch" (yes it really says that).
Why does this bother me so much? We'll frankly because I was with them and helped launch their direct to dealer program and when I went to work there I remember in my interview saying: "I've been a dealer and for years we really haven't had much love for Edmunds so how are you going to fix that because, as a dealer, I need to know you're there for me if I buy your program."
My boss at the time shared the vision of Edmunds still maintaining their integrity with consumers but not really being focused on creating more content like 'confessions of a car salesman' anymore.
I bought into the idea that they would finally respect the dealer community and helped enroll well over 100 dealerships in their program in my first year with them.
Apparently I was wrong about their true motives and if all of this doesn't tick you off as a dealer, you need to get your head examined.
You can see the award of $10,000 they paid for a 1st place idea in hackomotive 2013 right here http://www.hackomotive.com/presentations/06_my_motive/mymotive.pdf
If you don't want to click over to their site, here are actual screen shots (Note - I've added the arrows and comments on the side)
In my not so humble opinion, vendors should work to help Dealers do two things: Get and Keep Customers. Rewarding a "Make the dealer my bitch" idea only furthers what many already believe about Edmunds.
Simply put, they don't care about your dealership, they only want your money and behind the scenes they're all still high fiving each other when they disrespect the dealer.
In this case, the high-five had a $10,000 bonus.
What's the best idea for 2014 going to be: "F@€K Dealers, buy direct from Edmunds" ?!?!?
I'd love to hear your feedback and please everyone, share this with other dealers ASAP but really I have a question for everyone seeing this:
ARE YOU DONE BEING Edmunds"BIT¢H"?
Helping the best get better,
Mat Koenig
CEO & Founder
KonigCo & iCarMedia
