marketing

Why “Just Do It” Is A Waste Of Time

by Tim James

In this high tech age, there are numerous tasks that an Internet or eCommerce Director has to tackle in order to correctly market their dealership and its inventory. In the past, you were doing a great job if you were writing custom detailed vehicle descriptions and taking multiple photos of your pre-owned vehicles. You were a superstar if you were also doing these things for your new vehicles. Then video entered the picture. Some dealers embraced video and used data feeds to syndicate video, vehicle descriptions and photos to their website and other third-party sites. Forward thinkers also uploaded the videos with proper tags and descriptions to YouTube.

However, with the fast pace of advancing technology, the number of consumer touch-points keeps growing and it has become an almost overwhelming task to keep up and still try to sell cars.

But one thing hasn’t changed, the key to a successful marketing strategy is getting the right content, in front of the right shopper, on the right touch-point, and at the right time of the buying cycle. The more exposure you get for your content, the more impact that content is going to have on your sales. Content that’s not seen is worthless.

I remember a story from not too long ago about one of the largest volume dealers in the world. This dealer was manually uploading their inventory to their website and every third party website for over 10 stores – one by one – daily. They chose to pay someone $100+ per DAY, rather than use automation and data distribution technology to accomplish the same task at a cost of just $150 per MONTH.

I’m starting to see a lot of this same mentality today with video. Many dealerships have gone out and purchased some great video production tools, and are doing a great job producing some very good video content. They are then manually uploading their content to YouTube and manually embedding links on as many touch-points as they have the time and ability to do so (not all touch-points allow a manual upload). They would rather invest hours of their time to manually place their content on fewer touch-points, than use automation and data distribution technology to accomplish the same task (with more touch-points) for just a couple hundred dollars a month.

I believe that many dealers, managers and Internet directors understand the importance of having their dealership and inventory positioned properly and in as many places online as possible. The problem I see is two-fold: They either don’t understand that technology exists that could transform their Internet marketing and sales without putting an undue burden on their staff. Or they don’t believe that the investment in this technology will produce results.

I can guarantee you this. If you’re simply doing it for the sake of doing it, you’re wasting your time. If nobody sees the content you create, it might as well not exist. The fact is video is “content,” just like any of the other “content” that you utilize to market your dealership and inventory. You don’t spend your day manually cutting and pasting your other content on multiple touch-points all day long — manually uploading photos, and manually writing vehicle descriptions over and over. Why on earth would you try to manually manage your video syndication when producing the content can be time consuming enough.

If you focus your efforts on ensuring that you have great video content, and then utilize technology to get that content on as many of the sites consumers view in the car buying process as possible, then you will be significantly more likely to have the right content, on the right touch-point, in front of the right consumer, at the right time of the buying cycle. This is the only thing that’s going to engage more shoppers and increase sales.

Nike’s old slogan of “Just Do It” needs to be revised when applied to successful marketing strategies today to “Just Do It Right.”

Building Rapport Before the Lead Is the Way to Win the Sale

By Tim James

In my last blog article, I discussed the importance of building rapport with leads through the use of “Why Buy From Me” and “Lead Response” videos personalized for each customer. Now I would like to take this one step further — Building rapport should in fact start much earlier than simply upon the receipt of a lead.

Think about the first contact a customer has with your dealership. Chances are good that they either went to your website, or found a vehicle that matched their interest on a third party site. At this point, detailed descriptions, images and video walkarounds can certainly make your vehicle stand out from the others. But how about further increasing the probability that the customer chooses to deal with you over any competition? How about building trust and rapport at this first entry point instead of waiting for them to put in their personal information and enter your CRM as a lead?

Just as you can integrate video walkarounds of the vehicle on VDP pages, you can also integrate your “Why Buy From Us” or “Why Buy From Me” videos into your vehicle display pages, as well as your most visited page on your website – your homepage. Sell The Dealership, Sell Yourself, Sell The Car…This simple rule can have a significant impact on the number of shoppers who see your online advertisements and ultimately trust you enough to reach out to you and inquire about a vehicle. And a HUGE impact on your sales once the customer arrives on your lot.

