10 PPC Trends You Can’t Ignore

July 15, 2020Digital Marketing, Automotive Marketing, PPC Management

Pay-Per-Click Trends

In a competitive world, you need to make sure that you are taking advantage of your advertising financial plan. In any case, as new pay-per-click (PPC) systems continue to grow, it becomes difficult to tell who is focusing on which mergers.

Thus, it is important that the current PPC remain awake with slanting dates as the upcoming pattern, which is scheduled to rule next year.

The following are the main 10 PPC patterns that you cannot ignore in 2020 to remain relevant in your industry.

TREND 1: PPC Automation

TREND 2: Video Advertising

TREND 3: The Rise of Amazon’s Paid Advertising

TREND 4: Social Media Advertising

TREND 5: Bumper Video Advertising

TREND 6: Audience Targeting

TREND 7: Development Of Smart Bidding

TREND 8: Remarketing

TREND 9: PPC and SEO Integration

TREND 10: Collaborative Filtering

Here are the trends to pay attention:

TREND 1: PPC Automation

PPC automation has appear as a ground-breaking approach to improve the campaign performance. Organizations like Google have invested huge sums of money to overcome their automation options.

The most ideal approach to use PPC automation, which works efficiently and with the support of AI. Also it is fundamentally important to establish scientific and competent conversion tracking system appropriately to connect all of these together with a connecting promotion duplicate, which is the copy filled with relevant keywords and identifying the business target audience.

To truly benefit from PPC automation, you should help it by ensuring your objectives for your business. This will ensure that Google is optimizing accurately and driving the necessary objectives to focus on your optimal customers.

TREND 2: Video Advertising

Videos is an incredible and successful approach to transmitting data and allows a brand to convey its personality and story to their target audience. None of the videos are new, yet some brands are difficult to include in their advertising mix and will continue until 2020.

Google introduced recently YouTube Bumper Machine, a video promotion tool that enable organizations to turn any 90-second ad into various bumper ads scheduled to be included on YouTube.

TREND 3: The Rise of Amazon’s Paid Advertising

PPC may mean you instantly think of Google ad and Facebook ad, you’d be right, yet be clear, Amazon has started with paid promotions and on Amazon, though Amazon is also off. Here comes Amazon as the third largest and fastest growing publicist with Amazon advertising.

The key purpose of profit here with Amazon is that the audience on Facebook and Google is actually getting there with buyer expectations, however, one person on Amazon is looking forward to getting it.

TREND 4: Social Media Advertising

About 70% of people check a social media platform every month and these numbers are evolving. If you are ignoring online networking in your PPC techniques, you are passing through a big opportunity.

Popular Platforms, for example, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, observe a large amount of day-to-day use, and focusing on different stages is an extraordinary Assistive PPC technology will be.

This means that PPC advertisers will focus on promoting for the social media platform. Since many people use several social media stages, you have to take advantage of this multi-stage pattern.

TREND 5: Bumper Video Advertising

We are sure that you are probably aware of the Bumper video ads. For those who do not have, the bumper video ads is very short spanned over 5 – 15 second video that essentially pop in the middle of your actual video, leading to a bumper. These videos must be fresh, accurate and deeply integrated. Just describe and show what your showcase needs to be your brand.

Platform will urge sponsors to accommodate things like Google’s vertical video ads. Even if you don’t want to pay to advertise videos, YouTube or places with comparable video features are a great purpose for your search campaigns.

TREND 6: Audience Targeting

For some time our ads budget plan is not really as high as would be required for many people. In this manner, the new expansion of PPC trends is helpful keeping in mind the audience.

Focusing on the crowd gives you an indication of things like collecting age or paying family that focuses on your product. You can even set a publicity tilt to stop the audience that you don’t think your service appeals to. Focusing on the audience is highly useful for your budget plans.

TREND 7: Development Of Smart Bidding

Smart Bidding is set to be significantly powerful in 2020 driving it to increasingly predominant while building PPC techniques. Smart Bidding is a mechanized offering framework that uses AI to improve the two transformations and its qualities during auction.

Smart Bidding is an AI-controlled computerized bidding system. It utilizes AI to enhance changes and transformation esteems in auctions. A few models incorporate Enhanced Cost-Per-Click (CPC), Target Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), and Target Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS).

TREND 8: Remarketing

Remarketing is a advertising practice to sell the both products and services who experience them before. It is an essential strategy to pick up navigate or CTR rates just as change rates and will stay well known with publicists in 2020.

Remarketing is basic, simple, and don’t meddle with the normal routine of the people. You basically get certain suggestions in your notice bar comparable to the items you have seen or requested previously.

TREND 9: PPC and SEO Integration

SEO cannot be thrown out of PPC. In 2020, SEO PPC ads will continue to influence campaigns and will be one of the top trend you cannot ignore. Incorporating PPC and SEO campaigns is very important and only an accomplished PPC organization can do this. Similarly, it is essential to have these two strategies to cooperate as they will be important in the present times.

A good way to match your PPC and SEO is to analyze your top-performing ads copy. Make your content and blog entries dependent on that copy to support your ranking.

TREND 10: Collaborative Filtering

Collaborative filtering is an aggregated framework that groups users by shared tastes or orientations. Filtering can be established by age, interests, regions, and more, which directs them to the most claimed content.

The content given is for the most part dependent on the misleading history of the customer, who enjoy the themes that keep the sites energetic, new and relevant, or overflowing by giving them the proper location. This allows sites to be unique, new, and relevant to unique customers.

Final Thoughts

These PPC patterns for 2020 will help change the way organizations purchase new users and focus more, the relevant audiences. Thus, it is important to be cautious on all these growing PPC processes, so organizations stay awake from time to time and change their PPC functioning in a manner.

The most ideal approach to achieve this is the recruitment of a PPC organization that will use its PPC services to achieve the ideal PPC system result.

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Automotive Sales Presentations

June 12, 2020Sales, Dealership Tips

The Need for Automotive Sales Presentations

Why we sell

Making a presentation is why most of us are in the business of selling. We love to talk, don’t we? So sometimes we load up on product knowledge, only to deliver it in the form of a data dump, and customers may be overwhelmed. We also tend to focus solely on the car. But there is more to selling than just the product.

