The Internet team at John Eagle Honda of Dallas wanted to find a solution for the unique characteristics of marketing and sales in the automotive industry associated with downtown Dallas and Fort Worth Texas. Like many dealers, John Eagle Honda maintained a marketing strategy that included traditional and digital components, but being at the epicenter of media buys for the DFW Metro market for all makes and models was beginning to decrease the effectiveness of traditional mass marketing mediums like TV, print and radio while the cost for these traditional mediums remained competitively high and difficult to track with measurable results.
John Eagle Honda of Dallas began searching for a way to increase visibility while simultaneously boosting sales without a corresponding increase in ad budget. In 2011, Jim Flint, the Corporate Director of Interactive Sales and Marketing for John Eagle, helped guide the John Eagle Dealerships to more than 10,000 Internet sales. The John Eagle dealerships quickly realized the automotive industry needed an expert source to help capture this insatiable and growing online market. Thus, the “Local Search Group”, a digital marketing company, was created with Flint as President and Founder.
Local Search Group joined forces with a Video SEO industry expert, Car-mercial.com, and made the decision to allocate a significant portion of their marketing budget to Video SEO. Through Local Search Group’s expertise in managing online advertising for dealerships and Car-mercial’s top-notch Video SEO platform, the John Eagle Group’s video marketing campaigns have shown incredible reach at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.
Local Search Group enables their clients to stay ahead of the competition by bringing them the latest in digital marketing strategies that effectively help to increase a dealership’s online visibility to in-market buyers.
“We chose this solution for two reasons. One to provide our customers with a video that offered them information about our dealership and the product they are seeking to purchase in the near future. Two, we chose video to maximize our SEO. Currently we have a well optimized Video SEO strategy that helps drive more traffic to our site, and ultimately increases our sales,” said Robert “Doc” Watson, Internet Sales Manager at John Eagle Honda of Dallas.
The 2011 Google Automotive Shopper Behavior Study shows online video ads as the No. 1 most useful ad format, above all other forms of traditional and digital advertising, to connect with prospective car buyers.
Recognizing an ideal opportunity, John Eagle Honda of Dallas began implementing a combination of targeted Pay Per Click, Video SEO, and a Local Places ad strategy to elevate their local presence and increase profitability.
John Eagle had actually moved their Pay Per Click in-house in March 2010 in a move that ultimately resulted in the creation of the Local Search Group. As Flint explains, “We’ve spent countless hours refining our keyword lists to insure that we’ve eliminated all the products that Honda sells that the dealership doesn’t sell. You can waste several thousand dollars a year in a market like Dallas if you don’t eliminate yourself from searches for A2000 Generators, Honda motorcycles and the like.”
They then began using Video SEO (Video search engine optimization) that enabled their dealer brand and message to “pull” for relevant keyword search phrases and appear on Page 1 of search engine (Google, Yahoo & Bing) results with compelling videos that attract and influence consumers more effectively than traditional text results.
“Our eCommerce business is up 13 percent year over year since we started our Video SEO campaigns back in November of 2011,” said Watson.
Online video ads decidedly draw more traffic than static ads because they combine the power of television’s sight, sound and motion with the power of search engines’ ability to speak directly to consumers who want to buy or service a vehicle now. These high impact videos are extremely effective as they stand out amongst the myriad of text ads, influencing consumers in a way that the written word cannot.
John Eagle uses a proprietary Video SEO platform to distribute and optimize custom videos through an intelligent algorithm that continually works to achieve the highest possible search rankings on top search engines for popular phrases like “Honda oil change Dallas”.
A 2011 AutoTrader.com / Polk Automotive Influence Study shows that 95 percent of car buyers use search engines to shop for vehicles and 98 percent of those same car buyers do NOT go past Page 1 search results.
“Today Video SEO is given high ranking authority by top search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo,” explains AJ LeBlanc, managing partner for Car-mercial.com, the company John Eagle Honda of Dallas uses for its Video SEO platform. “It is imperative for dealers to make it onto the Page 1 search results with high-impact video ads that quickly draw-in the consumer.”
When integrated with a highly effective Search Engine Marketing Campaign the results are doubly impressive.
John Ingram, managing partner of the John Eagle Dallas location, notes that the “operational elements of pay per click have provided us with the proof we’ve needed to know what a difference working with the right companies make. The click-through rate for our new car campaigns have reached 6.3 percent, nearly 3 times aggressive industry standards.” Ingram’s mobile specific campaigns have achieved an 8.4 percent click-through rate, all for less than $2.00 per click.
Through the combined efforts of his Dallas based store, Car-mercial.com, Local Search Group and other outstanding suppliers, the John Eagle of Dallas store is on track to sell more than 1,000 internet units again this year. With 24/7 easy access to research vehicles, the increased use of tablets, cell phones and
laptops and the “no pressure” aspect of searching online, more than 9 out of 10 consumers start their buying process online. Dealers have a phenomenal opportunity to get in front of in- market car buyers with maximum exposure for minimum cost though Video SEO.
John Eagle Honda is a family owned and operated dealership serving the community since 1971. Being the first Honda dealership in Texas and the second in the entire USA – they are industry pioneers, and continuing that tradition by leading the way with their digital marketing and Video SEO.
The Bottom Line
John Eagle Honda of Dallas Increases Sales 10% and eCommerce Sales 13% with New Video Ad Platform
What They Do
- Use Video SEO to ensure that your dealership’s brand and message appears on Page 1 of the search results with compelling videos that attract and influence consumers more effectively than traditional text results.
- Create comprehensive digital marketing campaigns that increase traffic to your website and generate credible leads that result in sales, and build customer relationships through online communities, which indirectly increases your sales.
- Work with a Digital Marketing partner and Video SEO Platform specialists like Local Search Group and Car-mercial.com to Geo target ready car buyers and build brand awareness and purchase intent within specific digital market areas to capture local in-market consumers.
Resources They Use
1. DMS: Reynolds & Reynolds
2. Digital Marketing Company:
3. Video SEO:
Recommended Actions:
1. Develop a Video SEO strategy to ensure your dealership’s brand and message appears on Page 1 of your local area search results with compelling videos that attract and influence consumers more effectively than traditional text results.
2. Work with an industry specialist like www.Car-mercial.com to Geo target ready buyers in your local market and build brand awareness and purchase intent within specific digital market areas to reach and capture in-market consumers.
3. Find an automotive digital marketing partner like www.localsearchgroup.com that specializes in SEO, PPC, Mobile, Display, Remarketing and Local Places to ensure you mazimize your dealership’s presence in the search engines.
“The click-through rate for our new car campaigns have reached 6.3 percent, nearly 3 times aggressive industry standards.” —John Ingram, Managing Partner of John Eagle Honda of Dallas