These actions help to build rapport and establish trust prior to receiving a lead, making the process of contacting the customer and engaging them that much easier when you do receive a lead. The fact is that you can build so much likeability and trust with a shopper that they decide that “you” are the dealership or sales person that they want to do business with, even before they have landed on a specific vehicle. You will even have shoppers who call you, email you, or even just show up at your dealership, without having settled on an exact vehicle, simply because they like and trust your dealership, or one of your salespeople. They thus reach out to you to help them find the right vehicle. Combine the above actions with walkaround videos and personalized video e-mails and you’ll find it much easier to win over a customer, leaving your competition in the dust.

Start creating rapport at the first touch-point, otherwise you could find yourself competing with four other dealers for the potential customer’s attention. A successful sales career is all about building relationships. The earlier in the car buying process that you can accomplish this, the easier it will be to engage a customer, more customers will show up for test drives, and you will haggle significantly less over price. You will get more sales and higher gross, because you are the good guys and the shopper wants to do business with YOU!

Don’t Get Distracted by Gadgets and Gizmos: Master the Basics to Succeed

by Brian Cox

For years, dealers have been inundated with technology. Salespeople from every vendor in the automotive space are continuously calling to present the latest and greatest product that is going to supercharge your sales. Great salespeople can convince a dealer or general manager to try products. Some of these products are excellent and could actually help … if you understand how to use them to their full potential.

There are some dealers that have both the time and expertise to devote to learning and using technology. But, sadly, that’s not realistic for many dealerships. To the vendors presenting their products, it may seem easy. However, if the product or service isn’t used to its full capabilities, chances are good that a dealer doesn’t stay a client very long.

If you are one of the rare dealerships or auto groups that has a tech-savvy employee who understands the products and services, and also has the time to use and implement them, you are ahead of the game. If, however, you aren’t in a position to hire or give someone these responsibilities, chances are that all of the gadgets and gizmos that sound wonderful will end up collecting dust. In any profession, continuous practice in the basics of your profession can assist you in growing and developing more advanced techniques.

As a dealership, there are certain basic services that are necessary. You need a DMS and CRM to track customers, vehicles and transactions. You also need a website that consumers can visit and gain information from. And, in order to capture the attention of online car shoppers, you must have the ability to distribute your inventory to your website and all your third-party sites, in a way that provides maximum exposure and appeal.

Technology continues to develop at the speed of light and is almost impossible to keep up with. It’s really not that long ago that many dealers did not see the need for a website, let along photo and video descriptions and a digital marketing strategy! However, the fact is that over time, the early adopters had a huge advantage over those who didn’t use technology to create exposure for their dealership and inventory.

The bottom line is there are a HUGE amount of gadgets, gizmos, who’s-its and what’s its available to help enhance your presence with today’s vehicle shoppers, both on and offline. It can be overwhelming to know where to start, and what’s important. If you want to do it yourself and don’t have the budget to hire someone internally, or an outside resource, take a step back and think about learning, practicing and mastering the basics before graduating to more advanced technologies. Otherwise you just may find yourself in a cave surrounded by thingamabobs wondering what they do!

Car Shopping: The Dating Game

by Tim James

For many car owners, their vehicles become an extension of their lives, a partner, and something that they have a true emotional bond with. In most places, cars are necessary to life. We use them to get to work, visit friends and family and take our kids to football practice. According to an article on the Tempo blog, a study done by Harvard Health Watch found that, on average, a person spends 37,935 hours driving during a lifetime – over 4 years of their lives. It’s no wonder that consumers build an emotional connection with their vehicles.

A time will come for nearly every consumer when a new vehicle is necessary. Perhaps because of an expanding family, an accident, or the fact that the age and condition of a current vehicle necessitates it. These can be emotional times for people, and can be an important thing for us to consider in the buying process — the fact that some consumers have emotional attachments to their current vehicle and are looking for their next “partner,” if you will.

