Welcome to second PGI AUTO TRAINING SEMINAR-

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2 Welcome to second PGI AUTO TRAINING SEMINAR- Helping our dealers navigate the complex and ever changing Web space and help to generate the most leads became PGI s mission- therefore my personal passion. Digital marketing has changed dramatically since our last seminar and regardless of who does digital marketing for you, knowing these concepts will make you a better dealer and it will allow you to make better choices about what you think will work for your dealer. The programs and technologies that we will analyze has been our earnest attempt to address your changing needs and deliver smart solutions and choices. Countless hours of research, classes, seminars, and field experience are needed to compile this conference workbook. Our goal is to stay ahead of the curve. Today I am very grateful to this opportunity to connect to our PGI dealers and address some of the subjects you have been asking for quite some time. Hopefully you take with you helpful tips and fresh ideas to better your daily operation. We are here to educate. Yago Paramo

3 Terms of use: This PGI Digital Marketing Strategies workbook is designed to enhance the educational and learning experience of the PGI s training seminars. The materials in this workbook are for the private business of all the registered attendees. The materials containing in this workbook should not be copied, digitally transmitted, photo copied, or modified without written permission from Paramo Group Inc. Note to the dealers: We use many local examples in our workbook as they make the best to understand what things are since we are all familiar with this area. These examples are for the purpose of learning and identifying areas of improvement. The goal is to stay ahead of the curve. We are here to learn and educate. Digital marketing is about 1000 little things and we all have areas to improve. We could cover an entire day seminar with just one of the subjects here but time is of the essence and we hope to provide a good overview of many aspects. This workbook is designed to provide a starting point and for you to follow up on learning. We also want to offer you the knowledge to do things on your own, to have us do things for you, or to do a mix of both. Legal Counsel: PGI doesn t offer legal counsel of any kind. In the event that you have any doubts about advertising strategies, pricing systems, etc consult with your own layer.

4 1 I liked this image from Cardone the moment I saw it. As simple as it is it brings a simple message: Stay positive. Regardless how overwhelming this new technologies may feel you are already a step ahead of everyone else because you are here and you will get most of the knowledge that you need to know what to do and what not to do. Stay positive because this is not that hard, twenty year old kids figure these things out. Any car guy with 10+ years of experience has more business battles and deals in his resume than all these geeks together. Just stay positive, focus, and take the time to learn these things. It will all come together. Extra Credit: You will see these color coded messages, in the book, this is what they mean: Online research: Links to go online and learn more about a subject. Advanced: Things you should/could do after you get the main subject handled. 1 Copyright Cardone Training Technologies Inc.

5 Online reputation: The building blocks of digital presence. There is nothing more important than understanding your online reputation. Online reviews has been shadowed from dealers because of so many other things, especially social media, have been happening around digital advertising during 2010/2011. Online reviews are detached from anything else you do; they are not related to advertising, internet sales, or even how you do things, but they affect your business as a whole. They will affect your bottom line. If your reputation is bad, your ad budget will support your competitors. Photo Credit: Brook Davis. Wired magazine. Let s understand reputation ratings and how it affects your dealer: 21% customers changed their dealer selection based on reviews (Cobalt research). 55% customers that bought a car were aware of their dealer reviews. In a recent article on Wired magazine (you should read this article) author Chris Colin perfectly describes the new digital culture: You don t have to read this essay to know whether you ll like it. Just go online and assess how provocative it is by the number of comments at the bottom of the web version. (If you re already reading the web version, done and done.) Customers have been taught by websites like Amazon, travel planning sites, REI, etc to take a quick glance at similar items next to each other and assert a value or a predisposition to check the merchandise based on the number of yellow stars that previous customers have left for them. We have learned to use the community to leave items on the side and make our decision strategy a little bit easier. So there is an undeniable result of these online reviews, people are rapidly getting used to check them before they buy anything items or services.

