Author: flickfusion

Flick Fusion Video Marketing is a pioneering video technology company, specializing in creating, managing, and distributing dynamic and cost-effective online and mobile video products on the world's largest content delivery network. Each video is designed to help our clients reach and engage their customers with richer content and greater impact that results in increased sales and ROI. Data, photos, inventory, audio, music, and special offers are automatically combined to create compelling multimedia video solutions that are fast, easy, and affordable. We look forward to serving you.

The Internet Never Forgets

One of the oft overlooked aspects of our digital world is that is has a near-flawless memory. Unlike the paper, ink and magnetic tape of the old analog world, the ones and zeros of digital information never deteriorate. That, of course, means that the digital information you push out into the world (i.e. your website, email, digitized television and radio spots, banner ads, blog posts, press releases, etc.) never go away.

If you’ve changed the design and content of your website 3 times in the past 10 years, don’t think that those old designs aren’t still floating around out there in cyberspace. They may not be as easy to access, but they’re there. When Google crawls the web, a snapshot of your site is taken at that moment in time and archived. Even if you deleted that email from your inbox, there are still copies in the recipient’s inbox as well as on the servers in between. And those servers are often backed up daily and the copies sent off site.

The lesson, in short, is be careful. There’s no way to burn the evidence of your old website or sweep away that email you fired off in a moment of anger. Customers and the media will find these things, eventually. And if they have good reason, they’ll use them against you.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Stroke of Genius

by: Joe Webb

I often write of the importance for Internet sales managers to separate themselves from the common salespeople on the dealer floor. To focus on professionalism, profit, and process opposed to the bad habits and behavior of the old school veterans hanging around the showroom griping. If you want your Internet department to flourish, you must become what your sales staff hates most. You must become a shopper.

Mystery shopping yourself and other dealers keeps you abreast of market trends and local pricing strategies. It helps evaluate personnel and better your own department. It shouldn’t be considered a dirty tactic or carry with it a negative connotation. Notice that management embraces mystery shopping yet the sales staff abhors it. Realize who’s under the microscope, for good reason. Far too often, sales managers hear lame excuses from their staff on why their customers didn’t buy or generalizations and shameful stereotypes of a customer’s buying motives.

They label their customers with words like “tire kicker, “ “mooch,” “Larry Doyle (lay down),” and the most overused moniker, “stroke.” If you haven’t worked in a dealer, these quick judgments must seem reprehensible and you would be right. However, I believe an occasional mystery shopper (read: stroke) can be a benefit to a dealer and its staff. Essentially, it’s practice. It keeps them on their toes and stresses accountability.

There is a reason companies hold trainings offering the best practices in our industry. What works for some others might work for you as well. The only way to know what works is to shop your competitors. See what they are doing different from you and what practices of theirs you can adopt. Now shop yourself. Who is better? What can be improved? Mystery shopping can be extremely informative and profitable if done consistently.

First call into both your store and neighboring dealers. Who is handling the calls? Is it a salesperson or maybe a manager? Does a cashier answer first or a BDC call center? If you reach a strong BDC rep, you probably cannot tell the difference. (That is good.) Check to see:

• Did you get all of your questions answered?
• Did they set the appointment?
• Did they gather all of your contact info?

There is a reason dealerships mystery shop themselves in the 20 group meetings. It is their report card.

Next, e-mail. Go to Yahoo or Hotmail and set up a fake account. Use a different name. (This part is fun.) How creative can you be when making up the name? It should sound real, but not perfect. John Smith or Jim Johnson is not interesting or creative or any fun to invent. Hold yourself to a higher standard. I have a few favorites over the years, but I love creating a new one each time I mystery shop.

Don’t go to a dealer’s web site. Some dealers, unfortunately, only answer those leads coming in organically through their own web site. Instead, use a source that allows you to pick a few dealers to request quotes from. Please don’t choose a site like Edmunds or KBB where a dealer will get dinged $20 for the worthless lead. Use the sites that already charge their dealers a monthly fee. This way it only has the most minimal effect on one’s closing ratio, but no effect on their ROI. After all, no one likes being “stroked,” but it is necessary to see where you stand in your market and how you can improve your processes for the good of the store.

Find out:
• Who responds the quickest?
• Are they simply auto responders or a personalized message?
• Did they offer pricing immediately and where does it stand in relation to your price points?
• Did you receive a call? Even if you asked for “e-mail only”?
• What type of information did they provide?
• What word tracks are more likely to elicit a favorable response from you?

