text:
The Dealer Playbook
By Michael Cirillo
"You need to have a website that serves your audience"
In the automotive industry especially we hear so much conflicting information when it comes to your websites SEO (search engine optimization) and what makes it even worse a good majority of the information dealers receive regarding SEo are just well flat out wrong.
That being the case the team here at "The Dealer Playbook" wanted to deliver you REAL SEO strategies that will deliver your dealership REAL results.
So for session number 21 Robert and Michael sit down with the undisputed and world renowned SEO and content marketing expert Rand Fishkin the founder of Moz a SEO/Marketing agency based out of Seattle Washington.
SEO is always a hot topic for most automotive dealers and sometimes it can get overwhelming and just plain confusing. Rand breaks down advanced SEO strategies for car dealers in a language and manner that is easy for anyone to digest.
It was a great honor to have a conversation with Rand Fishkin and this session is jam packed with priceless information to kick your websites SEO to whole new levels and dominate the search engines.
What you will learn from Rand Fishkin
- What your website NEEDS to do
- The truth about getting your content ranked
- Identifying the right content strategy for you
- The scoop on Googles latest search engine update "Pigeon"
- The direction and future of online search
What you see above is just a taste of the wealth of awesome information SEO expert Rand Fishkin unleashed on us in this session.
The DPB team certainly hopes you took as much value from this session as we did and the best part is you can listen to it again or make sure your team member in charge of your dealerships SEO checks it out.
Links and resources mentioned in this session
Rand Fishkin's blog
http://moz.com/rand/
Moz Blog / Whiteboard Friday Videos
http://moz.com/blog
Moz Beginners Guide To SEO
http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
Barnacle SEO Video That Michael Mentioned
http://moz.com/blog/barnacle-seo-whiteboard-friday
Connect With Rand On Twitter
https://twitter.com/randfish
We want to hear your questions and comments about SEO!!!
Sound off below in the comments section with your input, opinions and questions below and we will keep the conversation going and or get answers to all your questions.
If you took any value out of this session and you have not already make sure you get subscribed to "The Dealer Playbook" so you never miss a beat.
Click here to join the family.
Do us a favor leave The DPB a review on iTunes real quick it really helps us out.
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Thank you for dialing into this session of "The Dealer Playbook" podcast.
Be sure to check out some of the previous 20 sessions that are packing the heat just like this one.
Thanks for the love and see you next time :)
Rand Fishkin: Automotive SEO Questions, Answered
This is the dealer playbook podcast episode twenty one with founder of mascom, Mr Rand Fishkin. Here we go. You're dialed into the dealer playbook podcast, where it's all about winning auto dealer strategies that deliver proven results. And now your hosts, Robert Weissman and Michael Cirillo. Hey and welcome to the dealer Playbook Podcast, episode twenty one. I'm here with my man, Robert Wiseman. How you doing, buddy? I am doing excellent, Michael, and guess well, I'm going to go ahead and steal your thunder do it. I am super excited. Yeah, today's session. I'm you know what, I'm excited, man. We were, Robert and I were just recently connected at the Internet battle plans sixteen in Seattle, and I tell you what's got back from the hotel. That was by far one of the funniest, most entertaining and most informative events I had the opportunity and privilege, thanks to Jim Zigler, to present at that that conference. But we were fun. It was so much fun. We were right in the backyard of our guest today in Seattle, Mr Rand Fishkin, who is the founder of Mascom and you know I've I've been connected to him for a little while, but we thought it would be so awesome today, since we're in the business of bringing real strategies for car dealers that deliver results, to bring on Rand, who is an undisputed expert, and I know we use that term in the car industry. There's those that don't agree with it, but I'm going to tell you what, this guy is an undisputed expert when it comes to Seo and content marketing. So we thought, you know, Robert and I thought it would just be so cool to have him on. And what happened, just to kind of lead into this, is a couple days ago I posted on facebook that we would be sitting down with rand and if anybody had any questions. While the response was overwhelming, we got a ton of people who asked questions that were just so super relevant and you're going to hear rand answer those questions for you. So absolutely tuned in because you are going to just hear from the Horse's mouth just a wealth of information about search engine optimization. Definitely, and I'd tell you what I am real quick. I mean everybody like Seo. To me and probably to most other than like Michael and some other you know, some other's. It's not the most exciting topic, you know, for me, but it's so in it's it's vital and he just presents it like he's just good, he's you know, he's he's realed down to Earth and he just, you know, answers it in ways that you know. I took a lot, I learned a lot from this. So I know that. You know, you tune it in, you're going to take a lot from this guy. And then you know the links in the show notes to all of his you know where you can find more of his content. I highly suggested. I mean he this guy knows what he's talking about absolutely. So let's let's just jump right into rand Fishkin. Here we go. Is Do it and we are here with Rand Fishkin, the founder of the...
