BlogPro Automotive » Marketing Strategies

Two examples of dealers letting business slip through

Ryan G — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:40:48 +0000

Yesterday we received our first request on the new consumer-facing portal at AutoConverse.com. The request was for vehicle service and you can view it here. The experience was, to say the least, disheartening and it has me baffled at the disinterest and incompetence I witnessed at the dealer level.

In attempt to fulfill the request, I contacted two local dealers to schedule a service appointment for our member. The dealers included:

MVP Nissan Exton Service Page

Ardmore Nissan Service Page

The website Google gives for the first dealer is http://mvp-nissan-of-exton.ebizautos.com/. When I completed the service request form, it didn’t go through. I attempted in Firefox and in Chrome hoping it was just a browser issue. After a few attempts it went through (I thought).

The website Google gives for the other dealer is http://www.ardmorenissan.com/, whose service request form I was able to successfully complete.

All this was done around midnight. I received an auto response from latter store but nothing from the former.

The next morning, expecting to have responses from each. I had nothing, so about noon I called the Exton dealer. The woman I spoke with seemed flustered. She rambled on that 3 leads were given to her from yesterday but that she could not read the writing and therefore did not call them to follow up. I assumed she meant hand writing which would have made no sense.

After a little questioning it appeared that they just came out of the printer funny. In the end, she did not have my info from the initial request so I booked the appointment over the phone. When I told her the website I was on, she said, “that must be some mistake. All the requests we get come from Nissan and they send them to us b\c we are the local dealer.” If this is true, then I guess it hasn’t struck anyone odd that they get no requests from the eBizAutos site I was on. Although, based on what she conveyed, no one seems to know they have that site.

Shortly after fulfilling this request for our member, I replied to the auto response from the other store which had still not responded. I let them know we had fulfilled the request but that they could sign up to receive others. The response I got was, well, here…

Dear AC,

I sell new cars here….you can contact our service department for a service issue or appointment.

The funny part is that I used the Service Center on the website to submit the request. Seems odd that a sales rep would be handling it and then tell me to contact the service department.

So what are we to make of this? As stated in the beginning of this post, I was baffled by the technological breakdown with the first dealer that a website could exist and seemingly be losing inquiries unbeknown to anyone. But maybe that was just a fluke because I did it again this morning and it went through without a hitch. I was disheartened by the lack of interest experienced with the second dealer in taking care of a customer request.

Do I expect these situations to go smoothly? No, not really. But let me tell you. When people contact me to bring me business, I like to know how they found me and what compelled them to contact me. If they experienced difficulty I like to know why and address the problem. If they need to ultimately speak with someone else I put them in touch with the more appropriate party as opposed to telling them where they can go.

For information about how you benefit from the new AC portal, contact us at 877-873-0583, or register online with the site, set up your profile, and FREE Merchant Site.

Jay Wolfe Toyota Race for the Ride with SCVNGR

Ryan G — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:37:43 +0000

On July 11, 2010, Jay Wolfe Toyota built the “Jay Wolfe Race for the Ride” trek on SCVNGR all through downtown St. Louis. The trek had people going places, doing challenges and earning points on the mobile system known as SCVNGR. The challenges asked people to solve location-based riddles, take photos and more! The top scorer at the end of the day came away with a brand new 2010 Toyota Corolla!

The video below shows pieces of this trek in action with participants wearing as uniforms red t-shirts printed by Jay Wolfe Toyota and local sponsors. Those participating can be seen scavenging around the city of St. Louis looking for clues and reporting their findings using their Droids and iPhones, the two platforms designed for use with the SCVNGR system. In the end, the event drew in about 500 participants.

Jay Wolfe Toyota Race for the Ride from SCVNGR on Vimeo.

This type of marketing is certainly new to automotive in that Jay Wolfe Toyota was the firm’s FIRST retail dealership to sponsor such an event. SCVNGR has been doing similar events with other businesses throughout the U.S., primarily with jewelers.

Some of the key elements to this type of marketing are:

The Build Up: Everyone is talking about participating in the event to complete for a NEW CAR.
The Action: Players interact with the dealership’s sales and service departments in a truly fun and engaging way.
The Result: Acquisition of new customers to the service department as well as car sales from qualifies buyers.

The investment for this is comparable to a traditional low-level advertising campaign with your local newspaper or television station for a week or two, plus the dealership must co-op with its OEM to give away a vehicle.

