Hi People!
I just got nominated to spend an hour in a mock jail for a fund raiser!
I need to raise $800 for Muscular Dystropy by 05/15/2013.
I would like to raise much more!!
I hope to make it a FUN experience and benefit this charity!
Gosh I bet everyone at the event will be driving a car!
And I get Free Lunch! ,Photos, and free press coverage!
Wish me luck!
I have just read an eye-popping article from the fine folks over at eMarketer titled, "Auto Industry Braces for Major Shifts in Search Marketing." If you don't have time to read it, I'll point out the highlights and give you some of my own thoughts.
As all of us know, paid, as well as, organic search helps drive leads, increase a dealership's traffic, and sell vehicles. This remains true. Yet, the emergence of digital marketing and its impact on search is changing the way your customers find your dealership online. Before we get into the nuts and bolts of it, take a moment to check out this graph. As you can see, there's a myriad of ways your customers, when shopping online, can find your dealership.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that MORE and MORE people are going online to search for their next car. (See: ZMOT; See also: it's 2013!! Everybody is going online first to do research before buying!!) So, how do you increase your traffic? Well, in a recent survey of US Auto Dealerships for Cars.com, Datium found that 55% of respondents' digital ad spending went to paid search engine marketing (SEM).
Think of searching online like putting together a puzzle. You dump all the pieces onto the floor, and now you have to somehow make sense of the rubble and construct one collective entity. That's what customers are doing when they go online to search. They are trying to sift through all the information to eventually make a purchase, and hopefully with a sustainable and effective digital and search marketing strategy, it's made at your store!
The thing, however, that blew my mind reading eMarketer's article is this little tidbit of information: "Only 20% of new-car shoppers in the US buy the brand they first searched for, according to Google data."
As the article aptly points out, "OEM brand sites—often developed with major digital agencies, strong media support, and cutting edge SEM and search engine optimization (SEO)—attracted more attention in search results than dealerships." While this is certainly true, things are changing.
Dealership websites are becoming more and more sophisticated, user friendly, and even mobile-friendly. If we had a time machine, we could go back a few years ago and compare a dealership's website back then to what it is today. The difference would be astounding. More and more dealers are recognizing the power of SEO as well as VSEO. The dealer with an optimized and indexed site is going to show up first on Google and as a result, draw in more traffic. After all, your goal should be to show up on the first page of Google. The recent studies have found this to be case as auto dealerships are in "direct competition for influence over U.S. Car shoppers."
Lastly, according to a 2012 survey done by a conjunction of folks like Google, Compete, TNS Global, and R.L. Polk & Co., 74% of U.S. new vehicle shoppers visited used dealership websites via desktop. They also surveyed the sties on mobile phone and/or tablet during the buying process.
This change in auto search marketing, due to advances in digital marketing, isn't exactly going to push OEMs out of the lineup, however. OEMs and other related agencies are still able to push foot traffic to your dealership thanks to such things like video content.
Where do you see search in the automotive industry going in 2013? Given the advancements of digital marketing, video social, social media, online reputation, the best it yet to come when it comes to search!
http://www.internetsales20group.com
Sean V. Bradley & Anthony Alagona Discuss Automotive Sales Strategy, Tactics & Best Practices
Great follow up to the Dallas event everyone! Also great to hear the updates from some of our members, and thank you to everyone that helped me learn last month in at the Internet Sales 20 Group.
I got back to the office and my scatter-brain didn't know what to do first. I have had the advantage of doing this a few times before with a previous job... ;-) so we are doing a pretty good job of not making mistakes as we build moving forward. I find myself continually referring back to my IS20G handbook, and the Thirty-something pages of notes I took in 3 days to help me be thorough in anything we work on improving.
As Karen and Sean Bradley mentioned on the phone, we have to focus on a few goals, then define a way to get there, then have an action plan to accomplish it. I am taking the next step now on working on the next 3 action plans to grow the department. I feel that our team has implemented strategies and process to address our first 3 issues that I deemed urgent at IS20G. Our most important goal was to get rid of our sub-par rating on all customer review websites NOW, and we did some VERY basic things in just one month to see INSTANT improvement:
- Make colorful flyers and put them at all salespeople's desks, as well as the sales tower. Have them actively put them in customers hands while delivering their new vehicle.