...mascom. We are so extremely grateful for you, ran, for taking the time for us today. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for having me, Michael and Robert. Yeah, absolutely. Look, I've been following you now for probably two to three years in fact. You know, the first exposure I think I had to you was at a driving sales executive summit. I listened to your keynote. It was so powerful, it was so engaging and that got me to look more into Mas. My company actually uses MOS software to help with our SEO efforts here in the car industry. But the the real first exposure I had to taking what your counsel was and seeing at work was actually the MAS beginners Guy Seo. And I mean even to this day, that that that document is I feel like it's a living document. It's so powerful, it's still so relevant. The the information and it is so actionable. And so the first thing I just wanted to say before we get into some of the questions here, is for the dealers listening in, if you want to understand more about Seo, absolutely don't hesitate. Will Link to it in the show notes, the MOS beginners guy to Seo, because that is going to take your understanding of Seo to a whole new level. So, just to get into this, rand, what I did is on facebook the other day I posted, Hey, I'm sitting down with Rand Fishkin, founder of Mas Seo Guru, and we're going to be talking about Seo. Are there any questions that you want me to ask rand? and Boom, like within minutes people came in with their comments and just had a bunch of cool questions. So I thought maybe we would be cool is is if we just jumped in, I asked you a couple of those questions and then just see how it spins out from there. Sounds great, cool. So the first question actually comes from lady named Kristen Buckley. She works for a dealership our se lacy and her question has to do a subdomains. She says, you know, one of the things I keep getting conflicting information on is how a subdomain works. For example, our website is our se lacycom, but we use blog dot R see lacycom to put our content on and gain SEO juice. Some people say so, go ahead, you got something right, let's go for it. Yeah, I know that. It's funny. That was actually on the top of my mind when you mention the beginner's guide to Seo. Yea, we actually used to have that document living at guides dot mascom. HMM, prior to moving it to you know, there was some engineering challenges and they couldn't get the CSS right for whatever reason, on the main site and so they're like, I will put it on a subdomain. We had it therefore maybe a year and a half or so, maybe...
...maybe two years, and it ranked fairly well, right, like it ranked, I don't know, number five or six for Seo Guide. It was even ranking, I think, number thirty or so for beginner's guide, like just beginners guide, no, no extra information and you know, sending some good traffic, that kind of thing. And then finally we were able to get all of our ducks in a row and move it to the regular Mascom, you know guide beginner's guides. Yeah, great, the next day, number one for Seo Guide, top ten for beginners guide, number one for all these other terms like. It was unbelievable the effect that moving from a sub the subdomain to the main domain had on the rankings for this document. And I've seen that again and again and again. Right, everyone I've talked to about subdomains has essentially given me the same story, which is, yeah, when we've when we finally consolidated and got everything behind one subdomain, the results from an Seo perspective or incredible, because Google just separates things right. They treat stuff on one domain, on one subdomain, differently from another. And it's true you can get some benefit from you know blog dot my sitcom, but you get so much more benefit from my Sitcom blog that you know it's worth jumping through those hoops if you can to get everything aligned on one domain. Cool, sounds good. So, and I mean that might be a limitation of their current web provider. Would you think like maybe, although you know a lot of the a lot of the providers who say, Oh, we can't do it, we can't do it. They can easily do it, they just don't have, you know, the system set up to do it. It's not. It's never very hard, right. You can. You can control this behind the firewall and it's it's a it's a relatively simplistic matter for someone who knows what they're doing. I'd be the only frustrating part is if you've already created a ton of content is subdomain, then moving it and making all the reader acts that can be a pain. Cool. Well, what does she say, Michael, that she got conflicting kind of information about that, didn't she mentioned something like some are saying that's like. What go into that? Yeah, she basically, while Rand's basically validated it here. She finished that by saying some people say that it will produce Seo for our site and some say that our content needs to be on our main site, and I think that's you know, you answer that. You didn't even have to hear the whole thing, rand and you were like Bowm, here we got. I mean we hear this all the time. I think the really frustrating part is a representative of Google's actually did a video where he said, this was relatively recently, where he said, Oh, it doesn't matter, we'll figure it out. Who will figure it out? Which is the most frustrating kind of dishonesty? Right, because he's not completely wrong. They will figure out that the domains are connected, right, and but they won't give it the highest benefit. Right. So, from from a perspective...
