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Jul 30, 2009

There are too many local marketing companies out that that can't really promise the outcome. Local businesses is losing confidence to pay for all those local advertisement.

Local coupon network is FREE and is hoping to build the largest local coupon network in North America. So all local businesses will be able to share the search engine traffic and acquire more local shoppers.

Apr 28, 2009

Rebecca, nice article. In addition to understanding what local is for the area in question (NYC vs Montana), its important to understand the difference in categories. Consumers will drive further to see a dealership or lawyer, for example, than they will for a pizza. These service areas are based less on proximity. FastCall411 has a few examples of this on the site.

Jamie Adams · Mar 30, 2009

Kevin,

We (ReachLocal) help a couple of hundred franchise clients w/ local directory listings via a partnership w/ Localeze. As I mentioned before - it's a very cheap service and they do a goob job syndicating your correct business information across close to 150 directories. Feel free to contact me and I can put you in touch w/ someone directly at Localeze who can help you out.

Jamie
[email protected]

Brian Pasch · Mar 30, 2009

Here is a list of sites to add a free local business listing that will help with local search. Often you will see these sites appear on Google Page one for business names so they are value for your automotive SEO program.

Keep in mind that if the site has a "description of service" box or company profile, write a good paragraph or more that includes your brand name, your location as well as words about service, parts and extended warranties.

Service Departments are often not discussed in SEO tactical posts but if you start adding service to your directory keyword strategy you will be surprised to see what happens.

These are tried and true sites:

http://www.merchantcircle.com

http://local.yahoo.com

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

maps.google.com

Des Moines Local Reviews of Home Pros, Eateries, Lawyers, Doctors, & More.

Des Moines Local Reviews & Recommendations of Contractors, Plumbers, Home & Garden, Lawyers, Doctors, Dentists, Kid Friendly Eateries, more.

www.judysbook.com

http://www.yellowbot.com

http://www.superpages.com

Recommendations that matter most. | InsiderPages.com

Insider Pages was created to help people find the best local businesses through recommendations from their friends and neighbors. At InsiderPages.com, people share reviews of local businesses and find great services they can trust.

www.insiderpages.com

http://www.yelp.com

Here are a few sites that can be optimized for your personal name which can include your dealership name and locale.

http://www.spoke.com

Home

After eleven years, we have made the difficult decision to shut down Naymz and move on to new adventures. We sincerely thank all of our members, families, friends, and partners who supported us during this journey we began back in 2005.

www.naymz.com

http://www.biznik.com

Local search is very powerful and all business owners should make sure your free local directory listing are correct.

While you are checking them, take a peek at the review and make sure your customer feedback is balanced and not just filled with negative reviews.

Mar 30, 2009

This is one of my continuing projects - updating local directories. I have learned the hard way that when you go and correct and incorrect listing, it can reappear a month later what that local site updates from another feed with incorrect info. With that learned, my efforts have been to try and correct the sources where incorrect info about our dealerships is being sent from. Jamie - do you know how to solve this?

Mar 29, 2009

Odered up this book just now.....who would have thought being a GSM included knowing a little about SEO?

Mar 28, 2009

Ditto Alex's comment.

Mar 27, 2009

Great article Rebecca! I think we need to follow it up with something about how to optimize the local search sections. That has been a major pain in my butt!

Jamie Adams · Mar 26, 2009

Digitizing your business information and syndicating it to directories and online publishers is a must and the associated costs are minimal (if any at all, depending upon how you go about it). There are several companies who provide local businesses with this type of service (syndication to several hundred online directories) for $100 or less a year. Great article.

Mar 25, 2009

This is a great article. Local business is always an important piece of the local economy. Local marketing is now one of the most important investment to local business as well.

User rating and user provided content are not all of the picture. Give customer freedom to purchase what they want and how they want is also important. It triggers the shopping desire to make a complete transaction.

Besides those methods, printing local coupons online has become a trend since 2007. Getting rid of local coupons books is inevitable. It lowers the local business advertisement cost and increases the ROI. It makes local business greener.

We would love to see article about online coupons for local business in the future on this blog.

Thank you!

Support Local Business! Shop Local Store!
SmartLocalShoppers.com

bpulseadmin · Mar 24, 2009

Dealix Announces Major Platform Upgrade - Enhancements Eliminate Trade-Off between Lead Quality and Speed of Delivery

Redwood City, CA, March 24, 2009 – Dealix, a division of Cobalt, the leading provider of quality leads for new cars and used cars, today announced enhancements to its lead delivery platform that will make lead transfer time nearly instantaneous, while identifying, processing, and delivering higher quality leads for the company’s dealer customers.

