Author: T3 Marketing

Automotive Manufacturer Co-op Marketing Reimbursements

An Essential Guide for Dealerships

In the competitive world of automotive sales, it is crucial for dealerships to have a robust marketing strategy. However, the cost of marketing can be a major challenge, particularly for small or independent dealerships. This is where automotive manufacturer co-op marketing reimbursements come into play.

What are Automotive Manufacturer Co-op Marketing Reimbursements?

Automotive manufacturers often offer co-op marketing programs to help their dealerships promote their brands and products. Co-op marketing is a partnership between the manufacturer and the dealership, where the manufacturer reimburses the dealership for a portion of the cost of approved marketing activities.

The purpose of co-op marketing is to increase brand awareness and drive sales, benefiting both the manufacturer and the dealership. The reimbursement can be used for various marketing initiatives, including advertising, direct mail, website development, and more.

How do Co-op Marketing Reimbursements Work?

Each automotive manufacturer has its own co-op marketing program guidelines and requirements. Dealerships must follow these guidelines to ensure that their marketing activities are eligible for reimbursement.

Typically, the manufacturer will provide a co-op marketing manual outlining the program rules, reimbursement rates, and eligible marketing activities. Dealerships must submit their marketing plans and activities to the manufacturer for approval before starting the campaign.

Once the manufacturer approves the campaign, the dealership can begin the marketing activities and incur the associated costs. The dealership will then submit a reimbursement request, along with receipts and other required documentation, to the manufacturer. The manufacturer will review the request and provide reimbursement for the approved amount.

Benefits of Co-op Marketing Reimbursements for Dealerships

Co-op marketing reimbursements can provide several benefits for dealerships, including:

Reduced Marketing Costs

Co-op marketing reimbursements can help dealerships reduce their marketing costs and promote their brand and products more effectively.

Increased Brand Awareness

Co-op marketing activities can increase brand awareness and drive sales for both the manufacturer and the dealership.

Access to Professional Marketing Support

Co-op marketing programs often provide access to professional marketing support and resources, which can be beneficial for small or independent dealerships.

Improved ROI

Co-op marketing activities can improve the return on investment (ROI) of marketing campaigns, as the manufacturer reimburses a portion of the marketing costs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, automotive manufacturer co-op marketing reimbursements are an essential tool for dealerships to promote their brand and products effectively. By following the manufacturer’s guidelines and requirements, dealerships can reduce their marketing costs, increase brand awareness, and improve their ROI. Contact your manufacturer’s marketing department to learn more about their co-op marketing program and how it can benefit your dealership.

Automotive Direct Mail Marketing for Car Dealerships

Why it Works

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Highly Effective Tool For Driving Traffic To Your Dealership And Increasing Sales

In today’s digital world, it’s easy to think that traditional marketing tactics like direct mail are outdated and ineffective. However, when it comes to automotive marketing for car dealerships, direct mail is still a highly effective tool for driving traffic to your dealership and increasing sales.

In fact, studies have shown that direct mail has a higher response rate than email marketing or social media advertising.

It is time to apply what we understand about the process of creating content for consumers to the process of selling to businesses.

So, How Can Car Dealerships Effectively Use Direct Mail As Part Of Their Automotive Marketing Strategy? Here Are A Few Tips:

Targeted Mailing Lists

With digital marketing, car dealerships can reach potential customers who are beyond their local area or outside their traditional marketing channels.

Eye-catching Design

Digital marketing allows car dealerships to target specific demographics, interests, behaviors, and locations, ensuring that their marketing efforts are reaching the right people.

Personalization

Digital marketing allows car dealerships to create and share relevant, engaging, and informative content that can help build their brand reputation and establish themselves as a thought leader in the industry.

Strong Call-to-Action

Digital marketing allows car dealerships to generate leads and sales by providing potential customers with the information they need to make informed purchase decisions and by offering them incentives and promotions to drive conversions.

Follow-up

After sending your direct mail piece, be sure to follow up with recipients to keep them engaged and encourage them to take action. This could include a phone call or email follow-up, or even a second direct mail piece to remind them of your offer.

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In conclusion, while digital marketing may dominate the conversation, direct mail is still an effective tool for automotive marketing for car dealerships. By using targeted mailing lists, eye-catching design, personalization, strong call-to-action, and follow-up, car dealerships can drive traffic to their dealership and increase sales through direct mail marketing. Contact us today to learn more about how automotive direct mail can work for your dealership.