Brands lure consumers to their vehicles with original content designed to generate interest in their make. It is then your job to take that and transition it to interest in a specific vehicle. Think of it like speed dating. The car lots of the world are now represented online with every dealership of every make representing potential suitors. However, few do a good job of representing their potential “dates.” The consumer wades through countless profiles and descriptions trying to find their next “partner.” The process becomes frustrating as the consumer’s search narrow in, become more specific, yet they are met with numerous profiles that all virtually look the same. You have the same 35 to 50 photos as everyone else, the same list of features, and the same buttons with the same calls to action as everyone else. Why should the shopper choose you?

The point is that successful dealers make it as easy as possible for a car shopper to start the love connection with THEIR car by telling the vehicle’s story through images, narratives descriptions and, most importantly, a good unique video.

But that’s not all. Let’s take the dating analogy again — Perhaps match.com isn’t the ideal place for you to meet that next special someone. It’s certainly not the only dating site in existence. To position your dealership’s inventory to have the best chance of success, you need to make sure that you are on as many dating sites as possible. Ensuring that your car has the best chance of getting chosen involves developing a strategy that reaches the right shopper on the right touch-point at the right time in their buying cycle. With the right strategy, you will appeal to the fundamental emotional relationship that most shoppers are searching for (it’s not just a car to them) and successfully match more shoppers with their next “partner” than you will by simply trying to motivate the shopper with “price”.

Why Video Is Important For Your Marketing Strategy

by Brian Cox

When businesses ponder how to increase their presence on search engines, they typically turn to SEO strategies. Content marketing has always been a large part of any SEO strategy. It’s a given that the more fresh, relevant and unique content you produce, the better chance your online properties will have of showing in search engine results. According to an article by Search Engine Land, in the past, when considering an SEO plan, the primary type of content marketers thought of was text. As consumer behavior changes, however, visual content is becoming increasingly important.

According to the article, a Google study that tracked consumers’ points of influence on their path to purchase, found that 64 percent of consumers were influenced by video they saw on YouTube – 2/3 of which were “how-to” and “product visualization” type video. These videos match the content type that auto dealers use. In fact, according to the study, 60 percent of consumers reported that online digital marketing factored into their path to purchase. And a recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported that experts are now advising marketers to move 10% to 25% of TV ad dollars to online video.

Today’s vehicle shoppers have many decisions to make along the path to purchase. A consumer who visits an online shopping portal will typically be presented with a list of vehicles that meet their criteria in order of price, lowest to highest. They will then start filtering out vehicles from those results based on such things as mileage, condition, vehicle descriptions and pictures and video provided by the dealer. Vehicles with no (or poor) descriptions or ones that lack photos and video have a greater likelihood of being passed over. Vehicle description pages that contain rich details including images and video stand a far greater chance at seeing customer engagement. It’s hard to believe that anyone would disagree with this very basic assessment.

The same idea translates to search engine optimization. The goal, obviously, in any search engine optimization strategy is to be found whenever a consumer makes a relevant search. According to Search Engine Land, however, that’s not what the real goal is (or should be). Simply showing up does nothing except satisfy a marketer or SEO practitioner’s ego. The true goal is click-through-rate. The more opportunities you can provide a customer who is searching for a vehicle to find your dealership and/or vehicle (i.e. the more times you appear within a given search), the greater the likelihood will be that they will click on a link to your content versus your competition. To accomplish this, you must have a presence on all the consumer touchpoints in every medium possible – video, images and text – thereby offering more content for a search engine to crawl and deliver within the results.

The bottom line is that consumers are using more resources than ever before when shopping for a vehicle. Ensuring that the type of content a consumer wants to see is present on every touchpoint is essential to increase web traffic and consumer engagement. Don’t get me wrong, simply throwing money into video marketing is not what I advise. You would be wise to invest in a comprehensive video strategy that maximizes the exposure, quality and effectiveness of your video content. It will make the difference and allow you to dominate all of your online marketing channels.

In Marketing, New Trumps Used Every Time

by Brian Cox

Bob visits a website searching for a new vehicle. As he filters down to the model he is considering, he is confronted with a seemingly endless list of stock photos with similar prices. Frustrated at the lack of information, he leaves and attempts his search on another site just to get the same results.

