CarFolks.com Main Purpose

What is completely lost in this diatribe is the fact that networking is a great source of business, online or otherwise.

It leads to referrals, direct sales and staying in touch.  While I agree that people can go over board with networking online but what about the great networkers that sell cars to members at their church, the masons lodge or the golf course?  While these activities can take away from business time too they can be a huge marketing tool.

Businesses do not network online or otherwise.  People who work in them do.  Online is no different.  Our friends, old classmates and family are utilizing online networking sites to reconnect, stay in touch and to share memories.  Anyone who has been in auto sales for more than a month knows that people buy from people they like and staying in touch is the best way to insure repeat business.  Online has made that easier.

Nobody wants to connect with “Old School Dealer Group” they want to connect with the individuals who work there.  Everyone has a sphere of influence and by connecting with you online they are opening letting you into their circle where as they may be more hesitant to do so in real life.

• Will they want to follow you on twitter if the only thing you share is the deal of the day or hour?
• Do people want to really want to read your blog if it is nothing but a pitch?
• Would your brother 350 miles away be interested in your facebook wall if your message is to call for a great deal on a car?
• What would your grand ma say if all you did was try to get her to fill out a credit app because “Everybody Rides” from your myspace account?

Not only would it be counter productive to think that is the way to use networking sites it would be just as asinine as the Carfolks.com model.  If you took the time to make connections and become a part of the community and be a participant not just a marketing machine then these sites can work for you.

It is great to reconnect on facebook with an old high school buddy and to catch up on what has been going on in each others lives.  If  you really reconnected with that lost friend they would travel hundreds of mile to buy a car from you and to enjoy a dinner and a drink.  Two good things come from that interaction by not leading with the pitch.  Just by letting people know what you do.  (Personal Story)

The web today is about being connected with others and the applications that help bring everything together.  I get excited about finding applications that can help promote your business.  I was recently sent a press release by Wei at www.easyautosales.com that talks about how they developed an application where cars can be posted via facebook connect.

I see the application being a great tool if used properly in a networking environment.  Consumers can post a car they find and ask their friends for their opinion of it and a salesperson with a large network could feature a recent trade in and tell the cars story to their connections or use it to recommend cars to those that ask.

The line will have to be walked for dealership peronel using it as a marketing tool so not to appear spammy, there is already to much of that at every level in our industry.  Moderation is the key,but if your profile is strong enough you become the car expert in your circle and your friends will appreciate it.

People are going to Facebook not Carfolks.  With monthly visits topping 60 million and growing versus less than 1000 and falling where would you rather your people be? (I know a few blogs that get a lot more traffic than that)

Remember my motto: “Without Traffic Everything Fails”

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, automotive social networking, carfolks.com, facebook.com, myspace.com, online marketing

While many claim that indexed inventory brings in traffic on long tail searches and it does and will if the site is optimized properly.  Just having individual inventory items showing in the index really means nothing if search engine user cannot find it.  What matters more than anything is its actual position in the search engine results pages.  Having it indexed is one thing, where it shows on an actual consumer search query is another.

How can the long tail benefit in Automotive SEO?

I pulled traffic stats for one of my lead gen sites that has had traffic delivered on 31,222 keywords for 137,194 visitors via the search engines last month.

The top 10 keywords combined only delivered 1257 visitors around .9 of 1% of the traffic so it would be safe to say if I completely lost rankings for my top ten search terms the site would still perform well as far as search engine traffic goes.  The long tail is the biggest winner.

Here are the traffic stats for December 2008 for www.ismintraining.com with out the keywords obscured:

While search engine traffic accounts for less than 46% of the traffic here, which is more typical of a car dealers website, it still shows that the top search terms have less value than the combination of the aggregate of the long tail.  The reason the site here receives traffic on so many different terms is the type of targeted content specific to automotive SEO and other topics.

For a dealers site to pull in these long tail type searches it would require that the site have regularly updated content and not just be an online catalog of inventory.  Other types of content could be added beyond marketing pitches that others would link to freely with out sending out link request which would increase your sites overall value in the eyes of the search engines.  While at the same time your inventory can rise to the top in the search engines if the sites architecture is set up properly so every incoming link permeates throughout the site without bleeding page rank internally and redirecting traffic properly if the car is sold.

