News

PCG has announced new digital marketing strategies to help car dealers do MORE with the existing website and showroom traffic. The response has been amazing so I’m sharing the opportunity to new potential clients.

I am writing to remind those who care to DOMINATE their market, to consider these opportunities.

24×7 Managed Chat

If you would like to significantly increase high quality website leads using chat and have a money back guarantee, give us a call.

Managed 24×7 chat is real and effective. 35% of the chat leads come after you are closed. Chat leads close higher than website leads. So what are you waiting for?

Want 40% more website leads this month?

The ROI on chat is amazing. For most dealers, 24×7 managed chat is less than $1,000 a month and generates a 10x ROI. Now that’s exactly the numbers dealer principals need to hear about.

If our managed chat solution doesn’t deliver 40% more website leads, you get your money back!  

Mobile Text Marketing

If you would like to start building powerful opt-in mobile marketing lists, which have 95%+ consumer delivery rate, give me a call. Email open rates hover around 20% and are dropping. Mobile marketing is the channel that Gen Y and Z want to use!

We will design the showroom banners, signage, and desktop tent cards to engage your showroom customers. We’ll give you the strategy and word tracts to get your team engaged in collecting mobile phones. We’ll show you how to add mobile messaging to your print ads and TV commercials.

We will enhance your email marketing campaigns to drive more customers to opt-in to your mobile campaigns.

Do more with what you have in place for under $500 a month with a power mobile text marketing strategy.

Re-targeting Campaigns

Add up the total visitors to your website in a year to start to see the opportunity to touch these consumers multiple times during the year with a strategic banner advertising campaign.

For many dealers, annual unique visitor counts total over 100,000 people and many of these are local buyers. Imagine creating new messages each month to enhance your online reputation, sharing your work in the community, or the arrival of new models.

I challenge all dealers to invest $500 a month in a retargeting PPC budget to start building your re-marketing list. Each month that goes by you are losing people that may never come back.

ALL advertising investments that drive traffic to your website can be enhanced with retargeting. If you are using radio, TV, print, SEO, and/or PPC to drive traffic to your website, building a retargeting campaign makes all of these investments better.

Reputation Management Consulting

Here is a fact; all advertising investments are impacted eventually by your online reviews.

We have written about it in the past and we have turn-key solutions to help your team get MORE reviews that your competitors.  We show dealers how to use the Google Places application as well as the #1 rated in-store platform PrestoReviews.

Do a search on your dealership name and one page one is Google Places and your reviews. 30% of dealership organic traffic is on their store name. Google Places shows up on Page One 25,000 – 50,000 times a month for car dealers.

Our research has shown that less than 20% of car dealers have a proactive reputation management process in place. Despite selling thousands of cars a year and servicing 10x that number of cars, most dealers have less than 30 positive reviews online.

Dealers are still struggling to get buy-in from their team and implement in-store review process. So, we are now offering in-store consulting and training services to jumpstart your review process.

A 2-3 day visit to your store will demonstrate how to implement in-store review processes in service, sales, and F&I. We’ll make sure a proactive reputation management program enhances your online brand. If your dealership does not have HUNDREDS of strong reviews online, you are a candidate for onsite training.

Keep in mind that having strong reviews enhances your SEO positioning. Having poor reviews hurts your business because showing up on Page One with bad reviews just drives traffic to your competitors.

FOUR OPPORTUNITIES

I’ve listed four opportunities that have a clear and measurable ROI. No smoke and mirrors. Immediate visible results.  Are you utilizing all four?

I’ve listed four opportunities that have a clear and measurable ROI. No smoke and mirrors. Immediate visible results.  Are you utilizing all four?

PCG will work with your team to implement one or all of these solutions to ensure that you are dominating your market. We will ensure that you generate more leads and will stand by the ROI of these investments.

It starts with a call. You can call me direct at 732.672.2356,  Matt O’Such at 732.450.8200, or Lizelle Landino at 201-800-1315. Keep in mind that we work with ONE OEM brand per market so if you want the very best in digital strategy, be the first one in your market to call.

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
About Brian Pasch

Let me open this article by saying that automotive advertising platforms like Autotrader.com, Cars.com, and the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) provide marketing platforms that should be considered in a comprehensive dealership marketing strategy.  Car dealers need to evaluate existing and new methodologies to connect consumers with the cars that they have for sale.

The Internet has become more expensive to attract clicks than ever before as more dealers participate in Google Adwords and similar online marketing services. When I look at local competition in the search engines for a car dealer,  one consistent competitor appears.  Dealers are under attack  by their own OEM automotive advertising campaigns. This can come from national advertising campaigns or Tier 2 regional advertising campaigns, and I have some examples to share below.

