LeadHelm Podcast - Episode 3:

Digital Marketing ROI: Are you getting your greatest return?

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Guest: Thomas Manning, VP of Star Performance Marketing

Welcome back to Take the Helm Podcast! My name is Taylor Loethen and I’ll be your host.  I’m excited to welcome a long-time friend and colleague, Thomas Manning, as our guest today.  Thomas is the VP of Star Performance Marketing, one of our industry’s best digital marketing agencies serving Harley-Davidson, Powersports, Automotive and Marine dealers across the US.

Today, we’re going to:

1. Define Digital Marketing
2. Define Digital Customer
3. Difference Between Taking Demand off the Table and Creating Demand From People Not Shopping
4. Define Cost per Lead and Today’s Market Impact
5. Share Top 5 Digital Marketing Best Practices
6. How to get the Biggest ROI on your Digital Marketing Efforts

Let’s dig in!

Discussion Questions

1. Thomas, What is digital marketing and how is it different from traditional marketing?

2. We know that 90% of customers shop online before ever entering a showroom. Define the digital customer.

3. What’s the difference between taking demand off the table and creating demand from people not in the market shopping?

4. What does “cost per lead” mean and what are you seeing with today’s market?

5. Thomas, what are the top 5 digital marketing best practices that dealers should focus on today?

6. How can dealers maximize their digital marketing investment to drive more leads?

7. If a dealer would like to connect with you to learn more, how can they contact you?

Thomas, thank you for your time today!

Thank you to our audience for tuning in today! To learn more about Star Performance Marketing and how Thomas and his team can help you maximize your digital marketing ROI, click the link below.

To learn more about LeadHelm and how we can help your dealership drive more appointments with your digital leads, visit LeadHelm.com or click the link below.

Be sure to subscribe to our monthly podcast and tune in to all our conversations with industry leaders, friends and dealers! Share with a friend in the industry!

We’d love to hear from you! Tell us your biggest takeaway or drop your questions below.

See you next time!

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Response Overview:

1. Thomas, What is digital marketing and how is it different from traditional marketing?
   a. Digital Marketing- also called online marketing is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the internet and other digital channels (email, social media, web-based advertising and even text).
   b. Traditional Marketing-  is any form of marketing that uses offline media to reach an audience (TV, radio, direct mail, billboards and newspaper)
   c. Difference- is traditional media cast a big net and focuses on conveying features and benefits of a product or service.  Digital marketing focuses on the customer, closer to the purchase in the buying funnel.

2. We know that 90% of customers shop online before ever entering a showroom. Define the digital customer.
   a. By definition is a customer that makes a purchase (product or service) online.  These purchases can be made via websites, mobile apps or social media.
   b. Some characteristics of a digital customer include immediacy, adaptability, analytical, omnipresent and communicative.
   c. The digital customer experience refers to the sum total of all online interactions a customer has with your brand.
   d. The 5 stages of digital customer journey include awareness, consideration, purchase, retention and advocacy.
   e. Note website experience will qualify or disqualify.

3. What’s the difference between taking demand off the table and creating demand from people not in the market shopping?

4. What does “cost per lead” mean and what are you seeing with today’s market?
   a. By definition is the amount of money it takes to generate a new prospective customer for your sales team from a current marketing budget
   b. Cost per lead varies per market based on competitive environment, dealer brand maturity, and cost of media and use of proper media mix to hyper-target the audience that has the highest propensity to buy what you sell.
   c. Cost per lead ranges are between $350-- $550 but could be as high as $750.

5. Thomas, what are the top 5 digital marketing best practices that dealers should focus on today?
   a. Determine the proper geo or trade zone to target.  I suggest marketing in the area that comprises 80% of your new and use vehicle registrations
   b. Identify the customer that has the highest propensity to buy what you sell as your core target audience
   c. Establish a message of “attainability” so as the content direction
   d. Comprise advertising mix with focus on taking demand off the table first; this can be done mostly with Google AdWords or digital search campaigns.  Then utilize Display, YouTube and Facebook/Instagram for remarketing and targeting in-market shoppers that have not been to your website.
   e. Set up KPI’s for determine what success looks like and track everything.

6. How can dealers maximize their digital marketing investment to drive more leads?
   a. Allocate 60%-70% of digital budget on in-market shoppers.
   b. Concentrate on building a robust share of voice in your backyard to capture demand that you are not getting from Organic or Direct traffic.
   c. Be mindful that frequency of messaging in very important so you should drive home your attainability messaging in all platforms.  Don’t get cute and make your messaging too event focused.

If a dealer would like to connect with you to learn more, how can they contact you?

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Star Performance Marketing

(888) 491-7047 ext. 2

https://www.starperformancemarketing.com/

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