Relationship between Price and Value

Studies indicate that until a customer perceives that the value of a product or service is equal to, or exceeds the price, they will not buy.

Unfortunately, most dealerships work to reduce the price during negotiations in order to achieve the proper relationship between price and value. This process not on reduces your chances of selling a car; it also reduces your ability to retain gross profit! Don’t believe it?

Consider this:
Research indicates that 38% of the time sales consultants invite negotiations by either implying that the “sticker” is just a starting point, or they flat out offer a discount before they’re even asked. What this says about the way they think is that the value of what they are offering isn’t worth the price.

The Paradigm Shift – A New Point of View

Almost every manufacturer is building a fairly decent product these days. When there isn’t much difference between your products and that of the next dealership, you’d better be offering more value in other areas. Today’s dealerships need to get away from focusing solely on product and more on the value in other areas.

The Four Value Builders

We teach salespeople to focus on four key value building components – You, The Dealership, the Manufacturer and the Product. According to research, today’s customer’s needs are best addressed by focusing our selling efforts along the following strategic lines:

40% Building trust
30% Identifying needs
20% Presenting solutions
10% Confirming and closing

Slow Down to Speed Up

Traditional car salesmen spend their time with the customer as follows:

Greeting and qualifying- 10 minutes
Presenting and demonstration- 40 minutes
Negotiating and closing – 60 – 90 minutes

The research found that the reason negotiations take so long is because salespeople attempted to put customers into vehicles that didn’t meet their needs.

The new approach to selling is a bit different:

Greeting and fact-finding – 30 – 40 minutes
Presenting and demonstration – 40 – 50 minutes
Negotiating and closing – 30 – 40 minutes

By spending more time fact-finding early in the process, you’re able to identify more of what the customer wants and that helps you build value. Since value is increased, the need to negotiate price is reduced, thus reducing the time it takes to close the deal.

Presenting You

You are why people buy

Like it or not, the single biggest factor that leads to a sale is the relationship the customer has with you. According to a study by the University of Wisconsin, they estimate that 50% of all sales are made due to feelings of friendship. And according to Harry Beckwith in “Selling the Invisible”, customers are more interested in relationships than features.

Number one litmus test

A litmus test is also called “the acid test”. The term is often used to describe whether or not a person actually meets the criteria needed for a particular situation. And when it comes to sales, there is one acid test question that must be answered: “Do you like people?”
If you can’t answer this question with a resounding “Yes”, do everyone a favor and get out of sales. You’ll save yourself – and a lot of other people – from misery and grief. Not to mention a bunch of lost money.

Making the most of it

There are a number of things you can do to build rapport with customers. These include:

Dressing appropriately
Checking your attitude before you greet people or answer the phone
Being enthusiastic and having fun
Listening 80% of the time, talking 20% of the time
Remaining calm, helpful and pleasant under all circumstances
Focusing on the customer’s needs before your needs

Presenting Your Dealership

About your dealer

As bad a reputation as the car business has, most dealers founded their business on the basis of customer service and satisfaction. Very few dealers became successful enough to become owner-operators by swindling all their customers. Many of these dealers have great stories behind their success and those stories need to be told.

History of the dealership

Whether your dealership has been around a long time or not, you need to tell about their history. Stories are great value builders and people love to hear a good story. Here’s an example:

“John Campbell is one of the nation’s first “one price” auto dealers. He believes that customer’s really don’t like the push-pull of negotiating so he created value pricing at each of his Ford, Mazda, and Nissan stores. Customers appreciate the honest approach to pricing and this led to John becoming one of the first Saturn retailers to be awarded a franchise. That’s why our commitment is to provide our customers with honest and upfront information!”

A Tour of the Facility

Touring the dealership is a tremendous value builder. It provides the customer with an opportunity to get to know more about your company and your services. If you’re going to set up the tour correctly, you need to ask the right question at the Greeting. After the initial exchange, be sure to ask, “Is this your first visit to our dealership?” This will help set up the reason for the tour.

Transition – Once you’ve confirmed that this is their first visit, invite them on the tour by saying (this one or your own words): “Mr. and Mrs. Jones, the buying experience usually only takes a few hours, but owning the vehicle takes years. And the people that take care of you in the years ahead can make all the difference in the world. So I’d like to show you around so you can get to know a little more about our dealership and our people before we begin looking at cars. Is that okay with you?”

Tour Stops – Here are the places and people you should see while on the tour:

Service department – Manager and/or advisors
Sales office – Sales Manager
Reception – The key contact person in your dealership
Customer lounge – focus on any refreshments or conveniences
Children’s area – If you have one, be sure to show it off
Business area – for working while at the dealership
Other key areas specific to your dealership

The Fact-Finding Connection

During fact-finding, you may find that one of the customer’s key motivators has something to do with Reliability. Upon further investigation, you find that they were left stranded during a breakdown and they had significant challenges with the service department where they purchased their last vehicle.

If the customer indicated this was the most important motivator to purchasing their next car, you don’t want to move from fact-finding to a vehicle presentation. Instead, you want to explain Road Side Assistance programs, and then introduce them to the service department.

The vehicle is only part of the sales equation. By ignoring the benefits of the dealership’s service department, you’d be leaving important value components out of the process, and create a difficult negotiating environment later on.

Presenting the Manufacturer – Brand Image

Before a customer ever walks on the lot, they have a preconceived idea of what your company is all about because of the way the manufacturer advertises. Some of the slogans they hear include:

Quality is job 1
The Ultimate Driving Machine
A Different Kind of Company

It’s important that you capitalize on your manufacturers brand image and continue to build on that when customers arrive at your dealership.

Product Innovations

Most companies have something unique about their products. Mitsubishi has liquid-filled engine mounts, move have dent-free side panels, and Mazda had and is reintroducing the rotary engine. Be sure to present unique features and product awards that set your manufacturer apart from all the others.

Warranty and Special Services

The warranty is an important consideration in purchasing a vehicle. How the company intends to stand behind the quality of their product can make or break a deal. Consider the fact that Hyundai’s product reputation was so tainted in the ’90s that they had to provide their customers with a 100,000-mile warranty. That investment alone has significantly turned their fortunes around.

