24
Mar

Third Annual Synergy Sessions Event Draws Top Industry Speakers

DeVerl Austin, Charles Vogelheim and Sean V. Bradley lead a powerful program.

Dealer SynergyPHILADELPHIA, March 14, 2008 — Dealer Synergy, one of the premier Internet Sales Training organizations in the automotive industry in conjunction with AutoSuccess Magazine and The Dubis Group have attracted some of the best experts in the retail automotive marketing arena for their upcoming third annual Synergy Sessions Event being held in New Orleans.

  • DeVerl Austin, a Senior Consultant with Franklin Covey will be speaking at this event, and representatives from the Franklin Covey team will be collaborating with Sean V. Bradley to develop a presentation which will leverage strategies from the best seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  The results will yield the powerful “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Online Dealerships” presentation and provide a framework for auto dealers and their teams to create greater efficiencies for maximum results.
  • Charles Vogelheim, a Vice President with J.D. Power and Associates one of the premier automotive research companies and a 20-year veteran of the automotive industry will share insights and trends that will shape the auto retailing market in the future.
  • Sean V. Bradley, the Founder and CEO of Dealer Synergy will once again lead the event with his dynamic and energized presentations focusing on helping dealers use cutting edge technologies like video search engine optimization to build online relationships and create more interest from consumers to build sales volume for auto dealers in their local markets.

This event is also the first major automotive training session being held in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina and Susan L. Givens the publisher of AutoSuccess Magazine and organizer of the Synergy Sessions event said, “We are proud to show our support for this great city and hope that the over 200 attendees we bring to New Orleans take advantage of all that the city has to offer us.”

She continued, “Many of the top auto industry vendors are supporting our event and that helps insure a quality program, great exhibitors and top tier information for all the dealer owners and managers attending our event.”

Registration is now open and additional information is on the event website http://www.synergysessions.com/. SOURCE: Dealer Synergy, 7201 Keystone Street  Ste 120, Philadelphia, PA  19135, (888) 379-6374

11
Mar

Supporting Superior Customer Service!

CarFolks.com
What CarFolks does for the auto buying public is to provide a list of dealerships (as dealerships are bought and sold and franchises change our list may not be complete so we’ll ask you to call or email us if we miss someone or the info isn’t correct) and the ability for car and truck buyers to join our neighborhood and the rate the performance of the dealership and even the performance of the sales or service people at the dealership where you bought or serviced your vehicle. Then we make those ratings public for the world to see. In this way we can reward the dealers doing a great job of serving their customers and encourage our neighbors on CarFolks to buy or service their vehicles at those dealerships. See full story here


Carfolks.com
supports salespeople and dealerships that are dedicated to the highest level of customer satisfaction.

  • To reinforce our belief in high standards of customer service, Carfolks is offering $1,000 to the salesperson that has the highest CF Score on the site in the month of March. 
  • Make sure you are registered (with your picture) and …
  • …ask your customers to submit a review of you today! Sales folks sign up today at www.carfolks.com
21
Feb

Take this personality test

I was looking around at a couple christian related financial and career ministry sites when I ran across this personality test at Crown.org.

I’d be very interested to see your results also. After they show you the results, they will give you a link to copy and paste on a website.

Take this test and post your results in this thread. If you have problems posting the results contact me here.

18
Feb

Internet Marketing Terms - Finding Search Engine Keywords that Convert

This is an interesting article from Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine in the February, 2008 issue. Worth a read:

Search engine optimization is not an exact science. One website may rank well for certain keywords, while another similar website may rank well for a completely different set of keywords. Car dealers must be able to identify the “Money Terms” if they want their website to be as successful as it can be.

What are “Money Terms”? In short, they are the keywords that have the proper mix of relevance and search volume. By relevance, I mean the terms that fall within a dealer’s geographic reach as well as fit in with their product offerings. Search volume is the number of times that a particular keyword is typed into the search engines. The question now becomes, How do dealers identify their Money Terms?

