This is part 3 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:
_______
Let’s assume, for a moment, that you have step one on the path to building your Brand Ambassador Factory covered. For those who don’t know, step one would be to make sure that your business is operating in a way that creates extremely happy customers and clients. There’s nothing I can say on this social media blog to help you there – run a good business and make people more than satisfied with the results you deliver. If you aren’t doing that, social media can’t fix it.
With the assumption that you’re running a good business out of the way, let’s move on to step two. You have to identify potential brand ambassadors. The initial requirement is easy – they have to like you. Unfortunately, it goes much deeper than that. Liking your business isn’t enough to make a brand ambassador. You have to look for other qualities to go along with it.
This is where stereotypes have to be thrown out. A hip 20-something isn’t necessarily addicted to their smartphone and Facebook. A 65-year-old grandmother isn’t necessarily still handwriting postcards to her grandchildren. You can’t identify a potential social media user without asking them. Once you start asking, you’re going to be surprised at the results.
Before you ask, you’ll want to make sure that your employees are prepared for the initiative. It is an initiative. To downplay it as something that you’re “playing with” or to isolate social media activity to a single person is a mistake. It takes every customer-facing employee at a company to really get the most benefit out of this. Have a meeting and even have everyone read this blog post first. It’s important that they get it before trying to sell them on the concept.
Here are some characteristics you’ll want to look for when determining whether or not to approach someone about being a brand ambassador for your business:
This isn’t as much of a no-brainer as one might think. There are tons of shy people on social media. In fact, social media offers a venue for shy people to interact with their world from a safe distance which is part of its popularity. These shy people aren’t going to be brand ambassadors.
You want that person who can’t stop socializing. They are often talkative in person, sharing information without being asked. They will likely check their smartphone throughout a long transaction. If they grab it and take a peek every time it pings them with a new text message or Facebook update, they’re connected in all the right ways.
We’ve all known that ever-connected person who is a total snob. Their profile is probably loaded with cynical comments, which are only slightly less cynical than what they say about people in real life.
Friendly people are much more likely to be brand ambassadors. They are the ones who carry an extra smile with them in case yours runs out of juice. They like you the moment they meet you and many people like them as a result.
This is an extremely important trait of a brand ambassador because these are the type of people who are willing to help you out when you ask. At the end of the day, very few people become a brand ambassador without prompting, which means that you want to identify those people who are willing to put their name behind a good experience they’ve had with a company. Remember, brand ambassadors are giving personal endorsements. It’s not like asking someone to post a positive review on Yelp. Getting them to post on their social media is a true endorsement. Since it’s a reflection of themselves that reaches their friends and family, it actually means something. It’s “skin in the game” which is why it’s so much more powerful than a simple positive review.
This is the moment of truth. Are they happy, and I mean really happy with your product or service? If they meet the first couple of criteria and they express extreme satisfaction with their transaction, you’ve found an ideal candidate to approach about being a brand ambassador.
You’ve done right by them and you could really use them to do right by you on social media. This is it. You’re about to get a real endorsement from a real person who is likely trusted by their friends and family.
* * *
In the next part of this series, we’ll discuss the ways to approach a potential brand ambassador and put them to work for you.
It looks like everyone wants to be in the automotive lead generation business. Over the last year I have been writing about Google Cars; a program (in beta testing) to present new car inventory to consumers shopping for a car directly in Google search results. Dealers are charged by Google on a per lead basis.
Today, I learned that TRUECar has expanded its lead generation network with a partnership with Allstate. Industry blogger Jeff Collins shared the new Allstate lead-gen website on Facebook (shown below) and I was inspired to write about this development.
TRUECar already has a number of powerful business deals that generate high quality leads for car dealers. TRUECar partners include USAA, Consumer Reports, American Express, SunTrust Bank, and AAA. TRUECar has reinvented itself after a well publicized series of stumbles last year. It seems that they have perfected their business model to comply with state regulators. The dealers who have returned on their program have told me that they are finding success with their leads and are still making decent margins.
The addition of Allstate shows just how strong the TRUECar business model has become. It is attracting Fortune 500 companies that are looking to monetize their customer base and add value to their members. For Allstate, the benefits of this partnership go beyond a revenue sharing opportunity since they sell car insurance. If you can think of other companies that have a significant customer base, you can bet that TRUECar is pursuing that business.
