News

The 9th Digital Dealer Conference will be in Las Vegas from October 12-14th.  You can register online and sign-up early to save money on registration fees.  You can visit the Digital Dealer Conference website at: http://www.digitaldealerconference.com/

The 8th Digital Dealer Conference was held in April of 2010 and it was our mnost successful show as a speaker and vendor. The exhibit hall was packed with eager car dealers looking for a competitive edge in their digital marketing strategies.  According to the conference website:

The 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition will be held at The Mirage, October 12-14, 2010. The last conference in Orlando in April drew 559 dealership attendees from 46 states and featured more than 70 companies as exhibitors and sponsors in over 60 booth spaces. Combined, the last two Digital Dealer Conferences drew over 1,100 registered dealers, GMs, GSMs, Internet Sales Managers, e-Commerce Directors, BDC/CRM Managers, Pre-Owned Magagers, Service Managers and F&I Managers – every one of them there to learn more about Internet and technology-related issues from speakers and exhibitors.

We expect as many as 90 exhibitors and sponsors and over 1,200 attendees in Las Vegas this fall, with more than 600 attendees coming from dealerships around the country. We’ve done eight of these and continue to work our formula for attendee success.

Digital Dealer Conference in Las Vegas

I look forward to seeing everyone in Las Vegas and I hope to be invited back to speak on my passion:  Automotive SEO, Digital Marketing and Automotive Advertising strategies.

In the meantime, please follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/automotiveseo  and you can also get updated on our PCG Digital Marketing Facebook page.   Between shows I will be posting Internet Marketing tips that can help you bet your competitors to the punch.

Automotive Internet Marketing specialists, the PCG Digital Marketing (PCG), announce the launch of a new comprehensive Internet Marketing package price at $995 per month.  The new offering will provide car dealers with customized online marketing solution that will include microsites, content development, blogging, social media, internet reputation management and Adwords strategies on a monthly basis with the convenience of a predictable monthly budget.  

The services delivered in PCG’s monthly package is configured based on the dealer’s current marketing strategies and vendor relationships. The PCG Digital Marketing package can work with any car dealer platform or existing service providers.

Automotive Social Media Strategies

Automotive social media platforms and online automotive portals have grown in popularity as the majority of consumers begin their car research online. By 2010, Generation Y will outnumber baby-boomers and become one of the most important consumer targets.  96% of Generation Y have already joined social networks. 

Dealers looking to leverage blogging, social media, Automotive SEO and Internet Reputation Management  networks can be overwhelmed with the amount of time and work needed to make an impact online.  Hiring a full time employee who can effectively manage these tasks would require a minimum $50K per year salary. 

With the new PCG package, dealers can saturate their local and statewide online marketing efforts for under $12K per year.   PCG’s new program includes a comprehensive approach to state-of-the-art Automotive SEO, blogging, online press releases, Internet Reputation Management, and social media networking. 

Predictable Marketing Budgets

Brian Pasch founder and CEO of PCG saw a need for this type of fee-based package in the Automotive community.  According to Pasch, “I hear the frustration of dealers at conferences who share stories about just how hard it can be to find the right person, or the person that was designated for Online Marketing was pulled off to work on other projects.  With this package, dealers can leverage the Automotive Internet Marketing expertise that PCG is known for and free up other employees to focus on what they do best.” 

Pasch also points out that Internet Marketing has no one-size-fits-all option.  Those not specifically experienced in the world of Automotive SEO and Marketing may have a harder time understanding the best practices for the industry.  “It’s another gamble that dealers don’t have to take.  PCG has proven success in Automotive SEO that a typical Internet Marketing Agency cannot immediately claim.”

Auto dealers who would like to learn more about our new comprehensive Internet Marketing package can contact the PCG Digital Marketing at 732-450-8200.

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.