DealerBytes.com
A common sense approach to automotive internet marketing

Just saw this video in Dealer Weekly Newsletter from Automotive Digest.

There is a great point made there but it needs to go further. The point is that your web site either works or it doesn’t. PERIOD.

Your web site generates people through your front door or it does not. It does not matter how pretty it is, how flashy the graphics. That does not matter. The key is it generates people through your front door or it does not.

That answers the first question but brings us to question number two.

In the online world you soon won’t be able to survive with only one site. Here is why.

For this example you have a Ford dealership called John Smith Ford located in my area (the coal region of Pennsylvania). You rank #1 in Google for John Smith Ford but….

I am a buyer looking for an Expedition (I know there aren’t many of them with gas at $4 + a gallon) and I am going to use the web first to start my shopping. I seriously doubt that the first thing I am going to enter is John Smith Ford.

It is much more likely I am going to search for something like “discounts on Ford Expedition“. See I also know you don’t have many buyers looking for the big SUV’s either. I may have even narrowed it to an area with a term like “discounts on Ford Expedition Central PA“.

Now I have been working on line and looked at numerous web sites fro car dealer’s and other off line merchants. Very few understand and take advantage of the way the web works.

This is the most likely way that people will find you and unless you have multiple pages all optimized for the various permutations that people will be searching for it is unlikely that you are getting the vast majority of people that are in buying mode to a page that you control.

This is why the large vendors like Cars.com and Autotrader.com will show a positive return on investment. They use YOUR inventory which you are paying them to do to cover and own these search terms then monetize it to their advantage with affiliate offers. Don’t believe me check out the white paper at www.Digital20Group.com.

The other reason that you need multiple web properties is that you have to worry about people that are unhappy with you. How much would it cost you if the number 3 listing for your dealer name is YourDealerNameSucks.com. If you want to find out check out this article at ISM In Training.

Using a variety of web platforms like micro sites, Squidoo lenses, blogs and Hub Pages can make it extremely hard for anyone to get on the first page for your name unless they really understand SEO. (That is a person you don’t want to upset .

So check and see if your web site is doing its job and if you haven’t started adding other sites you need to before your competitor does.

Technorati Tags: blog, hub page, lead generation, micro site, seo, squidoo, web site

The automobile industry typically runs “behind the times” in it’s initiatives. So it is refreshing when I see the industry start to catch up with the times. Online marketing initiatives are suffering from atrophy with the current market environment on the dealer services end. Fortunately for the automotive industry some are starting to take notice. Right now there is buzz about a variety of initiatives inside of the industry. In my opinion most are very positive some are still so 2006.

Right now the never ending conversation about Autotrader.com going on over at Jeff Kershner’s Blog and their never ending battle to gain market share with a bad business model, for dealers. Here is a report worth reading at www.Digital20Group.com

Dealer Micro Sites seem to be a hot topic inside of a social network set up by Ralph Paglia. This seems to be a self serving topic as most of the participation is by the vendors trying to hawk their wares to the limited number of dealer employee participants. This marketing tools time has passed in it’s current form. (more on this later)

I have discussed CRM/ILM vendors issues at my other blog about being an Internet Sales Manger and their lack of compliance with the CAN SPAM Act and deliverability issues. Read where I talk about problems with the BZ Results BuzzTrak and their non compliance at www.ismintraining.com.

Now for the real killer…….

In steps www.DrivingSales.com, the first automotive social network created by a dealer for dealers, to help the industry get the real deal on the vendors in the automotive marketplace and to share ideas with each other to help better the industry in it marketing efforts.

Dealers and their employees have generally played their cards close to their vest when it comes to sharing ideas with each other. Now the relics who have held on to these old principals will need to step up and get into this century to remain competitive in todays information age. Consumers are empowered with the wealth of knowledge that is available to them. Now dealers have the opportunity to work from a level playing field just as consumers do when it comes time to make decisions and have real feedback on vendors that service them.

It is time to get on board today start by joining www.DrivingSales.com today.

Technorati Tags: Automotive Social Networking, autotrader, dealer micro sites, drivingsales.com

Well it looks like John Reese at Income.com scooped me on my transparency series.  He did an excellent post about it and pretty well sums up my message here.

If you are selling anything anywhere you need to be the focus of your offering, online or off.  The first step in the road to the sale sale is to establish rapport and how you do that online is to be completely transparent and encourage the conversation about you, your business and your offerings.

While Jon’s blog deals mostly with the “make Money Niche” of online marketing the message still applies very much to the automobile industry and our marketing efforts.

Lead with you, then your offerings, cause others to seek you out, become the hunted not the hunter!!