- Send "Thank you" cards for everyone that purchased and visited the previous day.
- Conduct "how was your experience" surveys while addressing the "Thank you" cards.
- Send my flyers for reviews in the "Thank you" cards, especially the customers that I speak to and complete the quick survey
- Take pictures of everyone with thier new vehicles! Ask for permission to use the picture on Facebook and other social media websites..and make it FUN! Ask the customer to tag themselves, like/share the picture, and be active in your dealership's pages. Who doesn't like to brag and show-off to everyone when they purchase a new vehicle!??
- SPIFF our salespeople on getting reviews, and asking customers to mention thier names. My personal reward that we came up with here: I buy them a drink! (...no alcohol! Starbucks, Rockstars and Monsters to keep them alert!!! LOL "Drink of thier choice" is inexpensive and goes a long way with your sales team!)
The key to implementing successful proceedures is to have everyone embrace the new process, show everyone in your dealerships that it is a positive thing that you are implementing, and most importantly, make sure everyone is AWARE and proactive in sharing with customers.
I did a simple "S.W.O.T." (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities to grow, Threats to hinder us) analysis to see where I was when I flew back to California a month ago, as opposed to where I am at month end. I can see where I have improved, and where we still have room to implement new strategies to continue to sell more cars, more profitably and more often!
p.s. Let's get on the phone with our Accountabila-buddies! Synergize to be more successful...and see you all in L.A. in November!
Andy Fedo
Director of Intenet Sales, Lithia Nissan Hyundai of Fresno
Hey! I just met with a Future Real Estate Professional!
My goal was to establish a referal network! And I now have another
prospector working for me!
Did you know that understanding your shoppers could make a big difference in what your bottom line is? What does online advertising mean to you? Do you how to deliver the proper message to your customers online? Watch this week's Think Tank to and find out how you can stop missing your opportunity to sell more.
http://www.internetsales20group.com
Make Money Mondays With Sean V. Bradley - "The Prosperity Equation"
Sean references Jim Ziegler's Prosperity Equation Book this week...
What happens to all your social content when you die? Do you ever think about your private information falling into the wrong hands?
Perhaps this is why I never kept a journal online or offline, knowing someone might have the pleasure of finding dirt that is sacred to me. Today we have email, electronic calendars, and myriads of documents for work and play all filed away in Google Drive. Will anyone in the future have access to them, locked away behind our passwords?
Now I’m thinking what part of my after-life reputation I want protected from the public when I die. I don’t care about parting ways with my +1's. I’m thinking I should be able to leave someone the books, music and apps I purchased rather than fretting if my Gmail or drive folder is accessed by some fruit loop.
Lawyers, scholars and the government have been urging us to prepare to protect our post mortem reputation (our content). Write a social-media will, they plead, some sort of detailed plan for how your online life should be handled after you croak.
The will is a great idea except for one thing. What if you list all your social media information and passwords in the will and a month before you die you update a password and forget to revise your will? If the social media information in that account is not accessible by the appointed “trusted contacts” because of a wrong password, that information then becomes public information. If you’re like me, I have many passwords and will change them frequently, making it cumbersome to maintain a social media will.
Here’s a review from Google’s blog:
You’d think Google Death would make his wife's life easier by managing his digital accounts for her so she can focus on the other details of handling his death.
I’d be less concerned with my Facebook account living forever, and more concerned with the wrong person accessing my private email or Google drive information and plastering it all over the internet. Sure I’m dead and would care less about my reputation, however, my loved ones might not like what they find on the net from an adversary who only wants to damage my family’s reputation and cause harm.
