Hyper-Local Marketing Handbook for Automotive Retail

By Brian Pasch

I estimate that 9 out of 10 auto dealers have not properly optimized the Google My Business account for local search. When dealers learn that they should have three, not one, Google My Business account for their franchise dealership they will quickly see how to gain a competitive edge for sales and service. The book includes step-by-step instructions on how to claim, create, optimize, and merchandise a dealer's #1 free marketing platform: Google My Business. The book also introduces new ways in which dealers can measure the effectiveness of their online marketing investments and how to energize their marketing message (brand promise) to sell more cars in a digital age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098337469

Book preview

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 9781098337469

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 – Hyper-Local Messaging: Building a Modern Brand Promise

Great Brand Promises Stand Out

Ineffective Brand Promises Fall Flat

The Efficiency of a Strong Brand Promise

Driving Free Traffic to Your Home Page

Chapter 2: Hyper-Local Visibility: Google My Business Optimization

Three Not One

Free Is Great but Dealers Like More

Creating or Claiming Your Business Listing

Organizing Your GMB Listings using Location Groups

Before You Create a New Listing – Check for Phantoms

Adding a GMB Listing for Your Service or Parts Department

Creating a Parts Department Listing – Step by Step

Claiming an Existing Phantom Listing

Managing Multiple GMB Listings

Merging the Hours on Your GMB Departmental Listings

Did It Work? How Long?

Help? My New Service Listing is Outranking My Sales Listing

Setting Permissions per Location Group or Listing

Completing the Foundation for Your Google My Business Listing

Primary and Secondary Business Category

Street Address

Service Area

Special Hours

Short Codes

Accelerating Reviews with Short Codes

Collecting Reviews with In-Store Merchandising

Website Links

Creating UTM Tags on GMB Links

Advanced Information

Store Codes

Labels

Google Ads Phone Number

Photos

Videos

Staff

Products

Sales Location: Adding New Vehicles as Products

When Products Menu is NOT Available: Options for Vehicle Carousel

Products for Service

Services

Service Location: Fixed Ops Services

Enhancing Services with Descriptions and Prices

Maintaining Your Google My Business Listings

Elevating the Importance of Reviews

Service Reviews

Parts Reviews

How to Respond to Reviews

Always Respond to Questions

Setting Alerts for Questions and Answers and Customer Messages

Monthly Maintenance

Photos

Videos

Posts: Updates, Offers, and Events

Quarterly Maintenance

Annual Maintenance

Problem Solving with Google My Business Listings

What About Apple Maps?

Chapter 3: Hyper-Local Marketing: Amplifying Your Brand Promise

Omni-Channel Marketing of Your Brand Promise

Video Strategies

Tell Your Story in Video

Video Scripts

Video Specifications

Popular Video Advertising Platforms

Improving Website Merchandising

Simplifying CTA Buttons

Stop Chasing and Start Serving

Chapter 4: Hyper-Local Results: Measuring Consumer Engagement

The Quest for Online Measurement Standards

Historical Look at Popular Marketing Metrics

Debatable Marketing Metrics

Broken Marketing Metrics

VDP Views

Impression Share

Website Visits

Opportunity for a Google Analytics Standard

GA Conversion Goals

Goals Help Improve Advertising Effectiveness

Consumer Engagement Tracking via Events

Performance KPIs

KPI #1

KPI #2:

Inspecting Referral Traffic from GMB Listings

Closing Thoughts

Google My Business Online Course

Appendix

Facebook Ad Specifications

Rev 7-p1

Introduction

Marketing a local business has become very complicated as consumers divide their time between dozens of media outlets, on multiple devices, and across their preferred social media platforms. With so many choices, where should a business owner put their first marketing dollars?

This handbook is designed to facilitate productive conversations between business owners and their marketing partners on hyper-local marketing. The focus is on building a strong foundation that benefits all of the marketing strategies a local business chooses to embrace. The strong foundation I will discuss can typically be created free of charge, except for the time involved. That price should appeal to all business managers and, of course, the CFO.

Driven by companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, marketing continues to evolve. For many business owners, digital marketing is difficult to sustain; it changes monthly. It is even more challenging for business owners to inspect the Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) from their marketing investments. The good news is that this handbook provides frank and refreshing conversations to make it very easy to reboot your marketing strategies and inspect marketing investments to increase sales and profits.

In this book, we will address a variety of trends, observations, and opportunities. Surprisingly, some of the traditional marketing strategies that were once effective prior to the internet are now showing great promise again. Important to a strong foundation, a brand promise that connects with consumers is critical. Another old school strategy included a key presence in the yellow pages. Today, this translates easily for business owners and underscores the importance of embracing Google My Business: the Yellow Pages of the internet.

Chapter 1 – Hyper-Local Messaging: Building a Modern Brand Promise

Auto dealers must define their own modern brand promise, one that resonates with consumers and results in increased sales opportunities. A modern brand promise includes a clear set of WIIFMs: What’s In It For Me? It also must stand out from a crowded playing field of local advertisers. Ask any auto dealership owner about their brand promise and the response they provide rarely includes attributes that consumers value highly.

What do consumers value most? Their time. Today’s products and services must align with the consumer’s desire to save time while being convenient and easy.

In the summer of 2018, Thomas Gage and I made the commitment to write a book called Just Faster, covering the transformation of the automotive retail sales process, an evolution that is being fueled by desires from OEMs and dealers to better serve the needs of their customers.

As part of our research, we polled dealers, vendors, and consumers, integrating many of those data points into the book content. Let’s start with this question that I posed to 100 consumers:

Pick two words that complete this sentence: I want my NEXT buying/leasing process to be…

Consumers may not know exactly how to make the retail sales process faster, but they want it to not only be faster, but also easier, simpler, and less stressful. They would like more time to spend on the fun aspects of buying a new car (i.e. test drives and exploring technology) and less time wasted sitting in the dealership waiting for the F&I office to open up for them.

In order to meet the needs of consumers, the automotive industry sales process must evolve. That is going to require new training, process mapping, and technology which empowers consumers to engage and complete the sales process on their time, terms, and schedule.

Video is the most effective way to communicate to consumers a modern brand promise. It allows dealers to tell a relatable story that shows consumers how their modern retail experience will now be easier and, most importantly, will give them back their time.

This chapter was created to provide a framework for dealers to plan, design, film, and execute marketing campaigns which incorporate their modern brand promise. A modern brand promise does not require a dealer to implement a digital retailing platform, but many will find that a modern retail experience needs to be powered by new technology, processes, and training often associated with digital retailing.

Great Brand Promises Stand Out

There are many dealers that operate a successful local business and garner high praise from their customers. However, few dealers have a clear brand promise that consumers remember and value. In Minnesota, the Morrie’s Automotive Group has a definitive brand promise that has been finely tuned over the years: The Buy Happy Promise. Their marketing, showroom presence, and website design all reiterate and support their brand promise.

In Colorado, the Schomp Automotive Group has one of the best, if not THE BEST, brand promises