My entire dealer group just canceled Cars.com. More lead providers to come!

[yagoparamo]

Yago, best post eva'!!

Thank you Joe, that means a lot.

 

[Manny Luna]

Please understand that we're talking about basic SEO and internet marketing here. This is the basics of what car dealers must do.
There's so much more that can be done that nobody's doing!

 

[joe.pistell]

There's so much more that can be done that nobody's doing!

Manny,

What is it? Are you fishing for leads? C'mon dude, you're implying that you have some secret sauce that you can't reveal to the public. This is self-promotion. Please stop. Every single player here shares best practices. We need you to raise your game and help the community improve theirs.

Here's a simple DR community rule, If you have anything that you cant share, plz don't post a teaser about it.

 

[ddavis]

Joe,

I didn't take that as any secret sauce but a mere statement of fact. I see vendors on here all of the time with links to their websites, phone numbers etc. What about this for self promotion?

Here is a rant:

Like Hillary says, what difference does it make"? You could publish a complete DIY book and most dealerships won't do it because it takes too much effort. Look at all the threads about cutting AutoTrader. I will bet that 90% didn't put in the effort, necessary, to make it successful. They either didn't know how or were too lazy. Look at that Dataium study where dealerships are spending over 50% of their internet budgets on SEM. Talk about secret sauce. Anyone that would propose spending over 50% to a dealer is a crook and the dealer an idiot.

There is a reason why few dealerships are market leaders and the rest are either "average" or "sub par". I continue to read, on DealerRefresh, about dealerships wanting to get away from salespeople and hire tour guides. The market leader, wants everyone to do this.

There are a lot of threads on here about what people are doing but few on how. For anyone that wants the secret sauce: Only $4.19.

 

[joe.pistell]

Joe,

I didn't take that as any secret sauce but a mere statement of fact. I see vendors on here all of the time with links to their websites, phone numbers etc. What about this for self promotion?

Quid pro quo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Think about it.

 

[ddavis]

Hypocrisy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Think about it.

Manny has become a friend of mine. He is very passionate about what he does and I have been following him since when I was living in Arizona. He can dominate organic search and increase business for dealerships. I have encouraged him to participate on DealerRefresh because I believe he has a lot to offer.

Instead of attacking him for self promotion, why couldn't you just ask him to explain what he meant by "they could be doing much more"?

 

[Bill Simmons]

Joe Pistell wrote:

*I am on the record all over DR, based on my decade at stores and from post sale interviews that I am in favor of AutoTrader/Cars, so this reply isn't an anti-classified, pro-PPC fluff piece.

I agree Joe that there has to be a place in our overall strategy for the listing sites. Whenever I see a conversation like this thread it reminds me of a strategy discussed by Duncan Scarry at a conference last year. I cannot find the slide from his presentation but my notes of the steps from the slide titled "Six Parts To A Digital Marketing Strategy"

1 - Website - Optimized, photos, videos, descriptions, custom content
2 - SEO Optimized Website
3 - 3rd Party Portal Sites
4 - SEM/PPC
5 - Retargeting/Display
6 - Social Media

The key part of Duncan's message, IMO, is to follow that strategy in that order If your website is a mess, why spend PPC money sending traffic to it? If your website is not properly merchandised, pics, comments etc, why be on 3rd party portal sites with your inventory? When you have steps number 1 thru 3 optimized then its time to start playing in the rest of them, but not before. And lastly if the first 5 steps are not in order why are you spending money on social media? In our group I see a couple of our stores being talked into the manufacturers "social package" when they have not given any budget to to the first five steps. Drives me nuts! Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of social, but not before the other more important areas. You want an easy way to determine your digital budget, start at step one and allocate your money from most to least for each of these steps.

With Google telling us that consumers use 18+ sites during the shopping cycle, I believe that dealers should be found in as many places along that journey as possible. All 18+? No way, thats impossible. But I do think there is enough data telling us that there is a place to justify have CARS/ATC/Gurus and the others in our budgets and part of our strategy.

A loosely attributed quote from the "Art Of War "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." Pardon the philosophical quote from an ancient war leader but it sure makes sense when we talk about what our strategies should be in our stores.

 

[yagoparamo]

Joe Pistell wrote:

I agree Joe that there has to be a place in our overall strategy for the listing sites. Whenever I see a conversation like this thread it reminds me of a strategy discussed by Duncan Scarry at a conference last year. I cannot find the slide from his presentation but my notes of the steps from the slide titled "Six Parts To A Digital Marketing Strategy"

1 - Website - Optimized, photos, videos, descriptions, custom content
2 - SEO Optimized Website
3 - 3rd Party Portal Sites
4 - SEM/PPC
5 - Retargeting/Display
6 - Social Media

Bill,

So what I see wrong with the message (not yours but how it can come across)?

Looking at your list made me think that the items we need to work to get our web presence in line are not different now than in the past but that they have to be worked in a different way (more emphasis into ones than others) and with a different quality (for example inventory videos VS custom videos).

The meaning of optimizing a website has changed, videos have moved from mere inventory videos to custom information-value videos, the custom content used to refer to as custom description on a vehicle and now refers to model or trim line explanations, etc.

 

[yagoparamo]

Hypocrisy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Think about it.

Manny has become a friend of mine. He is very passionate about what he does and I have been following him since when I was living in Arizona. He can dominate organic search and increase business for dealerships. I have encouraged him to participate on DealerRefresh because I believe he has a lot to offer.

Instead of attacking him for self promotion, why couldn't you just ask him to explain what he meant by "they could be doing much more"?

Doug,

A lot of people, including me, went thru this phase at DR. Is part of the process. I actually think that sometimes the "non self promo" inhibits some from truly describe how they do things and therefore teaching.

Unfortunately the fact that Manny is your friend, that he is a great guy (and I do think he is!), and that he saved children from a house fire doesn't give you any slack in here.

But the reality is that its Joe's job to maintain the forum in line as a forum moderator. I agree and I have complained before that the forum is too aggressive at times with new people. I realized long time ago that this forum is not a democratic forum believe it or not; it has rules made by a guy with a fancy haircut, it is moderated by several beautiful women, and has people like me that make people mad from time to time.


The part where I understand Manny the most:

What Manny does requires creativity and dealers don't appreciate that in general in the Digital arena, you usually get paid for what you produce and you still need to show hard results in an area where results are based on a multitude of hard to understand numbers and in long term investments.

I have created many assets like Manny that got canceled because the dealer didn't like the way they "looked" (like a $50 microsite) when their purpose wasn't to "look" but to produce (links, content, etc). So I'm skeptical too to show my work for those reasons:

People see it and copy what they see thinking it works the same, and people that don't like what they see cancel because they don't understand how it works.

Content and SEO like Manny does it is almost like a coaches game plays, people can see the plays as they develop in a game but you don't want to show the book ahead to everyone.

I think...

 

[joe.pistell]

Doug,

A lot of people, including me, went thru this phase at DR. Is part of the process. I actually think that sometimes the "non self promo" inhibits some from truly describe how they do things and therefore teaching.../snip/... Content and SEO like Manny does it is almost like a coaches game plays, people can see the plays as they develop in a game but you don't want to show the book ahead to everyone.

I think...

Wow, Yago's crushin' it.

Here's my take on DR. In it's purest form, We all come here to share read ideas to help the dealer, not the vendor (me incl'd). IMO, vendors need to deliver great help to the community to earn their position as a trusted advisor. Once you've established yourself, then you're part of the community!

If you have a product to promote, Offer your product free to a group of dealers and publish the results here. You've kept your secret sauce hidden and your results do the talking.