Search Optics Inc., a leader in providing fully integrated interactive marketing solutions for the automotive dealer, will showcase the latest releases of its Mobile Website and Social Media platforms at the 8th annual Digital Dealer Conference in Orlando, FL.

Digital Dealer is one of the largest Internet technology related conferences and expositions in the country that is directed towards the Automotive Industry. Last year's conference saw 540 dealership attendees and featured over 46 exhibitors in over 60 booths spaces. This year's event in Orlando will be no different, as there are expected to be over 60 exhibitors and 500-600 dealership attendees.

"Since 1998 Search Optics has been partnering with automotive dealerships to provide custom solutions in online digital web-marketing." said Troy Smith, Search Optics President. "The latest releases of the Search Optics Mobile Website and Social Media and Reputation Management solutions are important tools for dealers to manage and grow their businesses online."

The newest release of the Search Optics Mobile Website platform allows dealers to have instant connectivity with customers. Customers can utilize Mobile Websites anytime and anywhere to view inventory, research vehicles, and gain immediate access to directions, maps and hours. Search Optics mobile device recognition software provides rapid load times across over 5,000 mobile devices currently in use around the world. Search Optics provides dealers with detailed information including a breakdown of vehicles sent to phones, and monthly reporting of usage statistics.

With Search Optics new Social Media Reputation Management (SMRM) package, dealers can take advantage of popular social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to fill the Search Engines with positive and relevant results for their dealership, and build an online community of loyal customers. Search Optics Social Media allows dealers to showcase specials and incentives and provide their fans and followers with up to date information. With SMRM, Search Optics can help dealers stay on top of the Internet buzz on their brand name, build loyalty, and stay connected with customers.

Visit Search Optics at Booth #910 for a chance to win a free website with mobile for one year or an Apple iPad™! To coincide with the release of the new Mobile Website platform, Search Optics will offer one lucky dealer a free Virtual Showroom along with a Mobile Website for one year. There will also be an opportunity to win a new iPad device with Wi-Fi and a 64GB flash drive. Search Optics will have the Wii™ Tennis game playing all day to represent just how much they "serve" their clients on a face to face level. Stop by the Search Optics booth to register for the Virtual Showroom and Mobile Website or the iPad giveaway, play some Wii Tennis, and learn how Search Optics can enhance your online presence.

For more information about the 8th Digital Dealer Conference please visit www.digitaldealerconference.com

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Search Optics Inc.®, a leader in providing fully integrated interactive marketing solutions for the automotive dealer, has announced a reputation and social media program which will work to protect dealers' online reputation.

The Internet has evolved into the top destination for information, as a result the need to monitor the automotive dealer brand image online is imperative. For this reason Search Optics offers a social media platform that updates, monitors and creates profiles on the top Web 2.0 sites. Christian Fuller, Executive Vice President states, "Our social media program is designed to increase brand awareness and online visibility by using social media as a way to connect with customers. We are confident social media will continue to be an excellent tool for today's savvy auto dealer."

The reputation management program begins with Web 2.0 campaigns on popular social media sites such as Myspace, YouTube, Twitter, & RSS feeds. Additionally, the program includes online press release distribution, social media blasts, web 2.0 profile optimization, weekly content updates & monthly statistical reporting.

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Search Optics Inc.®, a leader in providing fully integrated interactive marketing solutions for the automotive dealer, today announced the launch of mobile websites.

The new mobile sites are designed to be utilized through hand-held devices, this new feature will allow dealers instant connectivity to customers as they can be utilized anywhere to view inventory, research prices, and gain immediate access to directions, maps & hours. The mobile sites feature fast load times as well as more detailed information including a breakdown of vehicles sent to phones, and monthly reporting detailing usage statistics.

"As the use of mobile devices continues to grow, it makes good business sense to ensure that your dealership is presented to buyers when they are actively looking for what you have to offer, which is why we are pleased to offer mobile websites to our clients." states Christian Fuller, Executive Vice President.

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The short answer is -- Because you want to be in business tomorrow and the next day.

To make that happen in this economy you absolutely need to get the maximum from every marketing dollar you spend – and the only way to do that is to measure and improve your results relentlessly.

The long answer is a bit more complicated.

If your business to be more successful, your marketing investments have to generate customers at a profitable rate. You have to be smarter than ever about spending your marketing dollars and the only way to do that is by constantly measuring and comparing results. Do that and you will quickly discover that nothing comes close to the Internet for creating measurable returns.

In my opinion, your marketing budget should start with the Internet and include other media only when you have maximized the returns there. TV, radio, newspapers, and everything else should follow your Internet marketing efforts because the Internet is where you get the greatest measurable bang for your marketing buck.

So Far, So Good

If you're like most automotive retailers, you've already made an investment in online marketing and seen the results at work. You've probably explored the world of search engines, keywords, online digital advertising, and all the rest. You may even be using competitive keywords to siphon off some of your competitor's prospects.

In short, you've picked the low-hanging fruit of ultra-high converting traffic and been happy with the impact on your bottom line.

If you're just a bit more aggressive than average, you may have thrown your net wider using specific model searches, and keywords associated with competitive brands and models. You also are likely to have moved beyond simple core search tactics to the use of "Long Tail" search phrases with four or five keywords to reach very specific groups of prospects.

That universe is smaller, but the conversion rates are still very rewarding.

In normal times you might be tempted to sit back and rest on your laurels. But these are not normal times, not by a long shot. And, online marketing success is a moving target. Ye

The Next Big Thing

The next big thing in online marketing is going to be the linkage of behavioral analysis with both traditional keyword-based search technologies, and a new breed of targeted digital display advertising. Here's an example of how this rapidly emerging combination of technologies works.