Lead Platform 2009, already in use for delivery of new car leads, is the result of an investment in enhanced network architecture, as well as the incorporation of additional data services to help streamline the sales process. Additional data sources include On-Demand Lead VerificationSM services provided through Dealix’s relationship with TARGUSinfo. Dealix, a pioneer in automotive lead delivery, has been delivering quality sales leads to dealers since 1998. These platform enhancements represent the company’s largest investment in technology upgrades to date.

Dealix Lead Platform 2009 will benefit customers in three specific ways:

Faster Lead Delivery: Nearly 90% of new car leads are now reaching Dealix customers in a matter of seconds. This enables dealers to respond to customers’ requests for information without delay, providing a better overall consumer experience and leading to faster sales.

Reduction in Delivery of Duplicate Leads: Platform enhancements include additional processes to recognize customers requesting more than one auto quote, and to ensure that dealers are not served duplicates.

Quality Controls: The new platform incorporates TARGUSinfo On-Demand Lead Verification services to confirm consumer names, addresses, and phone numbers contained within the lead.

“Successful auto dealers know that in today’s economy, the ability to identify and quickly respond to each in-market car buyer right away, whether they’re in the market for a new car or shopping for used cars online, will lead to more sales and a better consumer experience,” said Anna Zornosa, general manager of Dealix. “Dealix has made the investment so that our customers don’t have to make a tradeoff between speed of delivery and lead quality.”

“We are very pleased to have the number one lead generator in the automotive industry utilizing our On-Demand Lead Verification services,” said Dave Wengel, general manager, Interactive Markets for TARGUSinfo. “It’s no question that the verification of lead information is the bedrock of a best-in-class lead generation program. Dealix handles nearly one in three sales leads for the auto industry, and the impact of combining TARGUSinfo verification services with Dealix’s new platform will be far reaching.”

Manuel Souza, sales director for Anderson Honda of Palo Alto, Ca, also commented on the added value Dealix is offering to dealers and car buyers. “In today's tough economic times, competition is fierce, and time is everything when it comes to responding to Internet customers’ requests. The enhanced Dealix platform addresses pain points we have had with other providers in getting us leads quickly,” said Souza. “We like to connect with our prospective customers while they're still at their computer, and Dealix is helping us to do that. Lead quality is also important, and the enhanced Dealix platform runs the lead through various checks to ensure the information is correct and the customer is valid before we even call them. I've used Dealix for years. The quality has always been there, and now with the enhanced platform, it's even better, and we are getting in touch with more customers than ever before.”

About Dealix
Dealix, a division of Cobalt, is the world’s leading provider of quality automotive sales leads for dealerships, dealer groups, and automotive manufacturers. Dealix has the broadest reach and the highest quality lead supply network in the industry, including Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds.com, AOL Autos, Yahoo! Autos, MSN Autos, and others. Dealix represents Edmunds’ Premier Dealer Program and powers MSN Autos’ lead platform. Dealix’s advanced quality control and routing technology matches thousands of serious new and used vehicle buyers to the most appropriate dealers daily, delivering a quality user experience while providing dealers one of the most efficient methods to sell more cars.

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Of course it's always a car dealers best practice to focus on speed of response. The faster you can repsond to a customers needs the our chances are at gaining the opportunity to earn their business.

Apr 30, 2009

So Twitter is awesome for Taking traffic to you website . It is very
simple to setup and its a fun positive way to keep in contact with
people. To get more followers on twitter check out this amazing
tool.Twitter
Traffic Machine

David Book · Apr 16, 2009

UPDATE: Good news. I wrote a blog-post the other day about how to "Lose a Few Thousands Bucks Online" (posted on my site and a few others) that chronicled the age-old ignore the customer request, lose the deal scenario. The results are in.. here's what happened...

1) Hung out with buddy that wanted a car
2) He complained about getting ignored by local dealers after requesting information via their websites (luxury brand)
3) He asked me to "help him."
4) I called a local dealer (my buddies)
5) We sold him a car (4k gross)
6) He Tweeted about his "new ride."
7) Two people that "follow him" on Twitter have called the same salesperson for a "like deal."

So... we can decide to like or dislike the technology but we cannot decide if our customers do. People are doing this, it's just the way it is. Some things are out of our control and trying to force people to communicate in ways that they do not decide is bad - super bad.

Like Ralph mentioned earlier....RELATIONSHIPS = GROSS!

Apr 13, 2009

"Twitter Impacts Relevance Like I Impact Gravity"

Gawd, I wish I wrote that headline.