And don’t forget to let customers know if the manufacturer provides roadside assistance, travel assistance, or loaner programs. These little extras add tremendous value to the overall product you are presenting.

Presenting Your Product

Personalize your presentation

Presenting the vehicle correctly requires matching features and benefits to specific wants and needs defined by the customer during fact-finding.

Too often salespeople follow the traditional approach of a 5 or 6 point walk- around without connecting to what the customer said was important.

The first key element of a personalized Vehicle Presentation is to present the most important feature first. Next, you want to involve the customer by having them touch the seats or move and adjust things like the radio. This helps them take mental ownership.

Use Feature, Function, and Benefit

Next, be sure to use Feature, Function, and Benefit when making your presentation. The Feature is simply what the component is. The Function explains what the feature does, and the Benefit ties the product to a specific need addressed by the customer during fact-finding.

Tie the Customer Down

Here’s another key element: We call it the tie-down! Tie-downs are used to enhance the customer’s connection to the vehicle by tagging the customer’s comments with a short and simple phrase.

For example:
Customer: I really like this leather Salesperson: It’s nice, isn’t it?

Confirming

Once you’ve presented a feature, be sure to confirm that the feature you presented will meet your customer’s needs by asking a confirming question like, “Does this meet your needs for comfort?”

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Building a Customer Profile

May 30, 2020Dealership Tips, Sales

Knowledge is Power

But that knowledge can also corrupt your attitude if you ask the wrong questions.
Some questions are better off NOT asked.

Here is a list of questions that you should NEVER ask during the profile building step.

How much can you put down?
How much can you pay per month?
How is your credit score?
How much do you owe on your car?

Asking these questions is inviting your customer to LIE to you. Asking these questions will only shortcut the process. Short-cut your process and you will shortcut your paycheck. You are better off with a positive attitude and no information than with a negative attitude and all the information.

What do we want to accomplish during the Profile Building Step in the sales process?

Determine what they want to accomplish during their visit
Investigate the customer’s deal “hot buttons” (Price, Trade Value, Rate)
Determine what is important about their new vehicle (wants and needs)
Transition to an appraisal of their vehicle

Examples of Great Profile Building Questions

Are you driving a Toyota Now? What Year and Model?
How many miles do you have on it? How long have you owned it?
Did you buy it as New, Used, or a Demo?
What are your payments?
If paid off, what were they when you had payments?
How did you get them so low?
Has it been worth your present payment?
What was the asking price when you bought it?
Would you purchase that car again?
What have you liked most about your present vehicle?
What have you liked least about your present vehicle?
What is most important to you in a vehicle?
Who else is this vehicle important to?
How have your needs changed since your last purchase?
What are you hoping to accomplish today?
What do you want your new vehicle to do that your present vehicle doesn’t?
Are you looking for:
- something in a lighter, medium, or darker color?
  a 2 door, 4 doors, Truck or Van?
  any specific equipment like Leather, Sunroof, or Alloy Wheels?
- Automatic or Manual Transmission?
What other vehicles are you considering at this time?

Effective Listening Skills

Maintain Eye Contact
Take Notes
Ask Probing Questions
Re-Phrase and Repeat
Recap what is important to the Buyer

Benefits of Building a Profile

Shows that you are interested in why the customer is here Builds Credibility
Establishes Trust
Decreases anxiety and tension
Allows you to tailor your presentation
Structure negotiations
Assists in selecting the right vehicle for the buyer
Allows you to control the process without confrontation
Shows that you are different in the market place
Creates Excitement and Urgency

Profile Goals

The Goals of the “Building a Profile” step in the process is to determine the “How, What, Where and Why” of the Car Deal. In the traditional sales process, this is the step where salespeople are taught to ask “Qualifying” Questions.

Qualifying Questions

The following questions are examples of traditional qualifying questions:

How much can you put down?
How much can you pay per month?
How much do you owe on your trade?
What is your credit like?

Those qualifying questions are confrontational and financial in nature and will put your buyer off and you will not get usable information.

In today’s world, the customer comes to a car dealership for one thing: Information. A buyer is looking for information about a vehicle or vehicles, information about pricing and payments, information about the dealership.

During the Profile Building step, you will want to talk to the customer about why they are at the dealership. Ask Friendly and information-based questions. These questions should be deliberate questions about the vehicle they are buying, the vehicle that they are selling, and about what is important to the buyer.

Effective Listening Skills

Use your effective listening skills to ensure that the buyer knows that you are genuinely interested in why he/she is there and to gain important information about their purchase.

Benefits of Building a Profile

People are creatures of habit and will repeat behaviors. If you can find out what made them buy their last vehicle, it will help you with the purchase of their next vehicle. By asking the questions that are on the preceding pages you are far more likely to gain credibility and earn the trust of the buyer.

You will notice that many of the questions include options. It is always easier for people to choose then decide. Always give the customer the ability to choose and you will get an answer more quickly and without confrontation. You will also be able to put yourself in a better selling situation, let’s take a look at a good example: Are you looking for something in a Lighter, Medium or Darker Color?

It is always easier for people to choose then decide. Always give the customer the ability to choose and you will get an answer more quickly and without confrontation.

If your customer is looking for a white car, he/she will usually answer “Lighter”. That will give you an opportunity to show the customer more vehicles… Silver, Beige even a Light Green or Blue might work. It opens up the opportunity for the customer to do more shopping on the lot and allow him/her to save face if you don’t have exactly what they are looking for (the white car).

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Using Google To Discover The Best Keywords

May 30, 2020Automotive Marketing, Digital Marketing, SEO

Automotive Keywords

There are various ways that you can discover which are the best automotive keywords for you to use when you are trying to promote your dealership web site. You want to be sure that you use both keywords that are relevant to your site and also to the consumer who will be using these keywords to search for products or services such as what you sell online.

One way to figure out which are the best keywords for you is to use a Google tool. Google is the largest search engine online and there are many different Google tools that are designed to help you figure in ranking in this search engine. You can do research prior to setting up your site to figure out which are the best keywords to use for your site and which will bring in the most searches.

Google Analytics

The Google analytics toolbar will let you know which keywords will work best for you. This works with regular keywords to give you an idea of what others will be putting into the search bar to seek out your product or service. In some cases, keyword choices may be obvious. In others, it may not be so obvious.