Assume an online shopper enters the search term "new car lease" in Google and does not receive any satisfactory results. The shopper then enters "new car lease special" as a second search term. At this point, Google understands from the cumulative behaviors that the shopper is interested in automobiles and leasing.

If the shopper then enters a different search, say "new BMW San Diego", Google's behavioral analysis can add non-BMW-specific items to the search result. Those items might well include information on "leasing" and "specials" for the brand(s) your dealership(s) offers in the San Diego market area.

The technology can also be used to present digital display advertising that is targeted both geographically and behaviorally. So the shopper may not only find your information in the Google results, but also see a digital display ad covering your lease specials in the San Diego market even if you're not a BMW dealer.

It doesn't make much sense for a local dealer to buy a Yahoo banner ad that anyone in the world can see. But, it makes a lot of sense to run a targeted digital ad at prospects who have identified themselves both geographically and behaviorally as part of your local market.

Behavior-based technologies get even more interesting when they are linked with emerging search and display networks like Yahoo Ad Ready. It won't be long until you are able to choose both a geographic area and behaviorally-targeted digital display ads across multiple platforms on the Internet. Google certainly isn't the only game in town anymore.

The good news in this emerging technology is that your online marketing results are likely to improve in the future because your marketing message will be more precisely targeted to what individual online shoppers are looking for. Bear in mind, however, that this is very sophisticated stuff from both a technology and a marketing point of view.

Bottom line, you probably can't do it yourself anymore. You will almost certainly need experienced professional help to manage a behaviorally-based online marketing program.

You've Already Done the Easy Part

If you're like most automotive retailers, you've probably depended on your IT specialist to manage your online marketing efforts. That has made sense until now because most of what's been done has focused primarily on the technology part of the equation, web programming, database management, search engine optimization (SEO), etc.

That isn't going to go away, but it's going to be a lot less important than clear, effective communication in the future. Online success has become more complicated than opening a Google account and bidding on a few keywords. The ability to behaviorally identify what an online shopper is really looking for changes the focus of online marketing from the technology to the message.

Would you ask your IT specialist to create your print and broadcast advertising? I didn't think so.

Your TV, radio, and print advertising are all done by professionals. Why should your online marketing efforts be any different?

At the end of the day, it's all advertising, the technology just helps you make better decisions about where and how to invest your money. If the Internet is the place you get the most for your marketing dollars, isn't it the place where you should be using your best marketing talent?

Sorry, but you've already done the easy part. When you're picking the low-hanging fruit of ultra-high converting traffic you can probably get by letting a technically competent person manage your online marketing. Those days are just about over.

How to Win the New Game

What you need now is not a technician who also does marketing; you need a marketing professional who understands technology. And because the marketing opportunities are changing so quickly in response to the technology, you need someone who is paying full-time attention to both.

You also need to revisit your online efforts to focus them on generating the most productive possible outcomes telephone calls from motivated buyers. Emails are from shoppers, usually price shoppers. Phone calls are from buyers, and your sales people already know how to convert them into sales.

To survive in this market, you must relentlessly maximize the return on every dollar you invest in your business. Yesterday, that meant focusing your online efforts on technology, today it means re-focusing them on marketing.

What will it mean tomorrow? Call me in six months and we'll talk about the next big thing. Yes, online marketing is changing that fast, and you must revisit your efforts again and again and again.

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Profitable Internet marketing isn't magic, says David Ponn, CEO of Search Optics Inc., a firm that specializes in helping auto retailers with online efforts.

"All you need to know to be successful are a couple of simple facts," he says. "The people who build Internet search engines are running flat out to stay ahead of the marketers who manipulate Internet search engines. You absolutely need to know who's ahead at any given moment."

Automotive retailing is about generating quality leads and converting them to sales, Ponn says. "If you're a dealer, nothing else matters."

Until search engines such as Google came on the scene, the Internet was a chaotic place with eight billion pages filed in random order and no index.

There is no way to alphabetize the Internet like a phone book, so the search-engine companies set out to organize the world's information on the Web.

"What makes Google, Yahoo and MSN viable is relevance — the ability to sort through those eight billion pages, plus all of the new ones added each day, and quickly deliver the page most relevant to the searched terms," Ponn says. "That's a much more difficult task than simply indexing them."

Google began asking the people who put pages on the Internet to describe them, and the meta tag was born. That is a bit of keyword coding on a Web page that the search engine detects. Using meta tags, Web builder could tell a search engine which inquiries their page was relevant to.

"It worked like a charm, until marketers figured out that salting Web pages with meta tags — mirroring words commonly used in inquiries — would drive traffic to their sites," Ponn says.

So the race was on for Google to redefine relevance.

Next, the search engines began looking into the content of Web sites for relevant information. In response, marketers started using high-frequency search words in their copy.

The search engines again shifted gears and started evaluating Web sites based on how they were linked to other Web sites. Marketers responded with hundreds of dummy Web sites that existed only to link with their real pages and drive traffic to them.

Now, Google et al. are starting to look at what people are saying about a Web site as a way to determine its relevance. Marketers are beginning to catch on to that, too.

"Once upon a time, meta tags were an important part of a Web site," Ponn says. "But that was three full generations of search-engine evolution ago. Today, you still need meta tags on your Web site, but they account for less than 5% of its total search engine score."

Another misconception is that there's only one right way to do search-engine optimization, he says. "Actually, there are many approaches to SEO, and you need to be doing all of them all the time."

He rebuts the idea that a Web site click in and of itself somehow becomes a showroom sale. "What you need are not clicks, what you need right now are phone calls from motivated customers who know you have something they want to buy," he says

Clicks matter when they turn into something a dealership can close, such as a phone call. "Web site should spur those phone calls," Ponn says.

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