Many people seek anonymity in their online dealings, that is why we get leads with bad phone numbers, real names are not given and our email replies go unreturned only to find out that the lead has hit the showroom and purchased a car using the information we have given them as a negotiating tool.

I have also seen this work the other way around too. A prospect that was worked in our showroom leaves and continues shopping and the internet department winds up with the lead after customer continues to shop online, usually through a third party vendor. To save that customer is a formidable task.

The consumer is placed in a bad position if it is discovered and may even decide to shop elsewhere or completely remove themselves from the market. A bad proposition for all parties concerned.

What does that have to do with “Transparency”?

Everything and nothing.

Almost daily the used car manager will request that I change prices on a car on the website or even delete it if the consumer has completed a transaction, which is done by default via the nightly DMS updates. Their is usually a huge disparity in the pricing online and those offered by the “lot lizards”.

Can this have long term effects on your business. Probably not!! It can have short term moments of panic for those the most affected by it. Long term it will push more consumers to the interwebs. Oh, that is already happening!

Not listing a price on an inventory item online, not giving the price of your service upfront and not worrying about others online conversation about you in your every interaction with a customer or potential customer is as antiquated as hiding behind “handles”, sending unsolicited emails and cloaked SEO tactics.

Eventually it all becomes known, so why doesn’t everybody get on the same page and become completely open in their dealings? The move is in that direction what are you doing to become more transparent at every level?

Technorati Tags: moving forward, online dealing, transparency

And do you actually use the information?

Read an interesting article today over at Ward’s Dealer Business called
“Send In the Data Crunchers“.

The discussion was on tracking your results from your internet marketing efforts. You can with the right scripts or services track everything you are doing on line. Should you? Absolutely.

The thing that I read that really resonated with me was something that I have seen numerous times. You need to actually take action on the results.

Let’s take leads as an example. Tracking is easy on the web side but..

Do you have any tracking you are doing once the lead comes in whether it was free or purchased? Who got the lead? Did they actually follow up? Did the lead convert?

It is extremely hard to know whether your lead source is working and if you sales force are actually working what you give them if you aren’t tracking them. This part of tracking is probably the least done and the most important.

Following the 80/20 rule I would bet that 20% of your sales people get 80% of the sales from these leads. If you aren’t tracking you won’t know will you?

Tracking these will allow you to find out which lead sources are working and which salesperson/s actually work their leads promptly.

No matter what your lead source (self generated are always best) if they are not contacted promptly it can be of the best quality and quickly become worthless. How fast are you receiving your leads and how soon do they hear from someone?

What are your thoughts and do you actually track these items? Let me know.

Read a real good post over at Yahoo Hot Jobs titled ” Top 10 Myths About Networking“. This is focused on using networking to get a job but the same things apply to any networking.

A few points in this article really resonated with me. Specifically as it applies to using the web. Quality is much more important than quantity.

Yes everyone wants more numbers but I know that there are certain posts I do that don’t get huge numbers of visitors but the visitors that do show up are highly targeted and very responsive.

Getting a hundred visitors a day that don’t have an interest in what you are discussing will not sell anymore products. You are lucky in a case like that to get 0.5% to take the action you are looking for or maybe one action for every 200 visitors.

Consider if you get 10 targeted visitors but 30% respond to what you are offering you would now have 3 times the results with 5% of the traffic.

The other item that really stands out is about how hard networking is. It isn’t if you will listen first. Good listeners are always welcomed and considered friends.

Now how do you do this online? A blog can be a good start. You can tell me exactly what you think of this article by leaving a comment. It allows me to not only get information out but to listen to you and respond to YOUR concerns.

Think if you have a question and I supply an answer through this interactive media you are not more likely to do business with me down the line?

Are you using any of the interactive web media for conversing with your prospects. Forums, Q and A blogs, Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages - all of these allow people to interact with you online.

How many of these are you using to reach your potential customer?

Ever notice how most dealerships always have one or two sales people that are head and shoulders above the rest?

Why is this? What do they do that the others don’t?

Now some of this may just be a better work ethic. Making the follow up calls, working leads the minute they get them rather than standing out in the smoking area complaining about how slow it is and how the dealership needs to do more advertising and lead generation.

Much more likely it is that the top sales people run their own business. After all commission sales people have their own business. Make sales - Get Paid.

Now you don’t have the overhead and have to worry about the taxes etc. but if you think of your job as a business that you control instead of a job where you put in time you may start doing the little things that will make a big difference.

What are you doing to advertise and brand you for you?

Do you have any kind of web presence?

What organizations do you network at?

Here are just a few ways you can increase others awareness of you.

If you have children are you active in any of their organizations? Having been involved in various things like Little League, Girl’s Softball and Band Boosters when my children were younger I generated and did business with those that I interacted with there and supported my children at the same time.

Anyone can get a free blog and post helpful tips about the car buying process and get exposure. A great way to start getting your name known.

There are a variety of free interactive web services like Squidoo, Hub Pages and Face Book to name a few that can increase your exposure.

And…

The best part about the exposure you generate for you is that it is portable. Yep, you change dealerships and it all points to you not the dealership.

Think about this - if you spend time discovering how to do and use things like this and they sell an extra car or two a month for 2 hours effort a month what is your return on the time work out to hourly.

Discover how to do this the right way and you can increase your sales by more than just one or two sales per month and the more you do it it grows exponentially.

So are you an employee or do you have a business?

Leave your comments and let us know.

If you have never had the opportunity to visit New Orleans. LA here is a very good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Synergy Session http://www.synergysessions.com is having their 3rd Annual Conference at the beautiful W Hotel which is walking distance of many of many of the great sites that the French Quarter has to offer.

Below I have copied their press release:

Third Annual Synergy Sessions Event Draws Top Industry Speakers

DeVerl Austin, Charles Vogelheim and Sean V. Bradley lead a powerful program.

PHILADELPHIA, March 14, 2008 — Dealer Synergy, one of the premier Internet Sales Training organizations in the automotive industry in conjunction with AutoSuccess Magazine and The Dubis Group have attracted some of the best experts in the retail automotive marketing arena for their upcoming third annual Synergy Sessions Event being held in New Orleans.

DeVerl Austin, a Senior Consultant with Franklin Covey will be speaking at this event, and representatives from the Franklin Covey team will be collaborating with Sean V. Bradley to develop a presentation which will leverage strategies from the best seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The results will yield the powerful “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Online Dealerships” presentation and provide a framework for auto dealers and their teams to create greater efficiencies for maximum results.

Charles Vogelheim, a Vice President with J.D. Power and Associates one of the premier automotive research companies and a 20-year veteran of the automotive industry will share insights and trends that will shape the auto retailing market in the future.

Sean V. Bradley, the Founder and CEO of Dealer Synergy will once again lead the event with his dynamic and energized presentations focusing on helping dealers use cutting edge technologies like video search engine optimization to build online relationships and create more interest from consumers to build sales volume for auto dealers in their local markets.

This event is also the first major automotive training session being held in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina and Susan L. Givens the publisher of AutoSuccess Magazine and organizer of the Synergy Sessions event said, “We are proud to show our support for this great city and hope that the over 200 attendees we bring to New Orleans take advantage of all that the city has to offer us.”

She continued, “Many of the top auto industry vendors are supporting our event and that helps insure a quality program, great exhibitors and top tier information for all the dealer owners and managers attending our event.”

Registration is now open and additional information is on the event website http://www.synergysessions.com.

SOURCE:
Dealer Synergy
7201 Keystone Street Ste 120
Philadelphia, PA 19135
(888) 379-6374

Not only do I look forward to returning to a city that I love, I am also looking forward to networking with other automotive professionals and the awesome give and take that takes place at events like this. Hope to see you there…

We are a firm believer in what we call search engine saturation. This is good for a couple of reasons. Search engine saturation is when you target more than just the #1 spot but as many spots for your name as you can (at least the top 10).

First, you can protect your good name. It amazes me when I check out a dealer’s name or a brand and city and only find one listing that goes to the dealer. What happens when you piss a customer off that has a bit of web skills or knows how to complain?

You can see a whole article and an example of what this can cost a dealer in this age of the web over at Paul’s blog ISM In Training titled “What does negative information cost you?”. It can be a huge negative.

Second, you can be found on other platforms that have their own search function, are easy to use, and are beloved by the Big G like Hub Pages and Squidoo. These can easily get listed on your first page.

Third, take the time to use the bookmarking sites for all your properties. Not just your main dealer site but your Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages and even your micro sites.

Fourth, a blog network can be easy to add and are relatively easy to update regularly. Every car dealer I have ever entered has a brag board with all their testimonials on them. Do you have a blog with yours online to show what your customers think?

Fifth, a series of micro sites. Easy to find landing pages to create leads on all of your main terms. You can also use these for adding used inventory for terms that you want to compete with.

You sell Honda’s. You probably have Nissan’s and Toyota’s in your used car inventory. Why not target these too. Get your name in front of more potential customers no matter what they are looking for.

Doing some of these things on a regular basis will allow you to own the search engines for not just your dealer name but for as many of the top 10 results in your area as you can. This does not count all the other terms that will bring you potential customers.

Owning the search engines is not hard but it does not happen overnight. Spending some time regularly can pay huge dividends over time.