The Google tool will let you know the number of searches that are performed for each of the keywords that they pull up relevant to your site. You can use this tool to ascertain which are the correct keywords that you should be using in your Automotive SEO marketing efforts.

You should take advantage of all of the tools that are offered by Google to get your site up and running. The keyword analysis is one of the many tools that Google offers to help you with your website. Once you have your website up and running, you can submit it to the Google search engine.

List of Keywords

Make a list of the keywords and use them in the text that you use to promote your site. The keywords should be part of all of the SEO marketing that you do. You may not be able to use all of the keywords in a given article or blog, but you will want to work with all of them. Some of them will reflect that they are searched more than others.

Also, take into account misspellings. If you have a product that can easily be misspelled, you can capture a great deal of the market if you account for this in your SEO marketing. You may be able to pick up customers who are using an alternate spelling for your product and who land directly on your page rather than others who do not offer the misspelled words in their text.

Creative Marketing

While it is important to make sure that you have a website that appears grammatically correct and does not contain any glaring errors, it is just as important to attract people to that website. You can do this creatively by making use of the misspellings that many people will use when they are searching for your item.

Google Analytics can help you see what you are doing wrong and right when it comes to SEO for your website. Before you begin promoting your dealership website with the use of SEO, you should take a look at the keywords that are recommended by Google and incorporate them into your dealer projects.

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Search Engines That Use SEO

May 30, 2020Automotive Marketing, Dealership Tips, Digital Marketing, SEO

Automotive SEO

Google and Yahoo are two of the search engines that use SEO. While there are those who say that both of them also rely heavily upon link building when it comes to page placement in the search engine results, both of them also rely heavily on search engine optimization. They send their search engine spiders and bots through the text to pick up keywords to help rank the page. The bots pick up both long-tailed and regular keywords. Long-tailed keywords are phrases that appear throughout the text and will be discussed in a later chapter of this book.

All of the search engines use SEO to some extent. While SEO is not the only factor that figures in to search engine results placement, it is a primary factor in this placement. Google, Yahoo, Bing, and all of the other search engines all rely on SEO in the content to figure on placement in their pages. However, one search engine may rely on SEO more than others.

Google Searching

If you do a search on Google, for example, chances are that you will pull up different results than if you plug the same keywords into the Yahoo search engine. Both of these giant search engines use SEO in order to determine rank, although they also figure in other factors.

One factor that figures heavily in the Google search engine rankings (as it does in other search engines) is link building and page building. The search engine will rank a website higher if it has many links back to the site throughout the web. This is very prevalent with the giant information site, Wikipedia. You have probably noticed that this site often comes up when you are searching for information. That is because there are so many backlinks throughout the web that link back to this site.

SEO Hyperlinks

When you are on a Wikipedia page, you will notice hyperlinks to other areas of the site. This large link network creates hundreds of thousands of pages that are all linked together to dominate the search engine results. In addition to link building, however, Wikipedia also uses SEO. If you study any Wikipedia article, you can pick out the keywords and see how often they are used.

Everyone who has a website online wants to make sure that they get their website noticed in the search engines. There are positive ways to do this and tricky ways to do this. Tricky ways are often called “black hat” techniques that can get a website banned from the search engines. This can be self-defeating, so you want to be sure that you naturally build up your ranking in the search engines through the use of SEO and other strategies.

One way that you can naturally build up your rankings in the search engine is to properly implement SEO in all of the text that is committed to your website. You want to be sure not to use keyword stuffing, which is when you have too much of a keyword density in your text. You should have 2-3% keyword density for your text.

Automotive SEO Basics

Some of the basic principles of using SEO in text are as follows:

Use it in the title of the text, preferably in the first few words;  Use it in the first sentence of the text;
Use it in the last sentence of the first paragraph of the text;
Use it once in the body of the text per 500 words;
Use it in the last sentence of the text.

Automotive SEO Tactics

Different marketing companies that practice SEO will use different tactics to get their website noticed. Many of them use variations of the above when it comes to SEO. Two things that you want to avoid when you are working with SEO to market your site is using too many keywords in your text or not using the right keywords. Later, we will discuss the different ways that you can discover which keywords will work for your type of site.
In order to market your website online, you will want to use search engine optimization in all of your text related to your website.

All of the search engines pick up SEO to varying degrees so understanding how to optimize your website is important if you want others to be able to easily access your website when online.

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Voice Search

May 23, 2020SEO, Automotive Marketing, Dealership Tips, Digital Marketing

Future of Voice Search

Is voice search for the future of mobile search? The jury is still out, but Google says that 20 percent of all searches on mobile are now voice searches – and that number is growing.

While you currently can’t target voice searches directly, if you are interested in driving conversions from voice searches, here are some tips to consider for moving forward.

Understand what makes voice search different

Voice search queries tend to be longer. In 2004, most searches were 2 or 3 words. Today, search queries can be 27+ words. Voice searches also tend to be more specific (for example, searching for “find the closest open store that sells a Ford F-150 ” instead of just “Ford F-150”).

Analyze your longer tail keywords to find patterns

Since voice searches are usually more natural and conversational, keyword optimization should fit this new long-tail landscape.

Use modified broad match keywords

Modified broad match lets you specify that specific broad match keywords or close variants (such as +make +model +locatoin) must appear to show your search ad. So even if the voice search is 30 words, as long as 3 of those are “make,” “model,” and “location” your ad will appear.

Negative out keywords that aren’t driving customers

As you test and refine your keyword list for voice search, be sure to negative any words from a modified broad match that indicate the searcher is not a potential customer.

Be sure to give voice searches the option of calling

People use voice search because it is easy and hands-free. It makes sense that a voice searcher would want to keep using voice to engage with a business – and that means a phone call.

Speak in the language of “mobile.”

Since these ads will only be seen by people on their smartphones, your ad language should reflect it.

Tell searchers that operators are standing by to take their call. Use mobile-specific calls to action such as “Shop our mobile site,” “Buy on your phone,” “Find nearby stores,” and “Call us now.”