The days of having a static website maintain relevance in the search engines are fading fast unless you are targeting non competitive search engine terms, which most localized automotive search terms and limited time promotions are.  With properly optimized content dealers can pull in traffic from competitive markets and brands, however with the changes in the works for Google.com you better make sure you are delivering content that is highly relevant to to what the search engine users are looking for or you may never show up for that consumers search again.

The site here will be going through a redesign shortly to provide more value to the online automotive community with me providing more online marketing content and a new contributors providing content as it relates to people on the ground in the trenches.  If you would like to be a contributor or advertiser please contact me some big things are in store here.  Make sure you subscribe so you can stay upto date on Automotive SEO and other online automotive marketing tips.

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, long tail seo, search engine optimization

Studies have shown that the heavy clickers of online display advertising fit into a certain demographic and if your dealerships objective it to drive this type of traffic to your offers it is a huge win.

From a study by Starcom USA - The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.

What this says is that 50% of your pay per click ad spend will attract a demographic who only account for 6% of people who use the internet who will probably need help with special financing. This also means that these clickers probably do not have a problem filling a lead form and are looking for online interaction. It does not necessarily mean they are the ideal customer for your dealership, unless you cater to this demographic.

All is not lost though as for other valid uses of paid ad placements. The study also shows paid display advertising can also deliver a branding message and that traffic should not be your only goal with search engine marketing

….Starcom data suggests no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked. The research presentation suggests that when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance.

If you are effectively trying to manage your brand online it has its place but should not be looked at as a primary traffic source. Unless of course you are trying to reach the heavy clicker demographic. Other studies have shown that pay per click advertising is nowhere as effective as organic search engine optimization as far as driving web traffic or lead volume. Typically SEO can be very low cost as compared to pay per click and be almost just as instant if you know or have someone who knows how to accomplish this and the traffic will continue to come even after the initial spend or time investment.

Here are some heat maps that show how much more traffic is delivered via search engine optimization compared to pay per click.

Images from Netmarketing101.info with proper attribution

Here are some take aways from the images and data they represent from Hubspot.

1) Organic results get 75%+ of the attention. People don’t click on the ads nearly as much as the organic results.

2) The first organic result gets over 25% of all clicks. Within the organic results, the first result gets the most clicks by far – more than double the second result.

3) Within the ads, the first ad also gets the most clicks. But, since you pay per click for the ads, you should care less about volume and more about if the traffic will actually convert and what your cost per lead and cost per sale will be.

4) There are a good number of clicks on all top 10 organic results. Even the last result gets about 3% of people to click on it – this is about the same rate as the second pay per click ad, and unlike the ad, its free!

What does this mean for car dealers?

If you are targeting the demographic mention before and wish to drive traffic from consumers who spend an exorbitant amount of time on the web, who will and knows how to do a ton of research online, pay per click and online display advertising is for you.

You will get better results, more traffic, from an aggressive search engine optimization campaign versus pay per click and reach a broader broader section of online users from all demographics.

Search engine marketing in most cases should be relied on as a tool for online branding and not as a top traffic generation source.Relevant well optimized pages or additional properties to reach consumers at different phases of the buying funnel can bring more value and be lower cost than pay per click. A mix of the two, search engine optimization and pay per click, can bring value, one to drive real traffic and the other to deliver a branding message or deliver offers targeted to the heavy clicker demo. This does not even take into account you can not deliver both message simultaneously using pay per click unless you have multiple properties and professional search marketing management or have someone on staff that really knows and understated search engine marketing.

Online marketing awareness must rise for car dealers if they are to be highly successful in their efforts. They also need to realize that marketing is not sales. Just like with other forms of marketing (print, radio and tv) it needs active hands on management and is not a set it and forget it process. Dealers have been lulled into a false perception of how Internet marketing is viewed, because online initiatives are easily tracked versus antiquated methods, and force people who manage these efforts to rely, most of the time, solely on Internet tracked sales or even worse be a one gal or guy show.

Are you really taking advantage of the web in the most efficient manner?

That is really only a question you can answer and what works for your dealership. Money today goes further online than it does offline and will deliver more buyers by far if you have an actively managed online marketing campaign in place. You cannot win online by just having a website and use misguided methods to drive traffic.

