Dealers in the News
By: Ken Karg
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Over the last few years, search engines have become a dominant starting point for online auto shoppers. Strategies to leverage search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are continually sucking up a lot of dealer budgets to maintain high rankings on these channels.
While this is happening, auto retailers are seeing a substantial drop in the effectiveness of traditional auto channels like newspaper, television and radio while those costs continue to rise. Clearly the world is moving online for much more than reading an article or two or watching some funny videos. Auto retailers need to develop a comprehensive "new tech marketing strategy" to more fully leverage all the online opportunities.
The focus is on search engine marketing (pay per click) and development of micro sites so more content and pages link to and from your standard website. These are designed to move dealers up in the search engine rankings, generate more traffic to your website and thus bring in more leads. This is a solid strategy and many vendors working with dealers especially web site design and hosting companies have SEO and SEM functionality which greatly helps in this area.
What dealers are also finding out is "content is king." This simply means quality content and information is among one of the top drivers of traffic to various websites. Many dealers have started to recognize the value of news or press releases to gain more visibility on the web and to boost the content on their websites.
For a long time local dealers have been active in sponsoring charity events, community activities and even establishing scholarships for local students at colleges or area technical schools. Many auto shoppers make their buying decision based on a dealerships level of community involvement. Additionally, they are not only looking for the best deal but often researching a dealer's reputation in the market. We've taken for granted, that part of being a local business community means giving back to that community. But with technology and a consumer's ability to quickly gather information from sources all over the world more buying choices and information are now just a click away. In order to leverage this research migration dealers are now putting out press releases that announce their involvement in these programs. A properly written press release focusing on your mission, the activity you want to highlight and your standing in the community can be a powerful marketing tool and certainly a valuable component of your "new tech marketing strategy."
Once you decide to embark on a media campaign with a press release strategy, you have a number of choices for resources to assist you in this area. There are many public relations firms that can help you write a release, but often they require a comprehensive contract for their full PR services. If your company already has an ad agency you might also inquire if they offer those services. Unless you have an in-house expert writer you want to leave the task of writing the release to a professional who knows how to structure the content and present your company in the best possible way.
Writing the release is only part of the process. Once it is written you need to find the right media channel or distribution network and this will depend upon your goals for putting out the release. The main wire services are PRNewswire.com and BusinessWire.com. Each requires the distributing company to have an annual subscription of a few hundred dollars in order to access their systems. There are a number of "free" PR sites on the Internet but most of them have limited reach, limit links and are cumbersome to utilize. They also push heavily for you to upgrade to their pay services, again which are often not very effective against the more professional channels. To find services that will help you write and distribute the release will usually cost between $500 to $1000 depending upon the category or level of distribution you want to leverage. As a regional dealer you usually do not national distribution, so look for channels which offer local and regional media distribution.
Topics for the release are also important. You do not want to put out a news release that touts you are offering "Employee Pricing" or that you now have in the stock the new "Windsor 800 XT" for your customers, or you have some great lease pricing on selected models. These are not newsworthy events unless you are doing something special on a local level. If you are throwing a "private reception" at your dealership for local customer and prospects to announce the new "Windsor 800 XT" and will have a local celebrity there to sign autographs, then that might be something worth promoting.
For frequency of releases I suggest putting out a release every six to eight weeks. Again, if you truly have something newsworthy, then by all means put out a release. I believe you will find this strategy will help raise search engine rankings, give you good content for your "In the News" section of your website and provide some good ancillary marketing materials.
Ken Karg is a former dealer owner and consultant/trainer for the automotive industry. He is also the Vice President of Dealer Development for www.DealerPressRelease.com.
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