FEATURE STORY By Bob McCann
THREE TIPS
to get more mileage out of your existing Web marketing efforts
today's digital economy, your website is a 24/7 location that attracts more visitors than your brick-and-motor store ever will. Assuming you already have a consumer- engaging website in place, you can increase your return on investment and generate more leads and sales using simple, yet highly effective best practices. Following are three affordable tips
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that have proven helpful for hundreds of dealers looking to get more mileage out of their existing Web marketing efforts without breaking the bank.
Promote your Web address (URL) Looking at our dealer clients' Web
statistics, the most common approach used by prospects to find a dealership is still simply typing in the dealer's URL — a key element of your corporate identity and the address of your 24/7 store. As such, you should make sure that your Web address appears everywhere, consistently and frequently promoted on- and off-line. The rule of thumb is that it should
be present everywhere your address and/or phone number appear, including all marketing and advertising materials, stationery, business cards, customer communications, on your delivery trucks, on your after-hours voice-mail message, etc. But don't stop at the obvious — Take this effort a step further and think of more places, big and small, where it would make sense to include your Web address. For instance, is it in the e-mail signature of every person on staff? Speaking of e-mails, make sure that all members of your team have the same, consistent signature in terms of format, font type, color and content. Be sure to include your Web address. How about your store front? Have you
taken a look at it lately, from a customer's perspective, and thought about how it
aking your Internet marketing dollars work harder for you is neither hard nor expensive. In
An effective way to market your business is to sign up for directory listings at other websites, such as "Equipment Mart" at www.EquipmentMartOnline.com, where you can click "Add Listing" to receive a free basic listing or an affordable premium listing.
could help your dealership generate more traffic? For example, you could include your Web address on an entranceway sign that lists your hours of operation, along with the message, "Sorry we missed you. We are always open at DealerWebsite.com."
Did you notice how I deliberately chose to spell the URL with the inclusion of capital letters to start each word of the dealership's name? It's known as CamelCase, CamelBack (and many other names): It makes your Web address easier to read and
28 OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT www.outdoorpowerequipment.com
