These additions, changes, and fixes are now available for InteractRV Dealer clients.

• NEW FEATURE: VMail -Right from your control panel you can easily create and send video email to your future and current customers.
• NEW FEATURE: ClickToCall - Get your future customers calling you from your website.  All leads get put right into the Simple CRM making it super simple to keep track of them all.
• NEW FEATURE: SendToFriend - Your site visitors now have the ability to tell their friends about a page or RV on your website with just a few clicks.
• CHANGED: Inventory Detail Pages - display video, 360 tours, photos, and floorplans now all in one viewer area on the page.

It's amazing to think that choosing a web service provider for your website and online marketing efforts can make a noticeable difference on your bottom line.  Who would have thought 5 or 10 years ago that the results your website produces would have such an impact?  As you consider your current provider or as you look for a new RV website design and marketing provider or even thinking of your current provider ... follow the steps below and make sure you are positioned to get the results you need from your website and online marketing dollars.

It's All Included

You will want updates to your website.  Some providers say 'It's all included' and some charge reasonably for the extra work.  If 'It's all included' have them show you examples on at least 3 of their current client websites where something substantial was requested and how long it took to get it done.  Saying it's included is one thing ... actually doing it is quite another.

Are You Making Progress?

Ask for at least 3 examples of new features or valuable improvements they've added to their offerings in the past couple of months.  Make sure they are a company that is progressive on things that will help you be successful at your dealership

Look for Depth

Ask to talk with at least two or three folks at the provider company.  Ask the other's a few similar questions as your primary contact to be sure everyone who will be on your team are all on the same page and can grasp what it is you are wanting to accomplish with your webste and online marketing efforts.  You know it takes good folks working with you at your dealershp to help you be successful.  Make sure your web marketing company does the same.

No Free Lunch

Promising everything under the sun for free or hardly any cost usually won't turn out well for you with your sales results.  I've NEVER ... let me repeat ... NEVER ... seen or heard of any product or service that was dirt cheap or free and promised the moon to EVER produce any value much at all.  The bottom line is you know that running a capable dealership requires folks with good attitutudes, experience, and skills.  Your web service provider should run their company no differently.

Too Good to Be True?

No person or company is perfect and shouldn't claim to be.  Ask them of one mistake they made with a client recently and how they handled it.  Mistakes are inevitable, but it is how they are handled that make the difference.  Be sure the company you are wanting to help with your online marketing efforts isn't arrogant, prideful, or unwilling to admit they make mistakes.

Don't Cut Yourself Short

During the initial stages of reviewing a RV web services partner it will be helpful for you to focus on your goals first.  What do you want to accomplish?  Too many times providers want to 'show off' their console and all the great things it can 'do' without first understanding what your needs, desires, and challenges are at your dealership.  If you take the time to figure out what it is you want and need to accomplish first it's much easier to decide on what website management features and tools you'll need to be successful.  Now, that you've established your needs and goals DON'T ... let me repeat DON'T cut yourself short by abandoning them to save  a few bucks. 

Following these simple steps will pay off bigtime and not leave you wondering or wishing you hadn't months later.

These additions, changes, and fixes are now available for InteractRV Dealer clients.

• CHANGED: Made Testimonial feedback field larger for longer testimonials.
• ADDED: You Save now calculates on Thumbnail view for RV listing pages
• NEW FEATURE: Testimonial/Feedback report so you can easily find/list all your testimonials and turn them on/off and even add a photo.
• NEW FEATURE: Website Survey report so you can easily get a quick summary of what folks are saying about your website ... what they like and wish you'd improve.
• CHANGED: Moved call tracking reporting around a bit so it loads more quickly.
• CHANGED: Made call to action text links to buttons for better visibilty on the pages.
• NEW FEATURE: Buyers Order PDF automatically created after the Build Your RV is completed by your website shopper.
• FIX: Make by Type List - search results now display automatically without having to click again.

It's quite frequent that we have a RV Dealer refered to use our services from another marketing or ad agency.  One of the positives of having that relationship is that they tend to 'keep an eye on us' and make sure we doing what they feel is best for the mutual dealership/client.  Recently, we received feedback from an agency related to a mutual client website where they had used an automated seo and design analysis tool to see how well we had done for the dealer.  What you can't see is the initial email/feedback they sent to us, but you'll get the idea. Here is most of the email that I sent back to them...

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First, I appreciate the fact that you are ‘checking up’ on the work we do.  We welcome it.  We don’t always like it, but it always proves to help us do better for our clients.  I’ll try to break down your feedback below...