The TRUECar juggernaut is once again accelerating. Scott Painter has done an amazing job of turning a PR nightmare into a flourishing business once again. Despite the turnaround, some dealers are still fearful that syndication models, like those operated by TRUECar, are bad for dealers because their own sales and DMS data can be used against them.
Many dealers are sharing their inventory to a number of the five Super Syndicators: Cars.com, Autotrader.com, KBB.com, Edmunds.com, and TRUECar. Dealers are also using smaller syndicators like EveryCarListed.com, CarGurus.com, and CarSoup.com. Some dealers are finding great success in pushing inventory to Craigslist or participating in a controlled marketplace offered by CarWoo! The choices don't stop there!
Recently serial entrepreneur Sean Wolfington brought to market http://www.Autoamigo.com in partnership with UniVision. The program claims to be the automotive industry’s first national U.S. bilingual car buying program for Hispanics. (See Press Release) Dealers wanting to reach the enormous Hispanic population now have another syndication partner to consider; Univision is the 1000 lb Gorilla in Hispanic media.
Successful dealers need to have a digital strategy that includes how they present their vehicles on their website as well as on their syndication partner website. It can not be a set it and forget it strategy! With so many choices now, dealers must take the time to calculate the ROI from each syndication partner. Dealers need to understand the specific value proposition from each syndication opportunity and be able to measure the impact on their sales.
Dealers who are reading this article must make it a priority to understand how to do an ROI calculation for their syndication partners.
Just how many more syndication contracts can a dealer afford to sign? Does there come a point where duplicate leads start to lessen the financial benefit of these services? Should dealers just sign up for every syndication opportunity?
From my conversations with dealers, the marketplace is becoming very crowded. Each of the Super Syndicators are claiming that their site produces the best ROI.
With all the syndication choices presented to dealers, is anyone concern about overlap and duplicate leads? TrueCar will credit dealers for a lead if they can show that the consumer recent came into their CRM system from another source. Other syndication services are not that friendly.For example, at this time the Google Cars program does not issue credit for leads they send dealers that also came into their CRM previously.
In addition to syndication, lead generation services from Dealix, AutoUsa, and AutoByTel are an important part of Internet sales each month. Mix syndication and third party lead generation together, and you can see how easy it can be for dealers to get overwhelmed.
There is no simple answer to which mix of syndication partners and third party lead sources creates the best ROI; it varies by market. Despite the challenges, dealers need to get the mix right.
Is the TRUECar announcement with Allstate groundbreaking? No. Will it enhance the program currently offered to dealers with more leads? Yes.
However with more websites popping up every month claiming to get cars at a better price and providing a "better" shopping experience, the dealer's physical inventory is becoming commoditized. Inventory in Google search results, inventory on partner websites, inventory for ethnic groups, and the list goes on.
This trend is a wakeup call for dealers to make sure that they have a differentiated brand in their local market. Dealers need to be the local automotive expert in town that consumers trust. Brands that are only about price or payments will be lost in the sea of inventory syndication. It speaks to having a dealership website that clearly communicates the values, ethics, and experience of the dealership. Think video!
It is clear that the lead generation marketplace is getting crowded, but when a consumer is connected with your dealership through a third-party, that first experience better be a great one. Not a good one.
This goes back to some very "old" but timely advice. Dealers need to make sure their phone processes are perfect. With so many choices being presented to consumers online, if you blow the phone call, you may be easily taken off the shopping list.
Brian Pasch-
Source -
http://www.internetsales20group.com
Manuel "Manny" Luna Will Be Attending The Internet Sales 20 Group In Dallas, Texas March 19-21
CONTENT MARKETING FOR SEO
So where exactly does content marketing fit in to SEO?
Well…kind of everywhere.
Let’s start at the beginning: search engines need something to rank. And that something is content. Without content, there’s no reason for your page to be displayed.
This is part 4 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:
_______
You’ve made a customer extremely happy with their purchase and exceeded their expectations. They’re smiling, shaking your hand, and thankful that you earned their business. They show all of the signs of being a potential brand ambassador. Now, how do you actually convert them from happy customer to brand ambassador?