Google has now rolled out a technological solution, a euphemistically titled "Inactive Account Manager" tool ("Control what happens to your account when you stop using Google," the company says, i.e. die). With this tool, you set the amount of time you want Google to wait before taking action (3, 6, 9 months, or a year). One month before that deadline, if Google hasn't heard from you, it will send you an alert by either email or text message. If that month closes out and you still have not re-entered your account, Google will notify your "trusted contacts" -- you can list up to 10 -- and share your data with them if you have so chosen. The email they would get would look something like this:
Alternatively, you can set up the manager to outright delete your account without sharing it at all. This includes all data associated with the account -- Blogger posts, uploaded YouTube videos, Picasa albums, Google Voice messages, etc. (Note to self – this is for only your Google world content, not Facebook or other social hubs).
I always say, “if you don’t have plan B, you don’t have a plan.” Google Death is a splendid plan B when it’s time to say Ta-Ta Toots. Now you can execute your plans without you once you're gone – in a graceful way, requiring few decisions on your part. So fill out that quick form and wait for the next service from Google.
I’ll really be impressed when Google finds a way to post from the grave.
Your dealership is great. Otherwise you wouldn’t work there, right?
But how do you show people how great the customer experience is, without ‘differentiating’ like the other guys?
Too often, I view dealership websites that say the same thing as everyone else, even if it may be true in their case.
‘Best service in (city), guaranteed.’
‘No one will beat our prices.’
‘Our staff are your neighbors, and provide unmatched customer service.’
While these may be true (especially the fact that your staff may live in the neighborhood they sell to), your competition has every right to say them as well. And they will.
So what can you do to provide an experience the other guys can’t? One suggestion is a sincere follow-up from the sale. Given, this isn’t in the dealership, but it is an important piece to let customers know they’re appreciated. It’s much better than a template email asking to complete a survey. To me, nothing says ‘we’re done with you’ than a form email.
This is only a suggestion, but what are some truly unique things you do in your dealership that are TRULY different from the guys down the block?
Will Michaelson
re:member group
Business Development Manager
What is a Lost Opportunity Coordinator or LOC?
A "lost opportunity coordinator" or LOC is simply a coordinator that does NOT handle fresh leads. They ONLY handle leads that have been "deaded" by the other coordinators and leads that are from day 31-90.
If you think of a conventional coordinator ONLY handling fresh leads, and their follow up protocol is email / phone call for EVERY day for the first 31 days. This limits the amount of leads they can handle due to the reality of the methodical follow up. A lost opportunity coordinator can handle 3-5 times the amount of leads. Specifically approximately 350 - 500 leads. This is possible because they do NOT have to follow up EVERY single day as does the conventional coordinator. After the first 31 days with an email and a phone call... the next 60 days of follow up can be every 3 days or even longer. depends how many leads are there versus how many LOCs.
The Lost Opportunity Coordinators work well with the conventional coordinators.
Usually a dealership has 4-5 conventional coordinators to 1 Lost opportunity coordinator.
So a LOC handles leads in the cycle of day 31-90 BUT... LOCs also handle ALL dead leads!
We know that on the showroom floor that we believe in 100% turnover "TO". Then that reality should remain for Internet leads. The problem is usually that dealerships get so many leads and there is so much going on in an Internet department or BDC that there usually is NOT a "TO" protocol for leads. Usually the coordinator or BDC rep decides on the spot if this lead is "dead", "bogus", "changed mind" etc... and usually it NEVER gets s second look from a manager or director. If you have an LOC at your dealership it truly helps fill the holes.
Lets say for an example that your Internet department has 4 or 5 coordinators... every single time a lead is "deaded" for ANY reason. That "dead" lead now becomes a "fresh" lead for the LOC. The LOC's main job in this scenario is to identify if this lead is actually "dead", if so WHY and can they "reactive" this lead to an opportunity.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions. It would be my pleasure to further assist you.
http://www.internetsales20group.com
Make Money Mondays with Sean V. Bradley - Automotive Internet Sales Coordinator - Appointment Setter
Okay, you got me! This article has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with you.