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Performance Max In-Market Display Campaigns

If you’re running a business and want to get your products or services in front of potential customers, digital advertising is a powerful tool. With the help of platforms like Google Ads, you can target people who are actively looking for what you offer and show them ads that persuade them to take action.

One effective way to do this is with a Performance Max In-Market display campaign. This type of campaign combines two powerful targeting strategies to reach the right people at the right time: In-Market targeting and Performance Max.

In-Market targeting is a feature in Google Ads that lets you reach people who are actively researching or considering buying products or services in specific markets or industries. For example, if you sell running shoes, you can target people who have recently searched for running shoes or related products online. This allows you to show your ads to people who are more likely to be interested in what you offer and are more likely to convert.

Performance Max, on the other hand, is a new Google Ads campaign type that combines multiple advertising products to deliver ads across multiple channels and devices. It uses machine learning to optimize your ad delivery based on user behavior, demographics, and other targeting criteria, so your ads are shown to the right people at the right time.

By combining these two targeting strategies, you can create a powerful advertising campaign that reaches potential customers across multiple channels and devices, and maximizes your chances of conversion. Here are some of the benefits of a Performance Max In-Market display campaign:

Reach the right audience:

In-Market targeting lets you reach people who are already interested in your products or services, while Performance Max helps you show your ads to people who are most likely to convert.

Deliver your ads across multiple channels:

Performance Max allows you to deliver your ads across multiple channels, including Google Search, Google Display Network, YouTube, and more. This increases your chances of getting in front of potential customers and makes your campaign more effective.

Optimize your campaign for performance:

Performance Max uses machine learning to optimize your ad delivery, so your ads are shown to people who are more likely to convert. This helps you get the most out of your advertising budget and achieve better results.

Overall, a Performance Max In-Market display campaign is a powerful way to reach potential customers and drive conversions. By combining In-Market targeting with Performance Max, you can create an effective advertising campaign that maximizes your chances of success. If you’re interested in running a Performance Max In-Market display campaign, consider working with a digital marketing agency that specializes in Google Ads to get the best results.

FTC’s Safeguard Rules | Automotive Dealership Compliance

Stay safe out there! In today’s digital age, cyberattacks and data breaches pose significant threats to businesses, and automotive dealerships are no exception. These establishments collect and store sensitive information like social security numbers, credit scores, and driver’s license numbers. Consequently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has introduced the Safeguards Rule to mandate that dealerships implement robust security measures to safeguard customer data against cyber threats.

The Safeguards Rule Applicable To Car Dealerships

The Safeguards Rule applies to car dealerships with information of at least 5,000 individuals, whether in physical or digital form, on a salesperson’s cell phone, or a combination. Its primary objective is to ensure that dealerships have strong security safeguards in place to protect customer data from cyberattacks and other threats. Failure to comply with the rule may attract penalties of up to $46,000 per day, underscoring the importance of adherence for dealerships to safeguard their business and customers.

Complying With The Safeguards Rule

To comply with the Safeguards Rule, car dealerships must establish, implement, and maintain a written Information Security Program tailored to their size, complexity, and the nature of information they collect. Safeguards may include designating an employee or employees to coordinate the dealership’s information security program, conducting risk assessments to identify potential internal and external risks to the security, confidentiality, and integrity of customer information, implementing safeguards to control the identified risks, and regularly monitoring and testing the effectiveness of the safeguards.

Ensuring Compliance With the Safeguards Rule

To ensure compliance with the Safeguards Rule, dealerships must take several critical steps, including designating an employee or employees with the knowledge and authority to implement and maintain the program, conducting a comprehensive risk assessment, implementing appropriate safeguards to control risks identified in the risk assessment, regularly monitoring and testing the effectiveness of the safeguards, and overseeing service providers to ensure that they implement appropriate safeguards to protect customer information.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Safeguards Rule is an essential regulation that aims to protect customer data from cyberattacks and other threats. Dealerships must create and implement a written Information Security Program that includes adequate safeguards to comply with the rule and protect their business and customers from potential data breaches.

Content Marketing Lessons

When weblog platforms like Blogger were first introduced in the late 1990s, its primary contributors were individuals who published their findings and thoughts as a form of word processing software, which included hyperlinks. The earliest blogs were intended for personal expression and were frequently published to share information with close friends and family. Soon after, commercial blogs appeared and the established blogging structure consisting of content interspersed with hyperlinks, has not changed. When it first appeared online nearly 25 years ago, blogging was one of the earliest forms of digital content generation.

There is now a generation of young professionals who have spent their entire lives using a web browser as their go-to resource for finding answers to queries. They did this to solve personal issues and conduct research for academic purposes, based on early content such as blogs, which they themselves discovered. These practices followed them into their work lives as well.