Once you have done this, you will learn:
• How you feel inbound calls should be answered and by whom.
• What follow up efforts are being made?
• Whether the dealers were accommodating to your desired method of vehicle shopping, or if you were simply added onto a process.
• Most importantly, who you would buy from.

If you do not have the time to do this yourself or do not feel you can be unbiased, there are even companies that provide this service for dealers such as Evaluation Inc. and Shoppers Critique. Lisa Keller, managing partner for Evaluation Inc., says through mystery shopping, her company “…provides actionable information that gives dealers a competitive advantage by continuously monitoring and holding accountable the processes, people, and, more importantly, technology each dealer uses.”

Now take this newfound knowledge and implement it. Put the right people in charge. If someone shouldn’t be handling the phones, don’t let them. If they make an uproar or a mutiny on the floor develops, provide/demand training before they have the privilege of handling inbound phone calls. The same should hold true for Internet personnel. Detail what changes must be made, demand improvement, and hold them accountable.

Last week, I interviewed a candidate for sales who stated, while filling out the application, that he didn’t want to deal with Internet customers. He didn’t like the way they came in with information and, in some cases, pricing. Our sales manager, Art Blaese, found it only fitting that I, the business development/Internet sales manager, interview him first. Sadly, the candidate was not the right fit at our dealership. However, he had just come from a competitor who put him through a 30-day training course that included the mystery e-shopping of other local dealers (including myself). Apparently, all trainees were told to gather pricing information and present their findings to the general sales manager. They would then take the lowest price received on each model, turn around, and begin offering pricing $200 better than their lowest competitor. While I don’t agree with their pricing strategy, I do see the value of a sales staff that understands the Internet shoppers’ process.

You see, I have been mystery shopped 100 times over and have shopped my competition even more. It is a necessity to stay ahead of your competitors; not by way of price, but by way of practice. It will keep you sharp and help you set internal goals for your staff. Continuous study of you, your practices, and processes can be a successful way to capture a larger share of the market.

Don’t take it too personally. It is a game. And every game has winners and losers. Winners see profit. Losers see personnel change. Or, to quote Dale Pollak, founder of vAuto, during his speech at NADA, “Winners don’t win at the expense of their customers. They win at the expense of other dealers.” I understand no one likes seeing his or her time wasted. Not sales staff and certainly not management. Sometimes, though, being a stroke is genius.

Joe Webb is the Internet sales manager of Arlington Toyota Scion in Buffalo Grove, IL, as well as a charter member of AAISP.

Source: http://www.dealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=1879

Hybrid Marketing?

With $4.00 gas putting a slow down on the automotive business, and the economy in general, auto manufacturers are clamoring to develop and build hybrids and other energy efficient vehicles.

Amid all this, you’re still trying to run a dealership. Chances are, you’ve had to make cutbacks across the board. And even if you’ve had to cutback marketing, that doesn’t mean you want to cutback the number of customers walking through the door.

So that raises the question: What are the most energy- and cost-efficient marketing strategies you can employ? Mass marketing is certainly out. You’ll have to go direct… very targeted. And get creative… chase after a new audience or trying a medium no one else is using. What would you do if you had to reach the same number of customers on one-fifth the budget? What can you do that costs nothing at all? The dealerships that use a downturn to get stronger and wrestle away market share are the ones that will dominate the next age of automotive retailing.

What are you doing to make the most of your marketing dollars?

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Your Virtual Lot Needs Attention Too!

by : Arnold Tijerina

In this digital marketing age with more and more consumers choosing to utilize the Internet to assist in making their automobile purchasing decisions, it is increasingly important to monitor the activity within your Internet departments.

Judging the effectiveness of your Internet traffic cannot be done solely by evaluating its production. Whether you are using third-party lead providers or driving traffic to your own web site or a combination of the two, you need to be aware of what’s going on with the leads. Just like you look at how your ups are being worked by your salespeople, closers, or sales managers; you should know what’s going on with your Internet ups.

What most dealers forget to include in evaluating their Internet departments and/or where the budget is being spent to provide leads is the most basic factor imaginable:
1. Are my Internet managers working the leads properly?

2. Do I have a process in place to insure that I can use to hold them accountable?

It’s important to have processes just like any sales force has. Would you expect your salespeople to take a customer on a test drive before writing them up? Of course you would. Internet leads are ups in the same way as someone that walked onto your lot. In fact, you may get more ups through your virtual lot than you do on your physical one. There are many dealerships that have Internet departments that account for 30-40 percent (or more) of their business but this is the department that is typically the most neglected and least monitored of all departments by sales managers. Dealers pay a lot of money for these ups yet fail to work them as hard as they would any customer that had walked on the lot because they don’t see the potential of turning these ups into sales today. The mentality that exists, and has existed, is that this is a today business. While we would all prefer to sell a car today (anybody waiting for the be-back bus?), I think everyone would agree that selling a car eventually is better than never.

