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PCG Digital Marketing welcomes Rydell Chevrolet in Waterloo to their family of growing automotive dealerships.  The Iowa Chevy dealership has contracted PCG Digital Marketing to handle their online marketing initiatives which will include executing Search Engine Optimization strategies and managing Social Media activities such as connecting with consumers via Facebook and Twitter.

As part of their new strategic digital marketing strategy, the Waterloo Chevrolet dealer will receive the most advanced digital marketing strategies developed by PCG.   Enhancing Rydell’s online visibility will be accomplished through on-site and off-site SEO strategies, content development and inclusion in the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN).

 Additional PCG services will include blogging, writing and publishing press releases, link building, posting customer reviews, Twitter, Facebook, Google SEO compliance, Analytics, Google Maps, and more.   To kick-start their new marketing effort, an additional website, with SEO enhanced capabilities, has been created for Rydell.  The new website can be seen at http://www.iowa-chevrolet.com . 

As part of their inclusion in the AAN, Rydell’s live inventory feeds and optimized content will be added to the regional and national advertising websites in the AAN that are targeting Iowa Chevy buyers. Video and photo optimization of Chevrolet cars for sale in Iowa will also be handled by PCG Digital Marketing.

The AAN combines PCG Digital Marketing’s proven strategies in Search Engine Optimization, content marketing, social media and blogging to provide dealers with an industry leading solution for lead generation and direct sales. 

 The Automotive Advertising Network includes the CarPort App™, which enables “live” selectable inventory to be added to a dealer’s social media portals. Every visit to the page refreshes the dealer’s inventory with the newest information being displayed in their inventory feed.  Dealers using PCG’s CarPort App™ also have the added benefit of leveraged advertising on the National car sales website, http://www.cardealersale.com

To learn more about Rydell Chevrolet, please visit http://www.iowa-chevrolet.com/new/

About The Pasch Consulting Group

The Pasch Consulting Group provides comprehensive Internet Marketing and SEO strategies to car dealers across the United States and Canada.  For additional information on their services and marketing packages, visit http://www.pcgdigitalmarketing.com or http://www.dealer-seo.com

I thought that I would start a conversation on automotive microsites and why they should be a part of an automotive marketing strategy.  Microsites are not to be confused with landing pages or doorway websites.

Landing pages are an optimized web page that dealers use in a pay-per-click campaign like Google Adwords.  The landing page can be on your website or on a third party website.  If a dealer was running a tent sale and created an optimized page about the event and directed clicks from Google Adwords to this page, it would be considered a landing page.

Doorway websites are a landing page placed on its own domain name.  They are normally a one page website used to capture leads from traffic generated by pay-per-click campaigns, affiliate marketing programs, or in some cases, direct traffic.  These doorway websites are not content rich and often are more graphically weighted with attractive designs or even flash technology to add pizzazz.

My definition of an automotive microsite, up until last month, was 10-15 pages of targeted content placed on a targeted domain name with blogging enabled but without live inventory.   A theoretical example is a BMW dealer that wanted to increase their service business in Atlanta.

If they purchased www.bmwserviceatlanta.net and created content about all their service offerings and common BMW service procedures, that would get hundreds of hits to this site organically each month.   Google indicates that at least 400 people a month type the phrase “BMW service Atlanta” and this domain would be an exact match for that phrase.   With good content, this microsite would be #1 in search results because the “.com” version is being redirected to another website.

The question for service managers is this: “Would you like to attract another 25, 50 or 100 service customers a month from your PMA?”  With the right call to action, services specials and offers you can expect to capture some of those 400 customers each month who search that phrase.

WordPress Microsite Technology

The tool that I like to use for creating microsites is WordPress.   This popular “open source” content management system (CMS) tool is recommended because:

• There are no licensing fees
• It is easy to setup a website and blog
• It can be hosted inexpensively (<$100 a year)
• There are thousands of developers around the world improving the platform every year
• There are thousands of free software enhancements to make the website more attractive
• It is easy to maintain
• Anyone with Microsoft Word equivalent skills can create and add web pages
• You can drop in video, audio and images easily to any page
• It’s an SEO consultant dream

New Plug-In Technology

At the 7^th Digital Dealer Conference my definition of a WordPress microsite changed.  DealerTrend unveiled the industry’s first commercially available plug-in for WordPress that displays a car dealer’s new and used car inventory.  The plug-in creates an SEO optimized website page for every car you have in stock.

This plug-in has changed the rules for automotive microsites because it takes what was once a 20 page microsite with rich content to a microsite with a few hundred highly optimized model specific pages.  Taking WordPress microsites to this level turns WordPress into a robust automotive inventory marketing tool.  I applaud DealerTrend for being the first to offer such a tool and taking the risk to offer it to car dealers.

The PCG Digital Marketing was the first Automotive Marketing Company to integrate the DealerTrend WordPress plug-in to our Automotive WordPress microsites.  We have hundreds of microsites that are operating for lead generation, Internet Reputation Management, and branding.  Having this tool available to our customers can transform these sites into more effective tools for car sales.

This plug-in creates dealer inventory microsites in minutes, once the feed is setup, and allows dealers to add content themselves or hire a consultant to write content which will make the microsite effective for organic search marketing.  For more information on the plug-in, visit www.dealertrend.com .

Can I Toss My Existing Vendor?

Some dealers have been quick to ask me if the WordPress plug-in will change the industry website landscape by offering open source website platforms that can replace the traditional leased website platforms.   The answer is no; at least for the near term.  Also, the DealerTrend plug-in is not free since it requires your inventory feed to be hosted and fed to your microsite.