We’ve already established that it’s important. Now go for the post. Your goal is to turn this happy customer into someone willing to advocate for you online. It’s not about getting a review. Those are easy. Reputation management on review sites is an important activity, but save those conversations for those who aren’t going to post about your on their social profiles. Getting an endorsement on Facebook is much more useful than getting a review on Yelp (unless your Yelp score is poor, in which case you probably want to get that bumped up first).
To get someone to post about you on social media, there are two effective methods to try.
This is the easiest way. It’s also slightly less fruitful because they must divulge in their post that they received compensation. That’s okay. If done right, even divulging the “payment” can be turned into a positive thing.
First and foremost, don’t go straight for the close. Just like with any sales process, you have to sell them on the idea. This requires a little setup first. Try to catch them when they’re really happy. After they’ve just given your store a compliment is ideal. Then, ask them about their social media presence.
Here’s an example of a conversation:
The wording should be something like this: “I just had a great experience buying my new car at ABC Motors. They even gave me my first oil change for free just for posting this.”
That’s it. Of course, it’s not always that smooth of a conversation, but remember that even a handful of people per month can make an impact on future sales.
Similar to the incentive, the valid reason approach can be almost as effective. Done well, it can be even more effective because you’re asking for real endorsement without anything attached.
Use the talk track above but replace the oil change dialogue with something like this:
From there, it doesn’t matter how they post it. They aren’t required to divulge anything and we’ve seen that when customers are given complete freedom to advocate for you how they want, they’ll do a better job at it.
Getting a Facebook post is amazing. Unlike review sites, it exposes your brand and the experience you deliver to people through a trusted peer. It’s human nature to trust the advice of people we know more than strangers on review sites. These types of public endorsements show “skin in the game” as we’ve mentioned in previous articles. Review sites are made fine, but they aren’t broadcasting the message to the right people the way a Facebook endorsement works.
This is all great, but a true ambassador won’t stop there. This is where we get into the real ways that happy customers become the brand ambassadors that we need. We’ll discuss all of that in the next post in this series.
http://www.internetsales20group.com
Make Money Mondays With Sean V. Bradley "Its All Up To You & Your S.W.O.T."
Our Custom Video Player playing a video in facebook complete with a visit us button.
Try it your self click play below.
CHANGE our thoughts, and we'll CHANGE the way we live..
This is the story of an eagle
The Eagle has the longest life-span of it's species
It can live up to 70 years
But to reach this age, the eagle must make a hard decision
In it's 40th year its long and flexible talons can no longer grab prey which serves as food
Its long and sharp beak becomes bent
It's old-aged and heavy wings, due to their thick feathers, stick to it's chest & make it difficult to fly
Then, the eagle is left with only two options: DIE or go through a painful process of CHANGE which lasts 150 days
The process requires that the eagle fly to a mountain top and sit on it's nest
There the eagle knocks it's beak against a rock until it plucks it out
Then the eagle will wait for a new beak to grow back and then it will pluck out it's talons
When it's new talons grow back, the eagle starts plucking it's old-aged feathers
And after 5 months, The eagle takes its famous flight of rebirth and lives for 30 more years
Why is change needed? Many times, in order to survive we have to start a change process. We sometimes need to get rid of old memories, habits and other past traditions. Only freed from past burdens, can we take advantage of the present.
Note: that several slightly different versions are circulating
"Social media participation is not something to be ignored or taken lightly. Aside from some of the older and more understood tactics and strategies affecting your SEO, great social media activity absolutely begets great SEO. This infographic simply explains several ways that social media has a direct impact on how fast and how effectively your social media activity improves your website’s SEO. Enjoy!"
Infographic source: Being Your Brand
Related :'Is anyone clicking on your tweets? 3 tips to make sure they do."
"If You Don’t Think Social Signals are Important for SEO, You Don’t Know Google Very Well"
This is part 5 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:
_______
You've gone through all the steps. You knew that we were going to be talking about brand ambassadors. You learned why they're important. We showed you how to identify them, then we discussed how to approach them. Now, it's time to wrap it up with the hardest part of them all. We're going to talk about how to sustain them as true brand ambassadors.
