It is clear that search engine optimization (SEO), social networking, and organic search marketing are tools that car dealers need to understand and utilize  to compete on the Internet. 

There are a good number of articles available to car dealers  that advocate automotive digital marketing as an important budgetary item  however for some  managers it can be difficult to quantify the actual ROI to their dealership in any given week or month.  

Short Term Digital Marketing

The work to build consistent cars leads from an SEO campaign is spread over weeks, months and even years.  So you can imagine my excitement when I had a chance to measure the short term impact of a proven set of Automotive SEO strategies on a single promotion event for an Infiniti dealer in Arizona.

The event was held December12-14th in Chandler Arizona at the Adesa Auction Grounds; a direct to public sale of used Infiniti and Nissan Cars coordinated by Nissan and a third party marketing company.  Eight area Infiniti and Nissan dealers were invited to participate in co-op advertising costs for the event which presented about 650 cars for sale over a three day weekend. 

The event was not an auction.  It was a factory direct sale of lease end cars, repossessed cars, and demo cars which dealers could sell at the event on a first come basis.   The advertising campaign from participant co-op dollars would go into radio, TV, and newspaper ads.  The company who organized the event also had a website which included the basic details on the event: date, location, and time.

Automotive Event Marketing Tactics

The marketing strategy set by my client was to secure appointments in advance of the three day weekend event.  I was given three weeks’ notice to come up with an Internet marketing plan.  We created an action plan to determine what the dealer’s staff would be doing and what my company would be doing. 

The dealer would be contacting all unsold prospects in their database as well as starting a small pay-per-click campaign that would send direct leads to a microsite that I was to create.

I was to create the automotive marketing microsite for the event which would load all of the 650 cars into an online searchable database, a concept which no other dealers participating in the event implemented.  The event site was http://www.arizonausedinfiniti.com .

An ADF feed was created from an Excel Spreadsheet provided by the event organizers.  This ADF feed was also loaded into Infiniti of  Scottsdale’s used inventory which in turn was distributed to a number of third party car marketing platforms.  This allowed the Infiniti dealer to promote the cars in the event to a very wide audience in a very short period of time.  

Since Infiniti of Scottsdale was the only dealer that displayed the event inventory in advance of the sale, they had a distinct advantage on capturing and confirming pre-event interest.  The sales staff could walk people through the site on the phone to find cars that met their budget and then book an appointment to see the car.

As part our Internet Marketing strategy, we emailed their entire customer database with a simple text email designed to get in under the spam filters and direct people to the event website. We issued a series of Internet press releases that directed consumer traffic to the site organically.  This helped to compliment the buzz that was being created on radio, TV, and newspapers.  

The Power of Automotive Press Releases

Since we knew that the traditional marketing campaign would generate online interest, we made sure that our site would come up in Google searches for a few variations of the event name.  If you go into Google and type “Chandler Surplus Sale”  or  “Arizona car surplus sale” you can see that we dominate the first page of Google which lead to over 300 visits per day in advance of the car event.   

In the three week prior to the event, we unleashed the Internet marketing “hounds” at a very reasonable cost to the dealership.  We utilized social networking platforms, Craigslist, Google Base, and a few proprietary marketing models.  The event site was getting over 300 hits a day from interested parties which were not generated by any of the co-cop advertising dollars for this event.

The results?  Infiniti of Scotstdale had the most appointments of all Infiniti dealers at the event and they sold more cars to consumers than any other Infiniti dealer .  The bottom line is that the event was very profitable and the ROI on the Internet marketing costs was very high.   When the event was over, the General Manager clearly understood that the success at the event was a great partnership between his outstanding sales team and aggressive internet marketing strategies.

The residual benefits are that the 150+ leadsthat came into our marketing microsite are still being pursued and matched up with used cars from their used car inventory.  The event created a fresh list of leads of  Arizona car shoppers looking for used car values. The ISM is confident that he can turn these unsold event leads into sales this month.

The event marketing website will be repurposed for selling Infiniti used cars in Arizona year round. It has already started to gain some organic ranking for Infiniti used car searches in Arizona.  It’s great to know that when the pressure is on, organic search marketing and Automotive digital marketing techniques can make a short term difference and return a fantastic ROI.  The long term benefits of SEO have been discussed on this forum at great lengths. In this case, a short term Internet marketing campaign outside of Pay-Per-Click, resulted in outstanding results.

