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

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

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

The calls to action are simple. Contact Paul Rushing to get treated like a person and have a no hassle buying experience at the same time using these properties to help SEO our main site(s). Eventually I know these properties will compete with other stores in our dealer group in the search engine rankings. While currently our main site does not rank well for just a generic search for our dealers name, Carl Gregory, it is just a matter of time before it does. Then I can concentrate SEO efforts for other search terms.

While my goal is to increase traffic to the stores main site my main goal is to have consumers contact me directly. This search engine presence will eventually place me in a position, from incremental business, to be less hands on with consumers and more in a traditional ISM role, if I choose to go that route. However the “book of business” I am building through these efforts may make it more feasible, for me personally, to just be an “Salesperson” who does their own marketing, mostly online.

Current management really just wants numbers in the 30 day window that Auto Dealers operate in they have provided me with support in my efforts but the phrase I hear the most is “I don’t want to hear about the labor pains, show me the baby”. So I feel my goals are inline with current managements goals, do what ever it takes to bring in incremental business via the Internet, but I do know what the long term implications are with putting me first in my branding message.

In the big scheme of things it may create some situations down the road.

Technorati Tags: Auto Dealers, Automotive SEO, business, Carl Gregory, Contact Paul Rushing, current, Eventually I, goal, Internet, Internet Sales Manger, ISM, main, Salesperson, search, So I, Then I

Well some of my troops started coming home on the 28th of April and the sales that were generated from this extra effort were huge for a strong close out and jump start on the new month. I even had one Army Captain recommend me to his company of soldiers, unsolicited!! Needless to say my hands are full for the next few weeks as the calls and drive ups looking for the “Internet Guy” is amazing and undeserved.

Maybe others will think twice before discounting these soldiers in their daily activities. Maybe you will make some friends and sell a few cars along the way….

Technorati Tags: amazing, April, Army Captain, Basically, Because I, days, deployed, Internet Guy, Maybe, Needless, soldiers, started

The apathy and BS displayed by vendors in the automotive industry is absolutely amazing if not comical. The problem is that dealers do not know the difference in good and bad unless it is quantified in a spreadsheet or P & L. Some of the things that are accepted and deemed to be cutting edge in the industry are still way behind the times in the grand scheme of things in Internet marketing.

Some things I am cutting out asap are:

• Overpriced Automotive Classifieds
• Third Party Leads
• Outside Inventory Management

It actually looks like I am increasing my workload immensely and that is true, however I am replacing each of these items with some very cost effective alternatives and the possible addition of an employee.

I have never been a fan of the big online classified providers cars.com and autotrader.com. They overcharge dealers to provide them with content to their sites to push affiliate offers and to sell cpm banner advertising to your competitors on your inventory displays. (Online Classified Leaks – Previous Post) Now the ROI does not justify the investment. Lead flow is down. When it is slow on the ground is also slow on the net. It could also be my current inventory mix, however until that changes there is no reason to keep throwing good money after bad. I will maintain my relationship with some of the more cost effective third party sites because of the immense amount of advertising being done in my local market as well as two large metros less than an hour away. Plus they are giving me better more targeted leads with a better closing ratio.

The third party leads are a joke for the most part. With me being in a smaller market surrounded by two major metros and the majority of the leads coming out of the Majors it really just does not make sense. I have realized some decent ROI but the cost is astronomical compared to what I know that it cost to generate bad credit leads and price whores. I have a few sites that are generating leads for third party providers to the tune of 5-10 per day. I can use those same talents to generate my own leads from search engine traffic and them not be shared with several other dealers. What is amazing is that as an affiliate I make $10.25 per lead even after the companies shave the numbers and they resell them 1 to 3 times for around $20 per pop. My cost for these affiliate sites that I own is around $25 per month plus $71.50 per year for the domains. My efforts have been almost nil since they were erected and they still pump out $50 to $100 per day to me in affiliate commissions for leads not to mention adsense. The difference is it targets nationwide and not local so my results may be different for dealership leads but easier to optimize.

My goal is to go back to building a network of sites and landing pages for SEO value, personal / store branding and lead generation. Maybe not in that order. I will take the money I am spending on third party leads and high end classified sites to devote to PPC, directory submissions and content creation. While I will perform most of the content creation and manage the PPC campaigns I will definitely hire out directory submissions and link building. While I have scripts that I use for blackhat link building that I will use too. At the same time building a portfolio of landing pages for specific brand cars, new and used.

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

Here is something that I have been doing and getting real time interaction with over 50%. I send them an instant message. If you are not trying to contact online consumers using an instant messenger you may be missing some opportunities. If they don’t provide a phone number and your email goes into the spam box you really don’t have a thing, but another online lead that is less than optimal.

If you are not familiar with using instant messenger keep watching this post as I will provide an Idiot’s Guide to using instant messenger soon to create opportunities.

Technorati Tags: Chance, email, Idiot's Guide, instant, messenger, online, using

Our calls to action have to be straight forward, you need to give the customer a reason to provide a number, make an appointment, give a deposit and buy the car. Take every contact with a customer and turn it into call to action to move them one step closer to making a purchase.

Here is what I do in certain situations:

• In responding to online shoppers that do not provide a phone number I will follow up with an email to give them something for calling me or giving me their number and best time to contact them. It can be anything free full carfax report, special discount or anything else you can do to ad value to your contact with the customer.
• Getting the customer to make an appointment – In every contact with a customer I attempt to close on an appointment for a test drive or trade appraisal. I usually don’t do this via email unless the customer request an appointment via email. I use the email contacts to get them on the phone.
• Getting deposits – We receive a lot of inquiries outside of our market area. if the customer has made an appointment for a test drive this is a good time to ask for a deposit. Be very frank with your customer. “Mr Customer you are driving two hours to test drive this car, how disappointed would you be if you made the drive and the vehicle was not available?” This is a perfect opportunity to take a customer out of the market and to test their commitment to you. If you are not refunding a few deposits you are not taking enough of them.
• Closing the sale – I am not going to write a book on closing, there is enough competition out there for that. That really depends on your style but anytime a customer is in my office they are going to get every opportunity in the world to make a buying decision. More sales are lost because the salesperson does not ask for the business.

I have been in sales for for 17 years and I don’t like to be sold either. But lets face it, that is how we earn our living, either directly selling or managing salespeople. Not every day is a diamond and not every customer is a buyer, but we need to give them every opportunity to become one.

Just remember ABC – Alway Be Closing in every step of the process.

Technorati Tags: ABC, Alway Be Closing, calls, Closing, contact, customer, drive, Getting, give, Let's, Mr Customer