There are many methods a good digital marketing company can use to enhance your online marketing presence and you must be able to measure the effectiveness of those methods.

The clients only concern is, and rightfully so, is the amount of traffic to their site and the investment to get it there, where it is coming from and the return on their investment- how much of that traffic is being converted to actual sales.

The responsibility from getting the traffic to converting that traffic is a responsibility that is shared by both the marketing company and the client. If one or the other is not fulfilling their role in the partnership the effectiveness is diminished.

This is why a marketing company must partner with their client and communicate regularly to be able to pinpoint exactly where improvement is required.

Knowledge is power and having the knowledge of where your site’s traffic is coming from, how effective your social connections are, and overall where your traffic is originating from and what people do when they get to your site is paramount.

How those people are engaged once they get there is equally as important as getting them there.

Knowing the cooperation that is required to succeed in a relationship between a digital marketer and the client, good analytics is what is going to give both the knowledge they need to improve where improvement is required.

Forrester Research published a report indicating that the need for better analytics is needed by companies to better understand the value of search and how much of a company’s web traffic originates from search.

According to the report; “Although marketers are aware that search contributes to a company's growth, data analysis needs to improve.”

The same report indicated that many companies separate their search marketing efforts from their regular marketing activities and according to Forrester; “brands will spend more than $33 billion on search marketing by 2016, up from $24 billion this year.” 

Clearly one of the most revealing reports is the report released by Experian Marketing Services mid January 2013 summarizing web trends of 2012.  The report revealed that search engines are a key factor in web traffic sources.  Search won the web traffic race with a staggering 49% of traffic to web sites compared to 3.8% from Facebook and 1% from YouTube.

One would predict that as more and more people use smart phones that search will continue to be the dominant factor for any marketer.  It stands to reason that they would want to be able to measure traffic to your site.

 Good digital marketing companies with Content creation and marketing platforms designed to attract search have spent the time developing analytics that measure performance, show results and also focus on results of effort from search.

Other forms of good analytic reporting can show the value of social news posts compared to the same interest from search. Business owners can quickly focus on messages that are working and enhance that space compared to days gone by when everything was guess work.

As you gain knowledge from meaningful reporting and real time analysis you can make smarter decisions based on results.

                                       Social Analytics Graph courtesy Of One Big Broadcast

For example many businesses gain insights they would never conceive by studying reports from individual social networks. This includes combining results from different platforms and adding analysis tools. The end result allows for smart, informed and important decision making that could affect marketing spend or strategies.

It is essential to continually dig deeper into the many areas of content creation and marketing platforms - These reporting tools can reveal that in many ways all things are connected.  By harnessing the power to create deeper and meaningful reporting, companies can make smart real time decisions based on 'what people are saying'.

The Importance of Blog Analytics

The power of blogging can’t be denied. Because of this I wanted to touch on the importance of the ability to measure their effectiveness.

What was once a simple hobby for the digital enthusiast has become a worldwide sensation. Millions of individuals post to the web each day, detailing their ideas and intentions. It’s an enduring part of the social media experience... and it’s also one that, when properly utilized, can redefine every brand.
 
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is understood as essential. Companies forever rely on socially rich content to generate traffic and sales. Applying this technique to blogging, however, was once considered impossible. 
 
But today this is possible with new innovative techniques that have been developed.
 
SEO-infused blogs can be delivered to every client. Each post is defined by relevant content and keywords to secure high search engine standings. Information is effortlessly integrated into social communities (such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest) to bolster traffic. An innovative analytic system measures the real-time results of each page, determining what readers want and how to best satisfy their needs. The possibilities are endless.
 
Blogs should be created to do more than simply state opinions. They should be done in different ways to be fully optimized. Blog Data Touch Points (Courtesy Of One Big Broadcast)

One Big Broadcast is one company who has pioneered the concept of harnessing teams with multiple blog engines- Each engine producing its own analytics and weaving its way into corporate analytics.

Blog Analytics

Since blogs are all powerful for content marketing everyone is using blogs to get their marketing message out so it is important to be able to measure blog performance.