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Google My Business – Photo Management

May 22, 2020Dealership Tips, Digital Marketing, SEO

Google My Business Photos

Managing images of a dealership can have a significant impact on the quality of content users find when researching travel online. It is possible to add or remove photos from your account at any time. There are also ways to flag inappropriate images added by other users.

Adding Images of your Dealership

Data from Google shows that dealerships with high-quality, relevant images receive higher levels of engagement from users and are more likely to be visited by consumers who have viewed that dealership’s listing online.

Having the photography that includes the exterior and interior of your dealership as well as photos of models and the service department will be beneficial to attracting customers.

To add an image or images, simply log into your Google My Business account and select the “Photos” tab from the menu bar on the left side of the screen. From this section, you’ll be able to add and manage images, including selecting the cover image, identifying specific subjects (such as vehicle photos from your inventory) and other actions. You can add photos from your device or from Google Photos.

How to Remove an Image From Your Listing

Removing an Image Added to Your Account

Sign into your Google My Business account and choose the listing you’d like to manage. Select “Photos” from the menu on the left. Click the image you want to remove and then click the trash can icon in the top-right corner. This will delete the image from your listing.

Flagging Images from Other Users for Removal

To flag an image from another user for removal, navigate to your location’s photo gallery in Google Maps. Click on a photo to pull up the photo gallery image panel, and click on the three-dot menu icon in the top left corner.

Select “Report a Problem.” Complete the information on the form about why the photo should be flagged for your dealership and then click “Submit.”

A photo must be in violation of Google’s photo policy in order to be removed from the Google My Business. Sometimes it is necessary to flag an image a second time if it is not removed after an initial period of 7-14 days from the profile.

Photo Best Practices

Photo Orientation

Orientation is important for photo selection, and it’s best to keep this in mind when photographing a location. Horizontal images are preferred. Vertical images are acceptable if they have sufficient resolution to be cropped horizontally. Avoid using extreme angles or tight crops on images.

For example, when photographing the dealership’s exterior, try to find a direct shot that includes as much of the façade as possible. When shooting vehicles or service department photos, it may be more practical to use an overhead angle or a close crop shot.

Clarity

The dealership location should be the focal point of the photo. Users should be able to easily recognize what they are seeing when quickly looking at the pictures.

Photos should be sharply focused and without any blurriness. Images should look real and be high-quality without being heavily doctored.

Lighting

You want to add images that showcase the focal point in the best manner possible, including quality lighting. It’s generally a best practice to capture things during the day unless you are highlighting a location specifically known for its nightlife. Subtle differences in lighting quality can make notable differences in the visibility of photos within Google products.

Color

Choose images that have bright, vibrant colors because these often generate better visibility and more engagement for your Google My Business profile. Your image may be competing against hundreds of other photos of a given location for a user’s attention. While photos should not be heavily doctored, modestly boosting the saturation of images may be beneficial in some cases.

Seasonality

As much as possible, images should be relevant year-round. This means avoiding seasonal photos (for example – Holiday decorations or colorful Halloween shots).

Photo Rights and Watermarks

When adding photos, you want to avoid intellectual property violations. Make sure the photos you are uploading belong to only you. Try to add a variety of unique images rather than uploading the same images repeatedly.

If your photos have a watermark, it should be small and limited to one corner to avoid distracting from the overall image. Photos should obviously never include inappropriate or dangerous content and obviously no personal or confidential information. Photos should focus on the dealership – so include the building, service, vehicles and limited team members photos from the dealership.

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Outwit Your Competition

May 19, 2020SEO, Automotive Marketing, Dealership Tips, Local SEO

Outwit Your Competition On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO has to be understood before you can go and turn your new-found knowledge into cold, hard cash.

To make this term a little easier to understand imagine a finely-tuned engine that has several components to perform at its best. The same principles apply to On-Page SEO. It’s not just ONE thing you have to put into action, but several. Don’t worry, after reading this chapter you should have gained a good understanding of what to do. Let’s start with title tags.

Title Tags

The first thing you need to do is include your target keyword in the <title>title<title/> tag of your site. I suggest you use the keyword in a sensible form and maybe even consider using a long tail keyword to match. That way you will get more traffic. The best option, of course, is to incorporate your main keyword into a long tail keyword that gets actual searches.

Some webmasters use their keyword in their title tag (as is) which can actually repel visitors. Make them user friendly and you can’t lose, as long as your keyword is in the tag. This little tip alone can increase your search click conversions by 100% or more.

Page Headings

The next thing you need to do is use your keywords in the site’s page headings. By using <H1>, <H2>, <H3> tags you can further increase the keyword relevancy of your page.

If you use WordPress make sure the theme you use has these heading tags properly coded.

Some themes don’t and failing to pay attention here could lose you a substantial amount of search traffic over time. If in doubt, use an SEO plugin to help you rectify any possible issues.

If you worry about keyword density here, don’t. It’s more important to use the keyword in these tags and if possible incorporate long tails and keyword variations to help build your site’s authority.

Keywords in Content

Whenever you write content for your site be sure to use the keyword in the title, in the first sentence of the first paragraph, several times throughout the text and in the last sentence of the last paragraph. If you do this consistently, besides adding title and page tags you will see incredible results.

Another trick is to apply the following to your pages; every time you write new content do this once per article/post:

Bold the keyword
Italicize the keyword
Underline the keyword

This will strengthen the authority of your site because when you mark keywords like this they will stand out to the bots who crawl your site. But PLEASE, don’t do this excessively or you will get banned. Once each on every page is enough.

Keyword Density

Too many people worry too much about keyword density. While it is worth a mention here, you should be more concerned about publishing quality content that is actually user friendly. If you use bots and automation software to publish content you will eventually be excluded from Google’s index – guaranteed! Google is dedicated to clean their search engine from spam and crap and they do so aggressively all the time.

I have always done well by aiming for a density of around 2-3%. This means your keyword is featured twice, or three times for every 100 words of text. Just focus on writing quality content naturally, spike your content with keywords and most importantly use related keywords (LSI) and you will do well.

How Long Should Your Content Be?

In recent months, search engines have started to rank long content above short, spammy- looking content simply for that reason. You are best advised to opt for at least 500 words.

