Articles

Is increased competition leading to lower gross deals?

The COVID Boom has definitely come to an end. The last 2-3 years brought unprecedented demand and limited supply. This made selling every piece of inventory you could get your hands on at maximum profit like shooting fish in a barrel!

Dealers are telling us we're getting back to a pre-pandemic style of business again...most dealers are fully stocked with inventory (with more on the way), flooring costs are back, sales people need to be retrained, and dealers in every market are already discounting to move product. All of this is leading to increased competition and lower gross deals...

Hey, it couldn't last forever right?

Instead of pushing inventory to CycleTrader & other third party listing sites which only increase competition, we drive riders to your website, where you control price so you can hold more margin per deal.

Our clients are utilizing a 4 part marketing strategy to create more predictable traffic and growth for their business. 

PSM Marketing is…

1) Proactively serving their inventory to riders in their market, reaching them where they already are…on Facebook, IG, Google & YouTube.
2) Driving in-the-market customers and prospects to THEIR WEBSITE, instead of CycleTrader and other 3rd party listing sites which only increase competition.
3) Automatically mining their database to create hundreds of additional sales opportunities every single month, and increase annual customer value in PG&A.
4) ReTargeting their online shoppers with the inventory they viewed in their inbox & everywhere else they go online to push their shoppers through the sales funnel faster.

All the while saving money by working with one vendor, with all their reporting on one screen, one bill, one rep and no contract…

Call or text us at 770-692-1750 to learn more & have a great close to the month!

It has been one crazy year! Who knew it would take a pandemic to create record months? A few short months ago when Governors were closing businesses down, we all thought our industry might really be in trouble. And then the opposite happened. Families skipped their normal vacations, found a few extra bucks in their pocket from the government and said screw it, let’s go buy a SxS, a motorcycle, a boat or an RV. So instead of going out of business, the average dealer was overwhelmed with demand like they’ve never seen before and now most dealers are out of inventory. Crazy. 

To help dealers combat this rollercoaster of a year, we rolled out our new ‘Integrated Display Marketing program’. It’s designed to truly roll with the punches and specifically address the four greatest needs of a dealership’s business each and every month. We found a few major opportunities that existed this year for the average dealer. Most dealers’ digital advertising was fragmented…web banners on the website didn’t match the YouTube ads, which didn’t match social media posts, which didn’t match the remarketing they were running and everything was simply pulling in different directions. But to be fair, unless you had a full-time marketing manager who doubled as a graphic artist, happened to be Facebook & Google Certified Expert and had hours and hours to devote to ensuring everything online was pulling in the same direction every single week while you were dealing with unprecedented demand…it probably wasn’t the highest item on your priority list. 

The pandemic didn’t just create crazy demand, it also created crazy opportunity in social media marketing. You had the perfect storm of less businesses advertising on social media (due to COVID) and more people spending more time on social media than ever before (due to COVID) which created the perfect opportunity to get massive advertising results for a very limited expense.

Like the title said, we’ve had multiple clients get over 200k impressions exclusively to their buying base of past customers and a look-alike audience in their market (AKA their competitor’s customers who buy what they sell, live in their backyard, but haven’t bought from them yet) and over 6,000 clicks to their website for less than $600 in one month. If you would’ve told me at any point in the past half decade that was possible, I wouldn’t told you you’re crazy. 

With that type of fire power, our Integrated Digital Marketing Program helps dealers fix their ever-evolving challenges by changing each month based on the up-to-date needs of their business. You pick up to four categories each month that you need to focus on and you set the budget; we take care of the rest. Our in-house graphic artists create artwork for each of your four categories to display across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube & Google’s Display Network which requires dozens of different shapes and sizes. They also create web banners featuring those same categories for your website. Next, our in-house digital marketing experts go to work managing those four individual campaigns across four platforms targeting your buying base, with individual budgets and geo-targeting so you get the maximum results possible. Once they leave your website, we remarket to them with the same ad that brought them to your website initially. This ‘Be Everywhere’ strategy pushes folks through the sales funnel faster so you can sell more of everything.