There's a difference between a person who leaves a nice comment on Facebook and someone who actually tells people they know about you. It's important to get that person to tell about their experience at your store on Facebook. It's amazing to make sure that that person is proactive in the future. If they were happy buying a car at your dealership today, we want them mentioning you when they see their friend three months from now saying on Facebook that they need a new car. That's the type of brand ambassadors that we want talking about us on social media.
It isn't easy. It requires a subtle approach, a light touch, but a persistent one. Here are three things you can do to take that happy customer who posted about you on Facebook to the next level.
No, I don't mean going on their Facebook post about you and saying "thanks!" You have to show true appreciation for their effort. You have to stand out above and beyond anything any other company has ever done for them.
There's a fine line between being appreciative and being an annoying stalker. This is why it's important to interact with a purpose. It should never be random. Show your appreciation at times when they least expect it, when you're not at the top of their mind, and in ways that require real effort and/or money.
One way to show appreciation is with a quick gift card sent on a handwritten envelope with a handwritten note inside.
"Hi Bob. I just wanted to check in on you to make sure you're enjoying your car and that you're still getting compliments from your friends. We appreciate that you posted on Facebook last month when you purchased it and we wanted to send you this $10 Starbucks gift card as a small token of our appreciation."
This can get them to post again about the gesture, but more importantly it reminds them of the over-the-top experience they received at the store. When their friends and family are looking, you want them to mention your store by name.
Here's the thing, and it's arguably the hardest truth to convince businesses of until they see it for themselves. If an average Facebook user promotes your product, their message was seen and heeded by their friends and family. There is a good chance every single time you're mentioned on Facebook as giving someone an exceptional experience that someone amongst their friends and family will see this and act upon it.
When someone comes in and say, "I heard my cousin Bob that you guys took great care of him," you have to let Bob know. If you have a referral program, this is a no-brainer. If you don't have a referral program, refer back up to showing appreciation and reword the note that you send with the gift card.
Don't forget, it's not just about your business. People like helping their friends and family. Bob didn't just help you to make another sale. He helped his cousin Sally have the same great experience he had. Sally may or may not let him know, but either way you definitely want to let him know. Validate that he's an influencer and that he's important to his friends, family, and your business.
This is optional and requires some work, but it's very useful when done right. On your website or through social media, take your brand ambassadors who have posted about you on Facebook and highlight their posts. This is best done in a group setting - individual highlights can be a bit creepy.
At whatever frequency is appropriate, post screenshots of all of your positive mentions. Make certain that there is text with the person's name if their name and posts are public on Facebook. If they aren't public, you don't want to mention their name.
Again, this is optional. In a way, it's a bit risky, but it's also a way to let people know on your website and Facebook page that you have a strong commitment to customer service.
* * *
It's not what you say about yourself on social media that matters. It's what others are saying about you. This is where the value is. This is how to move the needle.
The idea of the NoFollow attribute on links was to help prevent spam from appearing on user generated content sites, particularly Wikipedia. It was intended as a way to tell Google (and eventually all major search engines) that a link was not supposed to transfer any “link juice” to the recipient of the link. In essence, it was designed to stop SEO spammers from trying to insert their links where they didn’t belong for the sake of improved rankings.
It has become an abused attribute. This needs to stop.
Modern use of nofollow by many websites is to prevent link juice “leakage” from a website onto other websites. Many put the attribute on any link that isn’t internal. Some go so far as to put it on every link, internal or external. This is ludicrous.
There may be some merits to the idea that leaking PageRank juice to others is a detriment to the optimization of a website, but if there is, it’s minimal. I’ve seen websites that have a completely closed nofollow policy that doesn’t “leak” any juice at all that have major troubles ranking and I’ve seen sites (such as all of my sites) that rank exceptionally well while giving link value to everyone.
There are exceptions. UGC, as mentioned before, should have nofollow attributes attached to links that are not vetted. If it’s a UGC site that passes through the eyes and scrutiny of an editor, the nofollow attribute isn’t necessary. If it goes live immediate, it’s necessary.
Comments or other areas where links can be added by anyone should also be nofollow. Some use plugins like CommentLuv to encourage comments by making links followed. This is up to site owner and as long as the comments and links are vetted I have no problem with it at all. If the links in comments aren’t vetted, I don’t suggest it.
