Pub. 12 2014-2015 Issue 3

N E W J E R S E Y C O A L I T I O N O F A U T O M O T I V E R E T A I L E R S 21 new jersey auto retailer W W W . N J C A R . O R G When dealers just put add-ons on their site that don’t fit well into the design, they clutter the site and make it less effective. Use a graphic artist to assist with updates and provide them to the website provider to have them added. It is also important to concentrate on the metrics of success and utilizeGoogle’s freeAnalytics tool tomeasure all the nuances of what happenswhenvisitors come to the dealership’s site. Spend the time and the money to set up Analytics up the dealership’s website. Traffic Once a website is converting well, dealers need to focus on driving traffic to the website. Top Tier Website providers design their sites well and help their clients with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at no charge, which is essential to ensure great placement on Google, Yahoo and Bing. A focused SEO strategy allows a dealership to stay up to date with the latest algorithms by search engines and maintain excellent content that is desirable to vehicle shoppers. Once an SEO is well established and a strong content strategy is in place, dealersmay choose tomove on toPaid Search or SearchEngine Marketing (SEM) to drive more traffic to their website. A high- converting site ensures that an increase in traffic to the site will turn into a subsequent increase in sales opportunities. Dealers who elect to pursue SEM must be very selective in choosing a vendor because SEM can be very expensive with a low Return on Investment. The best SEM providers are transparent with their strategies and their spending so a dealer will know what the provider is doing and what kind of results are being achieved. Retargeting is quickly becoming an essential ingredient to many digital traffic strategies. The topic is too broad to cover in this article but dealers should ask any potential SEMprovider about this concept, as well as YouTube’s video pre-roll. New Vehicle Leads It’s nice to have daily sales opportunities fromnew vehicle leads. The key is the company chosen to provide those leads and how the system is set up fromthe outset. Inmost cases, the smaller the radius is set, the greater sales growth a dealership is likely to achieve. Accumulating leads fromfar away onnewvehicles is a tough strategy to benefit from. Go small and win big. Online Classifieds This is typically where dealers will find the greatest costs, as the big players in this space have carved out a powerful niche in the minds of used vehicle shoppers and they are not bashful in charging for this access. Most consumers shopping for used vehicles visit these sites and it’s well worth the cost to play in their arena. The best results come fromdealers that takeBEAUTIFULPHOTOS, describe their vehicles in a personal and effective manner and price them on the market. Be sure to spend the money for featured or spotlighted listings as these drive the best results. Watch your budget closely and make sure your dealership’s sales representatives provide feedback on how to achieve the best ROI each month. Social and Reputation Of all the areas of growth, the most overlooked today is Social and Reputation. Overlook themandyou’ll lose ground in the ever-growing population that is influenced by daily socializing with their friends. Facebook, and especially Twitter, are effective tools for dealers to engage clients. It has been shown in studies that if a dealer “satisfies” a client, they are not always loyal, but if you “engage” a client, they are more likely to remain loyal. All Social Media can ultimately expand a dealership’s influence, drive traffic to the dealership website and, ultimately, into the store. Service and Owner Marketing The Point of Sale is actually the Point of Resale and dealers should focus on this concept throughout the lifecycle of any vehicle sold. We all like to be cared for as humans and that includes after we make a large commitment to buy and pay for a vehicle. A savvy Service and Owner Marketing Program is essential to a dealership’s ongoing success. Awell-designed retention strategy can lead to growth in both service and sales. Staying involved in a dealership’s digital marketing is a daily responsibility. What sounds complex today, will eventually become second nature. David Kain is President of KainAutomotive.com. He can be reached at 866.546.3428 or via email at david@kainautomotive.com. Recent studies have shown that a mobile site that is not easy to navigate may cause customers to no longer consider that particular dealership.