...of well, I'm trying to help my marketing, what's going to help my marketing the most? Moving it all to one domain, once of domains going to help. Unfortunately, you know, Google sort of like, oh, don't worry about it, don't worry about it, and so there's lots of confusion in the market. Fair enough. This is a good segue into just my own question. I know there were a couple of questions that I got here about content, and I mean I'm a huge content guy. That's where I've seen a lot of success and I often ask the question, you know, what would a search engine be without content? How much of a buzz word, though, do you think content is now? I almost feel like it's kind of surfaced and everyone's talking content. But would you agree that contents always kind of been the the big thing with with Seo and driving organic traffic? Yeah, absolutely. What is today called content marketing something seos we're doing in one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven all the way up through to two thousand and seven and into, I'm sure we'll be doing it into two thousand and seventeen. And the thing about content being so hot right now is it presents a new challenge for folks who are in the SEO and content marketing fields, because that landscape is getting much more competitive right there's far more types of marketers who are participating in the content ecosystem and the promotion of that content and trying to earn attention and awareness of potential customers and that that just means a much more crowded space. Right it's like we went from, you know, driving along a freeway with one billboard to driving along a freeway with a billboard every fifth of a mile, right, and that that means that, in order to stand out from the crowd, those of us who do produce content and who rely on content for Seo and for our marketing efforts need to have something very special. We need to be, you know, unique and uniquely valuable in order to succeed. Right. And and and I remember you talking at driving sales a couple of years ago about the the effectiveness of organic rankings versus paid rankings, and I think that really just circles back to this content topic. Because if it's there and it's relevant and it's engaging, Google's can ultimately reward you. Is that correct? If, and only if, it's also the case that you can get the right kind of attention to that page in site. Right. So, Google is still very much a link space search engine. If you, if you have phenomenal content that lots of people are going to tweet and email to each other and engage with and really enjoy and find tremendous value in, and no one's going to link to it, sorry, you're not going to perform particularly well. Okay, okay, so they're still they're still that critical links component. Okay, and so they're there. And that was going to be my next question, because there always seems to be this debate about the relevancy of links and backlinking and internal linking and...
...all that. You're saying that no, more than ever still you need to have those links in place. That's how it's like a popularity game. I wouldn't say more than ever. In fact, I would say, weirdly, less than ever. Okay, thinks are less important and less powerful than they've ever been, and they're still incredibly powerful and important right, if that makes any sense. So the trend blind from say, twelve years ago, is that, yes, you can rank today on less quantity of links than you could, you know, years ago and years before that. However, if, like I said, if you are producing content and have hosting a great website that is not earning links, you still don't have you still won't have an opportunity to rank in comparison to the folks who are earning links because they're doing that other stuff right too. Okay, so you know, links is one of the areas, one of several areas, that you need to be able to, if not win, in at least competing. Okay, cool. So I mean before, I mean before let's let's say we're talking to, you know, a dealership. They know that they need to do something different with their website to get it dialed and to get it ranking, I mean coming into it. What's the first thing that they should be looking at doing with their website? So I always, I always advise people the the top. The most important thing is to serve your customers and your potential customer as well, and that's true for dealerships, even if they're not going to perform particularly well in Seo, because lots of people are going to search for their dealership name, they're going to hear about them through other forms of advertising, through word of mouth, they're going to find them when searching locally. You know, series going to point people to them. Whatever. You need to have a website that's going to do a great job of serving your audience. And your audience might be on a mobile device, your audience might be on a desktop. Right. You've got to provide the experience that answers questions for them and and a lot of times that comes down to what do you have in stock? What's the pricing like? How can I customize? What's it like working with you? Show me some of that social proof and testimonials. Give me a great user experience on the site. Feel like the kind of dealership you are, whether that's luxury or discount or midmarket, those types of things right give give the right brand impression. And then, secondarily, I urge folks, once you've nailed that and you you're really serving your customer, now figure out how you're going to serve people who will help amplify your work and and those people might be bloggers, they might be journalists, they might be other dealerships, they might be civic associations and nonprofits and charities and local organizations, they might be individuals who bought from you, whoever it is. How are you going to serve them in such a way that they want to broadcast information about you and help that word of mouth and digital word of mouth spread, and a lot of that will turn into lay links and shares and all the kinds of things that Google will countt in the rankings. Cool,...
...wow, that's super powerful and I don't think that's something that we talked enough, about, especially in the car industry. I mean, we do talk about the reviews aspect, would you agree, Robert? But we don't talk about it and from an SEO perspective, about, you know, building your clout and having people amplify what you're trying to do rant for everybody. Can you tell me, just give kind of a brief example of what you mean when like finding the other people in the right people to amplify your work? Is that just sharing reposts or, you know, hosting some of your content or, you know, linking back to it? Is that what you mean by amplifying? So what I mean by amplifying is the broadest definition, because lots of kinds of amplica. Amplification can turn into the right sorts of signals. Right. So if you build a machine, a flywheel that's earning amplification from potential influencers, you're going to get these right kinds of signals. But you can mean a lot of things. So a car dealership might say, Hey, you know what, it turns out that we're really selling to a lot of five thousand and sixty plus demographics. These folks are not they don't run blogs and websites, they're not tweeting about us, they don't talk about us on Facebook, they're looking at pictures are grandkids on their like. Our customers are different from the audience that might amplifies. You know. Who might amplify us, though, is a lot of the small businesses that we help support. And you know, one of the things that we can do is to say, Hey, we are going to be supplying trucks for this, you know, pledge drive. We're going to be supplying we're going to be advertising at this parade. Let's make sure that the parade organizers have some unique reason to call us out. Hey, let's, you know, let's go find the local TV and radio stations and make sure that, in an addition to advertising with them, which we might already be doing, let's go and help them with some of their not not for profit or help them with some of their needs and see if that might turn into extra amplification, organic amplification, beyond the advertising we do. Who Do we have these kinds of relationships with and why will they support us? That? That's really what I'm talking about, and it can be I don't care what the medium is. I don't care if it's a link on their website, I don't care if it's a tweet, I don't care if it's them posting about you on Facebook, I don't care if it's them emailing or putting you in a newsletter. It will lead to the right kinds of signals eventually, right because of how the how the web works and how that downstream model flows. Cool. That, Yep, makes sense and you know I don't. That's a that's a good segue into a question we received from Ashley to Bor Ski. She's way up in Anchorage and and this is what she wrote. Rand while many seos would agree that providing regular, value driven unique content is the best way to attract long term organic site traffic, content marketing is definitely a more time consuming solution without guarantee of results, even after months of persistence. For many dealerships.
