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Jack Loechner wrote a great article for Borrell Associates about the shift towards digital marketing for automotive dealers. He postulates that automotive as an ad category is responsible for changing the local media landscape with regards to the growing digital marketing spends and lessening of newspaper, radio and TV advertising. Now that newspapers and radio have given up their ad revenue to digital solutions, traditional TV is thought to follow suit.

Automotive is the largest ad category behind general merchandise. According to the article, overall car sales are up 5% and ad budgets up 17%. Digital marketing accounts for 95% of this budget increase. With less dealerships overall, a lower cost-per-vehicle with regards to digital advertising, and a surge in used car purchases, dealerships are quickly taking advantage of the high quality traffic that digital marketing can deliver. Since more than 90% of car purchases start with online research, dealerships are becoming more like fulfillment locations than full-fledged stores. This means that every walk-in is more likely to buy.

Despite the online landscape becoming crowded with every dealer devoting budget to getting zero moment of truth customers, digital marketing definitely presents an efficient and affordable way to advertise a dealership's vehicles. As marketers, do you still run into dealerships that are decidedly "old school"? Any that still run print and radio ads?

http://www.InternetSales20Group.com
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/internet-sales-20-group-new-york-tickets-13385521455

Internet Sales 20 Group 7 New York, May 18-20 - Automotive Sales Workshop

Sean V. Bradley, CEO of Dealer Synergy and author of Win The Game of Googleopoly created a presentation to show how YOU can Win The Game of Googleopoly for your dealership! Covering topics including onsite SEO, offsite SEO, Video SEO, Social Media, and more, you will be sure to dominate the first page of Google! Check it out!

On February 11th, author of "Win The Game of Googleopoly",‬ Sean V. Bradley, CSP went to Outloud Audio Studio in ‪ New York to begin recording the audible copy of his book. Check out some of the footage and order your hard copy of the book that helps you dominate search engines today! http://bit.ly/1zROdIL

Here at Potratz, we send a lot of e-mails a month. If you want the best e-mail template that is going to perform well, you need to A/B test it. On this week's Think Tank Tuesday, I explain the importance of a subject line and what to stay away from when creating one.

David Barkholz originally wrote this article for www.Autonews.com and I wanted to repost it here.

Eighteen months ago, Coast Nissan in San Luis Obispo, Calif., introduced Spanish-language videos with each car posted online.

General Manager Eric Ideman said it was a response to two trends:

•  His customer base along the central coast is heavily Hispanic, with many speaking only Spanish or preferring to communicate in the language. 

•  Data showed increasing numbers of online vehicle-shoppers watching car videos. 

"We have lot of people searching [for cars] in Spanish," Ideman said. "We wanted to make sure they could get their videos in Spanish, too."

Hispanics account for an increasing percentage of car purchases nationally, causing dealerships across the country to reassess how they market to the demographic, according to Eley Duke III, vice president of Duke Automotive (Chevrolet-Buick-GMC-Cadillac) in Suffolk, Va.

The videos at Coast Nissan and sister store Coast BMW appear as links on the Web pages of specific vehicles. They are for new and used vehicles. And they are either vehicle walk-around videos or a series of still photos spliced together with voice-over.

Duke said the area has a small Hispanic population nearby. But, he said, he added Spanish-language videos in December to the inventory he shows on the dealership website and social media feeds because he doesn't want to lose a single sale to a language barrier.

Duke, like Coast Nissan, added the videos at the recommendation of one of its digital ad agencies, ZMOT Auto. The agency recently announced a deal with inventory video maker Flick Fusion to provide Spanish-language voice-overs to Flick Fusion's videos.

In 2014, Hispanics accounted for 12 percent of retail vehicle registrations minus fleet and commercial vehicles, according to IHS Automotive. The number was 9.3 percent in 2010, according to Marc Bland, IHS Automotive vice president of diversity and inclusion. "If an automotive brand is looking for growth, there's no better place to look than the ethnic consumer -- with Hispanics leading the way," Bland said.

The U.S. Census Bureau projects that Hispanics, who numbered 52 million in the country in July 2011, or 17 percent of the population, will account for 30 percent of the population by 2050.

Duke said video-watching also is on the rise among car shoppers. "Videos are such a big part of a visual society," he said.

According to Google's "Digital Drives Auto Shopping" study published in November 2013, more than half of auto shoppers watch 30 minutes or more of video during their shopping journeys. Moreover, one in four watched an hour or more, the study found.