On a daily basis I analyze dealer websites which I’m convinced had the same content writer. Have you ever seen websites with sentences that read like this, “Our team of automotive professionals have the knowledge you need to buy the right car...”? or “We understand that everyone has different financial situations, that’s why we’re proud to offer auto loans for every credit situation...”? or my favorite, “We are an award winning ________ dealer here to serve you!”...
OH SHOOT; that’s your website?!? Don’t worry, I’ll look away while you quickly delete those portions of your site content.
If you’re familiar with dealership website content that reads like a conceited teenaged football jockey wrote it, then read on! I’d like to dispel a myth and offer a content creation suggestion that you can take to the bank.
The Myth: Talking about yourself and your achievements makes you look more professional
Wrong! It makes you sound like the kind of person who stares at himself/herself anywhere a reflection can be seen. Nobody cares about you. They don’t care about your stupid awards. Why? Because they are your awards, not theirs.
You see, everyone has a favorite letter of the alphabet. Can you guess what it is? Yup, the letter ‘I’. Instead of spending so much time talking about yourself and calling it a day, try refocusing your content on how being an award winner will help the consumer move closer to what they’d like to achieve or obtain.
This leads me to...
A Suggestion: Make Your Site Content All About The Consumer!
There are several ways that this can easily be done, but here’s the suggestion I’ll make here.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Write out a list of things that automotive consumers would want/need to know to help shape their purchase decision. This list could include topics like:
Buying vs. Leasing
Used car buying 101
Private seller vs. Certified Dealership
Financing options
Credit rebuilding program
Graduate student program
Senior discounts
Military discounts
Affinity programs
Used car specials
New car specials
...and the list could go on and on
Once you’ve compiled the list, think about your customer. Make every sentence you write a benefit to them. Show them how they can get what they want by working with your dealership. If you truly aim to help others achieve what they want, you will get everything you want (If you know who said that, write it in the comments below).
Last thoughts
We could go in a million directions from here, but doing so would end us right back to where we are now. Confused about what makes good content, and discouraged not know how to get started. To summarize; stop talking so much about yourself, start talking about your customers.
How have you used content to drive more sales?
Do you know to effectively ensure your reaching all your potential customers? Watch this weeks Think Tank Tuesday to find out the steps you should be taking, and where you should be focusing your marketing strategy.
With Google Local, formerly known as Google Places decision makers are scrambling to understand how ORM algorithms will drastically affect SEO rankings and high Google scores. Google says Google Local is “a simple way to discover and share local information.” Sounds like business listing are becoming more social.
In other words Google Local helps people like me who could very well turn the urge to buy a car— “Hey, I want to test drive a car today” —into an afternoon outing: “Perfect, there’s a Cadillac dealer with great reviews just two blocks from here. Let’s go.” It’s integrated into Search, Maps and mobile and available as a new tab in Google+—creating one simple experience across Google.
The new system is definitely much broader than the previous star system, given its larger scale. 17 out of 30 doesn’t sound incredibly great but if you look at the scale, 16-20 represents “good to very good”. 0- 30 is pretty wide range to cover the four individual ratings Google goes by:
3 Excellent
2 Very Good
1 Good
0 Poor to Fair
Google takes the average, and multiplies it by ten to come up with averaged scores featuring Zagat scores and recommendations from people you trust in Google+.
Algorithms are incorporated into all kinds of review sites where your brand is being talked about and Google is measuring a combination of indicators across all published reviews to determine your Score and overall ranking.
Survey results indicate that many of the top ranking factors are directly related to reviews, your top keywords in reviews, including Google measuring what kind of feedback or responses you’re providing to the consumer feedback on review sites.