They need to see immediate revenue to make ends meet and don't have a team in place to commit to a strong content marketing strategy. So her question is, what's the ideal balance between relationship building tactics that don't seek immediate Roi versus, you know, quote unquote, quick fixes for lead generation like SEM campaigns? What, what factors do you consider when deciding a new clients marketing mix? So my personal my personal bias is to go twenty in the direction of eighty percent long term investments that don't pay dividends in the first six months or a year and might take two three years to show anything. And the reason that I bias that way is because I like to build long term businesses. I like to build long term businesses that last, and I know that I am getting a head start right the the six months of work that I'm going to put in before seeing any return will make me the one out of a hundred dealerships or businesses that's willing to do that and that earns the return on investment from that. Over the years to come, nine out of ten dealerships are going to be like now, forget it, I can't measure it. I don't think it's going to work. I can afford to spend, you know, six months with no Roi no way man, and I I love being the outlier. I think it is such a beautiful thing, is to basically reject the logic that everyone else is using and find your own path. I think that exceptionalism, uniqueness is what makes for remarkable businesses and what makes for long term and lasting ones. Now that being said when I did this, you know, for Maz when I did our early content marketing, basically it was me blogging every night from ten PM to two am. Right, I'd work from like nine to six, I'd come home, I'd have dinner with my wife and then, like ten PM, I get on my computer and I do my content, and that would be my four hour chunk every day. Right. So that's that's not taking any extra dollars out right. Cost nothing to write those posts and to publish them. But that publication and participation in forums and another blog comments and then in social media, is that arose on the web. That's really what helped drive our marketing. And and that's a cool question because, and your answer fits perfectly, I feel like, man, I feel like they just knew what we were going to be talking about when they asked all these questions, because you say something and I'm like, boom, here's you know, Tony White, who asked, when it comes to content, how often should you be updating it and how often should you have google crawl it? And so you're sitting there, you're telling me in the beginning there were like four our time periods. When you know everything, maybe you're a bit more of a fanatic than, I think most when it comes to this stuff. But so, in regards to Tony's question, by the way, I actually think it doesn't matter too much how often you decide to publish. It can be every night, it could be once a week, twice a week, it could be once a month,...
...it could be we're only going to put out one really amazing piece of content every quarter. That's fine. Just decide on a relatively consistent schedule and then stick to it. Right. So, if you say, Hey, we're going to produce something remarkable every quarter, great, you better have that brainstormy meeting at the beginning quarter and how you're going to get something out in the next, you know, two and a half months, and then launch it and then after it's launched, have the next meeting and, you know, get that next piece of content pulling. Don't, don't let content become one of these things where you essentially say, Hey, we're going to fire and forget, we're going to launch one big piece of content. Hey, it did work, we're out of the game, you know, and it took it takes years to get good at this stuff, years and years, and then I think Google crawling it. Google will crawl it, however often google chooses to crawl it. The more you update a piece of content, the more regularly google come back. But I wouldn't worry too much about crawl right right once, once you get that initial indexation, I have not seen a huge correlation between like, Oh, we perform a lot better if google box comes back and visits a lot. I wouldn't worry too much about that. Well, wasn't the key word. I think there is. The take is, you know, remark something remarkable and at you know is it's fair to say that it's not so much you know how often should you be do the the you know the schedule of doing it, but it's just when you're doing it. You're doing you're delivering quality. You know, if you can only deliver quality once a month, then deliver it once a month. If you can deliver quality once a week, once a week. I mean it's that. Is that kind of like a good is that kind of a way to look at it, just as as often as you can produce something remarkable consistently, yes, kind of. So the other thing that I think about is leveraging your strength so you might say like hey, you know what, I am not a hugely talented writer, I'm not a an amazing content brain stormer, but I have a few good ideas. Every once in a while I have like one great idea. Like, for example, you might say, Hey, we're a, you know, a truck dealership, and we're in the Pacific northwest, right in Seattle. I want to chart over the last decade. I'm going to get all of the weather information and I'm going to show people in Seattle neighborhoods just specifically the hilly ones, which are the places that get like the most ice and snow, which are the ones that, like, the different ranges of vehicles that we sell can handle, and I'm going to produce this one map. That's all I'm going to do from you know, whatever it is, August, two, October. But then when winter season rolls around here, every every new station is going to publish my map, everybody's going to be linking to it, everyone's going to be talking about it all winter long. That's going to get me the attention that I need from content and the links I need for Seo and all that kind of stuff. That's going to be my one effort in the next six months. I'm not a guy who can write every night, and that's fine, that's great. Maybe you're a guy who makes hilarious, viral comedic videos. There's...