Service down? Let's push service this month. MotorClothes/Apparel off? Let's focus one of your four categories on PG&A. Inventory shortages? Our clients are buying better units at costs well below the auction from customers and prospects in their backyard that they can turn around and make a healthy margin on. In-fact, we helped a dealer in Canada buy back 65 pre-owned units in 6 weeks using this program. Another dealer in New York bought back 35 units in one month. Another in Detroit has been running these campaigns for the past three months and all three dealers are the only dealers with any inventory in their markets. Check out some real results from dealers just like you across North America and call or text us at (770) 692-1750 to learn how we can help you specifically address the four greatest needs of your business each and every month. Happy selling.

We’ve worked with well over a thousand dealers of all sizes and brands in every corner of the country and  often get asked the question:  “Should I do Facebook or Google, Instagram or You Tube, Search or Display and Re-Targeting?”  This all gets pretty confusing with so many generic terms like Pay Per Click and Digital Advertising.

Below is some clarification as well as a list of pros and cons with a different perspective on how to answer that overwhelming question. 


1.    Search Advertising: This is primarily Google Ads and is your basic sponsored listing that shows up when someone searches in Google (Formerly AdWords - I’m going to leave out Bing and Yahoo for the sake of this article because Google is the 800 pound gorilla). 

Pros:
•    Hot Traffic from current in the market consumers.
•    Excellent source to conquest new in the market consumers who haven’t done business with you in the past. 
•    Low funnel leads with higher conversion opportunity. 

Cons: 
•    Arguably you’re paying for traffic you could have gotten for free through organic. 
•    Often shopping for the best price.
•    Because of its auction type bidding, can get pricey in competitive areas. 

2.    Interests / Interruption Advertising: Paid ads on Facebook and Instagram, Google Display Network and YouTube. *Side note: Facebook owns Instagram and Google owns YouTube. 

Pros: 
•    Warm traffic that found you while not really planning to.
•    Users are seeking an escape on this media and your products provide an escape. 
•    Typically very affordable.
           
Cons:
•    May not currently be in the market. (Higher Funnel Lead Opportunity)
•    Less likely to convert into an actual lead on your site. 
•    Potentially paying for wasteful clicks. 

With regards to Search ads, by now you’re likely familiar with the common KPI’s of impressions, clicks, click through rate, conversions, and conversion rates. And, that’s all good stuff.  It’s refreshing to pay for advertising and have some data to back up your decision. However, all clicks and conversions are not equal and unfortunately we don’t have uniformity in how these metrics are being calculated. So, it can be difficult to compare apples to apples with your dealership’s results and your peers in a 20 group. 

For starters, how many of your clicks and conversions came from your Dealership’s name searches versus those who directly search for the year, make, model of their interest. Anytime you must “pay per click” for your dealership’s name, you can’t help but wish you’d have gotten that same click for free from the Map Pack or your organic listing. They may have just been looking for your phone number to call and check on their parts on order  or unit in service, and therefore you haven’t really earned a positive ROI on that paid click. In contrast, the person who is in the market for a new unit, has no real loyalty or affiliation with a local dealer and is just searching for a 2021 Polaris Ranger - Now that’s a click and a conversion your happy to pay for. 

For the record, I’m not saying that paying for clicks to your own dealership is all bad, it really is a dealer preference and budget decision. Many metro markets are super competitive, and some are downright ruthless. 

Then there is the interruption marketing. This can be with Facebook and Instagram paid ads and boosted posts, as well as on YouTube and the Google Display Network, which are those annoying pop up ads on the weather channel, Fox News, and other high traffic media sites.  These are paid ads that don’t typically convert as well as search, but they do get a lot of clicks to your site for a very reasonable ad spend. 

Because FB and IG are closed loop universes, they have tons of demographic and psychographic data on their users likes and interests and therefore can serve up ads that are almost creepy they are so relevant. Google’s getting better and better at interruption marketing on their platforms as YouTube continues to capture more interest information from its user base.  It’s also possible to build lookalike audiences and even upload your email lists to make your campaigns perform better. 

And this brings me to re-targeting, also known as re-marketing, whereby your ads are served up to those who have visited your website. These ads are sometimes referred to as stalker ads, but in reality, are highly targeted with zero waste unless the customer has already purchased from you. Conversions from re-targeting are usually low funnel. 
But, here’s where things get tricky for dealership specific search and interruption marketing. What most consider to be Google and Facebook advertising is simply building out a few generic ads, set the budget and geo-targeting, and then letting them run all month long usually routing the traffic to generic pages (which only create high funnel conversions).  

This works and gets solid results, but there is a much better way. 

We call it Dynamic Inventory advertising. With Dynamic search we download your website inventory every night and programmatically build an ad for every unit that links directly to the vehicle details page of that unit. So, if you have 250 units in stock, you have a custom ad for each of those rebuilt every night with landing pages completely relevant to the person’s search; therefore, making it a much lower funnel conversion. 

We’re also dialing in Dynamic Advertising for interruption marketing within FB, IG, and the Google Display network through re-targeting. So when a customer visits your website and views a specific vehicle, we then retarget them with that very unit and similar ones in your inventory through paid ads on FB, IG, and Google Display/YouTube and link them back to that VDP rather than your home page. It’s super trick and produces much lower funnel conversions with practically zero waste. 

So, to answer the question, “Should I do Facebook or Google, Instagram or You Tube, Search versus Display and Re-Targeting? The answer is, you absolutely should be doing it all because it flat out works and the results are so transparent and so quantifiable.  

You really should give it a try, and we’d love the opportunity to earn your business, so give us a call or shoot us a text at 770-692-1750. 
 

Discover a little-known multi-touch approach that utilizes only the best performing channels to increase business from your customer data base and your competitor’s customers!

If you’re like the other high-performing dealers we work with, you’re probably tired of your digital advertising. Maybe you feel like you should be getting better results, or your ads are stale and haven’t been updated in months. Perhaps the artwork and copy in your ads is lame. 

If you feel like your ads aren’t being updated or that they’re lame… guess what?  Your customers and prospects feel the same way, and it’s reducing the effectiveness and results of your budget. 

If you’d like to achieve better results, you’ve got to check out PSM’s Integrated Digital Marketing Program. This program leverages Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Google Remarketing so customers and prospects see you everywhere they go. Good digital advertising stays on you like a spider-monkey until you buy (thanks Ricky Bobby). You’ve probably looked at a product online, saw ads for it everywhere the following days, and ended up buying. We all have – that’s why this program works so well.

With the Integrated Digital Marketing Program, you pick the categories you to focus on. You get four categories by default, and you can choose more for small increase in your monthly amount. Most dealers choose the following: 1. The dealership; 2. An OEM (promo); 3. Parts special; 4. Service special. After you choose the categories, we go to work creating graphics and building the best digital ads that money can buy for your dealership. 

The graphic creation was a big factor when we created the Integrated Digital Marketing Program. Over the years, we’ve picked up the fact that a lot dealers struggle with whether they should hire a graphic artist. 

The need for graphic updates is expounded because there aren’t millions of people in your market area for you to target. This increases the importance of having new ads for them to see. When the small group of people see the same ad over and over, they learn to ignore you. We created the IDMP with this in mind. 

Each month you have the flexibility to change the categories or keep them the same. If a big OEM promotion comes up and you want us to move in that direction, we’ll jump on it. We update your graphics and optimize your ads monthly so your ads stay fresh and relevant. 

On a side note, if you’ve not checked out Firestorm Email lately, we have over 200 themes and hundreds of Done-For-You graphics to choose from. Schedule a demo and check our industry-leading open rates, marketing automation, and email hygiene system. It’s a really incredible tool.

Back to the Integrated Digital Marketing Program.  We invest your ad spend the very best way possible… targeting actual customers and real prospects. Nothing’s worse than wasting your budget on an unqualified people who won’t buy from you. That’s why we go after your past customers and a lookalike group of competitor’s customers. In other words, we strategically target the people who are most likely to respond and buy something from you. 

Lastly, we often hear grumblings from new clients of painful experiences with their previous provider. If you hate dealing with under-performing people at big companies who treat you like you’re just another number, PSM is for you. Our responsibility is to take care of our clients better than any other company can or will, and we take that seriously. We’ll answer the phone when you call, do what we say we’re going to do, and treat you like your business is appreciated. Because it is! Don’t just take my word for it, do a quick google search and check our Google reviews, or visit www.psmmarketingreviews.com. 

So, if you’re interested in a multi-touch approach using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube & Google Remarketing that targets customers and prospects to drive results in the categories that you choose every month and provides professional management with true monthly optimizations, then you’ll love this program. 

Schedule a demo by clicking the DIGITAL MARKETING link from our website.