Vendors that offer Pay Per Click Management or Tools:

• Puredealer.com
• Dealer.com
• Reach Local
• TK Car Sites
• not listed leave a comment – More than one link and not using your real name gets your comment deleted

Technorati Tags: automotive SEM, pay per click, search engine marketing

Indexed inventory is a bad idea -

Having individual inventory items show up in the search engine result pages pointing to a dealers website has many negative implications from both a search engine optimization stand point and from a marketing perspective.

From a Search Engine Optimization View:

The search engines are continually changing their algorithms looking for ways to improve the user experience and having pages indexed that no longer exist, or have zero content, could cause your whole website to get dropped from the index. Not notifying the search engines that a page no longer exist after a car is sold can result in hundreds or thousands of pages in the index that provide no value to the search engine user.

Here is what search engine users see if the individual inventory items are not removed from the search engine if they click through to your “indexed inventory”:

^^Indexed Phantom Used Car^^
^^Non Existent New Car^^

^^Where did this one go?^^

What is even worse there is no real branding for the dealership in the top two examples with a clear call to action to see other inventory items.  This is a severe flaw in the inventory platform and provides a poor user experience for the search engine user.  These screen caps were taken after clicking through to actual search engine results for model and geographic area search quires.  Not listed here to not embarrass the web site provider or dealers.  Proclaimed relationships due to being Adwords certified will not save these sites from being placed in the supplemental index or removed all together if Google takes notice.  Then the only effective traffic generation will be dealer search engine marketing.

Having on site inventory search results showing up in the index may be beneficial if you have a large selection of those type vehicles in inventory. However,  Matt Cutts from Google.com has stated:

Proxied copies of websites and search results that don’t add much value already fall under our quality guidelines (e.g. “Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.” and “Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches…”), so Google does take action to reduce the impact of those pages in our index.

Google themselves does not follow these rules.  A recent search for used Rolls Royce Savannah showed AOL Autos in the top placement and after clicking through to see the results displayed there was not a Rolls Royce in Savannah displayed without modifying the search after being taken to the AOL Autos results page.  What was clearly present was Google ads, so removing these search results from the index would negatively affect Google’s revenue model.  Thus increasing the possibility of a click on paid ad as most consumers want the information they requested and may not understand how to redefine their search.

On another search result for Lincoln Continental Virginia Beach Cars.com search results pages wins the top spot with a page that requires further action to see cars within 30 miles of VA Beech while their second entry in the search engine results page showed real cars.  Also easy to identify was the Google powered search found at cars.com absent though was sponsored links from using that search.

Until Google stops profiting from allowing search results to show in their index that may be the best way for dealers to use their inventory to gain entries into the search engine results page.  Still though individual highly dynamic single listings that provide the users with the images above when clicked through to is still pure search engine spam and has zero value to the dealer, potential consumers and pollutes the search engine index.

From a Marketing Perspective -

It may take a while for personalized search to gain any real traction for the everyday search engine user, but when it does if you return results like listed above to a search engine user and they determine your site offers them no value all they have to do is click one X and you will never show up again for them on that search.  This will force you to use paid advertising for them to ever find you again if this comes to fruition:

Image Scarfed from Dealerrefresh.com

This will catapult dealers marketing cost and alienate visitors. It is a well known fact that the majority of search engine users do not click on ads and only a small minority that do account for the majority of clicks, which are typically below the fold consumers.

Car dealers already have a bad reputation for bait and switch advertising and consumers may also view nonexistent inventory items showing up in search results as an extension of this stereotype.  Which may cause them to never want to engage your dealership.

Unless a website provider that touts indexed inventory make the changes to meet Google’s webmaster guidelines and allow the dealership’s web property to Do No Evil and ruin the search engine user experience they should be weary of the claims of the necessity for inventory to be indexed.  It makes framed in inventory appear to be a better alternative for now.

Then again Google.com does not police themselves and skirts acceptable practices, in their eyes, to drive their revenue models.  Which at the end of the day reemphisizes the mantra many practicioners of SEO and affiliate marketing use.  “When a search engine worries about my revenue model I’ll worry about theirs”, because after all Google is putting their revenue model before the user experience as well.

Technorati Tags: automotie seo, automotive digital marketing, car dealer web site, dealership website, indexed inventory, seach engine marketing

On the other side of the coin you could be using an old (insert website vendor name) site, not really work your leads that hard, rely on customers to secure their own financing and move more cars than those in the first example because you make it easy for people to find you and your staff online.