Here is how a few of them ranked, according to that (out of the top 90):
7. Quantity of Native Google Places Reviews (w/text) (REVIEWS)
18. Product/Service Keywords in Reviews (REVIEWS)
24. Quantity of Third-Party Traditional Reviews (REVIEWS)
26. Location Keywords in Reviews (REVIEWS)
31. Velocity of Native Google Places Reviews (REVIEWS)
34. Quantity of Reviews by Authority Reviewers (e.g.Yelp Elite, Multiple Places Reviewers, etc) (REVIEWS)
46. High Numerical Ratings by Authority Reviewers (e.g.Yelp Elite, Multiple Places Reviewers, etc) (REVIEWS)
49. Overall Velocity of Reviews (Native + Third-Party) (REVIEWS)
50. Quantity of Third-Party Unstructured Reviews (REVIEWS)
52. Quantity of Native Google Places Ratings (no text) (REVIEWS)
53. High Numerical Ratings of Place by Google Users (e.g. 4-5) (REVIEWS)
62. Velocity of Third-Party Reviews (REVIEWS)
69. High Numerical Third-Party Ratings (e.g. 4-5) (REVIEWS)
74. Positive Sentiment in Reviews (REVIEWS)
According to Google, reputation management means interacting, responding to, learning from, and implementing ideas and improvements based on customer feedback. The good news is that feedback is everywhere. I’d take that as a hint from Google that a higher Google score is achieved with a multi pronged approach.
Responding to reviews, creating conversation with customers, understanding the underlying issues, and devising possible solutions.
The importance of a high ranking Google score will be directly related to two different potential benefits:
Therefore, it would make sense to incorporate reputation building avenues (follow up emails, etc) for customers to share their experience, which can help increase the dealerships online reviews and become a more credible source for both customers and search engines.
2. Conversion & Purchasing Influence. The second benefit is the relationship between top level results and the likelihood of a user clicking on your dealer name. If your dealership continuously encourages customers to leave reviews (not from the dealerships I.P) and the reviews received are showing your business in a good light, then it is likely that you will rank higher on review results. See the logical equation below for Google
Total reviews + Quality of Reviews = Better Google Ranking (simple version as there are other factors involved)
Better Google Ranking + Management Responses = Higher Trust (good reviews) and therefore Higher Revenue (good reviews at the top of the result page)
In this example, the bolded Score of 20 has a high likelihood of being clicked even when the amount of reviews is not the highest amongst its competitors.
Regardless of the ranking of the list above, it does stop and make you think about all the potential factors that could go into your local ranking, and many are certainly worth paying attention to.
Jerry Hart
President
eReputationBUILDER
Ask a Question: jerry(at)erepbuilder(dot)com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jerryhart67
http://www.internetsales20group.com
Make Money Mondays With Sean V. Bradley "Special Edition Featuring Tom Stuker Of Spike TV's Reality Show Car Lot Rescue"
This is part 4 of 4 in an ADM series about setting Facebook goals:
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Every strategy needs a goal or else it’s just an aimless plan. We’ve covered the need to set Facebook marketing goals and described both the safe approach as well as some of the more aggressive approaches to these goals. Now it’s time to bring it home (in hopefully less than 1000 words) with a couple more aggressive Facebook goals that you can set for your marketing.
As I said before, it’s extremely important to realize that playing it safe is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not that I want to encourage businesses to take that approach, but being aggressive means taking a bigger risk that the effort you put in will not yield the appropriate return on investment. I know that it can, but that’s no guaranty that it will even if you do everything right.
Thankfully, there’s always an abort button. If your aggressive techniques don’t seem to be paying off, you can always revert back to the safer goals.
When you ask business owners about the risks of social media, most will latch on to the potential for negative press. I’ve even been told by a very prominent business owner that they don’t have a Facebook page because they don’t want people to have the ability to talk badly about them on Facebook. I was waiting for the punchline. There was none.
As you know, sticking your head in the sand is not the right approach, but sticking it way out there for others to attack is risky. It can, however, be extremely rewarding as companies like Domino’s Pizza have demonstrated. Are there risks of getting bitten by being extra communicative on social media? Sure. You have to know that going in if you want that to be your primary goal.
The benefits can be tremendous. When you turn Facebook into a communication hub that is active with feedback from former, current, and prospective customers, you have the ability to be eloquent, sincere, and transparent, three traits that most would see as admirable. It means that you stand behind your product and your company and you’re willing to accept the good with the bad.