Many professionals now search for solutions to problems that arise in their professional lives as well as their personal lives using this method.

It is time to apply what we understand about the process of creating content for consumers to the process of selling to businesses.

Build Credibility by Producing Unique Content

To successfully generate great content for a potential client, it is essential to have a solid understanding of the challenge faced by the prospect. When conducting research, they will ask questions and if you understand their pain points, you can create content that addresses those concerns. You may develop credibility by demonstrating that you understand the prospect by offering information that was authored by your company, that is helpful and relevant. When a visitor on your website evaluates the credibility of your information, that visitor will then become a potential client for your business.

In a prospect’s mind, establishing your authority in your field through the intake of original content and material establishes that authority. Therefore, you will not only build your trustworthiness by publishing content of the highest quality but also increase the likelihood that the lead will become a paying customer. As you establish your credibility and earn the respect of potential clients, they will become more receptive to the proposed solution. The transition from selling to marketing is facilitated more smoothly as a result, which boosts the likelihood of conversions.

Quieten Down the Currently Available Content

If you are familiar with the challenges faced by your potential customers, you will have an understanding of the priorities they hold. Information from other relevant resources, not only that which was produced by your team, should also be shared. This contributes to establishing your website and any other digital content as a reliable resource of information for the respective industry. Pertinent information may originate from academic institutions, reports on market research, government organizations, the news media, or autonomous authority.

Sharing this chosen information with prospective customers via email, social media, audio interviews, or any other online outlet demonstrates that you know what is relevant to them. When you establish yourself as a reliable resource, prospective clients are more likely to track your emails and digital products, engage, read and connect with them in other ways.

Make Your Content Available Again and Again

There are many different advantages to recycling content that you already have. One of the most compelling explanations, which is also one of the most frequently disregarded, is that how information is conveyed influences how individuals take in and process that information. When you produce your current content in new formats (for example, by transcribing a podcast interview into text that can be searched), you open up additional opportunities for your content to be heard, comprehended and even shared.

Refresh your existing content to get the most out of the money you originally invested in producing the material. You should prepare to put as much work into spreading the word about your content as you did when you were creating it. It is not enough to update content to keep web crawlers satisfied when you put content on repeat.

It could involve including a link to the cornerstone content in emails sent to new leads. It could also include transforming a blog post into an infographic that is easy to understand. Consider new ways that material can be repurposed to boost the number of impressions it makes on the target market.

Make sure that you develop original material, curate valuable content and repurpose current content as you build your B2B content collection. Your library will entice fresh visitors, who can be converted into potential customers.

9 Signs Your Dealership Needs a Fractional CMO

There’s no question that dealerships are increasingly looking for fractional CMOs to help them manage their day-to-day operations and grow their businesses. According to a CA Technologies Institute study, companies with Fractional Chief Marketing Officers perform better than those without.

A fractional CMO provides unique perspectives and strengths to help your dealership achieve its strategic objectives. This position falls into a new category of executive leadership within the marketing organization and requires a different skillset and perspective than traditional full-time CMOs. Below are some signs that your dealership may need a fractional CMO :

1.

You’re Not Generating Enough Revenue via Strategic partnerships or Acquisitions: A fractional CMO can help identify and explore new revenue opportunities outside of the dealership’s normal sphere of operation. If you find yourself struggling to generate new revenue, this might be a sign that it’s time to reassess your business strategy and tap into new markets.

2.

Your dealership is growing slower than you’d like it to. For a dealership to grow, it needs to generate more revenue and expand its reach into new markets. However, if your dealership isn’t expanding quickly enough, this could indicate that there are areas of your business where you could focus more attention in order to accelerate growth. A fractional CMO can help identify areas of growth potential and take appropriate action accordingly.

3.

You’re Not Focused on Customer Retention or Engagement: A fractional CMO can help focus your marketing efforts on key customer segments and ensure that your messages reach the people who need them most. This will ultimately lead to higher customer retention rates and increased engagement with your brand.

4.

Your PR Efforts Aren’t Bearing Fruit: When it comes to attracting attention from the media and driving positive word of mouth, a fractional CMO can provide essential support. If your PR efforts aren’t resulting in the desired results, it might be time to reassess your strategy and focus on more effective channels.

5.

Your dealership doesn’t see value in New Technologies or Business Models: A fractional CMO can help identify which new technologies or business models resonate with your customers and help you capitalize on this trend. If you’re not seeing a high adoption rate for new products or services, this could be a sign that you need to rethink your marketing strategy or reconsider your business model.