The Future of Content Success Is Social

What good is winning the algorithm if you’ve lost the human? What would happen if you were OK with sacrificing a high ranking to get more people to thank you for how much you educated them? In this article, discover Wil’s two new approaches to SEO and content using social media.

www.seomoz.org

I fell off my chair with his new google rank schemes.

enjoy!
Joe

DigitalRalph.com · Apr 8, 2009

@Joe Diaz (and Jeff K),

I started selling cars in 1981, and I am about as grizzled a veteran as any of the other old timers pushing iron over the curb these days... Even a knucklehead like me figured out over 20 years ago that RELATIONSHIP = GROSS! My first wife once told me what an idiot I was when I explained that CSI is determined by gross profit... Because when CSI reports first took hold I immediately saw that the highest gross deals we made generated the highest CSI scores... Doh... She was right (only time!), the gross was generated because there was a good relationship foundation! The customer ALLOWS us to earn a respectable profit margin WHEN A POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN CREATED. Yes, I know car guys like Joe probably think that they are sooooooooo crafty and cunning that any high gross deals they generate are through slight of hand... NOT. Talk to the guys selling cars at Acton Toyota in MA about how the deal works when a customer drives 100 miles, past 8 other Toyota stores to buy a car from Acton Toyota because of the 200+ Positive reviews that consumers have created on DealerRater.com at the request of their salesperson... BECAUSE they had a relationship with that car salesman! When I first started selling cars, my mentor would wack me with his crutches (bad knees after 30 years on the blacktop) and tell me to stop selling cars and start building relationships with customers FIRST... He would ask me, "whattaya wanna be, an order taker? 'cause there's no gross in taking orders, and i ain't splitting no minnies with you, so start selling yourself before you distract these ups with the damn car!".

Anybody who does not understand the types of differentiation that Jeff commented on is doomed to a career (or lack of) of minimum commission, low CSI and job dissatisfaction... You know when I REALLY think a deal is real? When i hear the salesperson laughing along with the customers as they are writing up a worksheet! People don't laugh with car salesman, they might laugh at us, but they do laugh WITH professionals they have come to trust, respect and want to do business with... When was the last time you got a referral, someone you never met before and it was the easiest deal that month? Why, because you had a head start on building a relationship based on the transference of "relationship equity" from the person who sent his/her friend to you as a referral... Personally, the last car I bought was a used Ford Expedition, and i know I paid about a grand more than I could have paid, so that i could buy it from a manager I trust who works at a dealership that has treated me well as a supplier... It's ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIP, or you can take orders for mini deals... You pick!

DigitalRalph.com · Apr 8, 2009

Ryan and Alex,

Thank you for your responses and commentary... It is good to know that I am not the ONLY car guy crazy looking at Web 2.0 from a relationship marketing perspective. Now, please don't get me wrong, I have used various social networking sites as advertising venues and have seen some successes in driving traffic to dealer sites that turned out to be far more qualified than I had initially expected... BUT, and this is a big butt (he he he), From just a few direct experiences from some prototypes and experiemnts, the power of "word of mouth" when the web is used to propogate it more effectively than offline ever did, can be truly amazing... And scary! Heck, just look at RipOffReport.com for the scary side. Yet, even with a stumbling and bumbling, haphazard, making a lot of guesses and trying stuff never done by dealers before, I have one dealer I work with who SWEARS he is selling 3 to 5 additional vehicles each week from the UGC/Web 2.0 experimentation we are doing for his store... And, I figure it must be true (he may be low-balling me) because his wife is the store's controller, who can't stand what they pay me per diem, AND she gave me a big hug during my last visit, and took me out for a nice seaside dinner, and picked up the check... Dealers buying dinner for me is proof enough that we as professionals have only scratched the surface of what is possible... Ya' think I'm leaving money on the table with my first dealer community, social networking success story? LOL... Truth be known, I think i would have PAID to see something with UGC/Web 2.0 actually generate some car sales!

Apr 8, 2009

The bottom line; all the social networking sites have to be profitable in the long term they want to stay alive. They have to generate a revenue stream from businesses that have the dollars to spend. If they do indeed send buyers, willing to purchase and the ROI is there... why not use this as a medium. its inevitable and becoming acceptable as a method to provide the content and web-usage with advertising and visibility as a trade-off.

Apr 8, 2009

Social Networking is not new. It’s been around forever - face-to-face, letter writing, telephone conferences, parties, luncheons, seminars, on and on. “Online” Social Networking is what’s new. It’s a way to use today’s technology to meet new people, reconnect with old friends, gather opinions, and get recommendations. Would you wear a banner ad around your neck when you go to a networking event or party? Then why would you do it on LinkedIn or Facebook? What has more value to a dealership, a little ad on a few profiles or 50 people saying what a great company they are? It’s all about relationships and credibility – not in-your-face advertising.

Use the online networking sites to position dealership executives, management, and staff as trusted, knowledgeable resources for purchasing new and pre-owned vehicles, financing, parts, service, and related products. Create, monitor, and manage, online ratings and reviews that can positively promote a dealership's reputation. Connect with people online to provide a source of referrals, recommendations, customer testimonials, and Internet visibility.