Some might argue that the ROI is not there, but this could be a cop-out for not being familiar with such a marketing initiative. Dealers are still dropping similar amounts of coin on traditional advertising initiatives and are unable to gage their successes in most cases, so you can’t put much stock into that concern. In no case are dealerships able to achieve the deep levels of brand recognition and engagement that a SCVNGR treasure hunt can achieve. Plus, the end result achieves far more value to everybody involved, including the local community, plus you get a nice vide that can be used in the years to come.

If you are interested in exploring SCVNGR for your dealership, call us at 877-873-0583 or fill in the form below to request a free consultation to see if this is something for you and your dealership.

Auto dealerships among least liked types of Facebook pages

Ryan G — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:18:15 +0000

Earlier this month HubSpot released some data revealing the most “Liked” types of pages on Facebook. This week they released data on the least “Liked” pages on Facebook and in this data was something not surprising and also quite telling about auto dealerships.

According to their research, HubSpot determined that the average number of fans across all Facebook pages and types was 624. They used this number as the marker for most liked versus least liked. Page types with more than 624 were classified as most liked and pages with fewer than 624 were classified as least liked.

Movies, TV Shows, and books were by and far the most liked types of pages. The other types of most liked, which came nowhere near as liked as these 3 were celebrities, stars, personalities, and public figures, large public venues such as museums and airports, government stuff, and surprisingly local businesses.

In the least liked category were things such as websites, retailers, boring local businesses such as banks and libraries, etc. Also in the least likes category were local automotive dealerships and vehicle services which you can see in the embedded image of this post. In fact, dealership Facebook pages average about 150 fans. Considering that the average dealership has upwards to 20k or 30k customers in the DMS, this number seems too low.

What does this tell us? Does this suggest that Facebook is not a viable place for car dealers to be investing? I am sure that the dealers with hundreds (and in some instances thousands) of fans will argue differently. Maybe this tells us that the approach dealers are taking with Facebook isn’t cutting it. Or maybe that’s just the way that it is.

In my experience using Facebook for car dealers I have found that it is a stretch for an outside party, alas a vendor, to make Facebook an impacting leg for dealers when no one at the dealer level is involved. Between the nature of the car business and the nature of social media, it is a tough mesh.

But when someone at the dealership gets behind the idea and drives it home, utilizing the content marketing services of an outside firm, the results are much different. These dealers are able to concentrate on the conversation, engaging with individuals or groups of individuals in regards to not only their automotive needs and interests but other personal interests too. After all, people buy cars from people, not companies.

To make Facebook a success, I argue that you must find a unique and distinctive role for it. Using Facebook to create a replica of your website does not eliminate the cull de sac syndrome that car dealer websites are subject to where the visitor experience is limited to give me all your contact info and I’ll give you moor product info or let’s get married on our first date together. Essentially you must find a way to use Facebook to add value to customers in ways the website can not accomplish.

For instance, your website is effective at generating leads of in-market buyers. That said, leveraging Facebook to cultivate prospects farther out in the buying funnel could be an ideal approach, thus plastering your Facebook page with OEM specials probably won’t do the trick because it’s not unique content. The OEM sites have that information and so do the dealer sites. The edge in social media is unique and compelling content.

Research like this need not be a deterrent for dealers to get off of Facebook. Quite the contrary. The challenge remains for dealers and automotive vendors to seek viable strategies. Success must be defined which may require performing an analysis of how much a website visitor referred from your Facebook page is with, then putting together a plan to achieve that which meets the targeted budget to satisfy the ROI. Some known ways to accomplish this include giveaways, contests, and polls.

What auto dealers want to know about Google Caffeine and SEO

Ryan G — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:51:50 +0000

Last week, Google announced that their new web indexing system “Caffeine” is live on all Google pages. What does this mean for your website and do you have to change anything on your pages?

Google Caffeine is the name for the new method that Google uses to index web pages. In contrast to Google’s old method, Caffeine can index new web pages faster:

“Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.”

Google changed they way in which they index the web because they want to show new pages more quickly in the search results.

What is the difference between the old system and Google Caffeine?

Google’s previous system updated the search index in batches.

“Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks.

To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.”

With Google Caffeine, Google’s search index is updated continually:

“With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index.”

That means that new pages will be displayed in Google’s search results sooner if they are relevant to the search query.