Optimized Images

Every single page on your domain should ideally feature one optimized image. This little On- Page SEO addition can help you outrank a competitor with his own optimized site if he fails to optimize his images.

You do this by placing your keyword into the image’s <alt> tag. You can see these tags by looking at the HTML code version of your website. In WordPress you can do this from within your post and page WYSIWYG editor at the top right hand side corner.

Optimizing your images will also give you more traffic since many people use image searches on Google to find relevant content.

Internal Linking

You’d be well advised to always use internal links where possible. When linking to your sub pages make sure to use the keyword of that page. So if you optimize that particular page for the keyword: how to buy pink widgets in new york, make sure to use the exact keyword to link. The resulting page would become a sub page of your domain.

Another thing I have found to work really well is to use the long tail keyword on sub pages and link it back (anchor text) to the home page (also called index page). This can get you a double listing on Google. More on those later in this eBook.

Outbound Links

Outbound links are links you point to pages outside your domain. In order not to dilute your Google juice you want to make these <nofollow> using the appropriate tag. The more <dofollow> links you use to point to websites outside your domain, the more “juice” you will lose in the process.

It’s the fastest way to dilute your site’s existing authority.

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Fact Finding Questions

May 18, 2020Dealership Tips, Sales

Salesperson Fact-Finding

Here are powerful questions you can ask to obtain the information necessary to find the most suitable vehicle – and to structure negotiations later.

Understand that 100% of the customer’s present behavior is based on past car-buying experience—use this information to find out how they wish to be sold this time.

“Why are you looking / in the market for transportation at this time?”
“Are you looking for something bigger or smaller than you presently drive?”
“What are you driving now?”
“Will you be keeping it or selling it?”
“When did you purchase it?”
“Did you purchase it new or pre-owned?”
“What do you like most about the vehicle you’re driving now? _______”
“What do you like least about the vehicle you’re driving? ________”
“What would you like to have in the new vehicle that you don’t have in the vehicle you’re driving now?”
“Will the vehicle be used for work or pleasure?”
“Where will most of the driving be done—highway or city?”
“How many miles per year do you drive?”
“Will you be the primary driver?”
“Will there be other drivers in your family?”
“What has changed for you since your last purchase?”
“What would be most important in your consideration of this vehicle?”
“What is the second most-important consideration?”
“What price range was the vehicle when you purchased it?”
“When is your next payment due?”
“By the way, how much was that payment?”
“How did you get them so low?”

Building Value

Why value? Because not all presentations are product-related! A one-size-fits-all product presentation has been proven to be ineffective when addressing many customer value-related questions.

As a manager, you must be sure all of your salespeople have all the available tools at their disposal to meet the needs of the customer.

How will the Value Presentation impact the Drivers of Repeat and Referral Business

Honesty
Product knowledge
Negotiation speed

You must take all of the information collected in the fact-finding step to find the most suitable unit for the customer. It is important to use the five-position walk-around to position the product. However, you will also need the proper communication skills to make it effective.

Start by repeating the customer’s wants and needs.

Present the value, features, and benefits that are important to the customer. Each time you make a presentation, it is your responsibility to answer all of these questions.

Avoid discussing price; it is secondary to what fills wants and needs.
Ask their ________________.
Get the customer ________________.
Stimulate desire; use the sense…. sight, sound, touch, imagine.
Tailor all presentations to the customer’s dominant buying motivators.
Make your value presentation different and unique.
Lead with questions, rather than ________________.

Wants and Needs Formula

Show the Feature

What is it? When you show the feature, point to the feature. Stay focused, make appropriate eye contact, have a positive frame of mind, find the key point, use appropriate body language.

Provide the Function

How does it function/work? How does this provide an advantage over the competition or past model?

Explain the Benefit

What will it do for me? When you provide the benefits, use appropriate eye-to-eye contact and explain what it will do for the customer. Use the customer’s words and demonstrate your commitment to them.

Every customer has a different set of expectations and a different set of needs. It will be your task to customize your product presentation for the customer. The flow of the product presentation should be the same in every case. The pacing, tone, and language, however, will certainly vary.

There are four kinds of follow-ups or “tags” you can use to create an incremental decision (a “close”) from a customer.

Standard “tie-down”: It’s a great vehicle, isn’t it?
Inverted “tie-down”: Isn’t it a great vehicle?
Tag: Customer says, “This car rides great.” You say: Doesn’t it?
Silent: Ask the question and nod your head.

An inverted tie-down is a question at the beginning of a statement that suggests a “yes” response.

Can’t you get excited about it ___________?
Do you see the value of ___________?
Can you see the benefit of ___________?
Can you see the merit in ___________?
Wouldn’t it be terrific if ___________?
Aren’t you glad that ___________?
Aren’t you looking forward to ___________?
Doesn’t it make sense to ___________?
Don’t you agree ___________?
Isn’t it going to be fun when ___________?
Isn’t it about time that ___________?
Doesn’t it give you the confidence to know ___________?
Can you see the advantage of ___________?
Wouldn’t it be reassuring to ___________?
Don’t you feel that ___________?
Wouldn’t it be great to save money by ___________?
Aren’t you really excited about ___________?
Isn’t it good to know ___________?
Haven’t you benefited by ___________?
Aren’t you happy to know ___________?
Aren’t you anxious to know ___________?
Isn’t it worth considering that ___________?

A standard tie-down is a question at the end of a statement that demands a “yes” from the customer. Here are some examples:

Aren’t they?
Aren’t you?
Can’t you?
Couldn’t it?
Couldn’t you?
Doesn’t it?
Don’t you agree?
Don’t you?
Don’t we?
Shouldn’t it?
Wouldn’t it?
Wouldn’t you agree?
Hasn’t it?
Haven’t they?
Fair enough?
Right or wrong?
Isn’t that right?
Isn’t it?
Didn’t it?
Didn’t they?
Wasn’t it?
Won’t you?
Won’t they?

Here is an opportunity to examine several different types of selection offers, and opportunities to improve the customer’s circumstances during the product presentation:

New to Pre-Owned Selection Offer

“Would you consider a vehicle with low mileage, factory certified with a full warranty, and a savings of $1000, $2000, perhaps as much as $3000?”

Pre-owned to New selection offer

“Would you consider a new or perhaps newer vehicle if the payments were the same?”