6 Customers spend an outstanding hours shopping online for a vehicle, so they will encounter this information at one point. Google review results: It is so important to notice that Google s new instant search will deliver your reviews as a search option when a customer types your name: The issue at hand is that: Online reviews can t get ignored. Customer will find your online reviews. Customers will decide who to do business with based in largely of online reviews. Online reviews must be managed. And why controlling these the right way: Bad reputation going viral A horror story from If you Google husker BMW you will see that Google also offers the key words m3 and ebay as a search option for that dealer.

7 Choose husker bmw m3 and you get 53,300 results. Choose husker bmw ebay and you get 54,200 results. All these are from a deal going bad back in Bad reviews hang around (good reviews too!). If you Google husker bmw reviews this is the 3 rd result (plus another 50K) that every customer will see: People continued to talk about this issue from 2008 until Websites targeting bad reputation: Companies that monetize the bad reviews business: In the next page s screenshot you can also see a company called Pissedconsumer.com that uses Tom Matson s name to index itself in their Goggle page one. They use their name to create a sub domain with a unique page they offer information about the deader, and they went and found all bad reviews about Matson and compiled them in one site. There are many other similar sites to this one: m

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9 Do you think you can fly under the radar? Look at a Google search for armadillo auto sales, a low key dealer in the big scheme of things. Pissedofcustomer.com is indexed in 5 th position in Google. This tells me that they have bought a list of dealers in WA and that they are targeting everyone. They just didn t type Armadillo Auto Sales by chance.

10 Things that we learned about online reputation: Good news is that we have learned a few things about this. You can t avoid getting some bad reviews and it is OK. The key is to have an overwhelming amount of good reviews. ebay power sellers know this. mcgeeleslie has 7825 ratings, 99.7% are good, a few bad ones make no difference. Solutions to online reputation: Why dealer rater is not a solution? You are adding your reviews into someone else platform and building their name. They sell advertising within your name. They can disappear, get sold, etc. If you are going to spend the time and energy building a reputation, use a digital asset that you own like for example Don t build your reputation in a page that sells advertisement around it. If dealer rater or a similar page goes out of business or sells, what will happen to your reviews? I spent years building my book collection on books.livingsocial.com and when they decided that this wasn t profitable for them, the business model had changed; I had to scramble to move my collection to goodreads.com.

11 Ford Hyundai of Kirkland with ads for another Hyundai and another Ford dealership right next to their reviews. You pay for a link that has links to your competitors to show when someone does a search under your name? Your advertisement budget is supporting the Ford and Hyundai community. Furthermore, a dealer told they bought their own space (there is something wrong about that, but ) what if next you have a banner on top of the page, bottom of the page, and side of the page? Does Autotrader bring any memories back? They are not bad people but this is the business model that has been used in the web advertising business for the last 10 years. The change needs to start with you. Create your OWN digital assets.

12 Real solutions, you already have it: If your dealership sells 50 cars and services 200 customers per month we have a way to go. Out of those 250 people, only very few will be so extremely angry or disappointed that they will go out of their way to write something bad. The balance is already in our favor: The majority of those 250 customers have good things to say about us, we just have to guide them and collect it. You need to start asking. This is done to you every day at many other stores: The cashier at Best Buy asks every single time if you want a warranty. The clerk at Barns and Noble asks every single time if you have a membership card. The cashier at the movie theater asks every single time if you are in their rewards program. You must implement a system that empowers your team both sales and service to ask clients for feedback and have a way for them to collect it. We have the tools for you to do that. You can also build them on your own, or ask your current website provider to build these for you. Asking nicely works. Our 2 web system: We have created a system composed of 2 websites that with a simple set up at the dealer level will allow you to collect plenty of reviews to offset any bad ones. We will also show a few ways to encourage your team to get these. The funnel site: ILOVEBRIENFORD.COM We create a funnel site that has links to all your major review accounts, in this case: Google Yelp CitySearch Brien Ford Reviews Yahoo Insider Pages

13 The links can be customized to the websites that the dealer needs more good reviews to focus on.

14 The website is best set up preferably on an IPAD with a protective OtterBox (show in the screenshot) but it can be also used from any regular computer terminal and have the salesperson ask while the customer is waiting for financial approval, paperwork, service delivery, etc. Did I do a good job showing you the vehicle? Could you rate me so my manager can see my progress? There are many ways to break the ice. Start by asking the customers if they have a Yelp account, Google, etc, and as a last resort of they don t have any account, they can leave reviews on your own review site. The review site: BRIENFORDREVIEWS.COM Building your own review site is building a digital asset for the future. Your own review site should be the last asset where we guide customers to leave reviews, but if they don t own any other account to work with it is better to have it in our own pages than to lose it. Besides the IPAD and any PC, you can also use the old version of collecting reviews and then add them to the review site. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 14 P a g e

15 Customers have access to a vast number of reviews and information about the dealer. Our goal is that customers that get to this site get a feeling that they know who these people are and who they are dealing with. We pay attention to integrate social media feeds, links to the main site, etc. Each review gets its own page; individually key worded in the URL, area the customer lives, and other specific key words such as the vehicle, reviews, etc. These will index very quickly. WA locations are listed and reviews archived by area. This provides great SEO as well as customers see the dealer from a different perspective: You cover more than just the city where you are located. URL key word detail. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 15 P a g e

16 And the result is a site that indexes under your name and reviews taking first place, second, and ninth in Google s page one. It also indexes if you search just for Brien Ford (minus reviews key word). Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 16 P a g e

17 Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 17 P a g e

18 A few things to remember: Just having reviews with 5 stars is not real. It is OK to have 2.5 stars and above. Anything below 2.5 stars is also OK to have but you should always try to address these before they go up. Pretty soon there will be one dealer in this market that will advertise itself as: The highest rated Toyota dealer in WA. Reviews have a huge unexploited value in many advertising avenues. You can also advertise with-in. Put on the front page of your website Come see Mike Smith, our highest rated salesperson. As soon as 3 or 4 customers start asking for Mike Smith the rest of the sales team will get on getting reviews. Add your ILOVE Site to your business cards and promote within the dealer a culture of asking for reviews. This simple graphic on your home page will drive your sales team into overdrive to get reviews for you. Advanced: When asking about reviews, once we have a good number of positive reviews, we need to now focus on long reviews. Customers are looking to read about the experience, so reviews like great service, good people, etc are not helpful after a while. Rules about taking action: Thank and praise people that gave good reviews. Thank you for helping us notice Marks performance It feels good to hear we were able to help DO-NOT-ENGAGE anyone leaving a bad review like you would like to do: You will lose EVERY-TIME. You will lose even if you give away the farm. Others will join your opposition. No-one will defend you. No-body will care for your side. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 18 P a g e

19 Engage by saying things like: Dear Mr. Smith. May name is Geoff Wilkins and I m the general manager of Wilkins Toyota. Please feel free to call me at your earliest convenience at so we can resolve this situation. Dear Mr. Smith. May name is Geoff Wilkins and I m the general manager of Wilkins Toyota. I will be glad to meet with you in person to resolve this problem. This is how people feel about themselves when they contact you via online, chat, even and the feel that is their right that you help them. This is how the same person feels about themselves when they come to see you in person, you greet and treat them properly, and they realize that it is in your power to help them. And this is how they feel about you anyway: Why and IPAD when I have workstations at the dealership? Some review sites like Yelp will look at the IP address of the system sending the review. Since dealers usually have a static IP address (that means it doesn t change) at one point they may filter those reviews. Google went back and forth with this type of IP policy several times last year. Since it is unclear what they will do we recommend using an IPAD with a wireless connection so the IP changes almost every time it gets reconnected. When are bad reviews good? Bad reviews are good when we can see a pattern. At that point it becomes a management problem about changing behavior at the store. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 19 P a g e

20 Social media + reviews power in perspective: Let s put the power of social media and online reviews in perspective: Some of my younger field photographers have or more friends in Facebook. Many of these Facebook friends can also be friends, as these systems share data, with people in Yelp. Even reviews in Yelp can immediately be shared in Facebook. If that field photographer, and that goes for any other vendor, employee, etc that you have, felt mistreated on a consistent basis could possible write a negative story about how the management of the business treated him terribly. 600 friends that have another 600 friends each (young people seem to be all friends with each other) and you have a 360,000 bad publicity stunt in your hands, all within the community around you. The screenshot below shows a dangerous profile in Yelp (figurative speech). With 466 friends she has an enormous reach, then check out the friends of her friends. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 20 P a g e

21 These are some of Sarah s friends. With just 4 of them she can influence 3000 people around your prime market. The reach of these reviews will make or destroy a business in the very near future. You must handle this right away. You don t think that people get involved with Yelp? This is a Seattle Yelper s profile that came on their weekely straight into my inbox. Her involvement and reach is undeniable. Online reviews can t be faked or tamed unless you acknowledge their power and establish a business policy at all levels about it. Our programs will help you focus those efforts and channel them into productive items, but more has to be done than 2 websites and a few links. As a business you should promote: Promote that you want feedback. Promote that you listen. Promote that you will change. Promote that it will make you better. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 21 P a g e

22 Asking for reviews: As a general rule: Don t ask your customers to open a new account to leave a review for you. Ask your customers if they already have an account and use the review in whatever site that may be. If they don t, then use your own review pages. Online research: You can find help and information at this links: For filter FAQ for business tools. Understanding Yelp is a good thing for understanding review sites in general. Yelp filters: Yelp will filter reviews that it feels are not legit (even if they are!). They look for things like we show in the screenshot below like how old is the account, how many business reviews it has, how customized it is, etc. See the screenshots below. NOTE: We recently tried to boot an account to see what happened and added 5 positive reviews within a 2 week period. All the accounts were from good well established Yelpers. All the positive reviews got filtered then on the other hand a bad review that was posted at that time shows up in the account. This experience tells us a few things: You need a steady increase. They are watching sudden flows of 4-5 star ratings. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 22 P a g e

23 There is a link at the bottom of your Yelp reviews that shows the number of filtered reviews. If you click in the link you will have access to them so you can see what is going on. Notice in the screen shoot that all these reviews have a few things in common: Brand new accounts. No photo (no customized). Just one review. No friends. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 23 P a g e

24 Yelp also sends a weekly newsletter with local information. So far they focus on restaurants, bars, etc, but if one of the weekly highlighted Yelpers below is writing about your business, you will get noticed. This is not a scare the dealer seminar. This is a tremendous power that can be used very positively. Remember the things that we have seen and use them: Top rated dealer in Yelp! Top rater Honda dealer in Yelp! Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 24 P a g e

25 Know your dealer: As we started creating review sites for more and more dealers a few things came to our attention. First of all we wanted to have a logo that described what a review site is without any tricks to the customer. We came up with the Know your dealer logo. The review site is not going to trick anyone; it is s site owned and managed by the dealer, but none the less it is a site that records the community interactions with the dealer. It not only has reviews but also their social media integrated making this statement even truer. I always wanted this to be a about us on steroids. Secondly came the realization that by feeding and combining all these reviews in one site we could link all these back to the dealer and their main website and therefore doing some extra work on link backs and deep linking. We were looking to enhance the SEO power of the review sites over all. Know your dealer doesn t sell advertising on your pages and it doesn t cost extra. Know your dealer will optimize your pages, will provide back links to your digital assets, it will index one more page for your business, and it make your business how in more searches. The system builds individual highly key worded pages for each participating dealer with RSS feeds from their reviews site as well as from their blogs. Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 25 P a g e

26 For more information on Online Reputation contact: Geoff Wilkins Director of National Sales Ph: Ext 112 Cell: Fax : geoff@pgiauto.com Paramo Group Inc. CONFIDENTIAL. Illegal to distribute without written authorization. 26 P a g e