One of the worst things that can hamper a car dealer's ability to market online is bad publicity. Negative reviews, bad comments through social media, and other things that appear on search results for a dealer's name can often cause a potential customer to never make contact with you.
In essence, you lose them before you even knew they were considering you.
There are things that a dealer can do to fight negative reviews. TK Carsites offers a solution that does it for you, but if you're a do-it-yourself kind of dealer, here's how to do it:
Respond When Appropriate
Many of the review websites offer ways for dealers to fight negative reviews or contact the customers who left them. It's a challenge and often takes time, but it can be effective on some sites. Others don't care what you have to say - they are consumer generated and there's not a lot you can do about it.
Social media sites are another venue for negative buzz, but luckily it's easier to combat the buzz there. Negative tweets, Facebook updates, etc., can be combated simply by having strong social media accounts and responding when appropriate. Sometimes, having a strong enough account that focuses on positive buzz is enough to make this happen. Other times, direct replies are in order, but normally a response that is properly worded with both sincerity and search engine optimization in mind can take care of it.
Multiple Websites
One of the primary reasons we give our dealers 5 complete websites rather than 1 is because of the ability that they have to control the search engine reputation of our dealerships. Search Google for "Marlboro Nissan". As you can see, the first two pages are filled with properties controlled by the dealership except for 1. There is a DealerRater.com listing on the front page. It was left there intentionally and promoted because the rating is currently a 4.9 out of 5.0. People love seeing that others are happy with a dealership, so optimizing that listing is important.
Most of the listings are portions of the dealer's "Power of 5" website package through TK, but there are also microsites, blogs, and social media profiles filling the first 2 pages and pushing negative reviews off to page 3 where they belong.
Speaking of Social Media
The other easy way to control your online reputation is through social media itself. You'll notice on the search for Marlboro Nissan that page one and two include YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and blogs. These are properties controlled by the dealership through a proper strategy. Simply creating these types of accounts won't do the trick. They must be created, developed, and nurtured.
It sounds time-consuming, but it can be done in 30 minutes a day or less. We provide our dealers with a "playbook" and ongoing social media training and support that allows them to succeed without having to spend a ton of time on social media.
For those who want to spend the time, hire someone to do it, or outsource their social media efforts, our service can be fashioned to work with any degree of participation.
Don't Lose Them Before They Contact You
There's nothing wrong with losing a deal. It happens regularly. Whether through email, phone, or in person, it's impossible to make everyone happy.
The real shame is when you lose them before you have a chance to ever talk to them. If they search for your name and see something that turns them off, they may never make contact. Then there's the 3rd party vendors who rank for your name, generate a lead, and then sell that lead to you or a competitor. Or both.
Search engine reputation management is not hard, nor is it expensive. It is, however, crucial. In today's market, nobody can afford to lose a lot of opportunities.
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Read more about Automotive Social Media on this blog.
With Labor Day over, it's time for car dealers to get serious about their end-of-the-year push for Automotive Digital Marketing. 2009 will likely be the first year that car dealers focus a good portion of their marketing dollars on the Internet.
One of the keys to success is getting the right combined strategy between the 4 major aspects of online marketing for car dealers:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Lead Conversion Optimization
- Social Media
- Online Vehicle Listings
Most dealers are not thinking of a "strategy" right now. Rather, they are gearing towards ramping up their efforts in a way that will get the most bang out of their individual bucks. For those reading this, I strongly encourage you to step back, look at the forest before going after the trees, and either put the effort into generating a unified strategy or hire someone who can.
The days of "throw money at it to make it better" are gone. It's through a combined effort on all fronts that car dealers' online advertising dollars can be best spent.
This isn't limited to but includes:
- Having a social media branding and outreach strategy that integrates seamlessly with the other 3 aspects of online marketing.
- Utilizing link-building strategies for SEO that will allow social media and online vehicle listings to help "kill two (or more) birds with one stone".
- Think along the lines of Lead Conversion Optimization so that it's not just a matter of driving traffic, but also making sure that the traffic is going to the right places at the right times.
Over the next several weeks, we will be covering each of the 4 primary marketing "disciplines" individually so that car dealers can understand how to start thinking along those lines. It cannot be stressed enough that having more is not necessarily better unless you take everything into account a develop a true strategy for rolling out and enhancing your marketing efforts over from now until the end of the year and beyond.
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Read more about Automotive Digital Marketing on this blog.