Suzy is in the market for a used vehicle. After comparing vehicles by prices and mileage, she finds one that fits her needs and her budget. The vehicle doesn’t have a very good description, however, and she has questions about the vehicle’s condition. She fills out the form and asks for more pictures of the vehicle. All she gets in return are repeated invites to schedule an appointment while being bombarded with phone calls from salespeople.

Joe is shopping for a new vehicle also. Joe is a very meticulous person. His house is always in order. His DVDs are alphabetized. He refuses to buy anything used. He knows that he wants the new Mustang. He also knows that he wants it to have as few miles as possible and, if feasible, to never have even been test-driven. He visits his local dealer’s website and all he sees are stock photos. He resigns himself to the fact that he is going to have to physically go to the dealership and inspect vehicles, which he does not have time for.

In all of these situations, the online shopper could have converted to a lead or sale. The friction point that stopped the customer from converting was very simple – lack of information. Humans are all different in their peculiarities, but do have one thing in common; they want to get the best value for their dollar. Had any of these dealerships taken the time to enhance their VDPs with dozens of photos and videos, these shoppers may have taken the next step towards the sale. Instead, they are left with frustration and no information.

Imagine if, while searching, Bob had encountered a listing that had actual images or video of a real vehicle in stock at a dealership. Or if Suzy had seen a video walkaround of the used vehicle that caught her eye. Maybe actual images and video of a specific new Mustang would have allayed Joe’s concerns of its condition and he would have reached out to the dealer to start the buying process.

Sadly, many dealers fall short of what is optimum – they have their DMS push out their inventory the instant it’s stocked and then distribute it to all of the touchpoints a consumer may visit. When a consumer finds that vehicle they are poorly served and presented with a VDP that has no description, images or video, and sometimes not even a price.

Most dealers recognize the impact that great image and video marketing can bring to their used vehicle inventory marketing. They know that the faster they get those images and video onto their VDPs, the faster they will see interest by consumers, and the faster vehicles will sell. The one thing that most of the automotive industry neglects, however, also happens to be the thing they have the most of: new cars. Perhaps dealers feel that there is no point taking pictures and video of each individual new vehicle as they are all the same at every dealer. The fact is that marketing your new vehicles may prove to be more important than marketing your used vehicles.

Including images and video of actual vehicles will make you stand out from your competitors in search results on the many consumer touchpoints.

Most dealers have 4-5 new cars for every single used car in inventory. Chances are that your competitor isn’t taking pictures or video of their new cars either. We all know the value SEO has in gaining new customers. By marketing your new vehicles with descriptions, images and video, you stand out from your competitors and increase your content within search engines by 4-5 times! This could easily help you dominate search engine results and every other touchpoint a consumer visits.

If you are not shooting photos and video of your new car inventory, you essentially have no marketing for the largest segment of your inventory. Start taking pictures and video of your new vehicles and you’ll achieve maximum exposure, which will lead to more leads and, ultimately, more sales.

How to Tame the Bull Named Facebook

by Tim James

In 1991, a 5’2” 125-pound cowboy stared into the face of Wolfman Skoal. a young 2,000-pound bull with a bad reputation. So bad, in fact, that a $500 bounty existed for any rider that could tame the beast and ride a full 8 seconds. Wade Leslie accepted the challenge. As he mounted the bull in preparation for his ride, the bull promptly lay down in the pen. He considered getting off. But then the bull’s owner reassured him that Wolfman Skoal would perform. Sure enough, once the gates opened, the bull leapt straight into the air like a rocket and preceded to do its best to eject Wade. Wade had different plans, however. He not only succeeded in riding Wolfman Skoal for the full 8 seconds, but also became the first, and to date, only bull rider to score a perfect 100 points in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.

Not unlike bull riding, marketers are constantly creating content that is competing with both their competitors and the platform on which that content is published. Right now, the biggest and baddest bull around is Facebook. One could say that as Facebook grows up, its personality continually changes, forcing marketers to continuously change with them. As it finally enters its teens, this 10-year old has decided that, at the moment, it happens to like video content. In bull riding, judges calculate a score for both the rider and the bull. Riders know that their score depends on both how they ride and how their bull performs. A rider can stay on a bull for the full 8 seconds. But if the bull isn’t rowdy enough to impress the judges, the rider can still receive a sub-par score. Keep this in mind when developing your content. In marketing, the success of your content starts with the content creator (the rider) and is dependent on Facebook (the bull).