In recognition of those trends, Coast Nissan is offering all of its online inventory with videos in English and Spanish, Ideman said.

The store is not as close to heavy Hispanic foot traffic as some competitors, he said. So Coast Nissan also is ensuring that its paid search ads, blogs, chat and website content are in Spanish, too, so those customers can find and interact easily in either English or Spanish, he said.

It isn't good enough, Ideman said, to get an online lead or phone call from Spanish-speaking customers and make them wait for a response until the store can get a bilingual salesperson to contact them.

"People want an immediate response, or they go away," he said.

Coast Nissan sells about 80 vehicles per month split evenly between new and used.

Of the store's six salespeople, four are bilingual. And so is Coast Nissan's finance director, who is responsible for closing deals in finance and insurance.

Ideman said, "We want to hold them all the way through the transaction."

Are you guys all using Spanish videos in addition to English on your dealer sites?

Sean V. Bradley, CEO of Dealer Synergy talks about how Dentists are accurate with appointment setting, follow ups, and setting the next appointment. Dentists are also dependent on their appointments. You need to change your BDC, Internet Department and Dealership into a dentistry type appointment machine. In order to have a good BDC, you have to be better than your dentist! If you sell an automobile, you should schedule your customers first service appointment. In addition, you can use that appointment to call your customer and remind them. This will build an emotional bank account with the customer. Though the deal is over, you need to continue to build a relationship with your customer. Remember, being better then your dentist will create an amazing BDC department at your dealership!

If you like Make Money Mondays, than you will love Bradley On Demand: http://www.BradleyOnDemand.com

Do you want more information on the automotive industry? Visit http://www.AutomotiveInternetSales.com

Many dealerships have realized the benefit of live chat. However, some don't have it enabled on their site. For those that don't, it might be worth their time to investigate a solution.

There are only a few ways an online shopper can deliver a lead. They can call, fill out a form, drop by the store, or on some sites, initiate a live chat. While the frequency of chats might not always be high, the leads that can come from live chat generally have a high rate of conversion if they are solid.

A live chat agent typically won’t be extremely well informed about every sale or vehicle on the lot, but they are usually experts at securing the vehicle(s) of interest and the preferred contact information from a potential customer. If a dealership is able to capitalize on this lead with a swift follow up phone call, they can often begin a chain of events that results in a sale.

Live chat is a critical aspect of a dealership website that should be a part of any digital marketing campaign for automotive. Are you all using some kind of chat solution?

It’s Officially the Women Buyers Era...

OEM’s are increasing their advertising towards this powerful buying segment. Smart dealerships are too. Women bought an estimated 13 million cars at new car dealerships last year; an estimated 35,000 vehicles a day.

How many female “up’s” are converting to buyers at your store? If you aren’t tracking that number yet, we suggest you start accounting for sales by gender. The upside of your gross profit potential is tied to this.

The 2015 US Women’s Car Dealership Report, compiled after 3,450 women’s car dealer ratings and reviews, showcases the top car brands as rated by women when purchasing. Each brand’s WSI® or Women Satisfaction Index is derived by taking the aggregate of all the dealer’s scores from that brand’s reviews on the site ranging from a 5.0 (highest) to 1.0 (lowest).

The average WSI® for purchasing was 4.73, up from up from 4.65 last year. The top ten rated brands are Mercedes-Benz (also held the #1 spot in 2014), Lincoln, Dodge, Jeep, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Lexus, Chevrolet, Ford and Volvo. They were followed by Audi, Toyota, Hyundai, Subaru, and Nissan brands.

Did You Know?

One in 3 women buyers describes being “apprehensive”, “nervous” or “overwhelmed” at a dealership when buying. Another 13.4% say they feel “intimidated” or “frustrated”. In this hyper-competitive market, what is your dealership doing to combat this? Do you offer a hassle-free, seamless experience?

You’ve heard it before: women have a different set of needs and expectations when buying a car. Yet, it’s a pretty straightforward equation. Car manufactures and dealerships that focus on treating women well by engaging and respecting them in a trustworthy manner throughout the purchase process are positioning themselves exceptionally to capture future business. It is not the luck of the draw; these businesses have processes and training in place to optimize the customer visit. More importantly, the execution of that training is being fulfilled.

