A brief, but pointedly confused, open letter to Google.

Dear Google,

We, local, online marketers do love you. You have brought us great innovation in organizing the world's information. You have brought many local businesses the opportunity to capture new customers and advertise on a fairly even playing field (budget aside) with the big boys. But, why oh why, would you confuse your user and your local advertisers by removing any reference to dates on your now notorious Google Places + Local Pages (naming confusion intended).

I do give you much credit. I do believe your team is top-notch. I do wish I had folks like Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts on my team.  In this most recent change, however, I am perplexed.

Consumer view:

I use Google to find information… recent, relevant, timely, etc. etc. If I am researching potential purchases and comparing Business A to Business B, how could I not benefit from knowing when a review was made? Maybe Business A used to be abysmal but listened to the consumer feedback and has since changed.  Maybe Business B used to be a shining beacon of consumer satisfaction but made some poor hiring decisions that have since diminished its previous standards of customer satisfaction. But how do I know? Without dates on these reviews, how do I know if a business has improved its service over time or not?

I have been flexible and changed with you from 5 stars to 4 words to 30 points etc., but this change has really hurt me.

Business view:

I need more customers.

I like Google because I can use it to get more customers. I want my customer experience to be transparent. I want consumers to be happy.

How on earth can I engage with my own listing page, understand and participate in a strategy that leaves no reference to time?

Please. Dear Google. Help.

Google, you can contact me with an explanation at brice.englert@drivedominion.com. I’d be happy to reply using my Android phone.  I’ve included screenshots and links to various businesses affected by this change, in multiple industries.

 

Sincerely,

Brice Englert

General Product Manager
Dominion Dealer Solutions

 



Where are the dates?

 

[highlight color="#fddcaf" font="black"]We're getting some conversation and sharing rolling this weekend with a post by Brian Pasch. He's looking for the answer to what appears to be a simple question. But, is it?[/highlight]

Why Buy A New Vehicle From Your Dealership?

I love working with car dealers to create a comprehensive marketing road map that integrates traditional, digital, and social media marketing channels.

The more I work with dealers, I am finding that the dealers starting point to create a solid marketing plan begins with a simple question. This question seems to be difficult for most dealers and their staff to answer effectively.

The question is simple:
Why would anyone purchase their next vehicle form your dealership?

Create Your List in 3 Minutes - If you can

Before you read any further, take this quick test. Grab a piece of paper and give yourself three minutes to write down 3 or more reasons why a local consumer should buy a car from your dealership.

Do it right now and then let's review what you wrote down; it's not as easy as you might think within a three minute time frame.

If you are really interested in a test, call your sales team together for a quick huddle. Hand out paper and pens to everyone. Ask the sales team to write down five reasons why a consumer should buy a car from them in three minutes.

Let's see what those responses look like. You will find that at least half of the team will not be able to provide anymore than 3 reasons in three minutes. Some will be tongue tied and others will get frustrated. I see this all the time when I ask this question.

Now that you have your responses, there are a few things that can be scratched off your list. Take a look to see if you provided any "white noise" responses from the list below.

Eliminate the white noise

The answers listed below are what I call "white noise" and they don't differentiate your dealership from any local competitors:

• We take great care of our customers!
  
• We offer the best deals!
  
• We treat our customers like family!
  
• We have the largest inventory!
  
• We have the lowest prices!
  
• We are not like other car dealers!

If you included any of the white noise answers in your responses, cross them out. If you read the newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch TV you will see that these statements are used all the time from local dealers interchangeably.

So, without all the white noise, how many real points of differentiation were you able to provide in 3 minutes?

If you did provide more than 3 compelling reasons, you have probably taken some time recently to go through this exercise and already realized your marketing effectiveness had stalled. You needed a series of messages to cut through all the white noise. True?

Why is this exercise important?

Without a clear answer to this question you can't have an effective marketing strategy. Without this list you cannot create a consistent marketing message. Every customer facing employee must know these points by heart to reinforce your dealers marketing message. All their actions should reinforce the "Why Buy From Us" message each day, especially during a phone call!

Share your reasons why...

If you took the time to go back and list 3 or more great reasons why consumers should buy from your dealership, take a moment and share them here in the DealerRefresh forums.

This is a more critical task than you might think. Imagine the power of getting a clear message that was supported in all that you do at the dealership.

Lets get started - click here to share your reasons why anyone would purchase their next vehicle from your dealership.

[highlight color="#fddcaf" font="black"]Let's all do ourselves a favor and participate in this quick test. Feel free to comment around this post/topic below in the comments BUT click here to SHARE YOUR REASONS over in the forum.[/highlight]

Engaging and Fun Animated GIFs

A Simple Overlooked Technique - Yet so Effective

Last week, Google+ announced that you can use animated gifs for your profile photo, and provided some search results on how to get started. Playing nicely with gifs is yet another feature that Google+ has over Facebook, and I believe gifs should be a regular part of your content creation arsenal.

Because of their incredible longevity (in internet years, they're like a million years old), animated gifs are one of those internet curiosities that shouldn’t be ignored or dismissed as being just for kids. Yes, gifs can be annoying, especially when there are too many placed in close proximity of one another, but when used correctly, gifs can breathe life into otherwise static posts, and the possibilities for repurposing are immense.

With younger social media users, gifs are as popular as ever, if not moreso -- If you've ever used Tumblr, you know exactly what I mean.

Twitter's 6-second video app, Vine, sought to capitalize on the popularity of animated gifs by doing them one better and including audio, but I would argue that audio is the worst thing about Vine. Too much rustling wind and club noise dampens the experience for me.

Google+ makes adding an animated gif as your profile picture super easy -- just upload it as if it were any other photo. But, making your gifs work for you isn't always so simple. Here are a few examples and ideas for when to use them:

To use animated gifs inside of your Wordpress blog posts, you’ll want to set up an account at one of the many photo hosting sites. I like Photobucket because of its ease of use -- just keep in mind that it has a 5 MB file size limit. Once you upload your masterpiece to Photobucket, it will give you some link options, so click on “Direct Link” and your picture’s link will be automatically added to your clipboard:



Click on the "Direct Link" option.

Then, if you want to add the gif into a Wordpress post, go to "Add Media," and instead of uploading the gif, simply click on the “Insert from URL” option instead, and paste the Photobucket URL in the given space. Your gif should appear like so:



Insert from URL Option in Wordpress

Once you click on the "Insert into Post" button, your gif should show up in your draft straightaway:



Some weirdo plays the spoons at the sales meeting.

Gifs are a great way to capture some action when your subjects are too shy to speak on video. Let’s say your salesperson has great rapport with a sold customer, and you want to document it. The problem is, the customer isn't hip to the idea of an interview. Ask for their agreement to pose for a picture in front of their new car, and then have them do a couple of poses. Perhaps they could pantomime a fight scene or some sweet dance moves.

The beauty of this is that almost any sequence of poses will look funny. Then, add in some flashing text and you’ve got the next best thing to video. In some cases, it might even be better! I've received a lot of positive feedback from customers and salespeople with this technique.



Thumbs Up!

There are many online services that will slap together a gif out of the pictures you upload when you’re in a pinch, but learning how to put them together yourself is time well spent, as you’ll have much more control over the process. Most of the free online services don’t let you control how fast the images move, nor will they allow you to add text.

Made a video you’re proud of? Turn some of the more engaging scenes into gifs to get some extra mileage out of your production. If you have a copy of Photoshop (every dealership should), dropping your video file in and cropping it down to be gif ready doesn’t take long at all (see instructions below). Be careful about the dimensions of the image, and you want to limit the gif to 10-15 seconds of footage at the most.

This is a great way to use footage that didn't make the final cut of a video, or those funny moments of goofing around that aren't long enough to make a video of their own. I made this one out of a clip someone sent me from their phone:



20 Car Club Celebration!

If you want to convert a video clip to an animated gif in Photoshop, just follow these steps. Keep in mind I'm still using Photoshop CS4, so your version might look a bit different. The principles are the same, however:
1. Make sure the Animation Window is showing for your project by going to Window > Animation.


2. Open your desired video clip. You should see a timeline appear in the animation window below:


3. Use the markers in the animation window to isolate the frames of your video that you want to use. I like to keep it at ten seconds or less:


4. Select "Trim Document Duration to Work Area" from the menu in the upper right hand corner of the Animation Window, which will crop out the unwanted sections of your video:


5. If your video dimensions are large, you might want to resize the entire project to something manageable by going to Image>Image Size.

6. Click on File > Save for Web & Devices, and make sure GIF format is selected from the dropdown in the upper right hand corner:


7. Click save, and you're all set!

To make a gif out of still pictures in Photoshop, check out this video tutorial, (there are many good ones online) which explains it better than I probably could.

If Google+ keeps adding little features like this, it just might end up being a fun place to spend some time. Will Facebook ever add the feature?

Can you think of some other applications for animated gifs in your dealership's social media marketing mix?

Let me know in the comments box below!