Through my experience and observations, I’ve noticed that unsuccessful Internet departments tend to have Internet managers that don’t continually work a lead. Maybe they call a few times over a week or so but then they just give up and restart the process on fresh leads. This circular pattern neglects the customer that’s not ready to buy today, but is a buyer. With most Internet customers being seven weeks out from initial contact to sale, no wonder you are losing business. I understand how frustrating it is for an Internet manager to call someone 18 times and never get a hold of anyone and never have any calls returned. That doesn’t mean these aren’t buyers, only that they’re not ready to buy or not enough of an impression has been made to earn their response. Just like any salesperson knows, you can give a customer every way to contact you imaginable: the dealership’s phone number, your home and cell phone numbers, your work and personal e-mails, etc., build great rapport and ask the customer in every way possible to call you when they want to come in and that you will be there to assist them and, despite all of this, the customer will still show up when they are ready to purchase without calling the salespeople. Knowing this, why is it hard to believe that a customer who nobody at your dealership has ever even met in person would do the same thing?

I’m a firm advocate of utilizing a business development center (BDC) to follow up with your customers whether they are prospects or previous customers rather than entrusting your customers to salespeople who may or may not follow up with them. At least with a BDC, you can create a consistent process with dedicated people that follow up with your customers and prospect for your dealership. This simple addition to your business will increase your sales immediately and create greater customer satisfaction and a great first impression. Have you ever heard a customer say that nobody ever contacted after requesting information? How about feedback from a customer saying a salesperson never called them back after promising to?

By paying more attention to your Internet departments, Internet managers and leads, you will be able to increase your sales within that department immediately, without any additional expense to you. If your salesperson were burning ups, you’d stop the behavior. Why allow your Internet managers to do the same thing? If you don’t pay attention, you only have yourself to blame.
Source: http://www.dealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=1907

This Time, It Is Personal

When you send out direct marketing materials, be they postcards, letters or emails, how personal are they? You’ve certainly abandoned the “Hello Valued Customer” greeting for a first name… but is that where it stops? Are you using past purchase history, geographic information, age and income levels and such to create truly personal messages and offers?

The database technology the drives today’s direct marketing — and the digital printing and data-driven email marketing that make the data come to life — allows for a level of personalization that we could only dream of a decade ago. And these technologies open up new doors for the smart marketer — and give us all a new responsibility — to make good use of that data.

This means not offering a minivan to the 24-year-old single male, or the two-seater sports car to the mother of three. It means targeting the customers who bought big SUVs from you 3 years ago with messages about the new hybrids or other vehicles that will get them out of that gas guzzler. It means being smart — and that will lead to profits.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Singles and Doubles

I consistently see marketers in all industries trying too hit marketing home runs. They’re swinging for the fences with every television campaign, direct mail piece and online promotion. And just as often, they’re putting all their financial energy into each swing, ensuring that they’re only going to get one shot. And their intentions are good… but they’re also misguided.

Good, sound marketing is about consistently putting out targeted, timely communications with a compelling message and actionable offer. It’s about hitting singles and doubles every time you step up to the plate. That’s how you win ball games and that’s how you win the marketing game.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Key Innovations From the World of Auto Marketing

Published: May 30 2008 by iMediaConnection

In a tight economy, it takes ingenuity to capture the attention of in-market shoppers. See what tools the automotive industry uses to generate consumer interest and increase conversions.

As you would expect, today’s biggest trends in the automotive industry all revolve around e-commerce. As more consumers head online to research and shop for vehicles, vehicle sellers and marketers have to provide the websites, electronic tools and online information consumers want and need.

Yet, they are also challenged to attract and retain in-market auto shoppers to their online turf, especially during a weak – and therefore highly competitive – economy. This calls for innovation in areas such as campaigns, eye-catching visuals and clever SEO tactics. Following are five of the big marketing trends we’re seeing in the automotive industry and how they’re affecting and changing the online environment overall.

Mobile marketing
Although mobile marketing has been popular for a while, it’s only recently that companies in the automotive space have started to optimize this communication channel.

Take a look at the work of some companies currently employing this technology. Dealership e-newsletter service IMN Loyalty Driver has started including mobile coupons in its publications. When customers receive an e-newsletter that includes a coupon, they enter their cell phone number into the space provided and within seconds the coupon is delivered to their phone as a text message. To redeem the coupon, customers only have to show their phone at the dealership.

Mobile marketing company Gumiyo makes it possible for a dealer to place trackable keywords, VINs or stock numbers next to vehicle advertisements (both print and online) that consumers can text from their cell phones. These buyer-generated text messages receive automatic dealer replies with specific vehicle information, or promotions with links that launch a cell phone’s web browser. Services like this make a dealer’s inventory directly available to cell phones, potentially shortening the sales cycle and increasing the value of offline advertising.

Innovative uses of video
Full-motion vehicle videos are steadily gaining in popularity. We’ve seen many dealerships and portal sites licensing video content because it delivers compelling presentations that keep viewers on sites longer which, in turn, raises conversion rates. In response to the overall success of video-based ads in the automotive market, vendors are starting to experiment with video in unique and innovative ways. The Wall Street Journal online for example, is now using a video component to supplement many of their articles and special features, including those about the automotive industry.

Another great example of this is MyDealerBroadcast. The company is working with dealerships to deliver automated, personalized email messages in response to customer vehicle inquiries. Each message includes an embedded photo along with a link to a vehicle video. Once an email is sent, the dealership sales team receives instant text and email alerts whenever the customer interacts with the message, so they know what leads are hot and when to follow-up. Not only does their product guarantee that a customer vehicle inquiry will be answered promptly, the inclusion of video gives the customer immediate access to the information they want in an eye-catching presentation that grabs attention and better primes them for the sales call.

Web services
The automotive industry is data-heavy: With numerous new vehicles released every year, each with more than 10,000 option and pricing configurations, a dealer or portal trying to get complete vehicle information online and provide configuration and comparison services has a steep development hill to climb. Because of this, web services are rapidly gaining in popularity.

Web services allow companies to focus on core competency – how the application manipulates and enhances data for the best consumer experience – rather than structuring, warehousing and updating the source data. In addition, using web services for VIN decoding, mapping to used vehicle values and configuration and comparison reduces development cost and shortens the development cycle because it obviates custom databases and coding. And unlike framed-in applications, web services allow for the freedom to customize every aspect of a website’s look and feel.

Dealer generated leads
Virtually every dealer has a love-hate relationship with third-party lead generators. On the one hand, they deliver solid sales leads, but on the other, volume does not equal quality, and multiple dealers often receive the same leads.

Some companies in the space are helping dealers to skip the middle man and generate their own leads by creating small landing pages for individual vehicles, or by using SEO to drive consumer traffic to these pages. eBizAutos, a leading innovator of online marketing solutions for dealers, and NowMarketPlace.com, a new company creating dealership websites that combine the power of video and the web, are putting the power of lead generation in the hands of dealers.

OEM-owned vertical ad integration
Vertical ad networks are a big topic right now, and in the automotive space we’re seeing manufacturers using this model to create their own vertical channels. General Motors, for example, recently began offering its dealers a comprehensive digital marketing package for free. Designed to drive more in-market shoppers to GM dealership websites, the program will enable GM to better coordinate its national advertising message with its dealers’ local advertising for consistent messaging that grabs casual shoppers, as well as sophisticated, brand-savvy shoppers.

These five trends attest to the industry’s commitment to attract and retain online vehicle shoppers. The steady sophistication of websites, marketing campaigns and interactive tools is a boon for customers and, therefore, the automotive industry itself.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19405.asp

Is your Internet Business Prepared for a Recession?

Published May, 2008 by Digital Dealer Magazine

You have heard a lot of rumors circulating about a recession in the United States. Whether it is true or not is a moot point. When I sat down to ponder this question I was hit with the concept that you should always be operating your dealerships as if you were in a recession and make sure every penny is accounted for while trying to squeeze everything you can out of each and every department, including the Internet.

Today I want to focus on your Internet business, which I break down into a couple of sections for ease of analysis.

Web sites and technology
I look at this section of the business as a rock hammer to a master mason. These are the tools you need to shape our business and achieve your desired outcome. What is most important is that you have the right tools in place and you are maximizing the utilization of the tools each and every day. There are great technologies out there that do all sorts of interesting things, but as my fiancé told me when we moved in together, “If you haven’t worn it in a year, throw it out.” I thought that made good sense or maybe she just wanted more closet space; I will never know. But in our business when you are not utilizing a specific technology or tool by 75 percent or more you are not getting the most out of the technology. So maybe it is time to try to live without it or get busy increasing your utilization of the tool. A great dealer friend of mine has always brought up a good point when referencing technology. He comments that 15 years ago we didn’t have any of this stuff, yet now I have all this great technology, but wonder whether it is really helping me sell more cars or just keep pace with the local marketplace.