6.

There Is Limited Oversight or Management of Resources Within Departments or Areas of Strategy

  • This could mean that departments within your business are operating without any oversight or management from above; this can lead to chaos and confusion. Fractional CMOs help to establish clear priorities and track progress against those objectives. This allows leaders to make better decisions and allocate resources where they most need them.
7.

There Is Limited Oversight or Management of Resources Within Departments or Areas of Strategy

If activities are initiated without a strategic plan, no one will know how to get them done or where they should go next. With a strategy, your company can stay caught up with opportunities. Fractional CMOs can help create a roadmap and assess progress along the way. This ensures your company is taking the right steps forward and benefiting from the current plan.

8.

The dealership’s Business Model is Evolving or Uncertain

If the dealership’s business model is constantly evolving or it’s unclear what the dealership plans to do next, a new CMO might be necessary to help guide the dealership in the right direction. If there are doubts about whether the current strategy will succeed, it might be time to make a change.

9.

There Are No Standard Processes or Practices Across Multiple Business Areas. A lack of standard processes can lead to inconsistency and chaos across different parts of an organization. This disrupts the workflow and ultimately inhibits efficiency. Fractional CMOs work with teams to create standardized processes that help everyone in the company operate more effectively and efficiently.

Conclusion

Many dealerships are struggling to find their place in the modern market. If your dealership is one of them, consider hiring a fractional CMO. Fractional CMOs are experts at turning companies around and helping them achieve profitability and growth. They understand how businesses work and can help you navigate through tricky waters.

If you’re ready for a change, hire a fractional CMO from T3 Marketing. We have the experience to help you achieve your marketing goals and exceed your expectations. Our experienced professionals have worked in some of the most demanding CMO roles in the business world. We know how to get results and work tirelessly to ensure that you do too. Contact us today to learn more about our services.

How To Increase Your Online Presence:

5 Steps To Creating A Digital Marketing Strategy

The success of any business endeavor to increase its sales, market share, or scale requires developing a comprehensive marketing strategy. An effective marketing strategy is critical to the growth and survival of any business. Recent trends and technological breakthroughs have made digital marketing strategies the primary focus of marketers and brands.

Although digital channels can rapidly expand a company’s customer base, many companies still have trouble developing an effective digital strategy and communicating online with current and potential clients.

Below are five fundamentals of a successful digital approach.

Identify Your Marketing Goals

Determining and establishing appropriate targets can be difficult for all companies, not just start-ups. A set of well-defined marketing objectives is the key for any successful online marketing strategy. They should consistently reflect the fundamental purposes of any given company.

Goals in a corporate plan should be realistic, relevant, and applicable to the organization. Evaluating and reviewing these campaigns will be essential to determining the success of the digital marketing and if it’s worth future investment. The process involves analyzing, monitoring, and controlling digital output. The “5 S’s” is a concept for success in digital marketing that includes:

Sell

To start internet sales, focus on the essential items. Make sure to reach out to your digital campaign’s targeted audience after they’ve made a purchase or donation. Free shipping and guaranteed security while shopping online are two factors that could boost online revenue.

Speak

Using digital media effectively allows you to communicate with your target audience easily. Using stories in a marketing strategy can successfully drive offline interest, online.

Serve

Inquiries, complaints, quote requests, and live chats with customer service will all be handled on your website. Customers these days have high expectations. Therefore, it’s essential to set clear objectives for measuring and bettering customer satisfaction.

Save

Online platforms can significantly improve finances because they are economical and minimize the need for printed media.

Sizzle

Focus on online branding. Create a memorable and enjoyable experience for your customers to encourage them to leave positive online reviews and make frequent visits. Success is measured by clients’ positive reviews and brand loyalty.

 

Build Buyer Personas

The most effective marketing tactics are based on buyer profiles and are tailored from a particular group. Creating a survey so that your customer can provide their personal feedback will help determine how to proceed with your market analysis and product development.

The survey participants should represent current and prospective customers for your business. The source of the plan’s research is another critical aspect of developing buyer personas. It is not universal and changes depending on factors like brand, product, target audience, positioning, etc. You can tailor the following guidelines to fit virtually any business.

Extensive Statistics and Population Data

  • Age
  • Income: Internet users are hesitant to provide private information. Therefore, in-person interviews are best for gathering income information.

Qualitative and population Data

  • Consider consumers’ or customer service rep’s reviews of your products.
  • You must understand your target market’s needs in order to sell your product. The target audience, sales team, and customer service professionals can identify problems.
  • Client interests can build corporate relationships.
  • Ask customers what they like best about your brand. It helps prioritize products and services to boost consumer satisfaction.

Evaluate & Decide on Your Digital Channels

Deciding on a digital marketing strategy can be time-consuming and difficult if you don’t look at the bigger picture. Make the most of the digital channels available to you by prioritzing them. Through this, you can discover what works and what doesn’t to aid in selecting the best option(s) to incorporate into your future action plan.

Owned Media

These include the brand’s online assets that are relatively easy to manage, such as the website and the images on it, social media profiles and blogs. Owned media comprises website-specific and other online content.

Earned Media

These include the brand’s online assets that are relatively easy to manage, such as the website and the images on it, social media profiles and blogs. Owned media comprises website-specific and other online content.

Paid Media

Advertising that is financed to attract a specific targeted demographic of customers to boost a brand’s profile. Paid media includes Google AdWords, sponsored social media content and third-party ads.

Plan Advertising

Digital marketing tools are the most refined approach for a company to get ahead of the competition. Some solutions use sophisticated, specialized techniques like search phrase ranking or design platforms. Others cater to niche needs like marketing content, collecting data, or interacting with customers.

CRM.

Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM) delivers marketing solutions that can boost any company’s growth. Online slips, prompting forums, chatrooms and email advertising are all methods that the public can access. A CRM can evaluate the data collected from guests by unlocking a world of advanced, automated services.

This technology can boost traffic, marketing ROI and purchase closure rates, leading to more loyal customers.

Tools by Google

AdWords is a popular tool for companies to market themselves on Google’s SERPs. Premiered Google Keyword Planner is a tool for identifying keywords for advertising. The system lets marketers set daily and total budgets.

All serious web marketers should also be using Google Analytics. The analytics can be used to create an online store or to monitor the success of a current one.

Email Platform.

Email platforms can automate email and social media marketing. Businesses may monitor ad traffic and engage with their target audience automatically.

Doing website scrutiny can help you spot technical errors in your site, but the results of such audits should be viewed with caution. Although free tools are available, T3 Marketing’s comprehensive audit will help you address those issues and improve your website’s performance. Contact us today for more information.

Strategize Your Tasks

Proprietary multimedia

It’s essential to track the number of pages your team has created so you have an accurate picture of what’s being done, as well as its impact on search performance. You should also track how many pages have been updated since their last crawl by Googlebot or BingBot. It allows you to identify those pages that need additional attention or are not being indexed at all.

SEO-optimized content increases organic search traffic. Before publishing, categorize content into campaigns and design a strategy. Start with an audit to assess present content, look for gaps, and plan new, improved content.

Earned Media

Marketing goals and previous earned media can guide future strategy. Evaluate the quality of each earned media piece. Analyzing historical data is crucial in knowing which form of earned media channel can assist you in achieving your goals.

Paid Media

Paid media demands an audit if you’re not beginning from scratch. It will show the success or failure of previous efforts and helps you learn where there are opportunities for improvement. You should also compare the ROI with the results of digital channels to see if a different approach is needed or if you should abandon some platforms.

4 Key Methods to Overcoming Marketing Attribution Challenges in the Automotive Industry

4 Key Methods to Overcoming Marketing Attribution Challenges in the Automotive Industry

The automotive industry is constantly changing and evolving. When marketing your dealership, you can’t afford to be stagnant. Your competition is always going to be trying to move up the food chain. To compete more effectively, you have to understand how and why people purchase your vehicles or services in the first place.

Marketing attribution is dividing the responsibility for a customer’s purchasing decision between many sources such as advertising, public relations, and sales. It splits the revenue generated from a successful marketing campaign into component parts. This enables each component to be evaluated for the effectiveness of its results, profitability, and sustainability.

A good marketing attribution process also provides information to the dealership that can help them determine which components of its marketing program are essential and worth the investment in order to achieve key business objectives. Here we will describe four key methods to overcoming marketing attribution challenges in the automotive industry.

Find Opportunities for Analytical Insight

Develop an analytical framework to help you understand how people interact with your brand. Analyzing data can lead to important insights that will provide a competitive advantage. You need to know the interaction between your brand and customers to predict future customer behavior. This requires that you understand which factors are most likely to influence whether your customers will buy or not.

By detecting patterns, you can develop insights into what makes people want your vehicles or service on an emotional level and how they translate this into action by purchasing. Use scientific methods such as data mining to identify these factors and their impact on buying decisions. By contrasting these results with objective sales evidence, you can develop a predictive model that will allow you to make accurate predictions before customer action.

Align Your Organization Behind Data

Data is key to most marketing decisions. Having access to it is crucial. It enables you to make better decisions about your marketing program. It can help you make smarter spending choices, improve customer communication, and boost business performance. Sadly, many companies ignore the data in their marketing programs because they do not have the means or skills to collect it. Conduct regular surveys, interviews, and focus groups to collect your desired data. If you don’t have staff who can assist with this, hire a data collection company or grow your existing research team.

Use this data to help you understand how people make decisions and what goes on in their minds. By cross-referencing this data, you can identify which factors have the most significant effect on buying behavior. This will help you to target your market specifically through your marketing campaigns and save money along the way. Data-centered tools allow you to see how many people have responded to your ad, understand why they did, and gain insight into which ads are likely to be most effective in driving results.

Ask The Right Questions

Seek the insights that will help you make the best decisions. Determine the precise questions you need to ask, not just broad statements about what your customers do. These statements are often misleading and sometimes wrong because they are based on incomplete data. Be clear about what exactly you want to know rather than overgeneralizing. Savvy marketers will ask a series of questions designed to elicit specific responses. This involves asking questions such as, “Why did you go to that website?” and “What did you think of the ad that was shown on TV?” These questions will focus on specific behavior, such as changing a product preference.

You can be confident in the results by asking questions that involve only what your customers have done and how they feel. These responses are based on real-time data used to make marketing campaign decisions. Specific questions about the attitudes and behaviors of your customers will get you clear answers about the effects of marketing. You can then use this information to guide your strategy.

Establish a Strongn Analytical Program

Basic metrics can be misleading if used alone to justify a marketing strategy. They are an indicator of activity but not necessarily of quality. Don’t allow them to give you a false sense of security and cause you to overspend on advertising. Established performance metrics are based solidly and accurately on actual data regarding marketing activities. Evaluate your marketing performance by measuring ROI to determine results and revenue.

By looking at metrics such as conversion rates, revenue per customer or sales, you can get a clear picture of the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. By analyzing these results over time, you can determine which components are successful and which ones aren’t. This will help you to focus on specific areas of your marketing program rather than waste time on activities that don’t generate results.

The automotive industry is a tough place to advertise. Develop an effective marketing plan that goes far beyond traditional advertising and promotions. To succeed in automotive marketing, marketers must understand what motivates customers and how they make buying decisions. This knowledge will help them design their advertisements and messages to resonate with customers emotionally as well as motivate them to buy products or services.

SEO Improvements for Short & Long Term Success

If you’re a car dealer, you know that there’s no better way to attract customers than through the internet. The problem is that there are so many websites out there competing for the attention of potential car buyers, that it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. If you want your dealership to be successful in the long term, then it’s essential to focus on SEO practices that will help your dealership get noticed in a short peroid, while also laying the groundwork for lasting success down the road.

In this article, we’ll discuss some things you can do right now to help improve your online presence and boost sales immediately. Then we’ll talk about long-term strategies that will help keep customers coming back.

Here are some activities that can help your dealership build an online presence and drive more traffic to the store:

Local SEO & optimization of Google business profiles

To improve your search engine optimization, you need to first set up a Google Business Profile. It will allow you to add more information about your business, including the address, phone number and photos.

Once a profile is set up, you can begin optimizing it by adding keywords and tags that describe your business. It will help people find your business when they search for those keywords or tags.

You should also make sure that your website is optimized for local SEO. This means using the correct location when publishing content on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. It also means using local keywords in titles and descriptions of products or services offered on your website (e.g., “Car Dealer in City, CA”). This helps customers find businesses close to their location more quickly than searching by just the keyword alone.

Master transactional and commercial keywords

The best way to maximize your on-site SEO is to use keywords that will get your business noticed by consumers. It’s essential to understand the difference between these two types of keywords:

Transactional keywords are words customers use when they’re ready to buy something from you. For example, if someone types “Ford dealership Atlanta” into Google, they’re likely looking for a Ford dealership in their area. You can use these keywords to optimize your website for people who are ready to make a purchase.

Commercial keywords are words people use when looking for information about a product or service similar to yours. If someone types “Ford F-150” into Google, they’re probably not ready to buy a new car—they want more information about Fords in general so that they can decide whether or not one is right for them. You can use these keywords to optimize your website for people who are just getting started with their vehicle research.

Clean up and improve the website’s navigation

Your website’s navigation is a crucial element of the user experience. Visitors need to be able to find what they need on your website and get around quickly. If you do it right, it can also help boost your search engine rankings by directing users toward high-quality content relevant to their searches—making it easier for Google to understand what your site is about and show it in its top search results.

So doing it step-by-step is important. Here are a few steps you can take to ensure the navigation on your dealership’s website is optimized for search.

  • Delete low-traffic pages from the navigation bar
  • Keep your website’s top-level navigation simple
  • Optimize your website for mobile users
  • Remove paired pages
  • Ensure that your website sub-navigation is concise

Link relevant pages together

The more links you have on your website, the more likely search engines will crawl through them all and index each page individually. To do this, link related pages together using anchor text with keywords.

For example, if you sell both new and used cars, it would be beneficial to connect those two pages with anchor text like “new cars” or “used cars.” This way, when someone searches for either keyword phrase on Google or Bing, they’ll see both pages listed in the top results.

Ensure you fix technical SEO errors

You’ll need to fix any broken links or incorrect codes on the website because they can cause issues including:

Broken links

This can be caused by various things, including old links in blog posts or 404 errors (links that lead to pages that no longer exist).

Duplicate content

If you have multiple pages on your site with the same content, you will need to fix this ASAP! Google will penalize websites for this.

Add page headings

H1, H2, H3, etc. Search engine bots use page headings to determine what part of a page they should read first. It is why it’s important to add page headings using H1 tags on each page of your website, as well as subheadings using H2 and H3 tags when appropriate.

Doing website scrutiny can help you spot technical errors in your site, but the results of such audits should be viewed with caution. Although free tools are available, T3 Marketing’s comprehensive audit will help you address those issues and improve your website’s performance. Contact us today for more information.

Craft a measurement approach that is meaningful to your dealership’s business metrics

There are many ways to measure your results:

Number of pages created

It’s essential to track the number of pages your team has created so you have an accurate picture of what’s being done, as well as its impact on search performance. You should also track how many pages have been updated since their last crawl by Googlebot or BingBot. It allows you to identify those pages that need additional attention or are not being indexed at all.

Number of technical problems identified and resolved

It is a great way to gauge if your site structure is optimized for search engines, but it doesn’t show whether that optimization is working or not. Does it increase organic rankings? Does it lead to more conversions? Is the website loading faster as a result? These metrics would be better indicators than just knowing that technical issues were found and fixed on your website.

Organic keyword ranking improvement

Optimizing your website content is one of the best ways to improve organic keyword rankings. The first step is choosing keywords with high search volume, but low competition. You can use keyword tools to find these terms so that when someone searches for them on Google, they arrive at your website first.

Once you’ve chosen your keywords, make sure that each page contains them in a natural way that makes sense for users looking for information about those topics. A good rule of thumb is to use no more than three times as many words as there are actual keywords in the title.

Organic traffic results in a variety of outcomes

A good way to determine whether you are driving quality traffic for transactional or commercial keywords is by measuring the outcomes of your organic search results. So, to do this, some keywords will aim to drive high-to-mid funnel traffic to your website, while others may be aimed at driving low funnel traffic. Some outcomes that you can track include:

Website calls, form fills and chats from organic search, as well as Google Business Profile driving directions requests and website clicks – these can all be valuable marketing metrics.

Be cautious of Scare Tactics

If you don’t have an SEO plan, you’re at a huge disadvantage with marketing your dealership online. But don’t be fooled by companies who claim to have a “magical” SEO solution that will get you thousands of website visitors per month. These companies are just trying to get your money and leave you with nothing but frustration and disappointment.

Don’t waste your time or money on these companies—instead, invest in a proven plan to help you build a solid foundation for online success.

If you’re in the market for a new website or need to make an existing website more effective, there’s no better time than now to take advantage of T3 Marketing’s website audit. Our detailed report will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your current website and make recommendations for how to improve it.

T3 Marketing offers a real-world approach that focuses on building trust with your customers through relevant and valuable content, making them more likely to buy from you in the future. Get in touch with us, T3 Marketing, to discuss your website audit.

5 Ways To Amplify Your Dealership’s Reviews

Online reviews are critical. Revolutionary right? We understand that most dealers have been collecting digital reviews for almost a decade. However, we must ask what happens to the reviews after collecting them. Although many of our dealers have amassed hundreds, if not thousands, of positive reviews and ratings from consumers on external platforms, only a few feature the clients’ reviews on their websites and digital advertisements. Nowadays, prospective customers are looking for assurances of your service’s reliability, quality, and ease of use. There’s no better way to provide them with that than with excellent reviews and ratings.

Furthermore

Employing your most influential supporters on your platforms makes sense if you want to increase credibility and convince customers to buy from you. Although most dealers argue that customers can easily find their ratings on DealerRater, Cars.com, Google, and Yelp, accumulating reviews on other platforms is just the first step. If you don’t showcase the excellent recommendations yourself, you’re wasting a golden chance to improve your organic marketing by gaining trust with more customers. Here are five simple strategies for making your satisfied customers’ opinions heard in more places than online review platforms.

Here are the 5 ways you can amplify your dealership’s reviews

Build On Your Reputation

It would be best to showcase that your reputation is your most prized possession. Now that your rating system is rock solid, it’s time to show off your stars on your website. We propose these tried-and-true methods to our customers since they provide excellent results with little investment of time and money – and we can handle the latter for you.

Make Your Satisfied Customers The Stars of Your Homepage

A website’s homepage is often a company’s initial point of contact with potential customers, so every phrase must entice visitors to make a purchase. At T3 Marketing, we have discovered that reviews are an excellent method to immediately get your website’s first-time visitors interested and comfortable with you. A statement from a recent review and a link to read additional reviews, displayed prominently in a slider on the homepage, sends a strong message to potential customers about the kind of experience they can expect.

People will feel more at ease with your team and track record of success once they realize that you value their opinions and take pride in your years of expertise. Additionally, there are tools that T3 Marketing can install directly on your website that will automatically update your site’s reviews, so visitors will always see the most recent testimonials. Displaying these most recent testimonials at each website visit is a great way to build credibility and confidence with your customers.

Provide Individual Landing Pages For Ratings and Reviews and Establish a Page For Gathering Reviews

Have a page on your website that compiles your dealership’s four and 5-star ratings from Google, Facebook, Cars.com and DealerRater so your customers can easily access them. Creating a dedicated landing page for your reviews helps your SEO efforts, boosts user engagement and time spent on the website, and allows you a central location to display and seek feedback on your products and services.

Having all of your most positive reviews in one spot makes it simple to gain credibility. Hence, T3 Marketing suggests sharing a link to this page with any prospects you may be pursuing. It’s a confidence booster that could seal the deal.

48% of consumers feel that reviews must be less than two weeks old to influence their purchasing decisions. Creating a system to generate reviews on your website makes it simple to integrate the feature into your workflow and advertising campaigns. Promote your presence on the most vital channels, and let your customers provide feedback on their preferred channels.

If you want to encourage happy customers to offer feedback after driving home their brand-new vehicle, here is the place to do it. Send them a message with a link to this landing page once they’ve had some time to enjoy their new car. We suggest messaging during the first 24-48 hours. Most of the time, that’s enough. However, if you want that text message to result in a favorable review, it helps to add an image. Our research discovered that picture-accompanying review requests result in reviews in 50% of cases. You can easily acquire positive feedback from satisfied customers by sending them a simple text message that includes a picture and a link to a well-designed landing page.

Feature Your Best-Rated Salespeople

Introduce your top-rated salespeople on your staff page and VDPs, creating one-on-one interactions with your digital showroom. Leads created through this method have a greater close rate than conventional website leads because customers can pick whom they want to work with and schedule meetings directly on your website, increasing the likelihood that shoppers will show up and make a purchase.

Increase The Impact of Your Advertisements by Using Promoters

When it comes to advertising, nothing surpasses the reviews of satisfied customers. A happy customer’s word-of-mouth recommendation holds much more weight than any advertisement. As an alternative to tooting your own horn or providing an unbeatable deal, T3 Marketing proposes integrating reviews into your digital advertising initiatives. They are effective and cost nothing. Here are a few suggestions to help you get started.

Promote your store’s unique selling points on social media

Create a social media campaign geared at in-market customers in your area who may not be familiar with your dealership.

Feature reviews in your Google Ads

Including reviews in sponsored search advertisements is a simple method to increase conversions. Using the Google ad extension, you may display your Google Ads’ star rating and the total number of reviews. However to activate this extension, your dealership has to have received at least 100 reviews from separate customers in the preceding 12 months.

Adding a site link to the review aggregation page on your website is another way to provide more context about your dealership’s reputation in your paid search advertisements.

Allow T3 Marketing To Elevate Your Hard-Earned Reputation

Working together, we can accentuate your dealership’s stellar reputation, which is your business’s most significant asset. Contact us today to see what we can do to make your well-deserved reviews translate into bottom-line outcomes via one of the proven successful methods discussed above.

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