News

On November 1st the PCG Digital Marketing will release the 2009 Automotive Search Marketing Architecture (ASMA) report at the 7th Digital Dealer Conference. I am tallying the final scores from the 34 website platform providers in our study and some early results are very encouraging.

Last year we reviewed 16 website platforms and only 2 platforms scored perfectly on the basics of SEO architecture for car inventory listing modules. This year out of the 34 providers we reviewed, seven platforms had perfect scores on the SEO basics.

This is great news for the automotive industry as more choices become available to assist car dealers with increasing organic search traffic for the cars that they sell. A number of automotive website providers have made significant improvements from our 2008 report.

By the number of improvements that we can see this year it is obvious that companies are listening to automotive forums like ADM, DrivingSales and DealerRefresh.

Scoring Inventory Modules

Of the 34 platforms that we reviewed, the scores on the “inventory modules” section of the scoring process look like this:

• Perfect SEO Scores – 7 platforms
• Partial SEO Compliance – 18 platforms
• Failed All SEO Basics – 9 platforms

We will also be scoring other aspects of the website platforms in addition to their inventory modules. We will be looking at the overall ability of the platform to add user generated SEO complaint content and how well these website platforms appear in search results.

This year’s report will have a number of new categories that are design to help General Managers evaluate the many choices on the market for an automotive website.

Are You Shopping?

If you have a website contract that is coming up for renewal or if you are in the market to change your website platform, I would suggest that you wait until this report comes out on November 1st.

Are you looking for an inexpensive way to get training from top industry professionals on social media and mobile marketing?  Are you looking to leverage your time out of the dealership to achieve a maximum result? 

The Fall 2009 Digital Dealer Conference being held this November in Nashville will cover the latest trends in automotive marketing strategies.  Included on the 2009 Fall Roster are Stan Bradbury and Ralph Paglia, two experts in the field of advanced Automotive marketing strategies.

Social Media

Social media networking strategies have exploded among all businesses nationwide, and car dealers are no exception.   Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter are now considered must have staples of any successful marketing strategy. 

Ralph Paglia will be speaking at this year’s Digital Dealer Conference and will showcase actual dealership implementations of social media marketing and reputation management strategies. Attendees will learn how to measure performance and track the results required for increases in sales and profits.

Ralph Paglia is responsible for business development at ADP’s Digital Marketing Group.  Paglia helped establish strategic alliances for ADP with digital marketing enterprises such as Google, Yahoo!, KBB, Specific Media, Jumpstart, DealerRater, Ning and DoubleClick.   Ralph has over 20 years of automotive experience including Reynolds Consulting Practice Leader and several dealership management positions.

Mobile Marketing

Digital Dealer Conference attendees will also have the pleasure of learning from mobile communications expert Stan Bradbury.  Bradbury is the co-founder and president of Dealer Text Solutions, the first company to develop comprehensive text messaging solution for automotive retailers and service centers, and the co-founder of CallBoost, the leading provider of 1-800 vanity phone numbers to auto retailers.

Bradbury will lead a discussion entitled Get Ahead by Becoming a Leader in Mobile Communications, which will show dealers how to turn text messaging into the most value sales tool within their mobile marketing campaign. 

Book Now

This year’s Digital Dealer Conference takes place in Nashville, TN, November 1^st-3^rd.   Readers who book early can get invited to my Halloween Party in Nashville.

Car dealers who would like to learn more about the Digital Dealer Conference or wish to register to attend can visit http://www.digitaldealerconference.com for more information.

About the Digital Dealer Conference

The annual Digital Dealer Conference attracts hundreds of dealership attendees that are looking to learn more about Internet and technology-related issues.  Speakers who are experts in the field of Automotive Digital Marketing present seminars which help forward thinking dealerships stay ahead of the ever changing technology curve.   For registration or sponsorship opportunities, visit http://www.digitaldealerconference.com

The PCG Digital Marketing offers car dealers with the opportunity to promote their car inventory on a number of social networking websites including: 

• Craigslist
• BackPage
• MerchantCircle
• Google Base

The advantage of using these tools is simple; you sell more cars.  You sell more cars because your inventory is displayed in more places where consumers research car prices or local car sales.  A second advantage is that for some of these website, you can create inbound links to your website from a high quality website.  If done properly, if you post your used car inventory with a dedicated page link per car, you can simply the shopping experience as well as create power direct inner links to your website.

For example this link: www.usednissancars.net/MA/2006/Nissan/Altima/Used-2006-Nissan-Altima-589.html directly points to a used Nissan Altima for sale in Massachusetts.  By having this direct link “live” in Craigslist, consumers can them go directly to the photos and the specific details on the car with one click.  With our optimized car inventory module, the benefits of individual SEO optimized landing pages are further leveraged on Craigslist.

As sites like www.Craigslist.org get more popular, consumers will start directly searching for cars that may be posted on Craigslist.  Yes, they can go and search Craigslist on their site but I believe consumers will also start searching Google with a search phrase like “Boston craigslist 2005 BMW x5″.

The process of loading your inventory on Craigslist can be often as you like since we can accept your car inventory feed and post cars in the geo-areas on Craigslist that are local to you. Our fees for posting are changed by the hour so you get efficient posting on social networks without a set fee.  This will reduce you costs on months when new car inventory is lighter than normal.

If you are interested in discussing how Social Networking sites can benefit your Internet visibility, give us a call.  Ask to speak with our founder, Brian Pasch.  732-450-8200