Blog

Could it be time to switch more budget away from paid search on Google to social media? You asked - I listened!

Switching to using only social media platforms for promotions could hurt you in the long run, seeing as Google is a "destination place" for many users. Increase your brand awareness by using both in your marketing campaign!

In this week's Think Tank Tuesday, Paul will answer this question and explain how you can use both Google's paid search feature, multiple social media platforms, and dynamic retargeting to increase brand awareness for your business.

Website: http://www.ppadv.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PotratzAdvertising

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Potratz

Instagram: @Potratz

Snapchat: PotratzAgency

Even if you can't interact face-to-face with web customers, you still can demonstrate old-fashioned salesmanship. Here are some simple, straight forward ways to turn your website into a revenue producer.

Fully test as a customer - This might sound obvious but if you've got the visitor traffic levels and nobody's calling or buying, then there could be a problem with your site. Put yourself in the shoes of the customer and run through every process that they would, ensuring that everything is fully functional and working as expected.

Is everything simple and easy to use? - With websites, you want to keep it simple. If you offer too many choices and options, then you risk distracting your customer from the most important aspect - actually becoming a customer. Too many sites have confusing text and distracting elements that take the customer's attention away. It is a good usability and web development practice to remove every unnecessary distraction and just keep it simple.

Credibility is everything. Many people are still a bit wary of purchasing from dealership that they haven't used before. You need to inspire confidence in your site and in the service you provide. Many aspects influence the perception of credibility, such as having a professional website design, ensuring you list an actual phone number on the site, clearly displaying address and contact information and displaying customer testimonials.

If your first thought is to direct website visitors to a homepage when they click through an ad on Google, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Success is in the design. There needs to be serious thought and care put into the development of a successful landing page:

• When considering a title, make sure it is relevant to your call to action
• Put all of the content "above the fold" on the page
• Keep content short and sweet; leave the opening and closing paragraphs to around three to five sentences.
• Use bullet points to direct the visitor’s eye to the most important value propositions
• Include an image that is relevant to your offer to draw in visitors
• Leave off the navigation bar of your site while visitors are on the landing page, as it can increase your conversion rate by upwards of 100%

Another great way to gain customers is to start a contest or promotion. An online contest or promotion can help attract attention in social media channels and lure potential customers to your site. Giving away a high value item can stir up the most attention but frequent, simple contests with smaller perks can also be effective. It can also be an excellent way to capture consumer information.

Speaking of gathering visitor information…

When people visit your website, it should be set up to bring them to a targeted landing page that can capture the information necessary to stay in contact with these potential buyers. The pertinent information you should cultivate from their interaction with your landing page would be their name, email address, and possibly even their phone number. This way if the visitor leaves before becoming a customer, you have a way to continue the conversation with them!

You’ve invested in a website and you’re running a successful dealership. You’ve heard about PPC Advertising, but might be a little bit skeptical. It can be a bit scary to see the dollars start to pileup after as searchers click on your ads. Here are 7 key reasons your dealership simply cannot live without PPC.

You MUST be on Page 1

Studies have found that 93% of consumers begin on a search engine when looking for a vehicle. That’s HUGE. But what’s even more important is that 95% of people never scroll past the first page of search results. This means that in order to get that 95% of business, your site must fall on page one for all of the vehicles that you offer.

Immediate Exposure

Your ads can appear on page one of Google, Yahoo! and bing within minutes! Unlike Search Engine Optimization, it doesn’t take months of content generation and link building to show up on page one. PPC is immediate, and can get that website you invested thousands of dollars on in front of your potential customers as soon as it is turned on.

Increased Visitors

PPC ads provide 50% incremental visitors EVEN when your dealership is first in the organic search results. That’s 50% more opportunities to get a searcher to your site to buy a car from you. Of these visitors, 91% say that they found what they were looking. Simply put, your dealership needs these additional visitors in order to increase revenue.

Track-ability

If done with a professional PPC group, like ReachLocal, your online program will provide 100% track-ability. This means that you will know where each and every one of your dollars is going. We do this by tracking every search term down to the conversion – a phone call, email, form submission, booked appointment, live chat, etc. So unlike traditional advertising like print and radio, you will know exactly what your return-on-investment is.

Scalability

PPC is highly scalable. Once you find the right approach, you can open the flood gates for new leads and sales opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise have had before. Your keywords and ads can, and will, become the blueprint to your dealership's success.

Geographical Targeting

So what if you only want to target a certain area? PPC has the ability to reach only your ideal geographical market, making your campaigns super targeted. Let’s say you own a dealership in Charlotte, but you also do work in cities in the Metropolitan area of Huntersville. PPC allows you to only show your ad only in the areas where you service, making each dollar you spend on PPC count.

Your Competition is Doing PPC

Dealerships are now spending more of their advertising budget online. It’s predicted that in 2015, online advertising will grow to be a 35 Billion dollar industry, up 14 Billion from 2011. And in 2012, online advertising surpassed all forms of print advertising. What does this mean for you? More and more of your competitors are spending their advertising budget on the search engines. Unless you shift your dealership's marketing to PPC, you’ll be missing out on that 93% of consumers who search online for a vechicle. What’s worse – your competitors will be getting their business.

Ready to learn more? Contact me today!

nicole.jobes@reachlocal.com

704.989.3710