Auto Dealers: Don't Let Internet Marketing Myths Eat Your Bottom Line

By David Ponn, CEO
Search Optics, Inc.
San Diego, CA

Successful Internet marketing is not magic, and it’s not hard to understand. In fact, all you need to know to be successful are a couple of simple facts:

1. The people who build Internet search engines are running flat out to stay ahead of the marketers who manipulate Internet search engines. You absolutely need to know who’s ahead at any given moment.

2. Automotive retailing is about generating quality leads and converting them to sales – period. If you’re a dealer, nothing else matters.

These simple facts are the basis of all successful Internet marketing campaigns, and ignorance of these simple facts is the reason for all unsuccessful ones. To see how you can put this knowledge to work, and avoid being bitten by the myths surrounding them, a little history is in order.

It All Started When Google Became A Verb

Until search engines like Google came on the scene, the Internet was a chaotic place with eight billion pages filed in random order and no index. Since there is no way to alphabetize the Internet like a phone book, Google set out to organize the world’s information on the web. Their organization progress has been remarkable, but not the real key to Google’s success.

What makes Google, Yahoo! and MSN viable is relevance — the ability to sort through those eight billion pages, plus all of the new ones added each day, and quickly deliver the page most relevant to the searched terms. That’s a much more difficult task than simply indexing them.

Google began asking the people who put pages on the Internet to describe what they were about, and the Meta Tag was born. That is the little bit of code on a Web page that nobody except a search engine ever sees.

Using Meta Tags, the Web builder could tell a search engine which inquiries their page was relevant to. It worked like a charm, until marketers figured out that salting Web pages with Meta Tags, mirroring words commonly used in inquiries, would drive traffic to their sites.

And they did, so the race was on for Google to redefine relevance.

Next, the search engines began looking into the content of Web sites to find relevant information. And marketers started using high frequency search words in their copy.

The search engines again shifted gears and started evaluating Web sites based on how they were linked to other Web sites. Marketers responded with hundreds of dummy Web sites that existed only to link with their real pages and drive traffic to them.

Now, Google and some of the other search engines are starting to look at what people are saying about a Web site as a way to determine its relevance. And the marketers are beginning to catch on to that ploy, too.

All of which brings us to the first Internet marketing myth with the power to eat your bottom line.

Myth 1: Meta Tags Matter

Once upon a time, Meta Tags were an important part of a Web site. But that was three full generations of search engine evolution ago. Today, you still need Meta Tags on your Web site, but they account for less than 5 percent of its total search engine score.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but any Web-related sales pitch built around Meta Tags should instantly trigger your BS detector.

Myth 2: There Is Only One Right Way To Do Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Actually, there are many approaches to SEO, and you need to be doing all of them all the time. If you haven’t heard that, it’s probably because you’ve been talking to someone with too narrow a focus – an SEO company, a Web developer, or a Pay-Per-Click provider. Each of them has something different to sell you, and each of them will tell you that what they’re selling is all you need.

It isn’t.

If you can avoid the Meta Tag and SEO myths, you are well on your way to Internet marketing success. But avoiding the myths is only half the battle. You also need to harness the real power of the Internet to generate the leads that turn into sales.

Power Tip #1: You Can’t Close A Click

Both of the myths I’ve just described are directly related to the idea that a “click” on your Web site can somehow be turned into a sale in your showroom. That’s simply not true. What you need are not “clicks,” what you need right now are phone calls from motivated customers who know you have something they want to buy.

We’ll talk about the value of email inquiries another time. But for immediate results, nothing beats a phone call and if you can’t determine how many phone calls your marketing budget is bringing, it may be time to ask yourself “why?” Clicks only matter when they turn into something you can close, like a phone call.

Power Tip #2: Stick To What You Know How To Do

Every successful auto retailer knows exactly how many phone calls it takes to generate a sale or a service appointment. And every successful automotive sales person knows how to convert a phone call from a motivated customer into a sale.

Your Web site should be there to generate those phone calls – period. Anything else is a waste of time and money. If your Internet marketing efforts aren’t tightly focused on generating phone calls, chances are you’ve bought into some myths that are eating your bottom line.

Power Tip #3: Measure, Measure, Measure

Like it or not, Internet marketing is part of your business today, and is going to be a more important part of it tomorrow. You expect print and broadcast advertising to generate quality leads, why expect anything less of your Web site?

Look, everyone in the automotive retailing business can tell you at least one Internet marketing horror story. It almost always involves a slick sales pitch with lots of charts and graphics, an ample amount of arcane jargon, and a whopping big bill – followed by nothing much at all.

As I said in the beginning, successful Internet marketing is not magic, and it’s not hard to understand. Keeping the myths away from your bottom line is as easy as:

1. Approaching Internet marketing as you would any other business decision

2. Setting reasonable performance expectations based on phone contacts from motivated buyers — and nothing else

3. Tracking the results so you can make even smarter decisions in the future.

Follow those simple steps, and your bottom line will be healthier — and myth-free.

Search Optics CEO, David Ponn, is a senior level executive and business strategist who has worked in marketing, business development, program management, and strategic planning for Dow 30, Fortune 500, and a variety of privately held businesses. An expert in organizational development and change management, Mr. Ponn manages the development and implementation of Search Optics’ programs that help automotive retailers take full advantage of the power of Internet marketing. He lives in San Diego, CA with his wife and daughter.

Search Optics specializes in helping automotive retailers implement trackable, measurable Internet marketing campaigns to improve sales. Using a full range of leading-edge Internet marketing methodologies, business-friendly online strategies, e-commerce tactics, and their “Uptracs” proprietary tracking software, the San Diego, CA based company has been delivering the power of Internet sales to auto dealers across the United States since 1998.

Dealers interested in optimizing their Internet marketing investment can contact David Ponn, at (800) 429-4460 or send him an e-mail at nomyths@searchoptics.com.