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To Micro-site or not to Micro-site?

Use Micro Sites Combined with SEM For Best Results from Dollars Spent:

It is true these days with all the different car dealers using SEM as a way to advertise and drive more clicks to there websites is costing more and more every month. You have to be smart about the way you use your monthly budget for SEM.
Micro Sites and SEM combined, is What I find to work best at Courtesy Chevrolet in San Diego Ca. First of all having Micro Sites, and More Micro Sites is going to set you apart from the competition over a period of time. Where I am going with this is get into the idea of having Micro Sites to help generate more online leads, incoming phone calls, and walk-in traffic to your dealership. Micro Sites are all about branding your name and dealership. Micro Sites are very low over head, usally consits of a build fee, and yearly hosting cost. Once they are built they are yours and with good content, you well get good SEO over time and they will do the advertising for you with out any SEM.

SEM campaigns and Micro Sites are what I have been practicing for a couple of months now. For example GM came out with the GM Military Discount Program this month. I built a GM Military Discount Micro Site and used some of my SEM Budget to drive prospects to the site. From April 9th - April 23rd I Have received 46 leads from this use of SEM and Micro Site. Example of Micro Site: www.GMMilitary-Discount.com Out of the 46 leads we have made 3 deals, and 1 working with a closing ratio of 6.5%. We spent $748.00 on that campaign at an average of %16.00 per lead that we own and not a third party. Cost per unit sold was $249.00. To make this work you have to be on your game. Another campaign I do that works well for us is our Courtesy Tent Sale Micro Site. We have a tent sale once a month so the week of the tent sale I create an SEM campaign to that Micro Site tha generates 20-30 leads for the tent sale event. Example of Tent Sale Micro Site: www.CourtesyTentSale.com. Please feel free to contact me for more information on this result driven practice.

Micro Sites by NewtonDigitalMarketing.com

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WOW, I'm not even sure if there is anything I can add here other than my opinion. Great post and some awesome feedback from everyone.

I just was just talking about micro sites yesterday, so the conversation is fresh in my head.

One angle we were discussing, was the micro site for driven traffic and conversion only. Using traditional marketing and URL placement in your campaign marketing to drive traffic to the microsite while being able to track its effectiveness and ROI for that specific campaign. SEO would not be an element with this Micro site. It is used as part of a complete stand alone marketing campaign.

I like the direct measurement you get with a micro site and campaign like this BUT I think in long run you're missing out on so much more for the sake of campaign tracking and measurement.

If you are going to do the micro site thing, I say you take every angle into consideration..Branding, Marketing, Conversion, SEO and even Social. Ryan touched on the social element and engaging the customer, this is something that most micro sites in our industry fail to do.

So...right now, I'm coining "MicroMedia Sites". Ha!! I even registered the URL. micromediasites.com. Great, another idea and URL I'll never get around to using. That's number 263. LOL.

If you are going to take the time to build or have a micro site built, take full advantage of it. Allow it to climb the search engines, allow it to target keywords phrases your dealer website is unable to reach, allow it to help saturate the first page for your dealers name as well.

Use the site to brand your dealer and market your message. Convert the customer, allow them to voyage and gather the information they desire.

But wait...there's more!!

Engage the customer with social media and watch your micro site jump in the SERPS.

Humm, starting to sound like what our dealer websites should be doing?

I agree with Alex in the the advantage of your dealers website is providing the customer with more options. What about the customer that is interested in the Honda Civic but would also consider the pre-owned Mazda 3 that you have displayed on your dealer website but NOT on your model targeted micro site??

Could you be loosing out on more chances to convert with a micro site or does the direct model specific message speak so much volume on the micro site that it overvalues landing that customer on your dealer website?

I don't know and I don't think there is a way of knowing. Do what works for you and track your ROI as best as possible.

Confusing the customer...

People are already confused. I don't care if I have 20 websites..as long as they all have a consistent image and message that my dealer uses. Try to incorporate the same message, color schemes, buttons, images and of course your logo. People stumble on sites all the time and don't even know what website they are on. How many times do you ask a customer "what website did you find this car on?" and they say the "the internet"? I would get phone calls from customers that I KNEW for a FACT were on Cars.com (call whisper and call measurement) but would swear to me they were on AutoTrader looking at my vehicle for sale.

Phone Numbers..I don't care if I have 1000 different phone numbers. I don't care if there are 5 different phone numbers on 1 site as long as they are being directed to the right department. I was looking for some statistics on this but no luck so I'll have to make my own judgment. I don't think customers care what number they call as long as they get their questions answered right away. Case in point..how many people call your sales line for service, even though you have it clearly defined.

I also think there might be some confusion between mirco sites and landing pages.

