Automotive SEO and Car Dealer Marketing

2009 has rolled in. The balloons are up, the streamers are flowing in the wind and the car deals are as always - excellent. Infact for the car dealership and customer it's a great time to buy and sell cars, but the consumer has been shaken by a weakened economy.

This is a no brainer, everyone knows the current situation for car dealers and this problem extends to nearly every small business right now. The result is a twisting cycle that is harming car dealerships on a new level, but one that most dealers are unable to escape. Read on for details and some insightful thoughts on what to do.

The vicious cycle has begun. Consumers have cut back their spending, they have become more value oriented. As always the same sales basics apply, but there is no doubt in the hesitation of the market.

As a dealership manager or owner, you are faced with tough decisions on how to allocate your now shrinking budget. Traditional media options such as newspaper have been the staple of car dealer marketing for sometime, but in every market the newspaper has lost marketshare.

Television and radio can still be effective means of reaching new customers, but these avenues are indirect and require you to catch the right person at the right time. The best hope of television and radio is to build brand in your car dealership and hope that when said customer is actually ready for the market, they will include you on their shopping list.

Some car dealerships are forsaking traditional advertising all together. A new trend is to "pay the salesman" first. Here's the thought process on "paying the salesman". Right now we have a weak economy, also in jobs. As most car dealers know, you have a stack of dozens, maybe hundreds of sales applications on your desk.

There is no shortage of qualified sales people. You can use this to your advantage by cutting the fat of a poor sales force, rotating green peas in tandum with a closer and recruit new qualified talent.

By paying the salesperson, you redirect your advertising dollars to buy more deals in trade, and increase bonuses for sales people who do their job well. A happy sales person is more cheerful and is a stronger closer.

Believe it or not, there are con's to every form of advertising. - I want you to read that again.

Every car dealer solution provider will tell you that their method is the best. That's just good sales. None of them will tell you that they all have failings. As we know, traditional advertising such as newspaper, television and radio are indirect expensive and untargeted. However they still build brand and can capture traffic for your dealership.

Internet Marketing is a totally different beast, and is unfortunatly dominated by a lot of traditional marketing firms that believe they know the cure to what ails you. Car Dealer Website marketing is also dominated by "dealer solution providers" that attempt to package your internet marketing into a one-size fits all category.

These types of strategies can be dangerous to your Internet Department if not managed properly. Let's take a closer look at some options available for your car dealership website and internet department.

Marketing a Car Dealership Online can be overwhelming. Everyone seems to have an opinion and the perfect answer. Let's take a look now at some of the risks, and rewards of common sales pitches you hear. No non-sense, this will save you headaches, time and money.

Classified Websites: Cars.com, Autotrader and Other Car Dealer Marketing Websites:

Classified websites draw traffic at your expense. If you watched the 2009 Superbowl ad for cars.com, it was obvious that their entire sales pitch was "The Car Dealership is a scary place, and will try to rip you off. Come to us instead and be safe". They use fear in their advertising, slam your dealership, slam your brand, then turn around and charge you for the privellage of listing your inventory on their website. (We car dealers are in the wrong business where do we signup for that?)

That trickery aside, the reality is that sites like autotrader and cars do actually draw traffic and visitors to their own website and through a trickle down effect you as a car dealership will receive a fraction of those visitors looking at your inventory. Often these websites will pitch premium placement for an additional fee as well as extra ad tools, and coupon builders. In my experience the added tools are overpriced and typically result in a loss of profit not a gain. It's important to remember while these websites can help you sell cars, they alone are not an effective internet marketing solution. They should be used as a supplement and not a crutch.

Remember the idea of an effective internet marketing campaign is to build your brand online, and drive traffic directly to your Internet department.

Dealer Solutions Providers (Dealer, Cobalt) The Guys that Host Your Car Dealership Website:

Companies like these have specialized in building easy to use car dealership websites. Your likely using one of these companies for your website right now, which is a good thing since it allows your internet department to focus on selling and not micromanaging the technical aspects of the web.

