Online Review Hacks Your Competitors WouldKill to Know7
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NICO DATO
Nico Dato serves as Head of Marketing at Podium, an online review management
platform that allows businesses to generate and maintain online reviews on
Google, Facebook, and Yelp. Nico received his BS in Economics from the University of Utah, and he continues to fuse his passion for statistics, design, and digital marketing
to produce measurable results.
CHASE RICHARDSON
Chase currently serves as Director of Sales for Podium. He has a vast knowledge of online reputation and reviews and how
they apply to the automotive world.
Today’s Automotive
Market and Opportunity
Why Reviews Matter
to Your Dealership
7 Hacks Your Competitors Would Kill to Know
Agenda
1
2
3
Today’s automotive market and opportunity
- All firms sell an identical product
2 Characteristics of a Perfectly Competitive Market
- Buyers have complete information about the product being sold and the market prices
Customers can be as far as 70%
through the buying cycle before making
contact.
70%
Seek Momentum
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Automotive Buyer Processes
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DecisionConsiderationAwareness
61% of buyers use online reviews to learn about new
products.
92% of buyers trust online reviews as
much as a personal recommendation.
80% of buyers are more likely to
purchase from local business with positive
online reviews.
Why online reviews matter to your dealership
● 92% of consumers read online reviews(BrightLocal)
● 87% of consumers won’t even consider a business with a low rating(BrightLocal)
● A 1-star increase in online rating can lead to
a 5-9% increase in revenue (Harvard Business School)
By increasing your dealership’s exposure through new marketing tactics, you can acquire leads and customers at a much lower costs than traditional methods.
Increase Exposure
Your dealership can increase site visits by
more than 66% by adding a review
extension to your Google Adwords
account.
Acquisio
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Awareness Phase
Joe’s Auto Sales
Save on cars of all kinds. Visit us today!
92% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as
personal recommendations.
Increase Brand Trust
- BrightLocal
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Consideration Phase
Differentiation boils down to service and customer experience. Once you provide your customers a positive experience, the next step is to get them to share their experiences.
Differentiation Matters
1-Star Growth >
5-9% More Growth
A one-star improvement in online reviews
can lead to a 5-9% increase in
revenue.
Harvard Business School
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Decision PhaseDecision PhaseDecision Phase
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."
- Wayne Gretzky
1 Ask your customers for reviews
The easiest way to collect new, positive reviews is to simply ask. By asking while the customer is still at your dealership, you take control of the conversation that’s about to happen online.
Leaving reviews to organically happen means you run the risk of the most vocal voice being your most frustrated customer.
By taking control, you allow an easier way for happy customers to voice their positive experience.
Take Control
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Whether sales or service is soliciting a review, ensure each department has a repeatable process built into everyday operations.
In fact, many of the most successful dealerships have built “The Ask” into multiple steps of a customer’s visit.
Build “The Ask” into your processes.
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2 Make leaving a review ridiculously easy
To make it the easiest (and most frictionless) experience possible, find out what types of devices your customers are using and the review sites that they most often frequent.
- The average smartphone user checks their device over 110 times each day. - Daily Mail
- The average person checks their email 15 times each day. - Mashable
- Roughly 64% of Americans have a smartphone - Pew Research Center
What types of devices do your customers use most?
Email messages can have a 20% read rate compared to 99% via
text message.
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“People don’t always go online to let others know that they’re happy.
That makes getting positive reviews hard unless you have an effective tool / process in place.”
- Scott DickinsonValley Hi Auto Group
3 Engage & respond to online reviewers
By engaging with and responding to online reviewers, you can give your brand a voice and personality that shows existing and potential customers that you care about their experience with your company
Aim to respond to ¼ of reviews. This can give your dealership a personality and voice that prospective customers will easily see when reading reviews.
Respond to Positive Reviews
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Have someone detached from the situation respond to the negative review. This ensures emotions are left out of the response and a solution is presented to the disgruntled customer.
Respond to Negative Reviews
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4 Leverage reviews across your marketing strategy
After spending time and resources building up a library of positive online reviews, you should increase the ROI of those reviews by leveraging them across your entire marketing strategy.
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ReviewsRadio
Billboards
PPC
Blog Retention
WebsiteSEM
Utilize your online reviews in a number of different ways. Here are a few additional uses our customers have found success with.
Leverage inMarketing Collateral
5 Impact local search engine optimization (SEO)
Online reviews are estimated to impact roughly 10% of the the Map Pack algorithm within local SEO.
By collecting more reviews and optimizing your local presence, your dealership can significantly increase its probability of being found.
Online reviews can dramatically impact a business’ positioning in local SEO. Generally, a businesses that meets Google’s algorithm requirements can appear in the Map Pack.
Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
It’s estimated that review signals account for an roughly 9% of Google’s
total local search algorithm.
GOOGLE MAP PACK
Moz
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6 Increase exposure & be found everywhere
An ideal position to be in is to have your dealership appear near the top of search on multiple review sites with a consistent reputation across all platforms.
By increasing your exposure across multiple sites, you increase your odds of ranking for multiple search terms.
Build legitimacy.
Build a balanced presence across all of the sites that matter most to your dealership.
SEO & Recognition: Google, Yelp, and Facebook
Diversification & Increased Trust: Cars.com, DealerRater, Edmunds, etc.
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Gain customer feedback & actionable insights
Today, many surveys that businesses send out are stale, vague, and largely ineffective. That’s largely due to the rating system of 1-10, and a commentary box.
With online reviews, you gain qualitative, in-depth feedback that provides actionable insights your dealership might not otherwise have been able to collect.
7
Online reviews can give your dealership real, authentic feedback and insights into your employee and business performance.
Authentic Feedback
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The Power of Reviews
Valley Hi Automotive Group
● Maintains an average rating of 4.8 on Google
● Uses online reviews and feedback as a way to help train staff and improve operations
● Gives instant insight into how individual employees are performing
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Use an online review management tool that works best for your business.
DD2016
Digital Dealer Discount Code
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Q&A
NICO DATO
CHASE RICHARDSON
Learn more about online reviews at podium.co.
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