On the analytics side you want to drill down deep into each blog post of each individual blog. Back in the old days of marketing there was a saying 'Listen to what your customers are saying'. By having the proper analytics tools you can listen to each blog post by applying deep analytics monitoring. This tells companies which blog had the most interest from a social and search level. In this way you can uncover things that would not be possible otherwise.  When you see a spike you your readership on a particular blog topic - the people have spoken to what they are interested in. 

There have been multimillion ad campaigns started on the strength of the results of good analytic programs. 

It starts with high level of ALL blog topics. Each blog should be an engine capable of attracting its own set of search terms, its own following of people. Each blog sends out 100s of news feeds (see Change Lives Here) and the blog touch points with each post.

 

In the chart below blog analytics users can adjust the date range in this example to gain valuable insight.

                                                                    Courtesy of One Big Broadcast

Attached below is a blog post that spiked at a popular restaurant:

 

                                                                 Courtesy of One Big Broadcast

Along with this all API activity you can use Google Analytics tools to create custom reports to monitor and report on exact conversion metrics for individual pages or campaigns. For example OBB’s new newspaper ad generator tool. A special report can be created to report to track conversions and other important data via advanced features in Google Analytics.

It is safe to say that a marketing company and their clients must view their relationship as a partnership with the responsibility for performance shared by both parties. And with the right tools there are many ways of measuring the effectiveness of your digital Marketing.

Understanding your responsibility as the client and partnering with a company that can provide proper tools and analytics, review them on a consistent basis and keep you up to date on the latest changes and developments is the key to successful Digital Marketing.

William Cosgrove

 

Reports

1. Marketers Need To Better Align Search, Online Goals -http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/192006/marketers-need...

2. Search Remains Key Driver To Web Sites - http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/191338/search-engi...

Here are some stats that Most of us already know and most Dealer Principles and GMs may already know. But let’s give it another read because this is important to your business.

Not all buyers use the same criteria to choose a dealer or are influenced by the same dealer experience and sales processes.

According to the Foresight Research 2013 Dealership Report, Taken from UCN News, based on a study of 7,543 recent U.S. new car and truck buyers, experience with a brand drives most purchases.

While 17 different automotive marketing communication channels are analyzed in this study, none are more influential to the purchase decisions of new car and truck buyers than the dealership experience with the exception of prior brand experience. Forty-nine percent of all buyers this past year report that their dealership experience was highly influential to their decision to purchase the vehicle they did. 

The average new-vehicle buyer today is older (nearly half are over age 55). They are also wealthier and experienced with the buying process. Dealer reputation and relationships are key to this group.

Younger buyers (many of them first-time buyers) bring a narrower set of expectations into their buying process. These buyers want and need dealer assistance, but one out of four say their dealership experience took too long. 

Buyers aged 35-54 (representing 37 percent of current buyers) reflect a mixture of their younger and older counterparts. Like younger buyers, they are very concerned with getting a good price/deal, and financing options. Yet like older buyers, they have high expectations of their dealer experience.

So let’s think about this. This means that the people on the front lines and by this I mean the salespeople, including those in the BDC department, Service Writers, Parts and Body Shop Departments. Now why did I just refer to all these people as salespeople?

Because they all better be. These are the people that are selling you, your services and products and if they don’t know how to sell and how to treat people-your losing a great deal of business.

So why do a lot of you think that you can get these people on the cheap and expect great results. You pay a lot for your marketing and other vendors services and hopefully they are doing the right things.

But these employees I just mentioned are your most valuable asset and you are not going to get or have the right people on the cheap. I showed in one of my last posts a dealer who was paying top dollar and getting top results. These stats just gave me the opportunity to maybe shed more light on my mission to prove my point.

You can hire consultants to train, train and do more training and give people all the tools in the world to do a job but if you don’t have the right people your just wasting your money. And by the way what are your managers doing?

You need consultants who know how to get the right people in right the positions first Which means consultants who have proven themselves on the front lines and in the trenches who can find right people you need. And again, what are your managers doing?