Of course here comes the catch.. are you ready? A long the way these companies realized that charging 10x the average web hosting and design fees, while a great start for profitability, was only the tip of the iceberg. Soon just like the Cable Company, they began bundling new expensive services and "solutions".

The most common upsell is their Internet Marketing services. Letting these companies manage something as serious and important as your Internet Marketing is a gross mistake, do not do it. Here's why:

The first problem with using a dealer solutions provider is that they build websites for a living. Try looking at it like this. If you set out to build a new car dealership location, you might hire a contractor to build the structure for you. You may go further and have a designer make the building and grounds appealing. Would you then trust the same contractor or designer to advertise your business and run an in-house marketing campaign for the forseeable future? It's true, perhaps they've built dozens, even hundreds of car dealerships. Yet marketing online is not their specialty.

Dealer Solution providers use these service such as Automotive SEO and Pay Per Click Marketing as a pure profit center upsell. The truth is that advertising is competitive, thus why would you hire a company to handle your Internet Advertising that is also working for your competition? Using these companies will result in cookie-cutter Automotive SEO and Car Dealer Internet Marketing, the result of which will only drain your bank account.

The solution is to find an Internet Marketing Company that knows how to promote regular, every day small business online and ALSO understands the automotive industry and it's particular needs. Any such provider should give you an EXCLUSIVE agreement and non-compete for your brands as long as you are a client. If they will not give you an exclusive agreement, run away.

The benefit of Automotive SEO is simple. First let's take one last look at the cycle of car buying moving into 2009 as this is important. People are hesitant to spend money, they are reluctant to go from dealership to dealership. They want to know they are getting a good deal before they leave their home. Consumers want to feel like they have empowered themselves with research (regardless of whether the information is accurate or not)

So now let's look at Joe Consumer. He goes online looking for a small compact car. He does some research at information sites such as edmunds, and narrows down his short list. Now where does he turn? Statistically speaking for 2008 and moving into 2009, he goes to Google.com, Yahoo.com or MSN.com and begins looking for local car dealerships. Typically people will search for the city, and make of a car dealership in their area - usually starting with the largest metro area nearby. They may also search directly for dealerships they know of.

Thus having a dominating ranking for these keywords is extremely important. If your car dealership is buried on the bottom of the first page, or worse yet the second or third page your competition is stealing your traffic. Thus to get started your Automotive SEO and Internet Marketing firm should set the following goals to start off:

Achieve Rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN for:

TOP Rankings for Your Dealership Name - ANY and ALL Variants.
TOP Rankings for Your Brand and Immediate Location (SmitsVille Dodge)
TOP Rankings for Your Brand and Dealer List (Smitsville Car Dealers, Smitsille Dodge Dealers)
TOP Rankings for Your Brand and Nearby Metro (The honeypot where there is the most competition.)

For instance if Smitsville is 30 miles outside of Orlando FL, dominating Orlando Dodge, Orlando Dodge Dealers, Dodge Orlando, Orlando New Cars, etc. is your goal. Once you have dominated Orlando, your Automotive SEO firm should move on to other metro areas and start stealing traffic from other competitors back yards.

In addition it's important for your car dealership to capture as many small local cities as possible as well. The traffic delivered is much lower, but remember you are hiring an Internet Marketing company. Their job is to constantly work to expand your listings and drive new traffic, not make a few quick changes and be done. A genuine Automotive SEO company never stops working to expand your business, and basically becomes a new marketing arm for your business.

Your Automotive SEO company if it's worth it's salt, should also provide reputation management and help you translate reviews and testamonials to online websites and review portals. They can help you with Youtube videos, establish social networking accounts to connect with the community in new ways and much more.

These are the key differences, a real Automotive SEO and Internet Marketing Firm for your Car Dealership treats your business as a real client, not an upsell.