You may have read one of our posts on online reputation management and how we recommend using Google reviews. Now, Google has made that a much smarter choice.

Previously, the biggest downside of Google’s review process was the fact that it didn’t let the business edit, comment or participate in the review process. Google has announced today that it will allow businesses who have a verified local business listing to respond to Google reviews about their business. Here’s Google’s statement directly from their LatLong blog:

“Starting today, if you’re a verified Google Places business owner, you can publicly respond to reviews written by Google Maps users on the Place Page for your business. Engaging with the people who have shared their thoughts about your business is a great way to get to know your customers and find out more. Both positive and negative feedback can be good for your business and help it grow (even though it’s sometimes hard to hear). By responding, you can build stronger relationships with existing and prospective customers. For example, a thoughtful response acknowledging a problem and offering a solution can often turn a customer who had an initially negative experience into a raving supporter. A simple thank you or a personal message can further reinforce a positive experience. Ultimately, business owner responses give you the opportunity to learn what you do well, what you can do better, and show your customers that you’re listening.”

If you haven’t already, go back and read our article on the real benefits of online reputation management. This innovation by Google will make our reputation management strategy that much easier to implement.

Right now, you can have your Twitter posts automatically update your LinkedIn status, Facebook wall posts and quite a few other social networks, but is this killing your social presence? Yes, it is. Every social network is really designed for a different purpose and a different set of communications. Simply repurposing content over and over again makes it uninteresting to your peers. When I see a connection make personal quip after personal quip on LinkedIn, I start ignoring their updates – I use LinkedIn to maintain business connections – so telling me you had a great weekend with your dog at the beach via LinkedIn is a waste of my time.

When you start making your social communications mass media, you lose the personal connection that made media social in the first place.

The entire purpose of social networks is to make meaningful connections to peers and communicate information effectively. The mass, repetitive broadcast of information is the complete antithesis of this.

While Twitter integrations can be real time-savers, using them properly is the key to using them successfully. Once you have Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook connected, you can set the connections ONLY to integrate the tweets you choose – typically by adding #fb or #li to your tweet. With this method, you’ll integrate appropriate content and stop flooding social networks with broadcast information.

Another great tool is a social networking app like Hootsuite - which allows you to manage communications across all your social networks from a single application.

You’re welcome. And thank you for cleaning up your social communications.

You’re invited! (well, maybe, check with one of us…) to one of our biggest events of the year – the 2010 Moore & Scarry Advertising Fantasy Football Cup Draft Party. This September 3rd, we’ll be getting ready for another great year and wasting time at work worrying about football.

Want to join in the fun? Come join us.

Check out the event here.

We’ve seen buzz around the Internet about Google Adword’s beta test of the lead form extension. Essentially, what it will do is add a plus box next to the top ranked search ad, that when clicked opens a lead form that a customer can fill out instead of actually clicking on the ad itself. Below is a shot courtesy of PPC Hero of what the lead form extension will look like. Read more »

by Duncan Scarry

A top tier Audi dealership showcases a Hyundai Genesis on it's vehicle riser.

If you read Sports Illustrated, there’s an editorial box called, “Sign of The Apocolype,” which showcases a funny or interesting fact. I was driving out of one of my clients – a really nice Audi dealership in Florida and noticed the car they were featuring on the riser was a Hyundai. This from a dealership with a $145,000 car in the showroom.

Sign of the Apocolypse – or – is Hyundai really gained that much credibility?

Lance Armstrong previously stated breathing exhaust fumes from support vehicles during long cycling tours can reduce his overall performance…

Kudos to Chiat-Day for addressing his concern, while seamlessly touting the new Nissan Leaf’s “greenness.”

I was on the phone with one of my clients the other day going over their lead volume. Our clients are always discussing lead volume, but very rarely are they discussing lead quality.

The client received 30 leads generated directly from their own web site and 98 leads from Dealix. Of those leads, they sold 12 vehicles from the self-generated leads and 6 vehicles from the Dealix leads. There was $4000 spent on search engine marketing and $2450 spent on Dealix. Let’s take a look at all this in a chart to make it easy:

There are a number of areas where Dealix wins in this competition, overall lead volume, total expense and cost per lead. But Dealix severely under performs where it counts – lead quality. This is pretty evident when you look at the closing ratios.

But the real cost in all of this isn’t just about the expense of generating leads. A typical Internet sales manager can effectively manage between 85 and 115 leads per month. If we had one ISM managing the self-generated leads and another managing the Dealix leads, the ISM managing the self-generated leads would be at 33% capacity, while the ISM handling the Dealix leads would be at 100% capacity.

So beyond the fact that third party leads close at much lower ratios, they also chew up quite a bit of your staffs’ time. Let’s say your average ISM makes $4000 per month. The employee cost to manage the self-generated leads would be approximately $1320; the employee cost to manage the Dealix leads would be $4000. Now, let’s look at another chart that compares more meaningful metrics like total cost (including employees), gross profit and ROI.

The example here is Dealix, but this applies to all leads regardless of where they’re generated. Measure the real cost of your leads – not just the quantity, but the quality. Once you have a solid idea of the return on investment of different lead sources, start maximizing the ones the are the most production and keep adding them until you reach your budget.

We’re growing again – and we’d like to welcome our newest staffers: Cari Williams, Karen Moran, Kristin Vick, Jamie Obergfell and Kyle Dimitris.

Want to be part of our team? It all starts here: http://www.mooreandscarry.com/careers

Moore & Scarry Advertising is now releasing our revolutionary online reputation management process. Previously revealed only to our most highly-regarded clients, we’re now making this process available publicly.

By now, you’ve very likely heard how important online reputation management is. Here’s Moore & Scarry’s simple, step-by-step process for creating a rock-solid online reputation: Read more »

Moore & Scarry Advertising Welcomes New Staffers

Moore & Scarry has had incredible growth over the past couple of years. It’s typical when we announce new hires, we announce five or six at a time. We’d like to welcome our newest staffers: Read more »