Banner Ads of Vehicle Detail Pages

Let me give you an example of what gets my blood boiling.  A dealer makes an investment to list their cars on automotive advertising websites for many reasons.  One reason is that consumers, outside of their normal area of responsibility or PMA, may connect with a car that they have in stock.  The key point here is that for out of area shoppers, their zip code would normally be a part of another dealer’s PMA.

If you look at this example below, a Tier 2 Banner ad runs on the top and right side of this dealer’s Vehicle Detail Page (VDP).  The other areas are also advertising leaks, but not associated with a GM advertising campaign. That’s another topic called Dealer Centricity Scores that you should engage.

When you click on the top Silverado HD Banner or the right side Silverado banner, you are taken off-page to a Tier 2 Chevy website design for lead collection.  If a consumer engages with this Tier 2 website, and completes a lead form, the lead most likely will not be sent to the dealer listed on this page, rather it will go to the dealer covering their zip code.  Does anyone have a problem with this model?

So the OEM endorsed advertising campaign or Tier 2 created advertising campaign, is working against this one dealer for any consumer outside of his market.  It seems to me that this is just counter productive and is using the dealers inventory against him.

If a dealer is paying to list this car, on this site, why would he want an interactive Ajax banner ad running, that catches the consumer’s attention, to drive them to another Chevy website.   Could you say that this dealer’s advertising investment is funneling leads to his local competitors?

This is not limited to Cars.com as you can see from this Autotrader.com VDP.  Once again, a national OEM sponsored banner campaign is taking prime real estate to drive consumers to the national Cadillac website.  Anytime a consumer gets to a national site, the dealer can not be assured that the lead will be routed to their CRM system.  It’s all based on zip code or consumer choice but the action was based on this dealer’s advertising investment.

Inspecting Your Automotive Advertising Investments

I’m not sure if any other dealers agree with me that this a topic that should be discussed at OEM Marketing meetings.  A bigger issue to remind car dealers is to inspect their advertising investments.  When you take the time to inspect how your brand is being marketed online, many light bulbs start to go off.

Your website is supposed to attract, engage, and convert consumer traffic into an eventual lead. If you agree, when was the last time you involved your customers in the design process? When was the last time you tested the impact on conversion with different website designs?

Car dealers see hundreds or thousands of consumers come through their doors each month depending on location.  I challenge dealer principals and dealership equity holders to step back and ask how they are leveraging those connections.

There are many new ideas being presented at 20 Groups, Automotive Conferences, Boot Camps, and on blogs on how to better connect with consumers. Is it SEM, SEO, Social Media, Banner Advertising, Re-Marketing, or something new?

There is a scarcity of documented automotive white-papers on grass roots consumer surveys. When was the last time you read a dealer generated white paper  that asked consumers to share their motivations, processes, or influences in the car buying process.

Yes, the largest companies in our industry have case studies, but what about the dealers on the front lines of automotive sales and service?  I would love to read local survey data from a dealership group that sees 2,000 customers a month in their sales and service channels.  Are you willing to share feedback from your store?

Industry experts, thought leaders, and peers are great motivators for change. Outside influences challenge dealers to consider looking at their businesses in a new way. But why have dealers not asked their own  customers for advice?  Dealers are asking consultants whether they should engage in Facebook.  Did you ask you customers if they are regular Facebook users?  Regular Twitter users?  Foursquare?

Survey Your Customers

I just wanted to remind dealers that their local customer behavior is unique in many ways.  By conducting regular in-store surveys over the next 30-60 days, you will get some data that can be monetized.  You just have to define a process and start collecting data.

Here are some simple questions that you can ask your customers when they are in the store.  Of course, you don’t have to ask them all of the questions at one time or visit:

1. Do you have a Google or YouTube Account?
2. Do you use Facebook?  If Yes, how many times a week are you on Facebook?
3. Do you use Twitter?  If Yes, how many times a week do you Tweet?
4. Have you ever used Groupon?
5. Do you use any of these mobile applications: FourSquare, Whrrl, or Google Places?
6. Did you visit Autotrader.com before coming in?
7. Did you visit Cars.com before coming in?
8. Did you visit our main website before you came in to purchase a car?

If Yes, How could we improve our website?

Don’t rely solely on out of town experts like me!  It’s your business so activate your local consumers to refine your marketing strategy.

Consider creating Point-Of-Sale (POS) materials to activate your customers to engage with your dealership online.  Do you have any “Join Us on” Facebook, Twitter, or FourSquare desk cards, window stickers, or banners in the dealership?

Let’s get back to engaging our customers and collecting local marketing data that can be used to prioritize your digital marketing strategy.