SS Digital Media Inc. is a company which has a portfolio showing results of clients whom it has successfully assisted in improving sales via marketing campaigns. The main objective of our company is increasing web traffic and finding a suitable audience in order to increase sales. The list of case studies that are in our portfolio showcases improved conversion for companies using improved web marketing campaigns that increase web traffic and improve the company’s profitability. The case study outlined in this article shows how the Ford Dealership improved profits though web marketing campaigns. The target market was women in the 25-34 age bracket who buy new and used vehicles. The industry in the case study is used and new vehicle sales. The main work performed included SEO, Web design, SEM content management and social media integration.
Background
The car dealership market has recorded stiff competition in recent years. With the rise of the internet and search engines such as Google, it is essential to have a website that is effective and user friendly. This helps raise the web traffic. The original website for the dealership was on Dealer skins, a company which provides basic websites used by car dealerships that do not take search engines into consideration. Before the internet boom, car dealerships could use tools such as radio, television and print. However, online search is what is common in locating dealers today.
The Challenge
The location for the Ford dealership is West Michigan in a small town. The small town did not avail local car buyers on a regular basis. The system for task management for marketers was poor. Therefore, using it meant that it would be hard to find it in search engines. According to J.D. Power and Associates in a 2008 New Autoshopper.com case study, 84 percent of all internet new-vehicle buyers now use search engines during their car shopping process- a record high and up from 81 percent in 2007. Additionally, social media was lacking and this made it difficult for potential and existing clients to communicate. There were around 800-900 visitors per month in the original dealership’s website. These visits were attributed mainly to employees. Therefore, web traffic was producing a small amount in sales leads. Therefore, a web marketing firm was required to produce higher results in online web traffic for the site in order to increase sales.
Solution
SS Digital Media Inc. helped create an online marketing strategy that integrated a new content management system, Google Ad Words implementation, SEO tactics, video productions, social networking and online classified developments.
Initially, a WordPress platform was to be incorporated to allow for a user-friendly website that had a friendly structure which would be easy to use. Secondly, the web marketing firm required to develop content that was SEO friendly, including individual landing pages for every inventory that the car dealership hitherto offered. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were incorporated as a social media campaign to achieve the marketing goals that the dealership had set. In order to complement the SEO efforts, it was necessary for SS Digital Media to incorporate a blog in the new site. Furthermore, the marketing firm enlisted the use of YouTube to highlight the vehicle inventory and include online classifieds. The online classifieds improvements included eBay classifieds, Craigslist, Car.com and many more. Generally, the marketing process has been continuous.
Benefits
There has been an increase in vehicle sales at the dealership portraying a larger demographic. The developments in the dealership’s website have shown an improved sale of vehicles in other areas surrounding Michigan that include Ohio, Indiana and many more. Web traffic and phone leads have increased since the new website was launched. Website traffic rose by 115% in the first year with 1899 visitors every month.
Additionally, the web traffic has grown continually over the years. A web traffic growth of 111% was realized between September 2010 and September 2011. That is in comparison to the year 2009. The yearly web traffic has grown from 23,480 visitors to 49,629 visitors. That shows a growth of 130 visitors per day.
Using these figures, there is a growth of 4000 visitors every month. It is imperative to note that it is not just the web traffic which has increased but also the quality of traffic. This is shown by the number of phone calls which have also increased over time. When marketing efforts were initiated by SS Digital Media Inc. the emails and phone calls were minimal. Today, the dealership receives an excess of 200 phone calls every month from the web.
Google Rankings
Since optimization, there has been an increase in PageRank for the car dealership. In addition to the PageRank increase, there has also been an increase in broad general terms used in the site. These include long-tail keywords that are used to target an audience related to the dealership. Essentially, the dealership has top positions when searched in their targeted audience area.
Conclusion
To sum up, the Ford Dealership has experienced immense success since the launch of web marketing efforts that were employed by SS Digital Media Inc. However, Search Engine Optimization is a continuous process. This is made necessary by the changes in the dealership that need to be reflected in the website. This case study shows that SEM, SEO and Social media integration will increase the sales, leads and web traffic overtime for the dealership. Based on the case study, it is clear that project management marketing can help companies grow continually through use of online tools. Therefore, both small medium enterprises and large corporate giants need to make use these online tools for improved growth.
Author Bio: Belinda Meyers is a world renowned professional in management of Chicago SEO Services USA. She is also a writer and an authority for trends in task management for marketers and the best tools used by web marketing firm endeavors. You can find most of her articles online to find out which tools to use to make your marketing successful.