This is a brand new url/domain.  So, out of the box they are disadvantaged.  They won’t get ranked by Google for quite a few months even with the grandest of efforts, at least in any value added keyword areas.  They don’t have the benefit of having been around awhile and other blogs/forums, etc.. linking to them.  As far as DMOZ.org is concerned, it is a plus to be listed there, but it’s also a crap shoot getting listed these days, but their new site has to be submitted to even have a chance for sure.
That being said, it is critical to have both in/out links.  Typically, with a dealer/client we will do the basic/fundamental seo on a site and for 50% or more of our clients that does very well for them.  The other 50% want to do more because they see the benefit of the fundamentals working in their favor.  Adding in/out links, submitting to blogs/forums, creating profile pages, adding target links to our RV industry sites, and things like that are part of an advanced SEO Service that we offer.  It’s really reasonable for our clients and works quite well for them.  It starts at $49/mo and goes up from there depending on how aggressive they want to be.  We have a package that is $149/mo for 12/mo that is a good balance/blend of site improvements, in/out links, profile page, and targeted consumer links.

As far as the use of flash is concerned we use it sparingly and where it makes sense.  It’s always an object on the page like a video or slideshow and not the whole page.  We definitely don’t rely on any text in the flash object to be considered for seo purposes because as you mention the search engines can’t crawl through flash very well at all.

I will have one of our designers look into the deprecated HTML concern and see what that is all about.

Is the SEO Analysis reporting you use from Raven SEO Tools?  They do a good job, as well as a few others, in giving quick feedback and raising possible concerns to review.  I also think it’s important to take things on a case by case basis and balance automated feedback with actual results.  There are many super successful sites we’ve helped produce and market that have a good balance of flash objects.  New domains though do take some time and it’s super beneficial to put some extra effort in to building credibility with a good linking strategy so search engines start to trust the new domain as quickly as possible.

Please write back with your thoughts/feedback and if you have some suggestions for adding links or maybe encouraging them to take advantage of the advanced seo services we offer or maybe something you could do for them.

Kevin
President | InteractRV
800-515-9672 ext. 101

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The moral of the story of working with new RV website domains ... be prepared to put in some extra effort and be willing to wait patiently for results.  If done correctly the results will come.

These additions, changes, and fixes are now available for InteractRV Dealer clients.

• ADDED: Ability to add specifics about a Generator on an inventory unit as a separate field is now available.
• ADDED: Contact Status can now be updated when working with inquiry/bought units and follow-ups in the CRM.
• FIXED: Inventory unit interior/exterior color no longer gets updated when performing a library lookup.
• NEW FEATURE: The Media Center has been made available for dealer websites for hosting slideshows, videos, 360 tours, and photo labels.
• NEW FEATURE: Custom Credit Apps are now available that allows a secure app filled out online and print exactly like the paper app in your dealership. HUGE time saver!
  
• ADDED: Quick access to the Sales Report by salesperson.
• CHANGED: When adding or editing a unit or follow-up, clicking save now takes you back to the contact detail record.
• CHANGED: Improvements made to the contact searching speed in the CRM.
• CHANGED: Improvements made to the contact detail page loading time in the CRM.

When you have good website analytics data that's showing lots of traffic, low bounce rates, good page views, etc… the next question to ask is not how we get more visitors, but HOW do you engage more of the visitors and persuade them to make contact with you either by email, filling out a form, or picking up the phone?

To engage more visitors and earn their confidence it’s about identifying what it is the visitor wants out of their experience on your website and giving it to them.

One simple thing … How many of your online shoppers are first timer’s or novices?  What educational information about RVing could you offer on your site or point to on another website that would help them get better educated and start to see your dealership as their RVing expert?  What about this … have a few pages of RVing education, then offer an online quiz they can take to get a RV Educated Discount for their next purchase with you.

There isn’t a silver bullet to online success, but rather a focused, consistent effort that will over time produce better and better results.

I received a phone call late this afternoon from one of our dealer/clients telling me about a wild phone conversation one of his salespersons just had with a web lead.

As part of our simple RV Dealer CRM one of the options is to receive notification of your web leads via text message on your cell phone.  So, when an website shopper submitted a request through this dealership's website a salesperson received the lead info within 10 seconds and made a call back to the shopper within the minute.

When the shopper answered the phone she honestly believed that this salesperson was watching her through her computer video camera while in her bathrobe and all.  It took a bit of convincing, but the online shopper eventually understood that all was well and there was no need to worry, but that this salesperson had just responded to her web request VERY quickly.

So, can you respond too quickly?  I don't think so.  Yeah, you might get a few strange conversations like the one in this example, but 99 out of 100 times the person on the other end of the phone will be ecstatic that you considered their request important enough to get back wtih them so promptly.