For this exercise, we will look at Hoffman Ford Dealers in Harrisburg, PA. In June, 2007, they had a nice, new website, but they weren’t seeing much traffic to it. After a quick review, it was apparent why. Nobody could find them. They were virtually invisible on the search engines.

Paul Smith, Business Development Manager, talked to his Automotive SEO company. They defined goals and identified targets to go after, ranking them by priority. This list has become a blueprint for proper search engine optimization, and has helped them rank nationally for eSales through Ford Motor Company.

1st Priority: Own Your Name
Regardless of how well a dealership ranks in major search terms, their best set of terms will be related to their own name. Those actively seeking you better be able to find you. They are your very best traffic sources – definitely not to be missed.

Examples: “Hoffman Ford”, “Hoffman Harrisburg PA”

2nd Priority: Own Your Backyard
While owning your name is an absolute must, the best way to increase business is to be found by the people looking in your immediate area. There are 9 Ford dealers within 15 miles of Harrisburg serving an area with a total population under one million. When these people are in the market to buy a new Ford, most will type in “Ford Harrisburg” or “Ford Harrisburg PA”. Why? Because people are becoming aware of what will get them the best results on the search engines. They know that if they type in what they want and where they want to find it, they’ll get the most relevant results.

Examples: “Ford Harrisburg”, “Harrisburg Ford”, “Harrisburg Ford Dealers”, “Ford Dealerships in Harrisburg PA”

3rd Priority: Presence in Competitor Cities
Once a dealer owns their backyard, they can start spiraling out. Their primary targets should be cities and towns where they have competitors. While Hoffman is on the east part of Harrisburg, they have a couple of competitors in Mechanicsburg, a suburb just to the west of town. Being number one would be nice, but as long as a dealer can get on the front page of their competitors’ cities, they will generate leads.

Examples: “Mechanicsburg Ford”, “Ford Dealers Mechanicsburg”

4th Priority: Specialties
Most dealers have something they can boast about. Some have the newest and best staffed body shop. Others sell more accessories than anyone in the area. For Hoffman, their claim to fame was being the only Roush Dealer in the area. Still, they didn’t rank for “Harrisburg Roush Dealers”. Today, they rank number 1 on Google for “Harrisburg Roush Dealers” and “Pennsylvania Roush Dealers”. They also rank #3 in the world for the term “Roush Dealers”, which has yielded distant sales that they wouldn’t have had before.

If you also check the national term “Ford Dealers” they rank there on the front page as well.

Other Priorities: The Long Tail
The biggest “smoke and mirrors” technique used by many SEO and web design companies is the long tail. Search terms that are very specific fall into the category of high relevance but low search volume. If someone types in “2004 Chevrolet Cobalt Baltimore”, they are probably great candidates to buy your vehicles that match. The problem is, if only 2 people a year type that in, it isn’t worth much focus.

Dealers should consider the long tail keywords, but it should definitely be an afterthought. Focus on the Money Words first. The long tail keywords will naturally follow.

The most important advice in this column is that if a company approaches you touting their abilities to get their sites ranked for terms like these, they probably aren’t very good at what they do. They would convert, but they are too low volume to focus on and too easy to rank well for to be considered part of their “resume”.

Published in AutoDealerMonthly February 2008 Issue. Written by Jim Rucker, VP of Search Marketing for TK Carsites.

10
Feb

Dealer - Vendor Forum up and running!

Scott Tyner - DealerISMHi guys. I added a forum so vendors can go in and write to us how they got started and what their plans are to help us improve marketing and sales success.

DealerISM Forums

It is also a place where ANYTHING GOES as long as it goes ethically. So come in and say whatever you want, no matter who you are.

Don’t forget to make use of the Classified Ads Section for Job Listings, Specials you want to offer etc. And remember, it’s FREE to registered members*.

* You must register with the forum seperate from the blog. We are sorry for the inconvenience.