New to New Selection Offer

“Would you consider a new 2021 Accord and a savings of $1000, $2000, perhaps as much as $3000?”

Lease selection offer

“Would you rather lease or own if the payments were the same? Allow me to show you both.”
“Would you consider an option that would allow you to keep your cash (or trade equity), provide you with more vehicles, more options at the end of the term, and reduce your monthly cost as well?”

As a rule, the dealership’s inventory has absolutely no effect on offering to improve the customer’s situation. The selection offered is just common sense.

Posted by Shawn Ryder

Automotive Conquest Customers Your Dealership Ready?

February 29, 2020Automotive Marketing, Business, Dealership Tips, Digital Marketing 3

Finding Automotive Conquest Customers

Since you own or manage a car dealership you need to sell cars to Automotive Conquest Customers. You probably have numerous marketing vendors providing you with ways to sell to your existing customers. By marketing to your database but when was the last time you spent money on an automotive conquest customer program that generated quality leads generated foot traffic and real deals burning gas down the road?

When it was all said and done what if I told you in the next few minutes I could show you one simple thing you could do to help you sell an extra twenty to thirty units this month. Conquest vehicle shoppers and the three fatal mistakes that will prevent you from ever being successful at automotive conquests 20 deals have to be the word a few minutes of your time right.

Automotive Conquest Customers

Automotive Conquest Customers Fatal Mistakes

Three automotive conquest fatal mistakes and the one thing that can help you succeed and add an extra 20 to 30 units to your sales next month I speak from experience you’re comfortable with me as your guide perfect let’s begin the first fatal mistake that is guaranteed to set your dealership up for failure in its conquest attempts is to treat conquests as an event instead of a process

Always keep in mind that conquest prospects don’t know you trust you or love you yet. Statistics show that they will require between nine to fifteen different points of contact with your dealership’s content before entertaining the idea of buying a vehicle from your dealership.

Automotive Conquest Customer Timeline

If you’re thinking about conquests as a three to four-day sale or even a week-long event you’ll never be able to allow conquest
prospects the time to find engage and digest the information. From the fifteen requiring touchpoints it’s just unrealistic it’s like asking a total stranger to marry you after a few dates.

Now you might think my analogy is a little far-fetched but think about it. Some vehicle financing spans over six seven and even eight years that’s longer than many marriages today remember the movie Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio.

If you haven’t seen the movie you should rent it over the weekend it’s really good in the movie DiCaprio’s character is hired to plant an idea in the mind of an individual the goal was to plant the idea so deep in her subconscious mind that the target would actually believe that the idea was their own.

How many touchpoints?

Similarly, that’s what a good conquest campaign should achieve to deliver your nine to fifteen touchpoints so naturally in the life of the prospect. That way they feel that they’re the ones who discovered your content. And they’re the ones who have set to research your models and your dealership.

But that takes a little time at least a few weeks. It’s not something that can happen over three or four days. It’s even truer if prospects have been researching another manufacturer make for the last few months. That’s why conquesting should not be an event but an ongoing process.

Automotive Conquest Customers

How long should it take?

Can you see now why thinking about conquest as a three to four-day sale event or a week-long event is somewhat ridiculous? Thus thinking about automotive conquests as an ongoing process makes more sense. With the information I just shared with you do you see how it could help you sell more vehicles to conquest vehicle shoppers excellent let’s now dive down into the second mistake to avoid the second fatal mistake that is guaranteed to set your dealership up for failure in its conquest attempt is to try to deliver your nine to fifteen points of contact through the same medium khakhras prospects are not necessarily going to purchase one of your models.

Where do they see you?

Because they’ve seen your ads on Facebook fifteen to twenty times this month. And they’re not going to run to your dealership for a test drive because you serve them YouTube pre-roll videos. Every scene they for the last few weeks you might be able to generate leads from a conquest prospect. After sending multiple direct mail pieces but the process might be
expensive. You might be able to move a prospect into action after half a dozen phone calls. But they might also opt to block your number or register for the Do Not Call list to avoid your calls. The problem with using only one or two medium is that it exposes your inception the unnatural delivery. This will make your communications efforts sound like advertising instead of the delivery of valuable content.

Automotive Conquest Customers

Automotive Conquest Customer Irritation

The prospect will get irritated by its repetitiveness instead of getting indoctrinated. By multiple types of content that build-up the emotional excitement and the rationale to support it. Let’s see, here a natural sequence of touchpoints delivered through multiple content styles you’ll see what I mean seeing a few ads on Facebook that spark an interest. Watching a video that provides a bit more information than getting a ringless voicemail that can be listened to. Then they receive a mail piece that provides more insight on the opportunity of seeing a video on Instagram, before getting a phone call.

Automotive Conquest Customers Lead Nurturing

To make sure the mail piece was received and answer any questions reading a post on LinkedIn on the advantages of selling your trade in the current seller’s market. Requesting an online traded praising watching a lead nurturing video explaining more about the appraisal process getting a phone call to schedule the visual inspection of the trade at the dealership. Did you notice how the content from these thirteen different touchpoints naturally flowed in the life of the prospect?

Don’t get fool thinking these are Automotive Conquest Customers random actions taking by the dealership to place the content in front of the potential prospect all of these have been pre-programmed to be strategically released as specific times in the life of the prospect to short in the shopping cycle.

Automotive Conquest Customer Indoctrination Sequence

Maximize the effect of the indoctrination sequence for Automotive Conquest Customers. Can you see now how trying to deliver your nine to fifteen points of contact through only one medium could feel very repetitive? Irritating to the prospect can you see now how spreading your 9 to 15 pieces of content over multiple media could provide a more natural sequence of indoctrination. This helped you generate more leads from conquest prospects. Perfect let’s dive into the third and final mistake.

The third fatal mistake that is guaranteed to set your dealership up for failure in its conquest attempt is to stop once you’ve experienced some success. Albert Einstein is said to have called the power of compound interest the most powerful force in the universe.

Conquest Leads – Compound of Interest

Remember reading when I was a kid that if I leverage the power of compound interest and deposited $1.00 in my bank account every single day I’d be a multimillionaire today. I was just too stupid to do it instead I’m forced to work my socks off to generate a decent income. Now the power of compounding can also be applied to your conquest efforts to help you generate unbelievable results.

