It’s an honest question to ask. If you can’t remember the last time your dealership had someone perform a digital audit, it’s time to have one done. But what exactly is a “digital audit?” What does it entail? What exactly will it tell me? A digital audit is a complete overview of all digital marketing avenues that your dealership is working with. A digital audit dives into what you are doing with each platform, what is working, and what can be improved upon.
A complete digital audit will take into account six areas of online/ digital marketing. Those six platforms are social media, SEO, online advertising, reputation, video, and other digital outlets. It’s simply not enough to recognize whether or not you are doing anything with these six platforms, what is actually being done must be looked into and how effectively it is being implemented.
Social Media: You have a Facebook page? Great! Is it set up properly? Are you finding interesting content that drive people to engage with you? Are you monitoring that engagement and answering/ responding to your followers? What other social media platforms are you present on? If you’ve got active accounts on Twitter, Google+, and YouTube (along with Facebook) you’re off to a good start.
Have you considered Pinterest as a platform to get involved on? If not you’re missing out on not only a whole mess of free website traffic but Pinterest has a VERY specific demographic that is growing everyday. The majority of Pinterest users are married females 35-55 years old and they tend to be stay-at-home moms or homemakers. They also tend to be in a higher income bracket.
Social media is, to put it bluntly, no longer ignorable. Using social media to attract and engage with past, present and future customers is one of the easiest and cheapest way to continuously grow top of mind awareness with your public. But it’s one thing to have someone “handle” your social media and another thing to hire a social media expert to build and maintain a winning social media campaign. You will also want someone who will allow you to stand out from your competition. Someone who knows how to implement strategies no other social media provider is doing, like harnessing the power of digital direct mail.
SEO: If you’re like everyone else, you have 5 people a day pitching you SEO services, and most of them are rubbish. First and foremost, anyone that promises to get you #1 on Google is full of it. The only people who can truly promise #1 ranking are… you guessed it… people who work at Google. No SEO firm can ethically guarantee that.
SEO needs to be approached in a very ethical way if you want to ensure proper and high ranking for the long run (no one wants to ride the rollercoaster, they want to stay put). Is your website set up properly? Are the correct tags used? What about page content itself, are you sure that what is written on your page will match your objectives? And even more important, are you sure that it’s unique and not like any other similar company? Do you have any idea where all of your bank links are coming from, and even more importantly, are they relevant links? If not you could be heading towards having your website de-indexed and a seriously messy clean up.
You’ve heard that saying that content is king, right? Well, it’s becoming a determining factor more and more every day. The quickest, easiest and cheapest way to build a solid content strategy is to blog. You should be blogging all the time and posting relevant content that people will want to rear, and more importantly, share!
Online Advertising: Sometimes called internet marketing and search engine marketing (SEM), online advertising takes into account the use of search engine ads and online display ads. The problem with most automotive online advertising campaigns is that they are generic at best. There is no clear call to action on most banner ads and pay per click campaigns. All they typically tell you is to visit their website, or that they have the best prices. It is rare that you see these types of ads featuring a specific special catering to the intent of the viewer. In essence this type of online marketing is the equivalent to throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping that a few strands stick.
Online marketing campaigns that get the most bang for the buck and see the best returns are those that are specifically targeted to reach objective. If you’re not harnessing the power of 1st and 3rd party data to attract “in-market” buyers of your products (and entice conquest buyers) then you’re simply shooting in the dark.
Reputation: I get it, you’re sick of hearing about online reputation marketing. Fun to discuss? Absolutely not. Important? You bet your CSI bonus it is! Many dealers say that they have a system in place, and most have, at the very least, SOMETHING. But, in most cases, it is not as effective as they’d like it to be and they blame the customer for not leaving reviews.
Printing a postcard to hand out to the customer as they leave is simply not enough. You need an aggressive plan to cultivate reviews from all of your customers. While there are several strategies to implement that anyone who specializes in reputation marketing can assist you with, here’s a quick piece of advice: Turn online reputation into a contest. In other words set a time period, say 90 days for example, and tell the staff that whoever gets the most five star reviews with their name in the review will receive a gift certificate the a fancy restaurant in town. Or offer $25 for every five star review received. Do one of those and watch your reputation grow.
Video marketing: We’ve already established that content is king, and everyone on the internet wants to view content that is entertaining and sharable. Well, video does all that and more. Video is also easy to make and easy to rank on Google. If you have a YouTube channel set up, you’re on your way. What do all of the videos on your site pertain to? Are they all past TV commercials? Maybe you have a few videos of actual or old inventory.
Video content needs to be diversified… just like a stock portfolio. And your YouTube channel needs to be as optimized as possible for proper engagement. It’s also a good idea to have multiple video outlets set up on the other popular video sharing sites. Video should be used as both a sales strategy and as content. You want people to see your inventory but you also want to inform, entertain and engage as well. Dealers are beginning to use video to their advantage to sell more vehicles and to keep customers entertained. Are you using video?
Other digital outlets: Everything up to this point has been entirely internet based. This section looks at the other digital ways of effective marketing. Do you have your smartphone (if you own one) close by? Of course you do! How often is it that it’s more than ten feet from you? Rarely to never? That’s what I thought! Well guess what; it’s the same thing for your customers. Go take a walk into the service waiting area, how many people are seated with their phone or tablet in hand? I’m willing to bet it’s the majority of people waiting.
So, if you’re not harnessing the power of mobile as an effective way of reaching customers, you’re missing out on some serious revenue. Imagine if once a month, or once every other month you could send a service offer to thousands of your customers at the same time and know that they’ll see it within minutes. Unlike direct mail or email, text message offers have the highest read rate out there. 97% of people will read a text message, try getting that out of a direct mail piece that you just spend $$$$$ on. It’s easy to build and segment a texting database and the possibilities for campaigns are as far-reaching as your imagination.
If you’ve never had a digital audit performed, or it’s been a long time since one was done, it’s time to have one done for you. When performed by a trained, skilled and educated professional, they’ll be able to show you exactly what is working for you, where you are excelling, and what can bring massive success if done differently.