Alex - thanks for a great post
Ralph - thanks for your expertise and links to the numerous sites and plug
Jon - great meeting you as well
Alvin - thanks for your plug

A great example of one to follow.

I am the KING of MicroMedia websites!! http://www.micromediasites.com/

Jeff
 
I can see where having a micro-site may help a dealer index additional pages in the SERPS, add a few extra incoming links and possibly grab a few extra leads.

My opinion is much like Alex's; its going to create a lot of extra work - especially for those who don't have an organized online strategy already in place. The micro-site is not going to be your panacea.

Lindsay - stay away from anyone pitching you a 2k/mo. micro-site. For that price, it should prospect, close & deliver the car for you. The whole site shouldn't cost you more than ~$2500 - and that includes design, 1yr. hosting and key word optimization.

Frank - are you actually getting clicks for that search phrase? I see so many dealers being shown how "successful" their site is for a particular phrase. Its great to be #1 for a search term - but only if that phrase is ever searched by more than the just the company optimizing for it...

If you're going to spend the $$, I suggest putting it back into your main site to improve the style, functionality & overall usability. I'm sure everyone can find at least one or two pages within their site that isn't as effective as it should be. (I know I've got 'em)

Alex, good post...way to get people thinking.

Eric
 
Hello Eric

"are you actually getting clicks for that search phrase?" Wow, Yes yes yes, I actually get clicks for that search phrase. Not hundreds of course but enough to make it worth my time and dollars and it is just not just one search term, I have five micro sites (I will be building more) all of them are optimized for 3 to 5 keywords which show up in top three in those results. Also what is more important I think is the fact they are all linked together and linked to our main website. In doing this it has brought the website up in rankings on all search engines for search terms that we never showed for. For instance I wanted Jim Glover Chevrolet to show up when someone typed that phrase or close to it and now Jim Glover Chevrolet shows up right at the top.

These Micro sites are just a small part in a big picture and they play an important role in that they generate clicks and are key in SEO. They cost me very little money (less than 400.00) and the pay back is quick, now its just pure profit.

I am pretty sure I know what I am doing as I have been involved in internet sales for over nine years. Currently our store does not purchase any third party leads and our website had over 11,000 unique visitors in March 2008. This month we will have generated over six hundred leads from our website, with three hundred plus credit applications. I have four Internet sales managers and I believe they get to many leads as it has been proven I miss business. In the next couple of months we will add three more Internet managers as we are growing rapidly. But thanks for the advise I will look into adding more to my main website!!!!

There are many opinions here at dealer refreash and I read them all. I think we have some very professional people here and it is great to here from some of the best like Ralph Paglia, Jeff Kershner, etc. Really sorry to have missed the automotive digital marketing in Florida, I probably missed out on some great ideas, I believe that you will always pick up something from training, I was hoping everyone was going to share more here, hint hint. Thank you for the comment and your time.
 
FOR SALE:
Here are some undeveloped URLs in my inventory.

--GMcertifiedSale.com
--GMcertifiedClearance.com
--OfficialGMcertifiedSale.com
--GM-Certified-Dealer.com

--GMauthorizedSale.com

--FORD-VS-CHEVY.COM

--RockSolidChevrolet.com
--RockSolidChevy.com

I am house shopping, so everything has a price! I had plans to turn these into MFA sites (Made For AdSense Sites).

Interested parties can contact me via Jeff K or Alex, or email me: joepistell[at]gmail.com

thnx,
Joe
 
Hi Everyone,

I'm new with dealerrefresh.com and I have one issue regarding micro sites. Whats does everyone think about the trademark issues regarding these domain names ? For example,

www.TorrnaceHondaAccord.com
www.TorranceHondaPilot.com
www.TorranceHondaCivic.com
www.TorranceHondaCivicGX.com
www.TorranceHondaCivicSI.com
www.TorranceHondaCRV.com
www.TorranceHondaElement.com
www.TorranceHondaFit.com
www.TorranceHondaOdyssey.com
www.TorranceHondaPilot.com
www.TorranceHondaS2000.com

Notice the terms "Honda Accord", "Honda Civic SI" etc.....

Don't those terms belong to Honda Motor Company ?

All comments and opinions are welcomed.

SCM
 
You cant be stopped from advertising something you have in inventory. If that were the case then a Chevy dealer could not advertise used Fords.

There are so many ways to attack keyword in online marketing. You can actually get sites or pages to show up using competitors names easily. All done in a way that could not cause you any problems other than the phone call from them bitching about it. If you are going to go through the effort to do it.

As far as using trademarks in domain names it is up to the trademark holder to enforce the claim. Then you deal with it when the situation arises.

Paul