Certified Dealers Rate Higher

While the overall WSI® score was 4.73, there is a distinct difference in the dealerships’ reviews and scores.

• Certified Women-Drivers Friendly® Dealers have a 4.85 WSI® or 97.0%
• Non-Certified Dealers have a 4.48 WSI® or 89.6%

There is a tremendous upside for dealers to become Certified and distinguish their business to women+families. These numbers indicate a correlation between Certification, higher CSI and increased sales and profits.

HOW DO I BECOME A CERTIFIED DEALER?

Click here to find out!

Click Here For Your FREE Copy Of The 2015
US Women’s Car Dealership Report

Price is very important to your customer, but that shouldn't stop you from pitching those extra accessories. This week on Think Tank Tuesday, I explain why your customers will buy these accessories elsewhere if you aren't pitching them at your dealership.

http://www.GoogleopolyBook.com Sean V. Bradley, CSP was recently interviewed on the Dr. Willie Jolley show "Wealthy Ways" on Sirius Satellite Radio. This is the FULL Audio of the interview for "Win The Game Of Googleopoly"

Wealthy Ways Interview Of Sean V. Bradley, CSP On SiriusXM Radio (Full Interview)

A dealer with the capability to add pages to their website ultimately has a great opportunity for SEO for their vehicles. Vehicle landing pages can help boost a site's SERP (Search Engine Results Page) visibility for their vehicles!

Vehicle landing pages are basically pages dedicated to the individual vehicle models that a dealership carries. Each one of these pages can be designed to serve two functions simultaneously. If the page contains lots of relevant information about the vehicle, it will, over time, add a boost to a client's overall organic search results for the automobile plus any related keywords that are included on the page.

If the vehicle landing pages also contain strong calls to action (such as "browse inventory" or "call to check availability"), they can be used as landing pages for Display Marketing and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). A good layout might include inventory right at the bottom of the landing page. That way, both organic and paid traffic have opportunites to convert on the vehicle landing pages.

Many dealers have a strong (and smart) focus on VDPs and SRPs, but VLPs can help round out the site’s overall SEO and SEM efforts. Are you all making individual vehicle landing pages for your dealership sites?

CEO of Dealer Synergy Sean Bradley normally does a Make Money Mondays segment every Monday providing excellent tips for people in the automotive industry to make money. Each week is a different topic. This version is a special edition because it includes the executive trainer for Dealer Strong, Shawn Foster. He provides insight into helping dealers determine what they are going to do with the vehicle prior to sending it to get serviced to sell to lenders. There needs to be a form of action to make a plan on how to plan to sell a car before going to service it. This is all very valuable information.If this sort of information interests you as advised be sure to find out more about our IS20Group as discussed by General Manager at Dealer Synergy, Joe Cala. The link is provided below.

Find out more about Dealer Strong on their website: http://www.dealerstrong.com/about-us/...

Get more motivation and personal improvement tips on the Make Money Mondays site: http://www.makemoneymondays.net/

Attend the automotive industry's most popular workshop in New York in May 2015 for more information on these topics. Sign up today:http://internetsales20group.com/

Are you interested in automotive services from Dealer Synergy? It is located in Audobon, New Jersey but serves clients all over the U.S:http://ow.ly/xrSUg

You may be able to close the sale, but are you able to sell yourself? There are many ways to let people know who you are and what you can do for them. On this week's episode of Hard Facts, Samantha explains the 5 steps you should take to market yourself as a sales consultant.

How does a business get tons of immediate traffic to their website while building SEO the whole time? The answer to this question lies in a combination of targeted marketing and SEO-friendly landing pages.

While there are many ways to drive traffic to a dealership site, issues can arise when a dealer wants to show up in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) organically, but doesn't. Most experts in the field of SEO know that there is no precise way to predict how long SEO efforts will take before a satisfactory result is seen. Until a website shows up organically, targeted marketing in the form of pay-per-click advertising can help drive traffic to the dealer's site.

One common set up that seems to be fairly effective is to design a page on the dealership site that mirrors the keywords that a dealer hopes to increase visibility on, and then running a targeted marketing campaign via PPC to drive traffic to that page until the page begins to rank organically on its own. This way, visitors to that page are immediately increased while the SEO efforts take hold, after which a dealer can switch their PPC focus to other terms they'd like to appear in SERPs for.

