Autoengage

Reputation Management

“Thirty eight percent of Automotive Internet Users use dealer ratings and reviews, and eighty seven percent of that group found that kind of information to be useful.”
Arianne Walker, Director of Marketing/Media Research at J.D. Power.

Are you in control of your Online Reputation?

Blogging has given automotive consumers unprecedented power with free outlets for the distribution of their written opinion about car dealers and their experience throughout the purchase process. This is both a blessing and a curse depending on the content and target of the written piece. For automotive retailers, Internet Reputation Management has become an integral part of their Internet marketing strategy. Dealers are finding themselves confronted with highly visible commentary of their car dealership on Google, Yahoo and MSN searches.

Dealership principals often feel helpless in protecting their online reputation from customer generated negative blog posts, and rarely leverage positive commentary and testimonials posted on the Internet. How many press releases does your dealership post a month? Having a proactive strategy for disseminating positive customer feedback can often be the best defense against future negative attacks. With the ease at which content can be created, organized and shared over the Internet, General Managers need to be mindful of what is being written about their dealership.

Google Alerts

Protecting your reputation on the Internet should start by using a simple and effective tool called Google Alerts. Once you create a free Google account, you can enter specific search phrases into your own watch list. Google will then send you an email with links to articles that include the phrases in your watch list. You can request notifications as they happen or summarized daily, weekly or monthly.

A watch list should include at a minimum, the dealership name, the names of key employees, and your franchise plus city name. Use Google Alerts for reputation management, and tracking what other dealerships are posting in your competitive market. Knowing what is being said, both positive and negative, is the first step in creating a sustained reputation management strategy, with a clear escalation plan for both positive, and negative commentary.

Internet Marketing Strategy

For automotive dealers, online reputation management must be part of your Internet marketing strategy to protect, and grow your primary market area. If your visible Internet reputation is poor, consumers may very well shop at a neighboring dealership.

Websites like DealerRater, Yahoo Local, Insider Pages, Google Maps and Yelp all have review engines that can rank at the top of the search results. General Managers need to implement a system to regularly request positive reviews from their customers. This should include new, and pre-owned vehicle customers, as well as service customers.

Start by creating a list of all review website pages in an email, and send these links to pre-qualified customers with a request that they post an honest review of your dealership. Do not attempt to post customer reviews from your dealerships computers, as many of these sites track IP addresses and you could be banned from the directory, or worse, exposed for review spamming.

Current research shows that online positive reviews are second only to word-of-mouth referrals when it comes to directing new business to a dealership. AutoEngage collaborates with our partners and copywriters to help redefine our dealership clients with a repositioning of dealership reviews, news, articles and blog posts designed to push negative information back onto the rarely visited pages of search engine listings, and instead, drive more sales by positioning a positive, and compelling internet voice for the dealership at the top of search results.