...actually like a weird car insurance guy here in Seattle called Verd funk who does that. He makes ludicrous commercials, but they go viral right and they like show up on redded and get tweeted all over the place, and that's his that's his strength. So find your strength, marry that with the right schedule, Mary that with a form of content that is going to get you amplification. Don't you know. Don't feel locked into like, oh, I should set up a blog and then write every night. If that's not for you, it's not for you. Yeah, you ultimately you don't want something that's going to overwhelm you. Then you're not going to be consistent at it and then it falls, falls apart. Totally cool. So let's move on to another topic here, which is more along the lines of what direction you see search engines going. But I want to kick that off with a question by a gentleman named David Johnson. He asked Google released a significant update a few weeks back, search engine land called it, you know, pigeon. How is this affecting local search and directories and is there anything there that you think would be valuable to dealerships that might draw some immediate attention to their business online? So pigeons had kind of a wide degree of effect, particularly on local rankings. What you know, what we've seen and observed is basically that in a number of cases search results that had a lot of local packs, like essentially maps results, have reduced that numbers and sometimes that maps pack has fallen down further to be replaced by what I call more of the directory type stuff. So in the restaurant vertical, you know yelp saw a big jump up, as kind of yell results, and Urban Spoon and trip advisor and those kinds of places jumped above some of the local results. In a bunch of cases we have seen some continue continued impact on carousel. It's tough to say where their pigeon actually impacted the local Carousel, you know, the black bar at the top of the search results that has all the different locations. That appears to be growing and growing and we've also seen that pigeons seemed to change the geographic proximity calculation that Google uses. So essentially, you know you either need to be closer into the centroid of a particular town or Zip code where you're where a searcher might be searching, or in some cases it looks like it move further out. So it changed kind of all over the place. And this is while pigeon is certainly like an interesting update to pay attention to if you're a junkie, I think what's far more interesting if you're a marketing professional or dealership owner that kind of thing, is what happened in your search results. Because, knowing that, oh, you know, in thirty percent of the major Metros of the US pigeon it looked like move directories above the local box. You know, local maps results in the one box. Okay,...
...now tell me what happened in Anchorage, Alaska, right, what happened for people searching in Anchorage for, you know, Toyota dealership, because that's that's my big keyword, an anchorage. That's a different story, and so I'd heard you to kind of pay attention to your own search results, which is why software, you know, that monitors this type of stuff can be really helpful obviously mas does that. I really like a company called get stat up in Vancouver that helps with that. Search matrics can help with that. Those kinds of things cool. You know, the thing that I would worry about a little bit with pigeon is if you've been biasing your tactics one way or the other. Right. So, if you've been wholly focused on directories and you know third party sites to send you traffic and have them rank in the search results rather than you, you might want to invest a little bit more in your own Seo for your website and your local results. And likewise, if you've been focusing solely on your own you might now want to go and do a bit more of that Barnacle Seo onto other people's directories, the listing sites, because if the balance keeps shifting. I love that and I'm going to I'm going to link to your whiteboard Friday where you talk about Barnicle Seo because it's such a fascinating topic. What would you say? I mean kind of going along these lines, do you have any predictions for the future of search, like where, what direction are we headed with it? Do you think? Well, we're definitely getting more mobile, we're getting more instant answers and we are getting more ad heavy, I think, as Ad Blindness keeps hitting folks. However, those those things all might seem a little bit dark, right. So more ad heavy means, you know, great, the the paid search ads are going to push down the organic even more. More instant answers means people are going to keep, you know, searching for, hey, what's the mileage per gallon for a Prius, and Google's just going to give them the answer that they've scraped from someone's site rather than sending that traffic on to potentially a dealer's website that might be, or Toyota's website, and that might be very frustrating because you're not getting that traffic or that chance to convert that person. And then it's getting more mobile, which means people are much more demanding on mobile. They're much less willing to browse for longer periods of time. They don't convert as heavily on mobile. Right. Mobiles are really like just research this one thing really quick and then I'm out of their experience. The positive side of all of those is that we are talking about more web use, more searches per searcher, more searchers overall and a wider market to reach. So you know, yes, there's all these kind of frustrating things going on in the tactical sphere, but overall it's creating more opportunity. Right, if you look at the number of searches performed today, it's twice as many searches as we're performed armed four years ago. Right, that's doubled. It's not like Google, even with all this instant answers and ads and everything, they haven't pushed out half the traffic. Right.