All in all, SEO efforts can be made more effective when used hand-in-hand with some search engine marketing campaigns, with the ultimate result being a stream of traffic to a dealership website on a preferred keyword or set of keywords. What are some ways you all are combining different strategies to increase SEO for dealerships?

When it comes to content marketing, there are topics that are thought of as easy to promote and others that are harder to promote. Smartphones are an example of a topic that might be thought of as easy to promote while pest control is on the harder end of the spectrum.

So if you're forced to work on a topic deemed difficult, or one where there aren't many examples to build upon or inspiration to be had, how do you deal with it?

Well, you have to get creative. Those who can take a "tough" or "boring" topic and make it interesting will be able to take that experience and be even better at creating content for popular and easy topics down the road.

To get started, you just have to ask yourself one simple question:

How Can I Make This Fun and Interesting?

If you've already been sitting at your computer asking yourself, "How can I create fun and interesting content that promotes pest control?" and come up with nothing, you may not be digging deep enough for ideas.

Oftentimes, we get stuck doing things a certain way, which prevents us from seeing the answers right in front of us. For content writers, this generally means getting out of your comfort zone of simple ideas and looking for ways to make something completely different.

Here are three simple steps to making that happen:

• Find a way to connect people to your topic
• Use current events/popular culture to create a fun angle
• Utilize images and video

Finding Ways to Connect People to Your Topic

The success of your content boils down to how you're able to connect your audience with the topic at hand. It doesn't matter how big your budget is or how popular the topic; if you can't bridge a connection that compels your audience to share or any kind of action, you've failed.

Thinking about pest control, it's actually not hard to get people to connect to it. It's likely everyone has dealt with some kind of bug or rodent problem in their home in the past, so we can all relate to the need for pest control.

But our content doesn't need to actually promote pest control directly, it simply has to relate to it. With that in mind, you could create a list called The 10 Scariest Bugs You Wouldn't Want to Find in Your Home.

With pictures, detailed descriptions, origins, and other information, you can create something people will want to share.

When trying to connect your audience with your topic, think long and hard about this example and how you can apply it to your own work.

Using Current Events or Popular Culture to Create Fun Angles

Current events and popular culture always strike a cord with people. If you can utilize them to get your message across, you'll have a better shot at drawing people in with your content.

Sticking with our pest control example, what would be a simple way to connect something from popular culture with our "boring" topic?

Well, superheroes are now ingrained in our popular culture, so  that's a good place to start. You could have fun with an article called How Batman Deals With Rodents in Wayne Manor.

As an exercise, try to come up with a similar example and then execute it. Share it on as many sites as possible, reach out to blogs that link to offbeat content, and put some promotional dollars behind it on sites like Facebook and StumbleUpon.

Use Images and Video to Make Your Content More Compelling

Images and video are extremely powerful tools in your fight for compelling content. They keep people engaged, supplement your written content, and help increase a visitor's time on your site.

When creating content like how-tos and lists, be sure each item has a dedicated image. These not only help break up content for better reading, but will make your content more enjoyable overall.

Videos also help break up content, but their main purpose is to help you explain something in a more visual and interesting way than just written text.

For instance, The 10 Scariest Bugs You Wouldn't Want to Find in Your Home post we talked about in the first section could become even better with videos to supplement your pictures, descriptions, and other information.

Take a look at how you're creating content today and look for ways to better incorporate images and video.

Final Note: Work on Improving Quality, Not Producing More and More Content

One of the biggest problems with content today is that there's just so much of it out there. In order to stand out from the crowd, you need to stop thinking about producing more content and think about improving the quality instead.

This has been said time and time again, so I realize you might think that statement is worthless. Hear me out with this one simple tip: Put more time into your content. If you're just producing content to see what sticks, how are you supposed to add value to your users' experience?

Instead of thinking about ways you can cut corners to do more, start thinking about ways you can add more value to your content. If this means talking with your boss or client about a revised strategy, create a proposal and schedule a meeting to discuss it.

With as much competition as there is online, the only way you're going to stand out is by constantly out doing them with high quality content.

This post was originally published on Wikimotive's company blog.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dealer Synergy

131 W. Merchant St.

Audubon, NJ, 08106

Phone: (856)-546-2440

                                                                                                                   Fax: (856)-546-2445

Author of Win The Game of Googleopoly, Sean V. Bradley CSP, will be meeting fans and signing books at Barnes & Noble in New York City

February 3, 2015, Audubon, NJ – Sean V. Bradley, CSP, author of Win The Game of Googleopoly will be at Barnes and Noble’s flagship store, 555 Fifth Avenue New York, NY, this Wednesday, February 4^th, 2015 at 12:30pm to sign books, take photos and meet with readers.