Otherwise, there should never be nofollow links on websites. If a link is good enough to post, it’s good enough to get juice. Trying to sculpt or channel your link juice is futile, ineffective, and an argument can be made that it’s actually more damaging than good.
Why Are Dealership's Internet Sales Departments or BDCs Broken or NOT Profitable?
'Do you know the average click-thru rate for the tweets your brand sends? If not, you can easily find out here. According to the research, the average rate is a little more than 6 percent. While this may seem low, it's still higher than the industry average click-thru rate for banner ads, which is between 1 percent and 2 percent."
However, there are three steps you can take to help improve the click-thru rate of your brand's tweets, which will ultimately drive more traffic to your website:
1. Use your headline to pique interest and prove the value of your article.
One of the best pieces of advice I received when it comes to using Twitter is, "Don't tweet boring stuff." While this may seem obvious, many brands aren't sharing content in a way that piques the interest of their audience. The best way to connect with your audience with social media is to share content that will add value and enrich their lives. By enticing your followers with a line helps them believe that by clicking on the link, they will learn something valuable, you'll make sure that the tweets you're posting are interesting, engaging and "click worthy."
2. Find the right time to tweet.
Once you've identified the kind of content that resonates with your audience, the second step is to find when they will be most likely to see the tweet. By identifying the optimum time to send your tweet, you can ensure that you're sharing your content during the highest traffic time for your audience. There are some great apps that can help you identify the peak time for your specific brand, one being Buffer. Along the same lines, don't assume that just because you shared a link once, your entire audience saw it. If you want to drive traffic to a particular blog post, share the link multiple times throughout the day, intermingling it with your other content.
3. Optimize by measuring.
The only way to learn is to experiment. Maybe there'll be a certain time which people are really receptive. Maybe there's a certain topic that isn't resonating with your audience. As with any marketing tactic, you can't improve what you don't measure. Almost every social media tool offers some sort of analytics for its users. By measuring, you'll learn and optimize. And you'll make your tweets and content more engaging.
What tools are you using to improve the click-thru rate of your tweets? How have you seen it improve your overall traffic and sales?
The image above shows the last four Facebook activities by a major car dealership in a metro area. Over three months ago, they abandoned their page. This could easily be a very long post where I go into details about how this is wrong on so many levels, but I'll keep it short because if you're reading this, chances are very strong that you're a savvy dealership that would never let this happen.
For the sake of education, I'll at least put a partial list together in case you're not absolutely sure why you shouldn't do this:
Let's cover the bottom two in a little more detail.
If your dealership has no bandwidth to cover your social media and no budget to hire an automotive social media service, the absolute worst case scenario is to set up a feed to the page. This is something that I don't recommend to anyone who wants to be successful, but it's still better than abandonment.
You can use RSS Graffiti, Hootsuite, or any number of other services to pull in a feed and post on a regular basis to Facebook. This is a very poor strategy, but it's better than nothing.
This is the most disheartening part about the page above. Happy customers are talking. I've recently written five blog posts about the importance of developing brand ambassadors. This dealership has ambassadors waiting to be contacted. It's such a waste.
Here are those posts:
Happy customers that take the time to promote your dealership through their own Facebook profile should not be ignored. There's no excuse for this.
There's a good chance that you'll have a Facebook presence whether you want to or not. Just because you delete your page doesn't mean that someone else can't toss one up for you. "Fan pages" are very common and if you don't have a page of your own that is outranking the fan pages, you risk letting others control what people see when they check you out on Facebook. Bad move.
Social media is about communication, so the ideas of using RSS feeds is not a good option. Every dealership needs to be watching, even if it's in the form of having the Internet Manager, GM, or owner receive an email when someone posts on the page. For most, this isn't a problem. The industry is realizing the importance of social. If you're not one of those, at least do the bare minimum to not completely fail. It takes no time. To turn your presence into an orphan is a big mistake.
I had a great phone conversation with L.A. and Sarah they where very helpful in answering many questions I had. I feel more confident in how I will approach certain situations and how I will easily be able to answer questions . I do appreciate all thir help. Thank You Tina
Every place I travel I keep getting asked the same question, “What is your best tip in Sales?”. There is one great answer, STOP SELLING.