The key difference is you have traffic and understand that without traffic EVERYTHING fails.

Online traffic comes in many forms and using only one method to generate it is limiting,  like buying the back page of the phone book as your only advertising source. Just as you use many methods to deliver your message using antiquated methods of advertising, (print, radio, television, billboards, grocery store benches, you get the picture) you should explore all methods of generating online traffic.

It is not just about dealership website traffic, that is just one aspect of online traffic, even though in my opinion you should take care of home first and all online traffic generation sources should point back to your main website.

You must have a dealership website where all online roads end, even without all of the other necessities. A high dollar ILM/CRM, 200 tracking numbers, process training, email templates, phone scripts, online sales training, a huge properly priced inventory and the best converting website in the world are worthless without traffic.

There are many ways to generate online traffic for car dealerships:

Highest cost online traffic generation sources:

• Type in Traffic – Radio, television and print website mentions. Targeted customers are not using these methods to find cars on the web, however you can and should use these methods to brand your stores web address if you are still relying heavily on these mediums.
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) / Pay Per Click (PPC) – While the cost of using this form of traffic generation is dropping in today’s economy it still is one of the most expensive ways to drive traffic to your stores website. While cost per click can be reduced with proper keyword research the offset to obtain these lower click cost is finding the proper long tails to target. You either have to find someone who will invest the time in your market to find these gems, cheap clicks, or use broad matching, expensive clicks, one offsets the other in the near term. Over the long term having a huge keyword base to work from with proper A/B testing, which generates more traffic and higher conversions at lower cost, improves ROI. Often used as a band aid for a poorly search engine optimized site or instant traffic for a fresh website.
• High Cost Used Car Classified Providers – They can and will provide more than one type of online traffic. Leads and phone calls directly from the source and referral traffic to your website. You may even experience walk in traffic from these sources, rarely properly tracked. Unless you have a large inventory or the right cars your ROI will probably be dismal.
• Purchased leads – While they do not normally generate traffic to your website without follow up they do provide instant online traffic. The leads are generated on another online property so they qualify as online traffic. ROI fluctuates from provider to provider and your process is critical in making the most of them.

referral traffic- Website traffic from other website via a link from one site to another.

Medium Cost Online Traffic Sources

Almost all of these traffic sources can be executed in house if you have the right people in place. For dealers to try to execute these strategies in house they need to be prepared.   A person who is paid only on sales, theirs or a departments, it places too many hats on their head and to hire someone who will perform these services properly from the store will require the dealer to write bigger checks as salary than most are comfortable with.  Where as having someone manage it for them is cheaper and more cost effective.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This is free traffic from the search engines if your site has intelligent design, regularly updated content and a proper linking strategy on site and off. A good SEO will continually study their art. With the search engines continually changing algorithms and ranking criteria it is an ongoing process. While winning some basic terms such as your store name and brand and market area is a good start it is just the beginning of a well optimized site.
• Dealer Micro Sites and Landing Pages – Having other properties to generate leads and referral traffic to your main website can effectively lead to huge online presence and make it impossible for online shoppers to not find you via the search engines. You can promote them just as you would a main online property and therein lie many points of debate on top of fair cost, value and diluted branding issues. They have huge value if executed properly.
• Intelligent Email Marketing – Reworking your database of leads and customers is a great traffic generation tool and does not really require outside vendors to execute, but does require software applications, usually leased, and can also open up legal issues if not properly executed. The legal aspects and bad publicity that a poor email campaign can generate is an area that is not well documented in the auto industry. I get spammed from vendors who sell these solutions to car dealers. Mass email marketing via rented lists is not intelligent email marketing if you do not understand the ramifications. Today I was approached from a vendor who offers these services and was interested in digging deeper into their product for my clients until they claimed 100% delivery rate. When you hear this from a vendor, compliance is not a concern and they are lying.
• Banner advertising buys – Almost all classified providers, local papers with websites, television stations, radio stations and local interest sites offer banner advertising at varying rates. The click through on banner advertising can vary from nil to around 5% depending on how targeted the traffic is. A banner on a car portal that caters to people looking for cars will be higher than people reading the obituary on your local papers website, which provides long term branding. You have to determine the real mission of the banner, the cost of the creative, market prices and the CPM (Cost Per 1,000 impressions) to make a judgment call on the value.