Caffeine is not a ranking algorithm update. It does not change the way Google ranks web pages so you don’t need to do anything different from the way you do things now. Caffeine just means that new pages will be shown much quicker on Google’s result pages.

To get your own website on Google’s first result page, analyze the web pages that currently have top 10 rankings on Google. The pages that now have a top 10 ranking on Google have done everything right to please Google’s latest ranking algorithm.

Analyze the top ranked pages and check how and where they use their keywords. Also check which web pages link to the top ranked pages and how they link to the top ranked pages.

Doing this is a lot of work if you do it manually. For that reason, we suggest the Top 10 Optimizer by Axandra. The Top 10 Optimizer automatically analyzes the web pages that currently have high rankings for your keywords and it compares them to your own website.

You will also get detailed instructions on how to change the content of your web pages and the links to your site so that your site will be listed in Google’s top 10 results.

For questions or assistance with Google page rankings or with Axandra’s Top 10 Optimizer call us at 877-873-0583.

Online reputation management for automotive sales professionals

Ryan G — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 02:25:47 +0000

As the hum drum of social media marches on across the auto industry, a new approach to selling cars on the web has begun emerging. I don’t know what it will be called but it is based on the idea of building brand equity into individual sales professionals working for an auto dealership, much like real estate agents are able to do with a Realtor.

You can see it in form on sites such as Carfolks.com and AutoConverse.com and also with providers such as dealerMouth which strives to be a complete online operating system for sales professionals. The idea is that people buy cars from people, not dealerships.

Dealership websites today are effective at converting in-market buyers into leads, however they are not conversational and there is little ability to establish rapport which seems to be a growing demand in the car business. This explains why networks such as Facebook have become so readily adopted by dealers.

The problem with sites such as Facebook is that it was not designed for people to do business with car dealers, rather it was designed for people to connect, engage, and share their lives with other friends, however close or distant they might be. Therefore, it has limited use for car dealers who must be conscientious of getting a good return on their time investment.

Enter websites for sales professionals. On Carfolks.com an automotive sales professional gets his own page which is associated with his or her dealership and all other staff from that dealership that are on the site. Customers can rate individual sales people and entire dealerships. Sales staff can use their page as a communication point with customers entering the buying funnel. On AutoConverse.com, members have a profile and can create unlimited merchant sites which they can use to cherry-pick potential customers from forum discussions.

Now while this idea might appear new in automotive internet marketing, the perpetuating need for it over the past many years has been apparent. I recall back in 2003 working with a dealer who wanted us to build him this capability, but the timing for it was just not right. Today, with social media in its hey day and automotive sales professionals bumping head on into its limitations as a sales tool, the timing for technology designed specifically for dealership personnel to conduct business in an online social environment is ripe.

Which leads us to how and why new tools such as this are important. It boils down to a couple things…

a.) Brand building and online reputation management, or word-of-mouth advertising
b.) Transaction-equipped interfaces that give dealers and customers an even playing field

In the video below, Carfolks.com founder Mark Dubis dives into the idea of word-of-mouth advertising by looking at how the review capability accessible to people on Google and Yahoo!, and DealerRater do not create a level playing field for dealerships, plus how by offering space for dealers to truly manage their own online reputation as it pertains to their role at a dealership, more accurate depictions of positive customers experiences can be recorded and incentify customers to share these experiences with others.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not until dealers have and use tools such as this, designed specifically for staff members at auto dealerships to connect with and engage customers through time, will the process of selling cars be any different from a decade ago. It’s time to think outside the box to gain a true competitive edge in today’s automotive digital marketplace.

The key to profitably selling cars on the Web

Ryan G — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:32:28 +0000

Here is a special video. You may want to be in a quiet space when you watch it, though. The message is subtle and it requires your attention, but once you realize what presenter Brian Hoecht from Ai-Dealer is getting at then you will be transformed forever. I know I was.

The premise behind this video is about how auto dealer websites consistently underwhelm visitors and what is required to change that. While preparing for the web cast we ran to record this, I found myself disagreeing with some of Brian’s position about car dealer websites.

“Not all dealer websites are inadequate,” I would argue. But Brian would kindly and firmly say, “yes they are”. “Some do a good job,” I would continue. “No they don’t,” he would say.