Win The Game Of Googleopoly was released earlier this year in January, and is specifically designed for anyone trying to sell a product or service, in order to gain success in their online standing in search engines. 80% of all transactions start online. People literally find their cars, pets, husbands, wives, and more within an online search. Only 5% of Google users click past the first page of Google results. This means that if you do not appear on the first page of Google search results, you are essentially invisible.

“The Google search results page is just like a Monopoly board,” Bradley said. “Each result is a property, and just like with monopoly, you can’t win with just Boardwalk or Atlantic Avenue.”

Win The Game of Googleopoly is a road map for any business owner, professional, or entrepreneur. The book unlocks the secret holistic strategy to dominating search engines with more than just a website. Win the Game of Googleopoly will show you how to properly utilize video search engine optimization, social media, web development, search engine optimization, mobile, focus sites, micro sites and more in order to successfully build your online presence.

Sean has nearly 16 years experience in the automotive industry, and has trained over 11,000 automotive sales professionals. Sean is also responsible for the success of major label recording artists and professional athletes. It has always been a dream for him to be a published author, and this book has given him the opportunity to accomplish that dream, and add to his already outstanding success.

“I have always wanted to be a published author, and to have the opportunity to write about one of the biggest companies in the world has been a truly amazing experience,” Bradley said. “I am humbled and excited to have my book on the shelves of the number one business book store in the country, and can’t wait to meet with everyone on Wednesday.”

No tickets are required to be a part of this event, and you are encouraged to come meet Sean, and get a personalized signed copy of Win The Game of Googleopoly at 12:30pm.

Sean V. Bradley, CSP: Sean V. Bradley, CSP is the founder and CEO of Dealer Synergy, a marketing and consulting firm for the automotive industry. He is a certified FranklinCovey trainer, and a member of the National Speakers Association where he recently received his CSP designation. Sean is an influential public speaking figure with over a decade of experience in search engine optimization, video search engine optimization, and dominating digital marketing and online reputation strategies.

For more information about the Win The Game of Googleopoly, and the book-signing event, about Sean V. Bradley or about the event, contact Brittany Lights at Brittany@dealersynergy.com or by phone at (856)-546-2440 ext. 23.

For more information on Win The Game of Googleopoly, and to order your copy, visit www.googleopolybook.com

Capitalizing on your income streams and creating financial stability for your company might be easier than you thought. On this week's Think Tank Tuesday, learn how you can better utilize ads for your service and parts campaigns to give you stronger financial performance.

Congratulations to our CEO, Sean V. Bradley, CSP! “Win The Game of Googleopoly” is ranked  # 1 on Amazon’s new releases; this means that his book was the top seller in the retail section. This is a HUGE deal and could not be more of an honor for Sean V. Bradley, CSP and our team.

Sean has achieved some major career milestones throughout his life, both inside and outside of the automotive industry. He has provided exceptional service to the automotive industry as a trainer, international speaker, and consultant; personally training over 10,000 automotive sales professionals.  Sean’s expertise goes beyond training individual dealerships and dealer groups. He has had the honor of providing training and consulting regarding Internet Sales and Digital Marketing initiatives for high powered publicly traded companies. Some of his current clients include Carsdirect.com, TrueCar and Autobytel Inc., to name a few. He has seen success in the music and sports industry as well, and now he’s taking the book world by storm.

Sean’s main objective for this book was to share his digital marketing expertise with all sales professionals, regardless of industry type.  The rules of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are always changing, and following outdated rules can actually work against you, burying you at the bottom of the pile.  

The higher you are ranked, the more visibility you have. Optimizing your content whether it be written or visual can help you rank higher in search engines. If you are not on the first page of Google, then you are essentially invisible. This book will change how you think about SEO and gives you the tools you need to craft a strategy tailored to your specific market. If you want to dominate search engines and find out what all the buzz is about, order your copy of “Win The Game Of Googleopoly” today!

Thank you again for making this book such a huge success! We truly appreciate your support and appreciate you sharing this tremendous experience with us.

http://www.GoogleopolyBook.com 

Thank You For Making Win The Game Of Googleopoly #1 On Amazon!