I encourage all my graduates to give their new title as Sales and Service Liaison at ……
If you surveyed all your clients entering the Dealership and asked them to choose one of these two:
A) I want to be Sold a car.
B) I want to be assisted with my needs.
Any guesses on the answers? Of course, everyone is going to pick B. We have to trust our prospective clients to choose us, not rely on aggressiveness to force a decision. This puts a higher burden on our staff to exceed expectations, truly present real world value in our product, be there now and down the road for their clients, provide a clean maintained facility, and provide information in a straightforward manner.
Our staff have to stop worrying about whether or not they are selling a car right now, and focus on earning loyalty. It takes just a few minutes to drop a bored service client at the mall, no time to take the call from the guy that bought a car last year that wants to buy another set of floor mats, seconds out of our day to greet the folks wandering around at 9 in the morning like they are here to buy a car even though they may only be in for service.
Every kindness, each show of appreciation for every person in the facility is another step towards staying loyal to the Dealer in the buying cycle. Can all your Sales Staff look a prospective client in the eye and really say, “When you buy here, I will take care of you better than anyone else.”? When they can say it, mean it, and live it you start Serving
There are still many in the search engine optimization industry that are fighting the concept that Google (and Bing) is taking social signals into account at a high level when determining search rankings.
These people fall into three categories:
The reality is that, based upon extensive testing that we’ve been running (not to mention some of the things that Google has said over the last couple of years), social signals have a significant impact on the overall SEO of websites.
There’s another thing to consider, though, as pointed out by Search Engine Watch last month. Google is paying attention to social signals through Google Analytics. Some might say that it’s a natural addition to the service since people consider social media to be an important part of their overall marketing, but that’s simply not how Google works. If they add something to Analytics, it’s because they consider it to be important. There’s no need for them to track it if they aren’t considering it in some algorithm, and the most likely algorithm that social signals could effect is their search ranking algorithm.
When Google says something with their actions, it behooves those in SEO to listen. Are you listening?
Good Morning Everyone!
My name is Karen Hall and I have just begun my new position as the Internet Director at Dealer Synergy.
I am more than excited about the opportunity to work with all of you and I hope you will use me as a resource for your needs. It will take me a few weeks to get up and going full steam but I will be back soon to talk with all of you.
Have a great day!
In business, there is no such thing as writer’s block. It doesn’t exist. Erase the phrase from your mind. You see, in any business, there are so many potential stories to be told that one should never run out of them even if they’re blogging daily. More importantly, this isn’t like writing a novel. It’s not professional journalism. You’re not writing a column. On a business blog, you have the freedom to pull from the ultimate content resource – the internet.
What most perceive as writer’s block in the world of business blogging is actually the brain’s way of saying that you don’t want to write at this moment. Get over it.
With that all out of the way, it’s time to look at some different types of blog posts that can be categorized into a proper plan. This plan can be an editorial calendar, a series of reminders in Outlook, or a notepad on your desk where you jot down your ideas. We’ll get into planning in a moment, but first let’s look at some of the ideas themselves.
This is a difficult topic to write about because no matter how much time and effort is put into it, the end result cannot be complete. The idea potentials are infinite. These are just some blog post types that can help you to get into the proper frame of mind when deciding about which topics to blog.
We’ll use my favorite topic, automotive, to flesh out the concepts:
Again, this barely scratches the surface.
There really isn’t enough to say about planning to make it deserve its own section in this blog post, but it’s so important that we’re separating it out anyway. Make a plan. There are some great editorial calendar addons to WordPress and other blogging platforms that work nicely. Unless you’re blogging all the time, multiple times per week, these may not be necessary. It could be as easy as posting your ideas as tasks or calendar events in Outlook or whatever calendar software you use.
Me? I have a notepad. If it weren’t for that, I’d probably lose my ability to write with my hands because it’s the only time I ever use pen and paper other than to sign things. It’s archaic, messy, and less organized than the digital counterparts, but for me, it works. Whatever works best for you to keep you adding content to your blog or website on a regular basis is the right way for you to make your plan.
What are you waiting for? Start coming up with ideas, organize them into a plan, and get words onto your blog.