The bad news is that if you’re doing it right, the bad will come. The good news is that the “bad” types of communication where customers and former customers complain can almost always be turned around into an opportunity to impress future customers. Bad reviews aren’t bad unless you let them be bad. By applying empathy, professionalism, and a true desire to improve your business, even the most scathing reviews and communications can be turned into a major win for your business.
Setting this type of goal requires constant attention. You have to set your smartphone to alert you the moment that anyone communicates with you because time is of the essence. It’s not just about not letting things linger without a response. Perhaps more importantly, it lets others see that you’re extremely attentive to your Facebook communication hub; this encourages them to want to talk to you through there as well. The more that people are talking to you on Facebook, the greater the opportunity to shine through the constraints of EdgeRank and let your messages be seen.
This is one of those situations where Facebook sponsored posts might happen well after the post goes live. Let’s say you ask a question like this:
“What should we serve at next Saturday’s big tent sale: hot dogs, hamburgers, barbeque, all of the above, something else? Let us know in the comments, please. We’re planning on making a decisions based on your input by this Wednesday.”
In that scenario, you’ll want to get the word out. It’s not just about giving people the choice on food. It’s about letting as many people as possible know about your sale. Once you have a couple of responses, now is the time to promote the post. Then again, if you’ve had success with previous promoted posts, it’s okay to launch the ads the moment you publish the post.
Be creative. Setting a goal of communication is fruitful when done right and embarrassing when done wrong. Do it right or don’t do it at all.
This is the big daddy of the goals, particularly for local businesses. It takes an abundance of creativity, a willingness to not give up when something doesn’t work, and the ability to make things happen in the real world as well as on social media.
If you’re an internet manager who has no access to setting specials or running promotions, this is a tough one to pull off. To bring real world traffic, you need real world incentives. If you haven’t the budget or authority to affect the real world aspect of your business, you should not go for this goal. It’s not that you can’t drive foot traffic with intangibles, but it’s infinitely easier when you have “the goods” in the form of reality rather than just virtual.
For example, the Dodge dealer that we used as the example in the previous post could set an event or create an offer that they run through the Facebook system for $14.99 oil changes available to Facebook fans only. They have to claim the offer or announce that they’ll attend the event and this can help you let your fans spread the word for you.
Another Dodge dealer example would be to set an event around a sale. Announcing the sale itself won’t do much, but giving something away such as free sunglasses can help you to get people to like your event on Facebook, again exposing the sale through their channels.
The hardest part about driving foot traffic through Facebook isn’t in getting the traffic. It’s in proving that the traffic came as a result of Facebook. When you’re working with budgets and you have to report to the boss, you’ll need to prove the effects. This is where events and offers come into play, but that’s not enough. You have to give the people who come to the store a reason to let someone know they came because of Facebook. Otherwise, they simply won’t tell you. If you can’t track it, then it didn’t really happen.
* * *
Regardless of which goal you set, remember that Facebook is a marathon of sprints. By that, I mean that it’s not always steady and constant but it’s also not something where you can expect to sustain the sprints of success over and over again. You have to know what you want and then set out to make it happen. Otherwise, you’ll be like everyone else who is flailing around on their Facebook pages trying to find reasons that they can use to demonstrate it’s working.
This is part 3 of 4 in an ADM series about setting Facebook goals:
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We’ve taken a look at the safe approach to setting Facebook goals. Now, it’s time to discuss letting the tiger out. Let’s sharpen our claws, stretch our muscles, and prepare for battle. Getting aggressive on Facebook is about going to social media war.
Keep in mind that the majority of businesses should stay with the safe goals rather than getting aggressive. They can be extremely effective for maintaining a viable Facebook presence without spending too much time on strategy, planning posts, and creating dialogues on Facebook. If you are going to set aggressive goals, your strategies are going to take time and money to make them happen.
It’s not for everyone but it might be for you. Here are some examples of aggressive Facebook goals.
This is one of the first things that come to mind when thinking of goals for Facebook. Most realize that it is known as a good traffic generation tool in general and they believe they’ll be able to do the same for their site.
