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One of our partners has rolled out a great new service that combines our call measurement technology with his consulting / coaching expertise. Phone-Up Ninjas was founded by Jerry Thibeau, who has been involved in the automotive industry for nearly 25 years. He's offering a full range of training services to help car dealerships handle phone calls and sales opportunities more effectively.
One of the common refrains we hear from busy dealerships is, "I wish our guys had the time to listen to every call that comes in or goes out of our dealership." Jerry has developed a really cool solution that takes the responsibility off of the dealership staff. The Phone-Up Ninjas team hand-selects calls that offer good teaching opportunities, and then Jerry splices himself into the recordings of these conversations. Check out this example of an online coaching session.
There are two main things I like about this approach. (1) It's really cool to see someone building a mash-up with our services. I believe there are tons of opportunities that are just waiting for the right people to come along and incorporate this new technology into an existing expertise. Jerry has really nailed this. (2) Most managers will acknowledge that their dealerships could do a better job of communicating with prospects. Sales consulting has always been viewed as an expensive and time-consuming burden, and GMs are skeptical that the lessons will "stick" once the coach has left the building. Jerry's approach is the perfect counter to all of these objections.
The Six and a Half Commandments of Displaying a Phone Number on a Website
David Mihm started an interesting conversation about the pros & cons of using call measurement numbers on an advertiser's website, ultimately suggesting that maybe the advantages aren't worth the risk of jeopardizing the advertiser's organic search rankings. This is a valid concern, but a properly-constructed dynamic website tracking number will not have any negative affects on a company's Local Search rankings. The javascript will know to make itself invisible when a search bot is crawling through, the advertiser's anchor phone number will be recognized by the machines, and life goes on.
How an advertiser chooses to display his contact information is a far more important topic. Since we've witnessed (and measured, of course) every approach imaginable when it comes to showing a phone number on a website, we're ready to come down from this digital Mount Sinai and share the following commandments.
1. You Shall Properly Choose Between a Toll Free and a Local Phone Number
2. Remember That No One Knows What Number You've Been Using for the Past __ Years
3.You Shall Not List Multiple Phone Numbers for Multiple Departments
4. You Shall Not Use a Vanity Phone Number on a Website
5. A Website Shall Display a Prominent Phone Number at the Top of Every Page
6. Fear the Consequences of a Phone Number Embedded in an Image
6.5. You Shall Not Settle For Simply Displaying the Phone Number in Basic HTML
We'll continue to update this list as other ideas emerge and get measured.
(image from Joey deVilla's tremendous Global Nerdy blog)
Giving credit where credit is due
A few months ago Wired told the story of Jorge Hirsch and his frustration with the way academic papers (and their authors) are valued. Link: The Genius Index: One Scientist's Crusade to Rewrite Reputation Rules.
It's definitely a worthwhile read, but my main reason for tracking down the article was a conversation we had with a publisher the other day. Like Hirsch, the publisher was frustrated because he's getting shortchanged by conventional methods of assigning credit. His banner ads are creating a brand experience for his advertisers, but the advertisers are judging the value based solely on click-through rates and direct responses.
Consider this example that we recently used to remind car dealers about the importance of continuing their marketing efforts beyond just Google.
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Is This Billboard the Greatest Ad Ever Designed?
It would be odd to hear the dealership's marketing director say, "That billboard outside of our entrance is the last piece of advertising that people see before entering our dealership. Therefore it should receive credit for every person who walks in."
Strangely enough, this is how most businesses evaluate their website traffic. Here's an example: a potential car buyer discovers a vehicle on AutoTrader.com. He notices the car is being offered by XYZ Honda. Since XYZ has been popping up on a lot of the searches he's been running, the buyer goes to Google and searches for XYZ Honda in Phoenix. As soon as he hits the home page, he calls the first phone number he sees, asks if his preferred car is still on the lot, and then makes an appointment for a test drive.
Who should get credit for that phone call: AutoTrader.com or Google? Most marketers are giving all of the credit to Google. Alert marketers are recognizing that both sources should receive a share of the credit.
Now Hiring: Director of Communications? Product Evangelist? Marketing Strategy Manager?
We're creating a new position, but we don't know what to call it. In fact, we still haven't even nailed down exactly what the position will entail. But I can say with confidence that this is the perfect opportunity for a dynamic person who wants to roll up his / her sleeves and make a meaningful contribution to a rapidly growing company.
The Position
For 21 years, we've been a quiet wholesale provider of marketing analytics software. Our partners love us, and we appreciate all of the new relationships we've built as a result of referrals. There are a lot of interesting companies we'd like to be working with, so it's finally time to introduce ourselves to the world. How are we going to do this? That's for you to decide. Here are some initial ideas we've come up with:
- Engage with bloggers and industry thought leaders to share our vision for marketing's future
- Organize our internal marketing efforts to ensure we're telling the right stories
- Represent our company as an evangelist for Marketing Intelligence
- Analyze trends and shifts in the marketing industry so our product can stay ahead of the curve
- Develop and implement a Public Relations strategy
The Ideal Candidate
There is no list of required experiences for this position. We're certainly impressed when we come across someone who has attended a great school or held important positions at related companies. But we're more interested in the actual lessons that were learned along the way. We're looking for an All Star, and we believe the key ingredients are (1) enthusiasm and a strong sense of initiative, (2) an eagerness to learn, and (3) broad intelligence.
This is going to be a very important position for our company, so we're taking this search very seriously. We're not sleepwalking through the motion of filling a meaningless spot with an ordinary person who just needs a job. Likewise, I hope you'll extend some effort on your introduction to us. Tell us about specific experiences that showcase the three traits listed above, and talk about why you feel prepared for a role that combines marketing, operations, technology management and visionary thinking. We're anxious to read anything you're willing to share.
The Next Step
Please reach out to me via email (rw@centuryinteractive.com) and let me know that you're interested. If we both agree that you might be a good fit, I'll follow up with some additional questions. Then we'll bring the finalists to Dallas to meet with Konrad, Jennifer, Marcus, me and the rest of the team.
Details
- Full-time position
- Based out of our office in Dallas, TX
- Competitive pay
- Start date is flexible
- Light travel (probably twice per quarter max)
- Inquiries will be kept confidential
Our automotive users spend a ton of money on Google AdWords and other pay-per-click platforms, so we've been introduced to some great new partners who manage these ads for the dealers. Our hope, of course, is that the Search Engine Marketers will use our conversion data to improve the budget allocation process for our shared clients.
This is nearly a year old, but I recently found a great post on Dealer Marketing Magazine's website. Michael Sweigart gives the Top Ten Ways to Waste Your Automotive Search Engine Marketing Budget. (Don't you love it when the title saves you from having to provide further explanation on the article's topic?)
One item in particular jumped out at me:
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Mistake #4: Ignoring analytic reports and focus on traffic
Ninety percent bounce rates on pay-per-click ads mean that 90 percent of your customers leave almost immediately. If you are not looking at analytic reports then you are spending money on the wrong keywords, ads, sites, etc. It is unthinkable that anyone would ignore such great, free data. With a good analysis you can buy more good words and fewer bad words.
The opposite scenario also plays out. A generic term like "trucks" (which Sweigart warns about) might generate long website sessions, but this is to be expected of an early-stage researcher who uses a broad term. If the dealer is overly-reliant upon a standard analytics package, those visits might appear more attractive than they should because of the long engagements.
Thanks to Dealer Marketing Magazine for an informative article. We'll keep working on our side to provide tools that help dealers and other search marketers avoid these common mistakes.
Jennifer talks about driving phone calls from your website
During our time at the SES Conference in San Jose, the guys from SEO-PR caught up with Jennifer to discuss some of our services.
Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, Booth #509
We're excited to have a presence at this year's big search engine marketing conference. If you're going to be at the show, please stop by and shoot darts with us for a few minutes. Make sure you pick up your t-shirt.
We're asking professional search marketers if they're stupid. It seems harsh, but it provided a good excuse for handing out I'm With Stupid t-shirts. Even if you're not going to be at the conference, I hope you'll take a minute to go through the quiz we've prepared: Are You a Stupid Search Engine Marketer?
StupidSEM.com