Adding inventory to a WordPress website is not a replacement for a full service automotive website platform offered by companies such as eBizAutos, TK Carsites, Dealer.com, DealerFire, DealerOn or Dealer eProcess.  Dealers need to have a solid infrastructure for Internet Marketing which includes tools for CRM, ILM, Newsletters, Video and SEM.  Dealers need to find a core web infrastructure that gives them a set of robust tools for search marketing, sales process management and customer support.

Data integration and analysis will only get more important in months to come and the majority of dealer marketing budgets will move to online spending.   Until companies come up with WordPress Plug-ins for CRM, ILM and other functions that dealers need to run their businesses, WordPress will still be a complimentary platform.

A number of people are working on WordPress tools, so in a year from now my answer could very well change.  For small independent used car dealers, the WordPress platform and an inventory plug-in may be just the trick to give them the SEO marketing tools that they need at an affordable price tag.

Third Party Inventory Marketing Platforms

The WordPress enhanced microsites can feed into a dealer’s main website system as an affiliate marketing source.  Just as companies like Cars.com and Autotrader.com place dealer inventory on their marketing platforms and send leads to a dealer’s CRM system, enhanced microsites with live inventory will perform a similar function.  This plug-in allows you to create targeted, in-state inventory marketing platforms; the possibilities are just endless.

The WordPress open-source development environment and this type of plug-in makes it affordable to deploy live inventory on multiple domain optimized microsites. According to DealerTrend, dealers who implement five microsites would end up spending about $200 a month per microsite.

Automotive Microsites New?

Car dealer platform providers have the ability to offer microsites as part of a marketing strategy using their proprietary website software. From my viewpoint, most vendors in the website space do not see the need or the economics for such an offering.

TK Carsites was the first to formally introduce a microsite marketing model with their “Power of 5” product.  In the past, I was not a fan of how the “Power of 5” was implemented since the microsites were light on content. Today, website pages on TK Sites can be added easily with their new platform code.  This change makes the current “Power of 5” marketing package very attractive.

What makes the WordPress option interesting is that it allows for unlimited content creation and hundreds of free software enhancements.  The counter argument is that car dealer platforms are just now integrating blogs and content on-the-fly so they can now compete with the content creation element of WordPress.

The rules of marketing and consumer engagement are changing.  The 2009 ASMA study of 34 website platforms revealed that nine automotive website platforms have industry leading platforms for search marketing.  This includes content on the fly and fully optimized inventory pages.

We will wait to see, however, if automotive website providers have the insight to create a microsite marketing model within their existing offering.  The marketing data that we have collected would suggest that microsite marketing is here to stay and it is an untapped marketing opportunity for car dealers.

OEM Guidelines on Domain Names

Let me conclude by saying that some OEM’s have been discouraging their dealers to own domains for web marketing that do not include their business name.  I have witnessed car dealers being forced to consolidate or shutdown their microsites that have state or city names plus their OEM brand.

Restrictive marketing guidelines that forbid a Boston dealer from creating a microsite like www.toyotacamryboston.com are a lucrative opening for third party lead collectors and automotive marketing platforms to dominate local search and force car dealers to pay for leads or advertising.

To be fair to OEM concerns, car dealers should not be allowed to deploy domains that include their competitor’s brand name.  However, city names in or around their PMA should be open game if consumers are willing to drive to their dealership.

A strict crackdown on dealer domain marketing will be a boom for third party lead collectors and would restrict car dealers who are innovative and aggressive online marketers.

PMA Maps Are Invisible To Internet Shoppers

For years, TV stations and newspapers in Metro areas like Boston have run ads from competing OEM dealers in downtown Boston and its suburbs.  Those were the rules of engagement since the media outlets crossed PMA lines.  Treating the Internet in terms of PMA boundaries is a naïve thought.

Dealers should be able to innovate automotive online marketing with a microsite strategy that uses high value domain names.  Otherwise, it would be like telling car dealers that they can’t advertise on TV because someone outside of their PMA might see their ad and cause an unfair marketing advantage.

The first Toyota dealer in the Boston suburbs who is smart enough to purchase a domain like www.usedtoyotaboston.com should be able to market their cars on that domain.  OEM’s already endorse car inventory advertising from multiple dealers in one state on Cars.com and Autotrader.com.  The hypocrisy is amazing.  Let’s hope that cooler heads prevail in the coming years otherwise dealers lose significant tactical advantages.

What is Your Microsite Strategy?

Microsites are extremely effective tools for online marketing and they will increase in value as the evolution of blogging and social media turns car dealers into content marketing engines.  Having the right website assets to place that content will determine who wins the competition for high value keywords in your local PMA and state.

If you would like to setup a powerful microsite strategy for your dealership, contact the PCG Digital Marketing at 732-450-8200.   Ask for Carrie Valentine to schedule a call with our founder, Brian Pasch.

Car dealers often ask Brian Pasch; “How many micro-sites should we implement?”

Brian addresses this question in a short video on this topic prior to the 7th Digital Dealer Conference in Nashville Tennessee. Brian Pasch will be conducting his Automotive Internet Marketing seminar on November 1, 2009 at 1:00 pm. The PCG Digital Marketing will also be in the exhibit hall as a vendor during the Conference at booth #16.

The PCG Digital Marketing has a number of microsite examples posted on www.seomicrosites.com and has a private portfolio of sites that can be reviewed during your complimentary phone consultation.