Unfortunately, the standard practices used to drive traffic “in general” do not apply to most business websites. “In general”, Facebook is good at driving traffic to viral content. People do not go to Facebook to find links to inventory items. They go there to see pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base. They can get swayed into clicking on links with controversial titles or intriguing thumbnails, but again that’s not normally something associated with sites that are designed to generate leads or sales.
The only way to drive traffic to your website is by starting with strong content on the website itself. We’ve discussed using your website as your content hub and why it’s so important to have the type of content on your website for both social and search purposes that resonates with your overall target audience. Now, you’ll have to really apply these principles to make this Facebook goal achievable.
The starting point with a goal like this is to sculpt the appropriate fans. This cannot be stressed enough. If you have too few total fans or too many low-quality fans, you’ll want to fix that first before trying to drive traffic to you website. In many ways, driving traffic to your website from Facebook is about establishing trust within your community by posting only the absolute best content possible. Anything short of amazing simply won’t do.
Once you have that trust established by posting images and text that resonate and generate interactions, you can start posting quality content from your website directly to Facebook. If you’re a Dodge dealer, you could post a story like “The 5 Most Searched Dodge Chargers in History“. Assuming that your fans are strong, this will be the type of content that exceeds their expectations when they liked your page in the first place.
It’s supremely important to remember that this type of content must be promoted through Facebook ads. Even the most prolific Facebook pages by the most loved brands are not getting the type of traffic they could get from Facebook when they don’t advertise. Thankfully, if your fans are high-quality and you have a history of posting high value content on your pages, you won’t have to spend a ton to get a good amount of traffic. It’s not targeted traffic – visitors to the site may or may not be looking for a Dodge Charger at the time – so this strategy is best applied if you have retargeting campaigns working or if you’re using Facebook to help drive traffic for social signals purposes to help with SEO.
This is not, however, a way to generate a ton of leads or sales. We’ll discuss that goal shortly.
Facebook may be a challenging venue through which to drive leads and sales via website traffic, but it’s the ultimate venue through which to improve your brand footprint. This goal is arguably the easiest to achieve of the aggressive goals but there’s a very time-consuming set of strategies behind it to make it truly successful.
With this goal, you’re trying to get your name and logo in front of as many prospect eyeballs as possible and as often as possible. To do this, you can employ a handful of different strategies. One strategy that you should never, ever employ is to take other people’s images and slap your logo on top of it. If you do this, you’re risking a brand disaster. I’m not going to dwell on the reasons behind it. I’ll just implore you to stop immediately if you’re doing it.
What you should be doing is taking pictures at your store. Every picture should be interesting and ever picture should include your logo as part of the image, not added after the fact. If you’re a Dodge dealer, you should be taking great pics of amazing Chrysler vehicles with your logo either in the background on a sign or on the license plate clearly visible.
That’s a very small strategy component if your goal is branding. The bigger and more time-consuming component is to go out into the Facebook world and start interacting where your potential customers are. That means getting chatty on the local newspaper Facebook page, offering help and support on local charity Facebook pages, talking about how great the BBQ is at Stan’s Restaurant around the corner, etc.
One thing to keep at the top of your mind when doing this – stay sincere and transparent. It isn’t just about getting your company name on the comment or share list. It’s about making an impact with your comments. It’s about helping others because you want to help others and not just to get your company name listed.
People are smart. They can tell when you’re not being sincere. This is why this goal is one of the most time-consuming. It requires a massive amount of genuine activity. It can’t be faked. You can’t skip a few days. If you go this route and your goal is to make your brand stand out ahead of the competition, you must be willing to commit.* * *I’ve been told to try to limit my 1000-word posts and I only made it through the first two aggressive goals before hitting the mark, so tomorrow I’ll discuss the next two aggressive goals: communication hub and foot traffic. Until then, think about what you really want to do with your Facebook page. Stay focused. Stay diligent. Facebook can be a wonderful marketing tool if used properly.