Looking For New Automotive Marketing Stratgies?

Contact Brian Pasch, CEO to discuss how the Pasch Consulting Group can help energize your new and used cars sales in the year ahead.

More souring news on the automotive industry as the 2009 Detroit Auto Show fades from its former glory.

This week, Nissan and Infiniti are the latest to announce that they are not going to participate in the North American International Auto Show in Detroit next January. This news increases the count to seven car companies that will skip the 2009 Detroit Auto Show.

Nissan and Infiniti, which normally have large displays at the show, will not have a public display of vehicles. Earlier this year, Mitsubishi, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Suzuki and Land Rover all said they would not attend the 2009 Detroit show.  This seems like additional anecdotal evidence of how fear and panic have spread into the overall economy.

Where I live in New Jersey, local restaurants that were once thriving are now 25% full on weekends. I visited the Borgota Casino two weeks ago on a Friday night and at 6:00 PM, there were two people on line to check. On a Friday the line is normally 15-20 people deep.

Local car dealerships are very concerned and many are drastically cutting back on spending.  This new announcement from Infiniti and Nissan sends another wave of panic to the markets. This decision begs the question; what comes next for the auto industry?

Pulling out of any major industry venue may be knee jerk reaction compared to just cutting down the budget with a smaller footprint. I don’t understand the politics of the show but it seems like the baby is being thrown out with the bath water.

If you would like more information on the show, use the website link below:

http://www.naias.com

January 17-25, 2009

Cabo Center, Detroit Michigan

Automotive advertising agencies – you are being called to task.  It is very common for car dealers to have their ad agency create a sheet of monthly specials like the one shown for Audi cars. These ads are used in local newspapers but they are also being used for dealer websites.

Unfortunately, the ad agencies are not telling automotive sales managers that these graphical contribute practically NOTHING to attractive car shoppers via Google and Yahoo search. Most traditional automotive advertising agencies don’t understand search engine optimization (SEO).  They didn’t grow up with SEO.  Their job is to produce auto ads every month, on schedule, and they are happy for the business.

Well, if I was the owner of a car dealership, I would not be happy how these ads are being used on the web. You see, these ads have text that Google cannot index.  Google cannot read the text on a photo.  They are in effect a blank page to the search engine spiders.  If car dealers expect for consumers to find their monthly specials online, they have to take the time to type the details in plain text.

You may think this is a simple task and one that should be commonplace on dealer websites.  But take a look at 20 car dealer websites by clicking on their “Specials” page and you’ll find that most are graphical ads with the pertinent information on an image. 

So should dealers login into their website administrative panel and add their car specials in text?  This is where things get interesting.  Creating a good looking text page on most automotive website platforms is not easy.  Yes, most platforms claim that they have easy to use HTML editors but in common practice, they are not easy to use.

I have worked with a number of HTML editors on car dealer websites and they all are tricky at best.  The skills to create “tables” or aligned text requires skills that are beyond the average Internet sales manager. Copying preformatted text into these embedded editors can cause more trouble that it’s worth.

So, Sales Managers take the least path of resistance and drop in a graphic advertisement on their specials page so it’s not blank.   Just keep in mind that these graphical ads do ZERO for drawing new customer via search. Even worse, pages that only contain one image will most likely never even get indexed by Google.

If car dealers take the time to create car specials and incentives, they should also take the time to publicize them on the web.  In an ideal world, you would have a dedicated web page for each car you have on special that month.  This way the HTML Title, META Description and content can be optimized for the offer. In addition to their own websites, specials can be posted on free services like Craigslist, MerchantCircle and social networking sites.  The dealers, who make the effort to give Google what they expect, will be rewarded with better search visibility.

Automotive SEM Competition is on the rise and car dealers will be paying more for targeted keywords in Google Adwords .

As the economy weakens and the stock market fails to provide emotional support for a stunned consumer market, automotive dealers are digging in their heels and fighting back.  Recent data indicates that US car dealers are diverting monies from traditional advertising channels and increasing their spending on Google and Yahoo. From our customer surveys, monies once allocated to print, radio and cable TV are being reduced and moved to internet advertising platforms.