So opportunity has grown dramatically and SEO and I think will continue to see that until the web reaches a point of maturity, and I think that's still at least a decade or so away. Love it. Last question for you and then we'll wind this bad boy down. Do you think Google will ever index individual facebook fan page posts the way they're doing it with tweets? I could imagine they might. That's actually really facebook's call, right, whether they choose to make those indexible and accessible, and I would my guess would be at some point facebook will make the decision to do that because it's in their interest. Right, they can get traffic to those pages? Why aren't they now? What's the negative? I mean, Google and facebook kind of have a little gotcha. Yeah, spat going on right, and so facebook is kind of like we don't need google and Google's like facebook. The whole Worl Wie needs us. Yeah, exactly. So facebook is kind of a most into a search engine into itself. I mean, is it not well powered by bank? Go there and get your aunt. You can go on, but I mean you can go to facebook. Are People using facebook? Do you see more people using facebook that way to get formation, that to get suggestions? Yes, yes, so I think people use facebook the way people have always used each other, as a as a social source for questions and answers and discussion and word perfect. But they're not using it in the way that they use Google. Right. So Google is not seeing their search share. You know, they haven't seen people use keyword search to be like dealerships Manhattan or miles blind for Toyota Prius. Right there, no one's using facebook in that way. You might act using it like hey, I'm thinking about getting a hybrid, but I also need to haul stuff. Is it more cost effective if I rent a truck? Twice a year, or should I just buy one? That kind of question you might see on facebook. Love it makes sense. Hey, that's where we're going to leave it today. I think those listening, I mean if you are interested in Seo or even remotely interested in content or have a cool idea like rands talked about, you absolutely need to check out mascom and do a free trial of their software and then get roll on on that stuff, because I'll tell you what, even in my own business here at flex dealer, it's just been so incredibly powerful for us to dominate search engine. So I'd encourage you to do that. Go to mascom. But Ay, rand, how can those listening in today connect with you online? Yeah, you can find us at at mascom. If you're interested in my personal blog, that's at mascom rand, and I use twitter most heavily, so at rand fish is where you'll find yeah, see, you got the blue check mark going on over there. Man May just made one of those major player. Major player. Hey, so is that ran? Soo? Is that blog where they could see? I'm not that. Michael was definitely more SEO or oriented then then I am. And what...
I like about your videos is it's like it's Seo Talk. That doesn't nod that. I don't nod out when I'm watching it or listening to it. Doesn't put me to sleep. It's entertaining. Is that on your blog that they find that on the the whiteboard Friday thing? Is that found out white blog or white bag whiteboard Fridays on the MOS blog? That's mascom blog. Okay, and will link to that in the show notes. A highly recommend it and you know, you checking that out if you, you know, want to learn more from this guy. Absolutely in two last things has nothing to do with Mas but you absolutely need to check out the everywherest that blog. That blog is killer. And the last thing I see they're poking out from behind you is that guitar, the Ukulele Ah. How's that for deception? Is that Your Kul little? I just saw the neck and I'm like yeah, Guitar, Cool Man. Thank you so much for being with us today. This is going to be an incredible episode. Will let you know when it when it posts, but everybody absolutely go check out mascom and connect with rand on twitter at rand fish. Thanks again, rand. Thanks guys, take care. Take care. You got a brother. Wow, so right there. I'm trying to tell you in the beginning that this was a great session on a very again, vital topic that to me, maybe I'm you know, I'm speaking from myself. That just isn't that doesn't like get me super pumped up, but I mean this at this session really got me pumped up. And he talks about it in ways that, you know, he speaks English. You know what I mean, Michael, like sometimes these guys get caught up and they start speaking in the the language that only other people that are, you know, real dialed into that space can understand. Yeah, I mean, you know what an' and this is something that we talked about all the time and he gets it. It's that you have to know who you're speaking to, and he could tell. I mean, the guys just so super intelligent. He could tell by the first question I asked, not that we're speaking to people that don't know what they're talking about, but genuinely about people. You know, for you listening in, those questions that were asked were from real people in the car industry and it just was a good temperature reading to find out where people are at. He knew who he was speaking to. I mean the conversation would have gone much different if I had asked, you know, hey, what's what's the best way to build an aggressive link building strategy? And he would have I mean he would have brought some power, but just to get some actionable information from him is is so incredible. And and you were kind of poking fun at me. I mean this is how big of a Geek I am. You were saying that. After every question that he answered, I'd be like yeah, cool, cool, man, cool. And you know what it is, because Seo, I guess I am a Geek, but SEO was so much fun. It's so cool to me and it was just so much fun sitting down with him and having an answer those questions straight. Guy Has got not only...
...is this guy super, you know, gangster with Seo and all this, but his mustache and beard is epic. You know, it's all my my my fellas out there and ladies, I was Jos rocking the facial hair that this dude. This dude kills it. But in this show notes, check out this guy's hook up with them on twitter. Check out his blog. Definitely the whiteboard Friday videos are superb. One of my some of my favorites and you know Michael and Michael put me onto this guy. You know, when I first came on to the FLEX team, this wasn't exactly you know, I haven't been, you know, doubt into him for for as long as Michael and others, but I'm I'm I'm there now and I'm a fan and I'm a regular visitor to his content. For sure, absolutely so do us a favor. Check out triple w dot the dealer playbookcom. Leave Your Seo questions and comments in the in the comment section there. Also, we're going to link you up, like Robert said, to those show notes. But do us a favor and subscribe so that you can get the latest episodes of the dealer playbook delivered right to your inbox. And until next time, we'll catch you later. Take care.
