As car dealers start to test the effectiveness of Google Boost I just want to remind members of this community on an important fact about Google Boost. If you don't have an IRM process in place that gets happy customers to post reviews, you will not be able to leverage this promising advertising option.

As I conduct 20 Group meetings around the country, there still are many dealers that have less than 10 reviews posted on Google Places. In most cases, when you have a small number of reviews on Google Places they represent the unhappy customers who took the time to vent online.

Boost Gives Dealers More Reasons to Engage in IRM

If you plan to leverage your great customer experience and start a proactive reputation management process, I would encourage you to make sure you encourage customer reviews directly on Google Places. This will allow you to test Google Boost with a strong number of stars showing on your paid ads.

This is not to say abandon posting to sites like Dealerrater.com but if that site has been your main focus for the past year, I would implement processes to get customers to post reviews directly on Google Places for a while.

Google will always show reviews that are directly posted on Google Places. You don't know when Google will show reviews from 3rd party sites. If you invest too much energy in sites other than Google Places, what happens when Google turns off including that site into their roll-up feed?

Once you have a balance of good reviews on all websites that Google rolls up, I would transition to a stronger focus in direct Google Places reviews.

Hundreds of Reviews a Month With Ease

One of the easiest ways to do this is using the Google Places App which can be loaded on an iPhone, iPad, or Droid smartphone. The best time to capture a customer review is when everyone is hugging and kissing in your dealership.

Now that you have this knowledge, get busy and leverage the hundreds or thousands of customers that can post a review directly from their own iPhone or Droid in your service lane and/or while they are in the F & I process. You just have to ask.

Download Free POS Tent Cards

You download this tent card artwork in the PDF provided (IRM Tent Cards) and go to the printer and print these TENT CARDS. Place them on the desks of your F&I staff.

Ask your customers if they have a Google Account during the F&I process. If they say yes, and about 30-50% will say yes, get them to commit to posting from the store while they wait at the desk.

They can post using the Google Places App (free) from their own smart phone. You can also hand them your iPhone or an iPad and they can use their own Google Account to login and post a review. It's that simple. Google wants consumers to post reviews while they are in a store, restaurant, hotel, or event.

Boot Camp Workshops on IRM and Google Places

At the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp in Orlando, which starts this Saturday April 16th, Jeff Kershner and Glenn Pasch will be conducting a workshop on the latest strategies for Reputation Management.

I will be conducting a workshop of the latest Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies which includes a section on Google Places Optimization (GPO).

I hope to see you in Orlando. You can still register at: http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com or call 732.450.8200 ext 5 and ask for Renee McGowan.

You can also download the PDF brochure by clicking on this link: Boot Camp Color Brochure