When you do advertise, create awareness of a dealership's unique features, benefits, inventory, and outstanding customer service through highly targeted traditional, Internet and mobile media campaigns. Use digital and traditional advertising to drive customers to a usable, useful, and enjoyable website and one that embraces online social networking. Use an advertising agency that knows how to help you connect online AND off. If you have an agency that doesn’t, or need one that does, email me - [email protected].

Here are a couple of recent articles in which I am extensively quoted about this very topic.

Automotive News March 16, 2009
"Studies: Luxury car shoppers on Web want instant info."

https://home.autonews.com/clickshare/readLink.do?CSAuthKey=n0JWd7kdRFQ-q_DW2o1hGPQ-0

Dealer.com Newsletter - Power to the Dealer April 7, 2009
"The Titan Agency Surveyed 50 Luxury Brand Dealerships"

http://newsletter.dealer.com/e_article001394623.cfm?x=bfmQfGf,bb10mFCv

Apr 8, 2009

As I have delved into this exciting phenom, I realize it is one of the big waves that rock our world from time to time (fax, cellphone, internet, etc). It will not go away,; it will integrate into daily life for most.
As I meet with dealers and dealer associations, the curiosity factor is enormous. The acceptance factor is very low. The desire to understand and choose whether or how to apply is huge. As I research automotive on Twitter, Facebook and linkedIn, I see the early adopters using trial and error to make business sense of these new tools.
My primary focus is to get dealers to high proficiency in existing proven tools first, then add the SMM stuff as a way to leverage their use of the technology to build community and spread their web presence.
I'm looking forward to learning from the gurus at the Digital Dealer Conference in Vegas later this month, as to what works in selling more cars..

Apr 2, 2009

Social networking sites the new CRM? Maybe? I would never have thought of it that way, but after reading the last few posts on here I certainly have a different perspective. This is coming from a guy who uses both daily (not at the same time of course

Apr 1, 2009

Ralph - Ryan hit it on the head. It is a supplement to CRM that can be used in accordance with CRM if the CRM process implementer knows his/her stuff. Now talk about sounding too technical!

Social Networking is like Public Relations on speed. If you design your message effectively, you can have the world spread it for you in minutes. You're not going to reach everyone the TV would reach, but you're going to have "fans" working for you that you don't have to pay!

This is how social networking can be capitalized on. BUT, you need to be very careful in how you approach it.

stantheman · Mar 31, 2009

Social networking is where it is at. Dealers can network with previous customers and keep them updated with specials and new trends instead of sending emails. Vendors can network with dealerships and build a friendly relationship with them. This changes cold calling into warm calling because a phone call from a vendor to a dealer is more friendly as the dealer knows who they are talking to. Social networking is a great way to show people and prospects your role in the business as well as your role on the planet. If people see that I am not just a car guy but I am a great guy in general sharing similar hobbies and interest on a personal level, people will respect me and talk to me differently. Social networking allows us to have a personal touch and change the mood of any prospect. I believe that it also helps create a much better reputation.

Mar 31, 2009

Ralph, your suggestion about social networking offering more value than CRM is in line with a big part of our message. CRM software does not facilitate a two-way conversation like social networking does. Additionally, CRM software requires the company to input and update the info manually whereas with social networking profiles they are (theoretically) always up to date. While you can not do mass emails in social networks unless you have groups, which most networks now feature, you can achieve the bulk of your mono-y-mono communications.

We are touching on this aspect of social media networking in our webinar tomorrow that I mentioned to you - http://tinyurl.com/cnmqpz .

DigitalRalph.com · Mar 31, 2009

Jeff, this is an interesting post in that I am out here in Cedar Falls, IA working with the Mudd Advertising Agency and they have some very interesting marketing tools... When i discussed the use of UGC, Web 2.0 and Social Networking sites being included in a dealer's marketing strategies, they just flat out believe there is little to any promotional value in the category... I find this interesting, not surprising, but interesting... I am starting to form an opinion that UGC/Web 2.0/Social Networking genre's may have more value from the perspective that the auto industry has had towards CRM over the past ten years... Do you think that the real intrinsic value to dealers available in this category of site and related activity may actually come from the ongoing development and management of relationships with people who interact with the dealer's brand, people, products and services in a UGC/Web 2.0 environment? Man... That sure sounds like i am over-analyzing, but i am just trying to get a handle on what so many people seem to see as a waste of time, but which i have direct first-hand experience at realizing revenue and sale opportunities.

Mar 31, 2009

Jeff, you make some great points. My company iBidMotors.com has been advertising on Facebook for the past year (pay per click) and have seen some pretty good results from it.

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