In early summer of 2014, Facebook began releasing in-depth data on video performance. Social media resource Socialbakers eagerly dove into that data in an effort to tame the bull and finally give marketers information that would assist them in their quest for video marketing success. Through the study of 1,000 Facebook pages containing over 3,000 videos, it was found that videos of ~21 seconds long were the most successful. The main metric used to determine a video’s success was its completion rate (i.e.: the percentage of people who watched at least 95% of a video). As in most rules, there are exceptions, yet the in-depth study showed that the longer a video was, the lower the completion rate.

There are many variables that can be used to explain this phenomenon, ranging from attention spans in general, content that’s not engaging, and the bandwidth needed to view a longer video on mobile devices. Not enough time has passed since the release of this data for more comprehensive studies to be done. One thing is certain, however, and that is that Facebook is increasingly choosing to deliver video content to its users’ newsfeeds. The study of Facebook video performance found that ~57% of viewers who started watching a video, completed the video. The Socialbakers study even went as far as to make a preliminary finding that “If this data holds true, Facebook videos are outperforming YouTube videos.” They speculate that the reason for this “could be attributed to more intelligent distribution of videos on Facebook, due to Facebook’s News Feed algorithm doing a better job of matching interested users with engaging videos than YouTube does.”

Keep in mind that these statistics are based on a preliminary study of Facebook video content in general. We’ve found that the money spot for completion rates on videos are between 1-1/2 to 2 minutes long across all other video platforms. The reason for this is that product videos tend to be sought out by a consumer rather than being delivered to them by the platform. We expect that this will remain consistent, as consumers who visit a dealership’s Facebook page to view an inventory video have purposely sought out this content. Consumers looking to purchase a vehicle are willing to make a longer time investment for the simple reason that it is directly tied to a significant expense. Mobile users are statistically willing to make even longer commitments ranging from 2-1/2 to 4 minutes depending on the device.

Any type of content produced by a business has a limited amount of time to capture a person’s attention. Video content has an advantage in that it is the only content that tells a viewer exactly how much of a time commitment they have to by displaying its total viewing length. And if your content is engaging, consumers will give you more of their time. If not, you’ll find them abandoning your message quicker than a bull can throw a rider.

The next time you create video content and stare the bull named Facebook in the eye as you prepare to either submit or be submitted, keep in mind the following: high quality, engaging video content that quickly captures a viewer’s attention will increase the length of time that you’re able to stay on the bull and impress the judges. And just like bull riding, they are the only people that matter.

Using Moneyball Strategies to Win the Content Marketing Game

by Tim James

In a recent article published on Marketing Land, an author used the famous concept of Moneyball and applied it to content marketing. If you aren’t familiar with the Moneyball concept, it began when Billy Beane became manager of the 2001 Oakland Athletics. Mr. Beane hypothesized that a team doesn’t necessarily need a superstar to win games. The key to winning in baseball is scoring. To score runs, a team must have players that can get on base. Rather than allocate millions of dollars (which the organization couldn’t afford) for superstar players, Mr. Beane used data and algorithms to identify players who may have been considered sub-par, but had high on-base percentages (i.e.: they could hit and get on base consistently). Using this strategy, he was able to put together a team that went on to win against stacked teams of superstars.

The author of the Marketing Land article went on to explain how successful content marketing paralleled the Moneyball strategy. Marketers shouldn’t be spending tons of money in an attempt to hit homeruns with one great viral video as their only piece of content. What they should be doing is building better “team members” by consistently creating high quality content of interest to its audience. In the automotive space, many dealers believe content creation is anchored in their inventory. While inventory is certainly the most important asset a dealer has, there are many other types of content that dealers can produce easily and with low expenditure.

Car buyers are seeking different types of information at different points in the buying cycle, whether that information is about a new vehicle, the reputation of a dealership, or if a used vehicle is a good value. Dealers that consistently produce a variety of high quality content have more opportunity to get on base. Using the analogy of Moneyball, think of a blog post or walkaround video as being “at bat”. The more times you’re up to bat, the more chances you have of getting on base with a consumer. Success in content marketing begins with eyeballs on your content. Peaking a customer’s interest enough to submit a lead gives you the opportunity to advance them around the bases. Dealers don’t need to hit homeruns to score. They simply need to get on base through a lead submission, phone inquiry or dealership visit. Get on base enough, and the runs (sales) will happen.

You cannot score runs, however, if you never try to hit the ball. Content marketing can be simple and affordable but it’s a long-term commitment to taking as many swings at the ball as possible that will yield the greatest return on investment. Instead of allocating large amounts of money in an attempt to hit homeruns, consider changing your focus to one of getting on base more often through the consistent creation of content. You never know which piece of content will produce the homerun for you but I guarantee that you’ll never hit one if you don’t swing the bat. The sooner you step up to the plate and start swinging, the sooner you will begin to see shoppers moving around the bases and your runs starting to increase.

The Single Worst Thing A Dealership Can Do In Video Marketing

by Brian Cox

It has long been considered a best practice in search engine optimization and search engine marketing to use deep linking to take searchers to the exact content they are searching for, rather than simply directing them to your home page. If the searcher is not taken directly to the content they are seeking, they are forced to do a second search for the information once they hit your site. In many cases, searchers will simply click the “Back” button and move on to the next result. Consumers don’t have the time or patience to navigate your website, whether they landed there through an organic search or clicked on a PPC ad. There’s nothing more frustrating when researching a product online, clicking a link and being taken straight to a store’s home page, rather than the actual product page. Google recognizes this and takes deep linking and relevant results into account in search engine results as well.

In video marketing, there is a similar phenomenon that businesses use that is parallel and equally frustrating – video pre-roll. Video marketing success is determined and measured by how many people actually watch your video. Video pre-roll is, in general, just as annoying to consumers as pop-up ads. If a consumer is exposed to your video marketing message, is interested and clicks to watch it. To then have to watch a commercial before actually viewing the content they desire, can be just as frustrating as being taken directly to your home page. Volkswagen recognizes this and integrated it into a video ad campaign for the new Brazilian Beetle, the Fusca. The campaign takes advantage of the fact that consumers hate having ads appear before content. The “skip ad” option on YouTube has to be the most clicked on link on that site. Where does your mouse hover while you wait the obligatory 5 seconds simply so you can view the content you actually want to watch? A study by research firm MetrixLab concluded, “Of those who has seen pre-roll ads, 94 percent had skipped them, and 52 percent said they did so frequently.”

Taking this a step further, many dealerships are now front-loading their videos with commercials for their dealerships. Video marketing is a very powerful way to market your vehicles. When a consumer takes interest – regardless of where they encounter the video – forcing them to watch a 20 second (or longer) commercial for the dealership, prior to showing them the actual video of the vehicle, can be even more annoying then pre-roll ads. If 94 percent of people would skip watching a video pre-roll ad, how many consumers will sit through a commercial for your dealership, knowing that they cannot skip it?

If the vehicle videos on your website have pre-rolls branding your dealership, this forces the customer to watch the same marketing message for every car they review. So we suggest not putting them on your website videos. If you have to have a pre-roll then keep it short and create two versions of the video, one for your website without pre-roll, and one with. Another option is to not use pre-rolls and just put post-rolls, this way you are still getting your message across, but without inconveniencing the customer.

There’s nothing wrong with branding your videos. In fact, you should. There are many opportunities and methods you can use to integrate branding into your videos – from walkarounds to company culture or frequently asked question videos. Don’t misunderstand me. There is nothing wrong with creating commercials as content and a way to promote your sale or dealership. However, you should use them independent of your other content. Don’t make a consumer choose not to watch your vehicle marketing because they don’t want to sit through your commercial.

Just as in deep linking, you will see better results by immediately serving up relevant information on the subject a consumer is searching for. You’ll see more views, lower bounce rates and increased conversions for the most obvious of reasons: consumers will watch them.