If you need to hire consultants, (And again what are your managers doing), find one who is going to weed out all the non-performers and who is hired by and who is looking out for you the owner and not the management that may be the root of your problems.

A lot of good salespeople and managers have already left the Automotive Industry because the good ones can perform in any Commission Sales Industry and are going where they can be rewarded for their talent.

There are those who would like to commoditize the Industry and have store clerks waiting on people. But I can tell you that if this happens there will no longer be room for the Small and Medium Size Franchise Dealer.

By having the right people you don’t need to train them because they’re professionals and are driven to perform. So if you take all that money you pay to train and get no return from and put the right people (Including Management) on the front lines- you will not only save most of the money you spend on consultants but realize that the ones on the front lines are your real ROI.

By William Cosgrove

Recently there have been several articles posted about outdated and/or less than effective or ineffective (quick fix and cheap) SEO and Social Media plans being marketed to unaware and uniformed clients.

First of all if you are not familiar with a product or a service you should be seeking information and advice from various knowledgeable sources in order to make the right decision for you and your business. If you don’t as in anything you open yourself up to subpar or ineffective results.

Digital Marketing is an ecosystem where the seamless integration of a systems components is essential for its functioning - a central point where all the elements converge.  Today You must approach it holistically.

The complexities and constantly changing landscape of digital marketing takes the right tools, years of experience and constant study to be able to properly navigate and effectively  implement a truly effective marketing initiative.

To give you an idea of this complexity, I have brought up a few points here to convince you of the intricacies of Digital Marketing and its constant evolution.

 

Creating A Plan That Works

 Its location culture, ideals and its people make every business unique. Every marketing strategy, therefore, must also be unique and to do that you must understand your company and your local market.

You must have a strategy to generate interest for a specific product or idea. It’s an assessment of each individual company, and a constant work in progress in determining which forms of social media will work best for you.

 

1.Do you have a plan?

 

Website

 Did you know that now, thanks to Google’s Panda update bad web design and poor navigation will get you poor search rankings.  Google decided to start watching people’s habits in an effort to produce better search rankings.

So with that thought in mind Google rewards sites that have good navigation and design with higher organic search rankings because they stay longer and navigate

deeper.

 Compare that to a poorly designed web site that people simply land on the site and leave within seconds because of its look – Google in particular, but the others as well, will now penalize poor design by lowering its ranking on the organic search lists.

 

2. Is your website up to date technologically with website design that is easy to navigate?

 

SEO

3. Did you know that Organic SEO is more effective and will produce better results over the long term than Paid search?

 

Link Building

Did you know that it is becoming apparent that with the new algorithms used today, link building is something that can land you in trouble with search engines and possibly penalized you with lower page rankings and possibly being removed from other search engine listings .

On the other hand there are also articles out there advising businesses on how to increase their in links in order to improve their search rankings in Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

 

4. Do you want to take this chance?

If you want to improve your search engine rankings and attract new customers you might do better by creating good content to attract people with content that will engage them. This engagement will create the type of indirect links that the search engines are looking for today through comments and sharing-social interaction.

It can’t  be all about you anymore it also needs to be about what is important to them-How they feel about something and what is going to draw their interest. It is about bringing them to you not just you going to them.

And don’t confuse the word social as just sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus –to name a few - Because these are just a part of SEO as a whole as you will see.

A report released by Experian Marketing Services in mid January 2013 summarizing web trends of 2012 revealed that search engines are a key factor in web traffic sources.  Search won the web traffic race with a staggering 49% of traffic to web sites compared to 3.8% from Facebook and 1% from YouTube.

 

Citation Building

 

5. How many of you know this term? And are they up to date?

 

Citations are defined as references to your business name and address on other web pages, even if there is no link to your website.

Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms of the major search engines. Businesses with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than businesses with fewer citations.

 

Web Site Optimization

Today this could be defined as a seamless integration of system components which is essential to be able to function properly - a central point where all the elements converge. The coordination required to synchronize all the functions of a web site can be overwhelming.