Free or extremely low cost online traffic sources

All of these items listed below can deliver traffic and SEO benefit to your main website.  Some require a lot of work to effectively use them and there are companies and individuals that can help you start leveraging them versus managing it in house.

• Directories – Some are very low cost and most are free. You have local directories, search engine directories, local search directories, yellow page directories, car dealer directories and general web directories.  Directory submissions to the major search engine directories is crucial.
• Free Classified Vendors – Many of your inventory solution providers post to various free classified sites like vast.com.  Many have applications that allow posting to places like craigslist.org and backpage.com but it is very time consuming.  I just started a service that gets car dealer inventory on craigslist and the traffic stats that have been seen so far exceed traffic from major classified vendors in leads and refferal traffic.
• Blogging – There are many free services that will allow you to set up a blog.  Blogger and WordPress are two.  You can set up a self hosted blog for less than $100 a year and you set your own terms of service.  A much better option than using free blogs for car dealers.  If any of your employees or vendors blog get them to link to you.
• User Generated Content – You can get traffic from hundreds of sites that allow you to create pages on them.  They also provide huge SEO benefit.  I love Squidoo.com
• Social Networking Sites – Does your dealership have a facebook group, do your sales people connect with customers on linkedin and plaxo, do you have a myspace page, have you checked out vox (blog and social network)?  You could also start your own dealership social network for your customers and dealership personel to interact, I have not seen a good example of this yet.
• Social Media – Using it to promote a dealership website may do more harm than good but they are great for landuring links to your main online marketing properties.  (A story for another day)  Subscribe to my blog to make sure you do not miss it.
• Forums – Visit and contribute to forums where your customers go.  Local forums, brand forums, enthusist forums, if you are daring create your own.  Also local forums may be good place to buy cheap banner advertising.  Make sure you make use of your forum signature with links to your website.
• Links from suppliers – Most OEM’s and inventory providers have portal sites that will link back to you but think beyond that.  Does your dent repair vendor, cleaning company, Chamber of Commerce, local BBB, Radio Station or anyone you do business have a website?  This will provide traffic and SEO benefit.
• More than one store – If you have more than one store you should have a group portal and create an intelligent linking scheme among all of the stores websites.
• Free or Cheap OEM Sites – Most OEMs give dealers free sites or very low cost sites for their dealers.  I have not found one yet that will not allow you to point your own domain to it.  For example if you are a Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep 5 Star Dealer you actually get four free sites from Chrysler that you can point domains to. Don’t ignore these free or low cost properties and brand them fully with custom top level domains, content and links back to your other site(s).

Having the tools in place for when the traffic arrives is noble.  Having the traffic then deciding which tools you need is better.  It is a matter of prioritizing your online marketing efforts then tweaking and adjusting to acheive maximum ROI.  The return on investment for a whiz bang website, high end crm and process are ZERO if you have no traffic

Paul Rushing
912-266-1629
www.ismintraining.com
“Believer in all things possible”

Contact Me: LinkedinFacebookTwitter

*if you wish to republish this posting you must contact me directly for terms and conditions. © Paul Rushing

Technorati Tags: car dealership traffic, dealership website traffic, online traffic

The automotive digital marketing space is now the wild west of the auto industry and represents the best opportunity for dealers, who have the ability to make informed decisions, to promote their dealerships and inventory online. Unfortunately for most dealers they rely on recommendations from individuals or companies that have a back end motive in recommending products and services to them. Like the scouting reports that General Custer had before “the Battle of Little Big Horn” and are being lead to the slaughter.

Carnival like atmospheres and gee whiz presentations with recommendations from people who have not changed their game plan in relation to digital marketing in several years is a recipe for disaster. In this space with enhanced consumer awareness and online trends changing at an alarming rate cookie cutter products with declarations of how well they did in 2005 should tell the dealer to be weary.

This problem is not only presented by consultants and agencies who are trying to carve out a space in a niche that they do not understand it is compounded by the fact vendors that operate in the digital space make recommendations that only serve them and not the dealer.

Today there are so many different flavors of cool aid that is being served up to decision makers it is easy for the dealer to become paralyzed and choose to do nothing. Another big mistake.

