Winning the Online Game in a Down Market
Your ISM’s are sitting on go. Your process is perfect. Leads are responded to within minutes via email and phone, easy to do you are not getting many. You and your sales people realize that customers are shopping online before they get to the store. You already know how to handle the customer that has the KBB print out in their hand on how much their trade is worth, just not as many of them walking through the door.
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
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Alright Paul… You have me hooked. Layout the plan and steps to generate more traffic.
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