Automotive Conquest Customers

Providing revenues multiple times over your investments you already know from the mistake. Number one that an interested prospect will require nine to fifteen touchpoints to be moved into action. Imagine if your diligent conquest efforts help you invest touchpoints in your marketplace. The prospects are even considering upgrading their vehicle.

The power of compounding your conquest efforts will allow you to convert conquest prospects much faster. Because Automotive Conquest Customers will require fewer new touchpoints. Which would dramatically lower your cost per lead and explode your sales overtime now? I’m not suggesting replacing the direct response nature of your conquest efforts with a branding philosophy.

Conquest Customers Profitable ROI

Every conquest campaign should stand on its own two legs and provide a profitable ROI but if it costs you, for example, ten thousand dollars to reach fifty thousand conquest vehicle shoppers. You get three hundred leads, booked 70 appointments and sell twenty-five units with a twenty-eight hundred dollar gross profit you’re netting 60 grand. Each campaign and leveraging the power of compounding with the other forty-nine thousand nine hundred and seventy-five people you’ve reached with the investment but haven’t bought yet you’re now branding your dealership for free as a byproduct of your direct response efforts.

And accumulating touchpoints with prospects that will eventually move into the market as in tenders which will help you capture prospects in the earliest stage of the shopping cycle. Can you now see the power of compounding your conquest efforts?

The problem I see in the industry is that most dealers apply the same said two conquests as they do to loyalty marketing. When communicating with your existing customers while backing off from your database. Letting it breed and heal a bit after a good push might help you. Avoid pissing off your customers the minute you’re no longer on the conquest prospects radar is the second. You forfeit the potential sale also on the digital side of things advertising platforms like Facebook, AdWords messenger.

Automotive Conquest Customers

This will allow you to build a conquest list of interested prospects who have engaged with your content most likely these prospects have interacted with your marketing. Because they are considering the purchase of a vehicle and are educating themselves about their options keep in mind that the customer journey spans over a few months so you don’t want to miss out on the harvest of the leads you’ve nurtured for weeks and let another dealer reap the rewards of your efforts.

Automotive Conquest Customers Communication

Because your dealerships backed out of its Automotive Conquest Customers communication efforts and is no longer visible and top of mind to the audience that you’ve built. Do you see now how ludicrous it would be to stop and take your foot off the gas pedal once you’ve experienced success with your conquest efforts? Can you see how the staying top of mind with the audience you’re building in Facebook AdWords messenger and in the real world can compound your conquest marketing efforts great?

So let’s quickly review the three fatal mistakes to avoid. Then I’ll show you one simple thing you can do to sell an extra 20 to 30 deals this month. The conquest vehicle shoppers mistake number one do not treat automotive conquest marketing as an event. It’s a process car quest vehicle shoppers who don’t know your dealership. So they will require 9 to 15 points of contact with your content before entertaining buying a vehicle from your dealership.

Automotive Conquest Customers

And you can’t rush the delivery or the consumption people won’t go from unaware to suspect to curious the prospect in 72 hours. Mistake number two does not try to deliver the 9 to 15 points of contact through one single medium conquest prospect will need to interact with multiple forms of your content.

Before being moved into answering your call for action instead of using one medium combined digital ads, video, social media, Direct Mail, ringless voice mail and a strategic phone call by a live person to provide integrated marketing. That will deliver your content in a sequence that will feel natural from the prospect.

Mistake number three don’t stop once you have success your Automotive Conquest Customers audience is not like the contacts in your database. They don’t need a breeder and won’t stop visiting your service department or jump ship and buy from another dealer.

Automotive Conquest Customers Touchpoints

Because you’re keeping your foot on the gas pedal with your communication efforts it’s the exact opposite. The minute you’re no longer adding touchpoints to the conversation as the second you lose the opportunity to sell them a vehicle. Could you see how avoiding these three fatal conquest mistakes could help your dealership generate more leads and deals?

With conquest vehicle shoppers would you like to see the one simple thing you could do to avoid these three fatal mistakes. While generating twenty to thirty deals this month from people outside of your database awesome let me show you how now the program.

How many people are in the market?

Here, we will show you it is built on the premise that the easiest conquest target your dealership can go after to increase your sales, people who are not yet in the market to buy a vehicle.

While every one of your competitors is spending their hard-earned money on ads and marketing trying to convince the seven to nine percent of the population in the market for a vehicle. We like to help your dealership focus its efforts on the other ninety one percent of the population. And here’s why the car business is the most beautiful business in the world because everybody will change your vehicle today for something bigger, better, faster, more fuel-efficient with more cargo space and more technology.

What are the Five Frictions?

But they just don’t know they can what’s keeping prospects thinking they can’t change their vehicle. Is their misperception of one or more of these five frictions? Points, price, payment, cash required, credit and trade value are non in tenders. Potential customers don’t believe it’s the best time to get the best price. Also, they don’t believe the payment will fit in their budget. They believe too much cash will be required to complete the transaction. Sometimes, they don’t know if they will qualify for credit. And they don’t know if they will get enough for their trade.

Automotive Conquest Customers Hot Buyers

But if you create content that changes non-intenders beliefs regarding these five misperceptions you will instantly move them into the market as hot buyers. And your dealership we’ll get first kick at the can now. As you know most prospects in tenders or not in tenders will most likely already have a model on their radar.

One that they prefer or that they are more inclined or favorable. If that model is not part of the vehicles you sell there’s very little marketing can do at this stage to influence the prospects. While he or she is thinking about the price, payment, cash required or their ability to qualify for credit for the model they desire.

Automotive Conquest Customers

But look at the fifth point of friction the trade. That’s your key to conquest success the prospects desire to get an exciting offer for the vehicle they’re driving now opens the door wide open for you to engage in a conversation the prospect is willing to have.

Why? Because the trade is the only one of the five friction points that doesn’t involve the model. They have on their mind it’s the neutral point of friction. And the one that doesn’t put your dealership in conflict, With what they want to find a way to provide prospects with an easy way to get an exciting offer for their current vehicle. You will be talking to more Automotive Conquest Customers than your heart desires.