Episode 9 · 8 years ago
Hunter Swift: How To Drive More Car Sales With Your CRM w/Hunter Swift
"Most dealers are using their CRM to manage customers and leads, while the more progressive dealers are using it to manage the relationship"
Hunter Swift
Are you and your dealership unlocking the true power of your CRM software? A CRM is so much more then a tool to enter customer information or remind a sales person to make a follow up call. Your CRM has the potential to be a marketing monster for your dealerships sales and fixed ops departments.
In this session of "The Dealer Playbook" we sit down with our friend and industry thought leader Hunter Swift. Hunter is not just a expert on auto dealer CRM best practices, he is the Director of Sales Development at DealerSocket. In case you do not know who DealerSocket is, they are one of the auto industries leading CRM providers.
Hunter dives right in with some easy no cost strategies and tactics dealers can execute to drive more sales and keep your service techs turning wrenches. He also discusses in detail the email campaigns that his company's clients are getting the best results from plus some other creative yet easy ways you can pump a lot of business out of your current CRM. You have to check this out because Hunter knows his stuff!!!
The information in this episode will sell you more cars!
In this episode you will learn more about:
-Successful email campaigns
-Shifting sales peoples mindsets when it comes to your CRM
-How to use your CRM for branding
-How to use your CRM to build relationships
-Freshening up email templates
-Creating automated campaigns that convert
-Mining for customers in your CRM
All that plus more that will help you not just get more out of your CRM tool but sell more cars, make more gross, get great CSI and build long lasting relationships with your customers.
Links and Resources mentioned in this episode:
Follow Hunter Swift on Twitter for more great content to help you unlock the power of your CRM tool
https://twitter.com/HunterSwift
Hunter's powerful article from Driving Sales Innovation Guide:
http://drivingsalesinnovationguide.com/2014/04/crm-and-your-brand/
Great video from Hunter on database mining discussed in the episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-nK8jO0Wa4
We had a great time with Hunter Swift on this episode and hope you did as well.
Now it is your turn, leave us some feedback and let us know your thoughts or if Hunter missed anything.
Thank you again for dialing into the DPB podcast and we will see you next time!
Troy Spring: Dominating Traditional Media In A Digital World
"When it comes to traditional offline advertising, enough reach, enough frequency and a strong compelling message, it will produce results/ROI immediately."
- Troy "Turbo" Spring
Different marketing and advertising tactics work better than others. Period.
In the automotive space, when you go to workshops or webinars about marketing, they typically lean towards digital strategies.
With so much focus on the internet, and automotive dealers trying to figure out exactly how that works, the good old traditional media, or offline marketing outlets, tend to take a back seat. With the right recipe in today's market, dealers can and are reporting solid ROI from lets call it "offline media." That is exactly the reason why when it came to the topic of Dominating traditional media in a digital world, we knew that Troy "Turbo" Spring was just the expert to teach us.
The best selling author of "Turbo Charge Your Life" as well as the co-founder (with Tracy Myers) of the "Unfair Advantage Automotive Mastermind," Troy "Turbo" Spring has a unique position in the automotive industry. Troy is the owner and founder of Dealer World Advertising – a full service advertising company for auto dealers.
Troy is also the manager of a Lehighton Ford in Lehighton, PA – a Ford dealership minutes from his home. Here's where he gets even more unique. Troy manages this dealership…are you ready for it?… PART TIME! Yup, you heard it right. Part time. According to Troy, he not only loves being on both the vendor and dealer sides, but it gives him two different ends of the spectrum.
The specific topics we cover in this session address how dealers can tap into & really maximize what's now (in most cases) inexpensive traditional offline media resources. These topics not only will require some work but also creativity. Lucky for us, Troy lays out some step-by-step strategies that will allow you to start seeing ROI with traditional advertising.
We want you to sell more cars!
More Specifically, You'll Learn About:
- How to audit and break down your advertising budget
- How to determine which advertising outlets to focus on
- The recipe for a creative message in your ads / messaging that converts
- Sure fire ways to create direct mail that sells more cars FAST
- How to make a stamp on any group and stay top-of-mind in your market
All that and some other super valuable strategies and tips you can put into actionimmediately to sell more cars.
Important Links From This Episode
To have Troy send you examples of traditional media campaigns that are converting, or to send him yours for a free analysis, email him at:
troyspring@mac.com or troyspring@mydealerworld.com
Check out the "LF Boss" the Ford dealership he manages part time mascots Facebook page:
LF Boss Facebook Page
Hook up with Troy Spring on Facebook:
Troy "Turbo" Spring Facebook
Call Troy "Turbo" Spring on his cell:
Check out Troy's company Dealer World's website:
Dealer World
Check out the auto industry's exclusive master mind right here:
Unfair Advantage Automotive Mastermind Group (UAAMG)
Get Troy Spring's best-selling book here:
"Turbo Charge Your Life"
Ok, Now It's Your Turn:
Did this episode give you any insight or some ideas for your traditional media marketing structure? Leave us your comments and keep the conversation going. We love it!"When it comes to traditional offline advertising, enough reach, enough frequency and a strong compelling message, it will produce results/ROI immediately."