The list of terms, tools and disciplines in itself can be confusing to a lay person. Automotive digital marketing, online best practices, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, micro sites, landing pages, CRM, ILM, SEO, PPC, websites, process, conversion ratios, email templates, social media, social networking, dealer ratings, click to call, online chat, online classifieds, twitter, linkedin, plaxo, leads, online merchandising, pop ups, pop unders, text advertising, banner advertising, online directories, blogging, squidoo, consumer generated content, have you got lost yet?

Now you have vendors pitching these individual products or combinations of them in packages as the answer to the dealers online marketing effort. Not to mention the training that must be performed for the use and implementation and process development.

Here is the typical situation. A dealer attends a conference and hears buzz words such as social networking, web 2.0, blogging, seo and sem. Currently they have a website and are sending their inventory to classified sites such as cars.com and autotrader.com and realize that they are not getting the best return on their time and investment.

So they contact a SEO vendor and a SEM vendor to help deliver more traffic to their website and realize that their process is broke after examining their lead handling. In comes the process consultant that gets them signed up with a state of the art ILM and CRM system and buying every lead in a 200 mile radius of their store. However the dealer has set a budget for expanding her Internet presence and soon realizes that all the based are not covered so she starts exploring more options. The SEM vendor tells them how they are going to deliver traffic to the stores website through an intelligent PPC campaign and the traffic will be almost instant and the leads will pour in through the site and they don’t need to buy leads and give them more money to drive traffic that closes at a higher ratio.

Now the SEO vendor explains to her that SEM is not permanent traffic and gets is more expensive over the long haul and tells her that she can buy leads for half the price that most lead vendors charge by buying direct from the lead aggregators while they establish a permanent search engine presence.

Now the autotrader rep and cars.com rep are waiting in the showroom to discuss the cancellation letter that was sent in because the process consultant told her not to waste money there to free up more budget so she can access discount credit leads that have been sold to six dealers already in the last 90 days.

Finally after three weeks of this circle jerk she has decided that she has tried the Internet and it is not worth it because it is not working in her store. She can’t find the ball no matter how hard she searches for it.

All the time her inventory data feed has been down because the modem for her DMS is infected with cockroaches where the parts manager dropped a burrito behind it in the parts warehouse where he hides to take breaks during the day and every email from the store is going into a spam filter because they have a local mail server and the F&I manager and title clerk are sending porn and the email around that says microsoft is going to give them $286 for every time it is forwarded to their 800 person contact list putting all the email address in the to field and the person who did online sales two years ago has an autoresponder set up to send every person who has ever submitted a lead through the website a daily email to call him on his disconnected cell phone to get the best damned service and because they need a car today and it is time for them to step up.

And people wonder why dealers have such a hard time getting it.  It is not their process that is broke it all the processes going on around them inflicted by the vendors who ply their trade in the niche or people who are trying to figure out a way to stay in the car business in a consultave role when they do not even know how to set up an email client.

The good thing is for people who are serving the dealers with integrity and for the dealers that operate with integrity and own a franchise other that one of the big three there is hope.  Current market conditions are going to rid the industry of posers and carnies at all levels.  OEMs, Dealers, vendors, consultants and dealership employees who have been faking it for years.

Now is the time for the dealers to act to own their competitive markets and make rational choices.  This can be done through education or finding consultants that can guide them who do not have an interest in pushing a certain vendors products.

Transparency is a buzz word that vendors and consultants use in their pitches to dealers telling them they need to be transparent with their ionteractions with consumers now dealers need to hold them transparent as well.  If a consultant or vendor that is recomending other widgets for the dealer to use in their online marketing efforts will not provide full disclosure as to ther relationship with these other parties the best thing the dealer can do is tell them to play their shell game at down the road motors and seek education and non biased recomendations.

Now that you are ready to leave and go back about your day take a minute and leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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Technorati Tags: automotive internet sales, automotive vendors, online marketing

Every time your cell phone rings from friends in the industry you are trying to guess who is closing next or what other bad news they are delivering.  You may even have some pools running on it.  Your marketing expenses are cut to the bone because people are not buying cars and you are wondering how much longer you will even hang on.

You have two dozen deals sitting in finance that you would of spotted six moths ago.  Paralysis is starting to kick in and all you can think about is what can we do to attract more customers TODAY!!  You have the team in place and the inventory just no tire kickers or leads.