But now I agree with Brian. What literally just about every car dealer website lacks today is online work flow, which is a common characteristic of the big e-commerce sites out there such as Amazon.com and eBay. By online work flow, Hoecht means that there is no total online experience for visitors on a dealer site. You can’t actually shop like you can on true e-commerce sites.

Here is an example…
Today I was on Flavia.com ordering coffee. I logged in to my account, browsed the selection, placed items into my shopping cart, mistakenly moved some items from my shopping cart to my favorites list, then put them back into my shopping cart after I realized what I did. When I went to check out I didn’t like the idea of paying $9 shipping for one month supply of coffee so I added more to my cart to stretch that shipping expense out across more time. But my shipping only increased so I called to see why shipping was so expensive.

While the customer service rep on the phone was explaining that there is a per-item charge for shipping I had another call come in so I told the rep I had to go and would deal with this later. I closed my browser and took the other call. Then when I came back later in the day, everything was right where I had left it, e.g. in my shopping cart awaiting me to purchase.

Now this was a true shopping experience. Despite not buying the coffee on my first visit, the fact that I could return later and pick up where I left off was clutch. This is not something you can do on any car dealer website I know of.

So Brian is right. Dealer sites do underwhelm because you can’t do anything on them but get to the end of a cul de sac and then ask for assistance or more information. There is no true e-commerce on most auto dealer sites which typically want to “marry you on your first date.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

How To Stop Underwhelming Online Consumers And Profitably Sell Cars Online Today

Ryan G — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:34:39 +0000

When it comes to shopping online, auto dealers have limited ability to meet the needs of customers. Most people visit a dealership website to get pricing information and availability. Most dealerships have a website so they can generate leads for their sales people.

Do you see the disconnect?

People aren’t going to your website to become a lead. They want information to help them make an informed buying decision on such an important purchase. Yet dealers often limit the information they display so that visitors must INQUIRE to get what they want.

In other industries, people can go online to shop for almost any product out there. They can do their research and make an informed decision, be it online or off. However, with auto shopping they can only go online and inquire with dealers to obtain the information they need to complete their purchase. Lack of pricing isn’t always the missing nugget here, but items such as vehicle equipment upgrades and accurate monthly payments by credit tier certainly aren’t part of very many structured processes on many dealer’s sites.

This week we are pleased to welcome Brian Hoecht from Ai-Dealer who about 5 years ago set out to change this with the auto industry’s first true shopping cart for car dealers. His shopping cart gives auto dealers the ability to share 100% of each vehicle’s information and pricing to customers that create a log in, thus pre-qualifying visitors for dealers while giving buyers what they want.

Hoecht wrote about this recently on DealerRefresh.com in his post about best uses of dealership websites. Hoecht will be our guest presenter in this week’s AC Spotlight series which begins at 2:00pm EST on Thursday May 6. In this webinar we will look at…

What auto shoppers really want
What your typical dealership website is willing to give
What a true automotive online shopping experience offers
Ways that dealers can foster trust online

To attend this free GoToWebinar simply click the Register Now button below and fill in the required information. You will receive your very own log in to the webinar. If you are not able to make the webinar but are interested in receiving information such as this from our site then you can sign up to receive email and text alerts each week when we host a new session. It’s free and you may cancel your subscription at any time. Additionally you can follow us on Twitter @blogproautomo where we announce these webinars as well.

Using Foursquare.com to better understand your customers

Ryan G — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 05:11:20 +0000

With the advent of Foursquare.com this year, auto dealers have a new game to tackle in the digital age, literally.

Foursquare.com is a location-based social networking that requires the use of your mobile phone or device to check in to venues. To “check in” requires you load and log in to Foursquare from your mobile device, pull up a list of places or venues that have been added to foursquare.com by other users, and then use the Check In button. If the venue does not exist then you can add it by entering the name and address.

How does this benefit auto dealers?

Well, it may be too soon to tell however Eric Miltsch from AuctionDirect USA is doing it and he is going to share some of his experiences in this on our next AC Social webinar Thursday May 13 at 11:30am EST.

Sticking with our tradition of keeping AC Webinars simple and useful for applying at your dealership, Miltsch will be covering the following topics:

New-school engagement using “location-based marketing” concepts
Creating memorable, interactive experiences for guests
Leveraging our networks w/regards to surrounding businesses for promotions & the breadth of our personal networks
Improving brand recognition
Driving traffic
Creating sales opportunities

Join us on Thursday May 13 at 11:30am. We will begin with a brief orientation of the AC Webinar series and registration process before handing the controls over to Eric for his presentation which should last about 30-40 minutes.

To register for this event use the button below. If you are already registered with the AC Social webinar series then there is no need to re-register. Likewise if you have an interest in this topic but can not make this particular webinar, click here to view our schedule of events or sign up to receive email and text alerts for all upcoming webinars.

For questions or assistance with AC Webinars contact Ryan Gerardi.

Adding a mobile component to your lead generation process

Ryan G — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:07:30 +0000

Hey folks. This week’s webinar for AC Mobile was not advertised because we are doing something that is product-specific, thus it is not open to the public. We are recording it so once we have completed the edited version then we will be releasing a public version that will be used primarily for demonstration purposes.

The topic for this private webinar is on the new mobile component we have been building in to the AC Insider program. Specifically we will be looking at:

The new email auto response with mobile opt-in information and link to mobile site
The new mobile site options
Pricing for the new mobile component
Upgrade options to full mobile version
How we are incorporating the new mobile component into AC List Builder

You can see there is much to cover and will likely require more than an hour to run through, thus another reason it is not open to the public because it is too much information for one sessions.

Some of you may have received an email communication from GoToWebinar about the AC Spotlight Series going on tomorrow. That communication was a mistake and has been corrected. The next AC Spotlight session is set for May 6.

We have updated the training schedule on our website so please check there for the most accurate information.

To join the AC Mobile Webinar Series you may click here or the button below. By registering you will receive an email notification from GoToWebinar reminding you of each webinar within this series. If you are not able to or are not interested in attending a specific webinar within that series then there is no obligation to attend. You can disregard the notification.

a getting started guide for car dealers on foursquare

Ryan G — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:59:08 +0000

When I first heard about foursquare it did not strike me much and looking back I think it was because there was already a sense familiarity about it.

It’s not the name foursqaure but rather what foursquare brings to the playing field – a way for consumers to express their interest in local businesses by sharing daily lives.

See, facebook has limitations when it comes to marketing your business. Facebook was not built to serve as a business marketing tool. It was meant to be a place for young people to connect. Only as these folks became working professionals in the business world did facebook evolve to serve the needs of businesses and individuals. The underlying architecture is flawed from the get-go as a business marketing tool, and so businesses are forced to work around that.

foursquare on the other hand sprouted from a different seed. It is based on the readiness and handiness of the Internet, mobile technology, consumer interests, and business possibilities. With foursquare, consumers can choose to give your business credibility by sharing their association with your business. And unlike in facebook where the business can manage its persona, on foursquare, businesses have no weight. The popularity and interests of its patrons do.

So for car dealers, where does foursquare fit it? Well, try this for starts…

Go to foursquare.com and create a profile for yourself. This takes about 5 minutes.
Then do a search for your dealership. If you can not locate your dealership on foursquare then add it as a new venue.
Now, each time you go to work (at that dealership), check in. By checking in, you are taking the first steps towards becoming Mayor of your dealership, unless of course someone else at your dealership has already begin doing this. (No worry. If you can’t become Mayor there are other awards available.)
Remember to “check in” each time you go to work at the dealership.
Now, in your dealings with people, be it on your blog, on Twitter, on facebook, wherever, let the people you know see that you are on foursquare. Do everything you can to get people checking in to your dealership on foursquare. This can be done by including a link to your foursquare account in your email signature, displaying it online, in your phone conversations, etc. Probably the most important place to do this is in a text message you send customers. Point is, advertise the fact that you use foursquare.

Here is what you can expect. The Internet-savvy prospects and customers you come in to contact with will connect with you on foursquare, Twitter, and on facebook. All three of these will come in handy through time on Google Search. More importantly, if you engage with these folks via Twitter you can establish a more useful communication with them than you can on facebook. But on facebook you can have a more entertaining and multi media experience with these folks.

On foursquare, you can help them earn savings and incentives by getting them to check in, create to-do lists such getting their vehicle serviced, and adding tips such as, “Talk to Davey Jones he will take care of you”.

Unless you are on foursquare, facebook, and Twitter now it will be difficult to see the value in these simple yet essential acts. But as you learn to embrace these communication tools you will find that cultivating and driving leads onto your desktop is truly attainable even with such new technologies as these.