 

6. Are you overwhelmed yet?

 

Web Page Optimization

“The web page is the most important social media development of all time. This is a weighty statement... but it’s also a true one.” Says  Steven Aresenault, CEO of One Big Broadcast.

“No other form of content sharing has had such a dramatic--and long-lasting--impact on companies. These pages serve to inform and attract. They are the first impressions and the final thoughts. And using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will reinforce what they do. Web page SEO is meant to increase a brand’s visibility.”

 

6. Do you know this?

 

Social Media Integration

The world of Digital Marketing has changed. Consumers are flocking to the Internet seeking information about their favorite brands and products. They want the immediacy of networking; they want the ease of web site posts; they want instant communication. 
 
And they’re willing to give their loyalties (as well as their dollars) to companies that offer these things through social integration.

 Social integration is the process of linking media forms to the Internet. It’s meant to increase a brand’s reputation, as well as subtly promote specific products or events.
 
It’s also connected to the way individuals shop. 
 
Consumers are now spending their time--and their money--online. They’re seeking out company web sites, utilizing social media as a way to learn and buy. It’s estimated that:
 
71% of users rely on online information for all of their purchasing.
 
79% of users seek out company social accounts (like Facebook or Twitter, etc.) to receive updates and incentives.
 
81% of active social media users favor companies and products found in their networks.
 
70% of active social media users do the majority of their shopping online.
 
The statistics are startling--if only because they can no longer be ignored. 
 
Social integration is linked to consumer awareness. Companies that embrace networking, blogging and more become part of an ever-expanding circle of accounts. They are connected directly to the demographics they need, bringing traffic to their sites.
 
A business that isn’t integrated is a business that’s losing money.

 

7.Were you aware of this?

 

SEO and Social Automation Platforms

there are also SEO and Social automation platforms available that can save valuable time which translates into valuable resources. But the key to how they function is in their design and the team behind it who will be consulting on a consistent basis  on changes and new developments and strategies that will keep you at peak performance.

 

8. Do you know about SEO and Social Automation Platforms and how they function?

9. Did do you know they existed?

 

Analytics

Measure, measure, measure.  Analytics are an essential component required to measure the effectiveness of you marketing. You must be able to gauge where your marketing is being the most effective and adjust accordingly.

Your marketing company should be consulting you on a regular basis to help you understand the information contained in the analytics that they provided and work with you on adjusting to increase you marketing’s effectiveness.

One article I read this past week that made a good point that a company that does not offer analytics is a company be should avoided-. Good advice. And another pointed out that if they don’t want to do an audit of your current marketing platform before they start making suggestions or giving you prices-Walk away-More good advice.

 

10. Do you have SEO and Social Analytics?

 

There were 10 questions throughout this article. Did you answer them? How did you answer them?  Where you familiar with them? Or maybe you had just heard about or read a little about them.

If you are unsure or unaware of any of the questions posed throughout this article it may be time to have a SEO and Social Integration specialist audit your marketing initiatives effectiveness.

If you are a Dealer Principal or General Manager you must understand the enormous impact of all this is too great not to have some knowledge so you can at least ask the right questions and stay informed on a continual basis. This is not something that you just sign up for and forget-it is a process that must constantly be monitored and adjusted to maintain or improve its effectiveness.

To give you an idea of the impact of an ongoing, properly structured and executed plan- I can tell you that I am personally aware of a dealer client who holds the top spot in many high traffic search terms and has increased web traffic and visitors by 400% and sales by 25% by having the properly integrated platform in place supported by knowledgeable professionals.

 

11. Did that spark your interest?  

 

And as I stated at the beginning of this article these are only some of the components that are involved in structuring an effective Digital Marketing campaign. Content and strategies must be constantly changing and adjusted to keep up with new Technologies, Social Trends and Changes in search engines sophisticated algorithms.

This post is only to make you aware of the complexity of the rapidly changing Digital World of marketing with the hope that you will delve deeper and get specialized competent advice- and one more question- 12. Will you be rewarded for your efforts? I’ll answer this one-Yes.

Written by Bill Cosgrove

DealerNet Services