The facts are you have two types of buyer in a market like this.  Need buyers, the projects in F&I, and people who really don’t care how bad things are economically, decent income retirees, civil servants and rich people.  The big fat middle is not buying anything….

If you are reading this it should not matter to you!!!

You can easily capture today’s in market car buyers and the buyers who will be in the market when things start recovering, like they always do, by building your Internet presence today.  Chances are you found this page because you are looking for way to improve your business today and in market car buyers will find you if you put it out there for them to notice you.  If you have read this far you have noticed me,  did I do a decent marketing job?

While your competition is sitting back worrying and your staff is pissing and moaning about how bad things are what are you doing to generate traffic to your inventory and your unique selling proposition, if you don’t have one why not?

Cars are widgets, customers know that, they don’t believe the adds 40% off MSRP and below invoice.  Employee pricing means nothing to them if they are 8 K buried in a SUV that gets 14 MPG.  You are not solving their problems and creating yourself one.

You can win in this down market!!

Make the web your marketing friend not a nemesis you do not understand.  Process and used car descriptions is not Internet marketing.  That is sales.  The Internet is a marketing tool that creates sales.  To win in the Internet game with any widget you need:

Traffic > Leads > Follow Up> in car lingo Tire Kickers > Interested in Buying > Chase ‘em ’til they buy or die.

Massive traffic gets massive leads which give you warm bodies to follow up with.  The ends of the equation are the only two you have control over.  You can create traffic and manage the follow up, if you get enough traffic the leads will be there.

Create traffic where none existed before

Become a problem solver, today’s buyers have problems solve them and make it easy for them to find your solution.  While your competition is worrying about all of the crap this post started with, you will worry about how to attract more traffic.

You can generate traffic on your competitions makes and brands, competing market areas, perfect conversion tools and brand yourself online with people not in the market today or you sit back and create processes with without leads to run through them.

Internet marketing is not setting up a BDC and having a website, they are just a part of the equation.  It is not about launching dozens of dealer micro sites, with no real purpose,  shady video search engine optimization, creating blogs with keyword stuffed content, buying leads, spamming social networks and email databases.

It is finding customers who want what you have, want to do business with you and you solving their problems.  You can do that faster, with less expense and more effectively with a well planned Internet marketing plan that you can any day by using spaghetti marketing through traditional media.  (Traditional Media is a bad term to use.  The web is today’s traditional media)

Execute this now and reap the benefits today and create a base that your competition will never catch when cycles do as they always do, turn for the better….

Paul Rushing
912-266-1629
www.drivingsales.com
projects@parushing.com
www.ismintraining.com

Contact Me: LinkedinTwitter

Technorati Tags: automotive internet marekting, automotive marketing, automotive online marketing, car dealer online marketing

I use a lot of free resources like squidoo.com, craigslist, pay for my own 800 number and even have created my own microsites. All at my own expense. Fortunately I was able to work out a marketing reimbursement for sales I generate that do not cost the dealership any money, if it can be sourced to my own efforts. Now the dealership has taken this and turned it into a spiff for all sales people. Which is fine by me.

I shared this idea at www.drivingsales.com in a contest that they have for the best spiff idea and would appreciate you helping me with this. You can see my submission here (If you will take the time to register and vote for my idea it would be greatly appreciated. )

www.DrivingSales.com is poised to be the driving force in automotive social networking as it will be geared towards dealership employees allowing them to give honest ratings on vendors and share online and offline marketing ideas, management techniques, network and move your automotive career to the next level.

They will be a valuable resource. I have personally spoken with one of the founders and his vision is to move the industry into this century in it’s online initiatives. Stay tuned as I will be interviewing him here in the very near future.

Technorati Tags: drivingsales.com, social networking

I just thought I had a task before. Now I have a real rebuilding process to go through, the difference now is I have a defined budget and complete latitude to make all of the decisions on where the money is spent. My job is to produce ROI. All “paid” services were shut off when I arrived other than the crappy Reynold’s sites, which are not charged to my budget.

Here is what I have for Free:

• Two Reynolds Sites that will eventually be merged into a “Group” website by the end of this quarter. Already in place before I arrived. Will kick and scream to get a location only site back on it’s own domain after this takes place. Those cost will be charged to my budget then.
• Cobalt’s LMCC – For being a 5 Star Dealer. I personally don’t like it other than the price.
• Inventory inside of the 5 Star Site, new and used. It does generate some leads and the price is great.
• Hyundai is rolling out some new features which will be similar to the 5 Star deal it appears. I do not have full details yet, I was made aware of this late this afternoon and did not have time to look at it.

My budget for the next 30 days is only $3000.00 and here is how I am spending it:

• Secondary Finance Leads – $1050. I am not real fond of this but I need to breed some fast activity and this seems to be the best way right now. We have a strong F&I manager and we have some new secondary finance sources available, which I did not have before.
• Automotive classifieds with Cars.com – $900. If it were not for a co-op that we have in place I would not of done it.
• Regional Classifieds – $175 on a rollout package the price is right!!
• Vehix.com – $250 again a rollout. Comcast has a high penetration of the TV market here and they are advertising it like crazy. Being sandwiched between two major metros with Comcast as the main cable provider as well as my local market’s only provider it is another no brainer.

So in all I have spent $2375 in just three days in reworking this. While that does leave some room to take on another project or lead source chances are I will not utilize it unless it is the right opportunity, I may start a PPC campaign with a microsite or two.

Of course I have some blogs going that are delivering leads to affiliate programs and may change their direction in the near future. However since the returns on this are known it may benefit me better to leave those alone as they are not subsidized by my employer. This is a fine line I am walking I know but in the for what it is worth category those are mine and were not developed on their time or dime. Any benefit I receive from them is mine alone. This does not mean I will not create or outsource some user generated content in social networking/publishing platforms to benefit the store, but even then I will maintain control.

Technorati Tags: automotive, benefit, budget, Carl Gregory Chrysler, Cars, Cobalt's LMCC, Comcast, Free, Hyundai, Internet, Inventory, ISM My, leads, Now I, Ok I, PPC, Regional Classifieds, Reynold's, ROI All, Secondary Finance Leads, Sites, Star, Star Dealer, Star Site, TV, Two Reynolds Sites, Vehix, While I

To give a simple explanation of why to build a network of blogs I will use a well known theory.

Six Degrees of Separation

This theory says that you can be connected to every person in the world by no more than six degrees of separation. The average person knows 45 people. Then those 45 know 45 more on through the sixth degree would give you a knowledge base of 8,303,765,625 people which out numbers the world population by almost 2.3 million people

Now lets think of the Internet. Every public page online is linked to every other page online eventually. You can start on a site about Bambi and eventually wind up on a porn site. That why the Internet is called the “web”.

I am done with math theory and the history of the Internet and I am sure most readers are wondering what this has to do with increasing sales with a blog network.

You can use blogs for many things and in a perfect world if you had every dealership employee blogging about their area of expertise, supporting blogs about service specials, sales promotions, new model releases, maintenance tips, safety recalls (gasp) and driving traffic to your main site. Sites like cars.com and autotrader.com would no longer be the 800 lb gorillas they are now.

By creating a network like that you would cut down on the degrees of separation necessary to find your offers online. Your employees blogs would be seen by friends and family, favored on sites like digg.com and reddit.com, become resources for forum users, noteworthy content shared and discussed by others, used in email signatures, on business cards. etc. I hope you are getting the picture. Those blogs in turn would support other blogs and your main site.

That is a perfect world. I doubt you could get the commitment from all dealership personnel for a undertaking like this, however as an ISM every person in your department should have a blog. This will allow them to brand themselves and the dealership at the same time as well as provide incremental sales down the road.

There are some “black hat” ways to generate blogs that could support your main site however these techniques could cause you problems in SERPS., which is a deep subject for a blog about selling cars using the Internet. I will have another blog online soon about “white hat” SEO. While on the topic of SEO let me stress how important it is to do due diligence before hiring SEO firms for optimizing your website. Many of them will use “black hat” techniques to drive a flood of traffic to your site in the short term, but usually cause you long term grief that will have you starting over or giving up on maintaining a site for your store.

If you are considering hiring such a company do so with caution. I would be willing to interview them for you prior to engaging their services and make a recommendation to you. I can be reached at 912-266-1629 and I would not charge for this service.

Technorati Tags: Automotive SEO, Bambi, blogging, CMS, Internet, ISM, online, SEO While, Separation, SERPS, site, Sites, Six Degrees, world