This shift in spending has many implications. The cost per click on many common automotive search phrases has been steadily rising in October and November of 2008.  This is a clear indication that car dealers are embracing the fact that 85% of new car buyers are researching their cars on the Internet prior to a purchase.  With cash flow tight, Automotive Sales Managers are increasing their bids for the top positions in Google Adwords.

The increased competition poses some interesting challenges for Automotive Marketing companies due to the risk of a bidding war erupting, and everyone involved being hurt.  Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is an important part of any car dealer’s digital marketing strategy.  However, SEM alone can be very costly in the long term.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies can provide car dealers with sustainable, low-cost lead flow to supplement leads purchased through SEM.  Automotive microsites are another tool which provide car dealers with a highly ranked website designed to capture local car buyer information.  As PPC costs continue to rise, SEO strategies look increasingly attractive.

One SEO strategy example is a microsite designed for the release of the 2009 Infiniti G37 Convertible.  We created a microsite on the domain www.infinitig37convertible.com for Infiniti of Santa Monica. It ranks #1 in the USA for the search phrase “Infiniti G37 Convertible” and is on Google page one for other search phrases like “2009 G37 convertible” or simply “g37 convertible”.  The site had a low, on-time cost to create and has generated hundreds of consumer leads located in California who want to purchase this car.  When the Infiniti G37 convertible finally is released in the spring of 2009, Infiniti of Santa Monica will be the West Coast sales leader for this car.

As car dealers look for effective marketing strategies, SEO and SEM will continue to rise to the top of a list of  channels that produce the best ROI for local consumer car leads.  If you are interested in additional articles on Automotive SEO, you can visit www.dealer-seo.com.

This past week I attended and automotive eMarketing brunch hosted by Kelly Blue Book.  Speakers at the brunch included industry veterans Ralph Paglia, Mark Burack and event host Rob Lange from KBB.   The topics covered in the seminar were outstanding which also included a presentation by Chad Goodson of Carfax.com.  Ralph is the founder of AutomotiveDigitalMarketing.com and I am a member of that community. Mark Burack is the EVP of LiquidSales.com and they have some great tools fio for selling cars on eBay.

Rob Lange opened the seminar by sharing data from industry surveys that tracked the online behavior of new car buyers. The data identified important expectations that online car buyers had when visiting a car dealer website.  When various survey results were placed on a PowerPoint slide, the data made practical sense to everyone in the room.  There we no surprises but when you see data compiled on one page, I started to brainstorm.

As an automotive SEO specialist, I spend a lot of time driving traffic to websites who have designs that I do not control.  The motivations behind car dealer website designs at times are puzzling.  I’ve visited dealer websites that make it hard to get a price quote.  I’ve experienced sites that hang up my browser because they are so overloaded with flash.  Other auto dealer sites set-off my pop-up blocker with annoying “specials” or blast me with animated videos. There is obviously no consensus on what makes up a good website design.

The KBB seminar forced me to think about how we could create an optimal website design that meets the expectations of the online car shopper.  I don’t have any solutions to share immediately. I did however start to create a graphical representation of what I distilled from the first seminar topic.

Online car buyers want to be educated; over 83% of car buyers search the Internet for information before buying a car. Consumers want that information provided in a convenient format and I would like to add that they would like it in a format that is easily emailed, like a PDF. 

Online car buyers are expecting a simple process to obtain a price quote, the MSRP and features for any car a dealer sells.  They expect dealers to respect their privacy and send them information via email before they call.  And finally, online car shoppers want to feel that all this work resulted in a better -than- average price for the car they buy.  As Rob Lange put it “They want to win.”

If these expectations represent the average online shopper, then car dealer websites have a long way to go.  Not all auto dealers provide the same car data sheets as PDF files that are offered freely on the manufacturer’s website pertaining to car model specifications, options, and colors.  By adding basic educational materials to dealer websites, car buyers may be spending more time on local dealer sites and less time on third party lead collection websites.

If online car buyers have a choice on where to educate themselves about a car, the local car dealer that adds ample content on each car that they sell will have an advantage over their local competition.  According to one of the speakers at the seminar, if the dealer respects the consumers wish to receive and review the requested information before a call is initiated, the potential for a successful result will be optimized.

If you look at your website from a consumer perspective, you may agree that a few small changes could make a big difference in conversion rates of visitor traffic.  If you would like a free evaluation of your car dealer website, give Brian Pasch, CEO a call; 732-842-4720.