Marketing
When was the last time you sat down and looked at your entire marketing spend and dissected it? I mean all of it. I walk into stores so often that they tell me they are spending 25k, yet after I go through the dealership doc I find out they are really spending about 40K because things are not being put into the advertising line of the statement correctly. Sometimes I hear that it got charged to this account because of this reason or that one goes there because of that reason etc. Is it advertising? Charge it to the right account. When you can get a complete 360 degree view of your advertising expenditures you can start to really focus what you are spending and where to help you create a more accurate cost per unit retailed figure.

Also, take the time to know what you are marketing and the messages that you are using. Are they in conjunction? Do they conflict? Your business is dependent on your ability to reach people in the marketplace and entice them to take action. Is your marketing doing that for your dealership?

Customer communication processes
This is one of the most overlooked and important areas of the Internet department. I know you set up your follow-up schedules when you first set up your CRM and you don’t think you need to tinker. As consumer buying habits mature online so should how you approach and manage these relationships. I would set up and print every letter in your CRM monthly and make changes. Also, change follow-up schedule length and timing. You would be amazed at how a few key tweaks can open a flood of activity within your existing lead management tool. You would be shocked that I still walk into stores that are using subject lines in their e-mail marketing and customer correspondence that I guarantee will be triggered by spam filters. Yet all you have to do is look online to see what words are triggering your messages to get spam-boxed and make sure none of your e-mails are using any of these keywords. Get involved; roll up your sleeves and dive in. Your business depends on it.

People capital
This area is still the one most dealers, including myself, struggle with almost daily. Finding the right people to execute the vision is another key piece of this puzzle to recession-proof your dealership. People are assets and must be trained and consistently driven to improve the dealership’s bottom line. Which means involving your team with not the typical, “We don’t have enough units out speech” but a much more hands-on approach to how their specific actions or inactions are affecting the operation. When people are genuinely brought into the picture a new level of teamwork happens. It takes a while but is well worth the effort. Take stock of your team and make sure your vision and message is being transferred throughout the dealership.

Today’s dealership challenges are difficult especially in the ever-changing Internet department, but with a little extra effort and some basic analysis you can watch your Internet sales grow: rain or shine, or recession.

Todd Smith is one of the leading authorities on Internet technology and its utilization in the retail automotive industry. For the past year Smith has been the general manager of a Northeast Chevrolet dealership putting into practice all the techniques he teaches. Lear, LLC, Smith’s consulting company, is focused on leveraging technology to enable other dealerships to sell more vehicles at a higher gross profit while reducing customer acquisition costs.

Source:

http://www.digitaldealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=1906

American Made?

In our increasingly flat world, where the international marketplace is the only marketplace, it’s becoming harder and harder to define exactly what “American Made” means. And nowhere is the issue more confusing than in the automotive business. Is a Ford made in Mexico an American car? How about a Toyota that’s manufactured in America?

Difficult questions, obviously. How are you positioning such things to your customers? Is “American Made” as important to them as it was 20 years ago? Do they even ask?

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Experimenting with the Devil

It’s been said, “the devil is in the details.” Which means, of course, that the difference between success and failure is often something small and seemingly insignificant. This is absolutely true when considering the effectiveness of your dealership’s marketing. Try experimenting with the following little details and you may realize some huge gains in your return on investment.

Timing. Sending your email campaign out first thing in the morning? Try mid-afternoon or midnight for different results. Or trying sending the message on a different day of the week or time of the month. All of these things will make the difference.

Personalization. Have you made an effort to make your direct marketing personal? Does that personalization stop at “Dear John” or are you using everything you know about a prospect to make their communications specific to them?

Email Formatting. Not all emails are created equal. You’ve got the full graphic and multimedia capabilities of HTML or the more traditional, potentially more personal, all-text email. They each have their place. Experiment with when and where you use each format to try and maximize results.

Offers. Which drives more traffic? $500 customer cash or 1.9% financing? How about a $50 bill just for test driving? How about $100? These little details can make a huge difference.

Expiration dates. Trying to drive immediate response, toy around with a 24-hour-act-now offer. Or try stretching it out to 3 or 4 weeks. Again, different timing will drive different responses from different customers.

The difference between mild success and rousing, ring-the-bell success can be found in these little devilish details. Experiment with them and you may very well find the results you’ve been looking for.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC