Mobile Traffic Increasing Dramatically

Ryan over on the forums posted a new thread “ipad Traffic Increasing Dramatically“.

Recently I have seen an increase in ipad visits to websites I play with. It’s interesting because I suspected this but didn’t suspect the amount so quickly.

Ryan brings up a great point…

Are you watching your dealer website visitors by mobile device?

This is something I have been watching for about a year now, adding the Visitors by Mobile Device to my dealers (and DealerRefresh) Google Analytics dashboard for quick reference.

A little over a year ago – you were lucky to see a few iPhone visitors to your dealership website, but just over the last 4-6 months, visitors from mobile devices have really increased. Especially on Andriod devices, and now we are quickly seeing visits from the iPad.

NOTE: IF you have your websites set up to automatically detect a mobile browser – you might want to be sure that it’s not pointing over to the mobile site for iPad visitors (unless you have a Flash intensive dealer website ). It’s annoying as hell when you want to visit a dealers website from your iPad and you keep getting redirected to the mobile site.

Whether or not you have a mobile dealership website, you might want to keep an eye on your analytics. They might just tell you something.

Mobile will of course continue to rise – it’s going to happen, especially on the local side.

Google Says Local Intent is Behind One-Third of Mobile Searches

Are you watching your visitors by mobile device in our analytics and are the analytics showing that maybe you should have a mobile website if you don’t already?

If you do, who is your mobile website provider? Feel free to drop a link in your comment (dealers only please).

What are you currently getting from your mobile website??

In case you don’t read Fast Company, Follow me on Twitter or somehow didn’t stumble across this latest study by Vivaldi Partners on Social Currency be sure to download it here.

Today, one of the most important strengths of a brand is its social currency, the extent to which people share the brand or information about the brand with others as part of their everyday social lives.

Premium Luxury Brands tend to have a higher social currency

Volume Brand vs. Luxury Brands -  Premium make drivers show a much stronger sense of their brand’s community while  volume brand drivers show a lower need to affiliate with others, in return having less social currency.

Google has upgraded the analytics and reporting tools for your Google Maps listing on what is now called Google Places.   Google Places replaces what was called “Google Local Business Center”.  Since there are so many ways to leverage data from Google Maps, I have created a series of photos that explain some of the most important new features offered by Google Places.

Google Places reports and data screens have MANY digital marketing implications that can be utilized to refine your online marketing strategies.  Take the time to ask yourself “Why is this data being shown?”.   Most dealers will be surprised to see just how many times their Google Map is displayed to consumers.  If you add a tracking phone number, most dealers will find that hundreds of calls and clicks combined are generated by Google Maps.

The data I have seen begs a few questions;  Is your Google Maps listing treated as a priority advertising opportunity?  Is your information on Google Maps correct?  Does Google think it is 100% complete?    Every week I find car dealer Google Maps listings with the incorrect website address or phone number.

Let’s take a quick walk through Google Places so you can see the wealth of data that is offered to you for free.

It is vitally important that every business owner login to their Google Places (http://places.google.com) account (formerly Local Business Center) and check out the new features.  Once you do this, please share what you found on DealerRefresh.

Finally! The day has come where we can all say goodbye to Flash websites. Hooray hooray!

Oh….what’s that? You like big Flash websites?

Everyday I get calls from dealers asking for referrals on various products and those calls always move into other online marketing areas. Today, a call about instant chat led to a conversation about how “the boss” wanted to go a certain route with their website. It was obvious “the boss” was on an ego trip because he wanted to plaster his face all over the homepage inside a bunch of interactive Flash sections. I thought to myself how sad it is that website providers are still trying to sell dealers on things that don’t really help business and it is also sad that these conversations are still happening in 2010….and knowing our industry we’ll still be having this conversation in 2015.

Why is it sad?

DealerRater Poll Reveals Consumers Want More Facebook Car Promotions

Did anyone else catch the post over on DealerRater.com in regards to some not so surprising results?

According to the poll, consumers WANT to be marketed to.

The most common suggestions for dealers from respondents include offering special promotions, updating customers on new makes and models, sharing feedback and testimonials, and sending out service reminders or recall notices.

26% of respondents, was for dealerships to offer more promotions

Many articles across our industry and other verticals suggest that “Social Media” is NOT the medium for selling and a medium for listening and communicating. I’ve been saying this for sometime now; at the end of the day let’s not forget we are here to sell and the consumer knows and expects that on many levels.