Did this episode give you any insight or some ideas for your traditional media marketing structure? Leave us your comments and keep the conversation going. We love it!
Sean Moffett: Turn Customers Into Raving Fans Of Your Dealership
Your greatest asset are the people you just sold. People like to do business with an "expert", and will pay more to do so.
20 year automotive vet, International Sales Expert and host of nationally syndicated radio show " The Sean Moffett Show" Sean Moffett himself sits down with Robert and Michael to chat it up about " Turning Your Current Customers Into Raving Fans"! Advocates of your dealership and your brand. Even in today's advanced market there is nothing stronger than the relationship with your store and its customers. Past, Present and future.
In this awesome new episode, Sean talks about how just in how the way a sales person greets a customer, that customer knows if they are dealing with a professional expert or not. '"The best place to close your deal, is with the first impression".
Sean is going to show us exactly how to do just that in this session.
Sean Moffett gives a few easy word tracks sales people can use to sound like a expert. A professional. Check them out and practice with your team or whoever is down. Why not pick up something new that is without a doubt different than what the sales team is currently doing.
What if just something that simple as how the customer is being greeted is what is holding back sales explosion in a dealership?
This is session is packing some powerful information!!!
Sean is a professional broadcaster and great speaker so nobody minded that " The Dealer Playbook" turned into "The Sean Moffett Show". Starting with authentically greeting someone with a caring disposition, to how to finesse and keep the " wow factor" rolling after they make it purchase.
It is all in this session!
You in this session you will learn more about
- How to greet the customer like a professional expert
- Focusing on the customer's experience genuinely
- Is management in need of leadership training (it is more than penciling deals)
- Being an expert on your product
- Communicating with customers & allowing them to shop with you
- Finding training material you can relate with (so much online for free)
- Different markets require different tactics
- Watching out for listening to the wrong "guru's" information.
All that plus so much more!
Here are the links mentioned in this episode
Sean's Website:
http://www.themoffettcompany.com/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001592899984&fref=ts
https://twitter.com/TheSeanMoffett
Sean Moffett's " Wow Factor Sales Success Training":
https://www.udemy.com/wow-factor-sales-success-training/?sl=E0Ibc1tTQxMALBoeCRAcKBM%3D&dtcode=qqmla8hp
Sean's killer YouTube Channel Lots of good stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1XW7Dmi_6v6hr-RA1gGC8g
Sean's syndicated radio show on iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sean-moffett-show/id631875767?mt=2
Get his free audio book email here:
info@themoffettcompany.com (put "The Dealer Playbook" in the subject)
The Dealer Playbook -
http://www.thedealerplaybook.com
Danny Benites: How To Get The Most Out Of Car Dealer Conferences
When it comes to running and or owning a automotive dealership, monitoring your ROI is crucial to a successful operation. When you are buying more internet leads, doing a direct mail campaign, or switching website providers ROI always comes up in the conversation. Ever notice that? Where you do not hear a lot of "ROI" talk though is when you hear about the workshops, 20 Groups, seminars, trade shows etc.
In this episode of The Dealer Playbook the boys sit down with funny man and 30 year plus automotive industry veteren, Danny Benites. Danny is the General Manager of Greg Lair Buick GMC of Amarillo Texas, and he has created some resources and techniques to get the most out of the automotive workshops, seminars, etc. You know, track an ROI?
A dealer will spend 2-5 thousand on attending or sending a team member to a automotive conference. Do you ever track the ROI of that investment, because it is not cheap. Combine the money for travel, hotel, tickets to the workshop, food, etc. plus the time away from the dealership to attend, you end up with a lot of "skin in the game" to much in fact to not have a plan.
How to choose the right team member to attend educational events
Choosing the right automotive event to attend
Narrowing in on what parts of your operation your looking to bring home "nuggets for"
How to retain the "ideas" you get at the workshop, and how to structure your idea lists/notes
How to take your ideas back to the dealership and get buy in whether your the top dog decision maker and you need to get your team on board or a sales manager, GM, etc and need to get your dealer to buy in
That and much more Danny talks about that will get you and your the team the most out automotive educational events. This guy knows what he is talking about.
Here are the links for the work sheets Danny refers to that lay out the plan for you: Danny's Worksheets
Keep up with Danny Bientes he has some great content:
Check out his website here: Danny B website
Follow him on Twitter here: Danny Twitter
We had a blast having Danny Bientes on the show and really hoped you enjoyed it as well. Your feedback and comments mean the world to the DPB team, so please drop a line below. As always thank you for listening to The Dealer Playbook, make sure you get subscribed so you get notified when we release new episodes.
Much love-


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i'm getting following error:
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A: It's possible you are trying to run Python 2 code under Python 3, which did some library reorganisation.
If you replace your current import with import tkinter.font as TkFont that should suffice to move you forward.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange