The More Information, The Better!
What makes a good SEO Video? It has to be informative! The more information you provide, the more effective the video will be. If someone is going to spend time watching a video about a specific car, that means they are a potential customer!
Give Them What They Want!
Show everything there is to show on the car inside and out. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to say, “here’s the tire” but it wouldn’t hurt to mention, “this car has alloy wheels, and 17” tires”. Focus on the technology and features the specific vehicle offers; that is what customers are looking for. They want to know what the car offers.
It’s also important to talk about gas mileage and safety, which are possibly the most important purchasing factors for a car buyer.
I Want It, And I Want It Now!
You might think the SEO videos don’t add much value or aren’t worth the time it takes to make them. After all, the specfications on each vehicle are on your website and the manufacturer website. But let’s face it. We live in a society in which we are used to instant gratification. We don’t want to have to search for the information we are seeking; we want it provided to us in an easy and efficient matter.
SEO Videos are a great opportunity to provide potential car buyers with specific information about a precise vehicle in your inventory. So what are you waiting for? Do you provide these videos for your customers? No? We can help! contact us now and let’s get started!
By: Jenn Mayer
If your company is involved in pay-per click advertising, click through rate, or CTR, is one of the most important metrics to measure. Click through rate is defined as the number of times a given ad is clicked on divided by the number of times the ad is shown, or impressions.
For example, if an ad is shown 1000 times and receives 10 clicks, the click through rate is 1%. Sites like Google Ad Words provide a plethora of statistics about your CTR and your advertising campaign as a whole, and often it can be overwhelming to wade through them all. With more graphs and charts than you can shake a stick at, how do you know what a good measurement of your success is?
A good click through rate depends on how competitive your industry is. Earlier this year, a Google employee said that beginning advertisers should shoot for a 2% click through rate. Other PPC experts say the figure should be between 2% and 5% for competitive industries, and above 5% for less competitive industries.
Most would agree that the car business is extremely competitive, but your company’s market may be more or less competitive depending on the number of people and dealerships in your area.
Additionally, where your ad is placed can affect your CTR. A recent report concluded that ads on Bing have a higher CTR than Google and Yahoo.
Your CTR is also dependent on the quality of your keywords. It’s important that the users who are clicking on your ad are qualified buyers in your target market. Let’s say, for example, that you sell televisions. People who search “TV” might not be looking to purchase a television, but they still might end up on your site. They might be looking for television programs, television guides, or just want to research types of TVs and aren’t ready to buy.
They might click on your ad, but they aren’t considered qualified buyers, so the chances of them converting are small. A conversion is defined as the move from simply looking at your website to taking some sort of action. That action could be to fill out a form, request more information, or schedule a test drive. In other industries, a conversion could be a sale, but since most car buying transactions take place offline, we usually measure conversion differently.
Therefore, a keyword like “TV” might generate a higher click through rate, but those clicks won’t be from people who actually want to buy from you. A click through rate on an ad with specific keywords might not generate a lot of clicks, but the clicks are more likely to come from qualified buyers.
The best way to ensure you’re getting a good CTR is to monitor your ads progress regularly, and ensure that your bids and keywords are appropriate. There are a lot of factors to manage, so it’s best if a professional mans the helm. Need help? We just happen to be digital ad campaign experts. Give us a call!
By: Yasmine Syed
Approximately sixty-seven percent of American adults use some kind of mobile device, whether it be a smartphone or a tablet. But who are they exactly? It’s important to know, especially if you are serving up mobile ads.
In a nutshell, they’re the ideal target consumer. Mobile device users are more educated and earn higher incomes than their non-smartphone using counterparts. This revelation may prompt you to wonder if traditional print media advertising should be relegated to the ash heap, but a study conducted by the University of Missouri’s Reynolds Journalism Institute proves otherwise. The same consumers who use mobile devices also continue to utilize traditional print mediums like newspapers and magazines. Rather than replacing traditional media with digital, these consumers consume both.
Mobile devices are as diverse as their owners. For example, smartphone and iPad owners are predominately male, while e-readers and small tablet owners skew female. IPhone and Blackberry users tend to be more educated and earn higher incomes than Android users and earn, on average, $75,000 or more annually. In fact, a whopping 81.3% of mobile device users earn more than $75,000 per year while 55.5% of mobile device users have a 4-year or advanced degree. What’s even more interesting is that nearly the same percentage of mobile device users and non-mobile device users read print publications. This data suggests that digital media is not replacing traditional media; it is simply an extension of it.
So just how do individuals us their mobile devices? Most people take their smartphones everywhere and use them for task-related activities like sending text messages and reading and responding to email, while tablets are used for longer-term media consumption.
The following chart depicts tablet use:
Because tablets are largely used for viewing richer content and enhancing leisure time, display ads do not perform as well on tablets as they do on smartphones. Because smartphones are task related they are predominately used while traveling, in a store while shopping, in the car, and in a restaurant.
The following chart depicts smartphone use:
When it comes to automotive advertising, the evidence supports the need for ads to be optimized for smartphone users. Given the fact that they have disposable income, they are ripe potential car-buying consumers.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for managing your online advertising campaign. But did you also consider that tracking your ad campaigns can provide important insights into your business – and help you control your inventory?
Think about it this way. People will search a variety of things to land on your site. They might search “car dealerships” and the area you’re located in to get to you. They might search a particular product – like car model – that is in your inventory. By monitoring what people search to get to you, you can understand what is currently in demand and replenish your inventory accordingly.
For example, if you’re located in the northeast, users might begin search for all-wheel drive vehicles or snow tires at a certain point in late fall or early winter. Monitoring when this search begins to pick up will signal when it is time to push those winter vehicles and accessories.
Similarly, a current client of ours noticed that when the weather began to get warmer, people in the area began to search for convertible cars. It can be difficult to determine on your own what inventory you need; so let your potential customers assist you!
Not only can this analytical monitoring aid your inventory quality, it can also help you design advertisements. If you find that lots of people are searching for the new model your manufacturer has rolled out, make sure to let people know, through commercials, social media, or retargeting, that you’ve got it!
This is just one example of how Google Analytics can enhance your dealership’s performance beyond effective advertising. Want to know more? Give us a call!
Procrastination
We all know about it– continuously pushing things off until the last possible moment, always saying tomorrow, next time etc. Well one Argentinean publisher says no more, recently developing special ink that will disappear within two months time of coming into contact with the sun and air, allowing a reader a limited time to complete the book before all the ink vanishes.
I believe this is a very effective way to ensure the product is seen and used. It’s very easy to make a purchase and then never use it. I mean I know I have lots of outfits in my closet still with the tags on them; but given the idea that they would dissolve within a few months time, I might consider wearing them especially since the alternative would equate with having just thrown my money away in the trash. I’m sure there will be many people who will not purchase the product knowing it won’t last, but I think there will be a lot of people who will purchase and subsequently use said product in order to beat the constricting time limit.
I think it’s important to apply this way of thinking to your car dealership; how can you make something non-lasting? Now I’m obviously not suggesting we develop dissolving cars; that would just be crazy, but I am saying providing some serious incentives to your customers. Why should they buy this now? Most people purchase a vehicle when they need one, not because they want one but if the deal was really sweet wouldn’t you consider the purchase a little bit sooner?
What Customers Want
Offer your customers something worthwhile. Now, I know you can’t just go out on the lot and decide the prices of vehicles, but you can provide really strong incentives for why they should buy now. The words ‘for a limited time’ are extremely effective because let’s be honest, nobody wants to be the one who missed out. Establish programs that only run for short periods of times such as come in before 3pm to save x amount of dollars on a selected service.
In addition, you could develop contests such as the 100th person to come in a test drive this car today wins an iPad. The opportunities are endless; depending on your dealerships location you could work with a local organization to help promote an event such as free tickets to a theme park, the movies, or even a gift certificate to a popular restaurant.
Have you given your customers a reason not to wait? What are you waiting for? Contact us now and let’s get started!
By: Matthew Klein
In the last installment, I discussed the importance of pre-production and how it, when played out effectively, positively plays into the rest of your production. This time, I’ll be discussing what it’s like to actually be working on a production set. I’ll go over some of the quick dos, don’ts, tips and tricks about the exciting life on set.
DO’S and DONT’S ON SET and HOW TO MAKE THE CREW LOVE YOU:
I’ve been on a bevy of sets, and it’s always funny to me how, despite the fact that everyone always seems to have their own little of bag of tricks to employ, there’s a quiet syntax of behaviors that are widely appreciated across any crew on any production. Below is a small list of the things you should probably be doing if you’re working on a set, no matter what your job may be.
1) Be Aware – BE VERY AWARE: Safety is a #1 priority on any set, and usually the key grip is considered the ‘Sheriff of Safetytown”. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be doing your part to make sure you don’t end up tripping over a cable, or getting your eye poked out by a C-Stand. So stay alert and be sure to pay attention, as things can get rather hectic.
2) Coil-ing All Cables: In an age when everything wireless – the film/video set has yet to make this leap. This becomes apparent when one takes into account ALL of the pesky cables that get left all over the ground during a shoot (your light cables, power strips, extension cords, sash-rope, ratchet straps and bungie cords – man, it is a JUNGLE out there). All it takes is one P.A. to stumble over an extension cord and down a flight of stairs into the basement furnace to end the whole show for everyone. A great way to prevent this is coiling cables! If you’re standing around, and you notice that the floor is riddled with random cables/wires all over the place, help wrangle those suckers! You can use the over-under method of cable-wrapping (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/flipcoil/howto.html) or simply tidy them up as best you can! If you’re a best-boy grip, P.A., or anyone authorized to do so, you can also use gaffer’s tape to tape the cables to the floor so people are less likely to trip over them. This simple act greatly reduces risk, and is totally worth the effort.
3) Put Things Back: The larger your shoot, the more things you need to bring with you. Props, costumes, equipment, office supplies, computers, printers, paint, your camera lenses, de-glossing spray, sound blankets, batteries, coffee, coffee, more coffee, lots and lots of coffee and things related to coffee. As you can see, the sheer magnitude of ‘stuff’ that gets brought to set can be staggering. It can be seemingly endless. In the fast-paced world of production, organization is crucial, and more than often the most innocent of mistakes or misplacements can RUIN a shoot. One example: a tripod plate. You know, the little plate that holds the camera on the tripod? It’s this teeny little thing, but guess what? If someone loses that, NO MORE TRIPOD! And if you don’t have extras around, guess who is holding the camera for the next six hours? You got it, an infuriated camera operator who wants you fired – stat. So, moral of the story here is, if you use an item, ALWAYS return it to where it originally was. Simple lesson, but often ignored.
4) Stage Your Equipment: Many people don’t realize that when a crew gets to a set the first thing they do is unload and ‘stage’ their equipment before doing anything else. Basically, ‘staging’ is when you prepare every item of equipment as much as you possibly can without actually using it. That means every single light stand gets set up. Mic packs are fitted with new batteries. A charging station is set up for all of the walkie-talkies. Gels are set out and labeled. Each camera is prepared and rigged. Dolly tracks get lubricated. For the best way to tackle how to stage equipment, I would recommend researching how grips prepare their equipment for a production day! There are tons of videos on the web about this. Even C-Stands have a particular way of being ‘soldiered’ (large nuts on the right, small on the left, and stack them right next to each other so the larger legs overlay the smaller legs). This might seem rather silly, but when the sun is setting and you’re going to lose thousands of dollars in budget if you don’t get this ‘ONE LAST EPIC SHOT’ taking five seconds to grab a properly staged C-stand as opposed to taking two minutes to find and then stage one makes a world of difference to your crew.
5) Mission – Make Everyone’s Job Easier: In the end, you’ll notice that a reoccurring theme of the previous 4 tips has been ‘look out for your crew and try to help things move along as smoothly as possible’. This brings me to the most important thing I was ever told while working on a set, by the Key Set PA for the movie Unstoppable. He told me that with any job on set the point should be ‘to make everyone else’s job easier’. Adopting that policy translates to the people around you, and your crew will surely notice when you’re going out of your way to help, do your job, and lighten the load for them as well. Surely, they’ll be doing the same for you.
So there you have it! There are many more tips I could provide, but I find that these basic five are the most important and effective when working on a production crew. Blunders are avoided, and progress is influenced. Plus, the crew will love you.
In the next installment, I’ll be going over the basics of post-production. Until then, thanks for reading!
1. Set Goals
- When you think about your dealership, it might seem that the goal is obvious: to sell cars. While that is true, the important thing to remember is that a more specific goal and action plan is easier to obtain. Rather than the basic goal of “sell cars”, you have to develop a realistic plan and set specific goals for who is going to make these sales, what vehicles, when you need to meet this goal and how your going to meet it.
2. Track Your Progress
- Setting your goals is the first step. The second step is to make sure you are accomplishing those goals. It is important to track your progress to confirm whether you are meeting your pre-defined plan. This action is much easier said than done, but, you have to ensure that you are keeping an accurate report of which goals have been reached. Set a schedule of who will evaluate your progress and how often – then stick to it!
3. Evaluating Your Numbers
- The third step to effectively making sales is analyzing your data; is what your doing working? If not, your next step is deciding how to fix the problem. What efforts will you take to effectively meet your pre-determined goals? The important thing is to keep an open mind and remember to be willing to try various avenues to reach your set goals. It may seem like trial and error, but finding the right strategy will ensure that you meet your goals, and ultimately sell cars!
By: Jenn Mayer
We’ve Heard It All Before.
The Internet is changing the way we live, work, entertain, and market to our customers.
We’ve seen how our changed habits have impacted the newspaper industry, and now experts are beginning to predict the same fate for the television industry. Before you overhaul your ad campaigns, read on to find out exactly how the future of television should impact your marketing strategy.
In the case of newspapers, users began to change their reading habits long before we saw the collapse of the industry begin. Now, some are beginning to predict the same fate for the television industry. While there’s no way to know how the TV business will change in the next five years, we can look at our television consumption habits and think about how they’ve changed in the last five or so years.
In my household and many others, the DVR rules. We almost never watch TV when it’s actually broadcast, with the exception of live sports events. Another way to watch TV is through on demand. Most cable providers offer this free component that lets consumers watch primetime and entertainment TV at will. Additionally, many people are watching their favorite television programs on their computers, iPads, and smart phones.
With all these new technologies driving people away from live TV, how do you continue to reach your target audience? Well, there’s no reason yet to stop investing in traditional commercials yet. Most on demand and online programs still include limited commercial breaks. Additionally, I can’t count how many times I’ve been watching my DVR and simply forgot I had the option to fast forward through commercials.
However, now is the perfect time to begin taking advantage of the new advertising methods that are being developed to adapt to consumer’s new habits, if you haven’t already. Some advertisers are starting to target viewers while their program is running, through pop up type ads that appear on screen during the program, rather than the commercial break. Digital advertising is also growing exponentially, through video pre-roll, and graphic overlays, which target the consumer while they are watching their favorite programs on their computers and smartphones.
Utilizing a mix of advertising is essential in today’s world, when there are so many entertainment platforms available to the consumer. Don’t abandon tried and true forms of advertising, but don’t be afraid to try the new digital possibilities either. Need help developing the advertising cocktail that’s right for you? Give us a call.
By: Felicia Mahabeer
What Approach Do You Use?
Have you ever been out shopping and had the salesperson ask you, “Are you going to buy this or what?” This once happened to me while I was shoe shopping. At first, I was put off by the frank question, but the urgency in his voice prompted me to act, so I bought the shoes.
Was he being rude, or was it a sales tactic? I don’t know, but it worked. I started to think about the different approaches used in dealerships around the world. Could a sales associate get away with saying something similar to a potential consumer? I can imagine some of people being turned off, while I can picture others saying “yes.” This is why a good salesperson is aware of all the tactics used to make a sale.
Hard Selling
Hard sell strategies are aggressive and usually put a high amount of pressure on the customer, like my shoes for instance. Other tactics include cold calls, forceful sales letters, and unsolicited pitches.
The main advantage of hard selling is that it gets you straight to the point. This is especially important for consumers who are ready to buy and aren’t looking to still shop around. The decision should be made now, and you want to step up and offer yourself as a part of their team.
The problem with the hard sell is that when it’s done too aggressively, your attempt to help will be seen as an annoyance. This is especially important in the case of well-researched consumers who are savvy to such sales techniques. No matter how genuine your offer, it might come off sounding like a scam. The bottom line is that your job as sales representative is to sell. Your customer should already be aware of this, so don’t be afraid to get straight to the point.
Soft Selling
Soft selling focuses on the relationship-building aspect of sales. You don’t put psychological pressure on potential buyers. Instead, you find passive ways to show them that you have the solutions they need. There is, however, such a thing as taking an approach that’s “too soft.” Being too gentle with your sales approach might also give clients the impression that you’re not too confident about your services, or that you’re just not interested in working with them.
Soft selling may work in some cases, but it doesn’t make sense to apply those tactics to all of your clients. It’s really dependent on where they are in their buying cycle and what services you’re trying to sell. Experiment to see how your target consumers responds to a soft sell, but don’t spend all your effort using these techniques exclusively.
Action
Whatever approach you use, there’s one thing you should always do at the end of the sales conversation: ask for the order. From a simple, “Will we be working together on this project?” to the more overt, “Buy Now!” there should always be a call to action to indicate the start of a working relationship.
What tactic do you use in your dealerships? What approach works better for you?
By: Kimberly Roselle
The human body is capable of so many incredible things. Recently I watched a TV show called Lie to Me. It reminded me of how I used to try and watch actors on stage to see if their “true selves” could be seen or if they could fully embody the character. Most people are capable of lying with their words, but not with their body language. So, what does this have to do with sales?
Without realizing, your body language might be sending the wrong signals. You might be communicating mistrust or offending your potential customers without meaning to. If you know how to use body language, you will be able to avoid sales pitfalls and convey body signals that make your customers say “yes!”
I recently found this fascinating infographic: http://dailyinfographic.com/improve-attractiveness-with-body-language-infographic
Some important take aways from this infographic are:
- Words account for only 7% of our overall effective communication
- Body language accounts for 55%
How can you apply this information to your sales technique? When a customer comes onto the lot, don’t rush out to them. First, read their body language and take your cues from them. Do they have a closed posture or are they open? Are they keeping their head down and moving quickly or are they looking about and lingering over vehicles? Understanding your customers’ unspoken signs can go a long way to helping you build trust and a positive relationship with them.
In the first four seconds, people will make judgments about you and will subconsciously decide:
- I will (or will not) buy from this person.
- I will (or will not) like this person.
- I find this person kind (or not).
- I find this person intelligent (or not).
As you approach your customer they are also unconsciously reading your body language. Are you standing tall? Do you look them in the eye? Is your smile genuine? Be aware of yourself. While you can’t lie with your body, you can project the confidence and friendliness the majority of customers are looking for while shopping.
