digital marketing

Internet Marketing Requires Embracing Change

Digital Dealer Magazine September 2007 by : Bill Mulcahy

In the new world of Internet marketing, one of the most challenging aspects for many dealers to embrace is the huge paradigm shift from traditional advertising campaigns to the ever-changing requirements of effectively selling cars on the web.

When developing ads for radio, television and newspapers, the number of “buys” was often set, with only the content of the ad changing on a weekly basis depending on what specials the dealer was running.

Today, Internet marketers at dealerships need to be aware of a constantly evolving Internet where a program that works one day may not be achieving the same results two months later. Unlike traditional media outlets, new web sites are launched every day, and a site that’s attracting car buyers one month may be an online ghost town three months later. Marketers must keep a close pulse on the industry in order to understand the online market and the latest technologies available.

In short, Internet marketing is a full-time occupation. For many dealers, it’s difficult to justify allocating resources to hiring one individual to focus solely on marketing. Often, an Internet salesperson or other unsuspecting employee will get burdened with—or perhaps even volunteer for—the tasks related to a dealer’s web presence; blithely unaware that once implemented, the Internet marketing program will mushroom into an endless, demanding maw of responsibility.

Take a look at the following elements necessary for an effective Internet marketing program, and imagine it as a job description.

Dealership web site: Work with vendor to develop and implement lead generating specials such as coupons and vehicle specials to be updated on a monthly basis. Keep welcome message on home page fresh and appealing. Monitor web traffic including bounce rate, and tweak appropriate web pages accordingly to increase click-throughs. Since there is no one magic formula that works for every dealer and regional differences require different marketing approaches, and Internet and market trends are constantly evolving, this will be an ongoing task. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Analyze marketing efforts of major competitors with the goal of finding out what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Vehicle inventory: Update on a daily basis to include specs and photos. Ensure that what appears on the web site matches what is in the DMS. Work with a full service or do-it-yourself inventory company to make sure all inventory is updated and distributed to inventory web site partners. Most importantly, keep your pricing up-to-date, accurate and competitive.

Search engine marketing: Monitor SEM reports and work with vendor to develop and update search terms that result in effective search engine optimization. Ensure SEM vendor is keeping your site optimized for search engines on a regular basis. Monitor performance of your site on search engines and tweak SEM marketing program accordingly. Work with vendor to develop paid search programs based on specials, holidays, and inventory changes at the dealership. The more competitive your target market or a time of year is for your dealership, the more you might want to consider an aggressive pay-per-click campaign.

Classified automotive web sites: Classified sites are highly advertised and attract many buyers. Your dealership needs a web service that distributes your inventory seamlessly and accurately. The idea is to get your inventory in front of as many qualified buyers as possible. Remember, on the Internet, buyers are searching for a specific vehicle and you need to make it available to them.

Constant change: If there was a proven scientific formula to selling cars on the Internet, every dealership would be using it. Even if you are selling cars effectively on the Internet today, is it important to be comfortable with the idea that it will be necessary to adapt tomorrow. The most successful dealers on the web constantly adapt their strategy to what works, so no single change will be your last.

If you want consistent results and an Internet department that will enjoy long-term growth, you must commit to an ongoing process and a plan that embraces technology changes and stay ahead of the competition. If your dealership is like most, it is constantly being solicited by vendors offering a “magic pill” that will revolutionize the industry. They might even tell you some nonsense like nine out of 10 of “their” dealers sell every car on the lot every month. Don’t be fooled by false promises of quick effortless results. Selling cars on the web is an ongoing process, but will ultimately come down to the dealership’s relationship to a prospective buyer. Take the television commercials that claim to help people lose 35 pounds in three hours as an example. If you want to lose weight you have to commit to a diet and exercise plan. If you want to sell cars on the web you have to commit to a dynamic sales strategy that creates the best possible online experience for buyers.

The Internet as a medium provides incredible opportunities for dealers who dedicate the necessary resources to take advantage of it. Ever-shifting and never static, the Internet requires a similar marketing mentality. Keeping up with what’s current is challenging enough, let alone trying to stay one step ahead of competitors. But for dealers who embrace this paradigm shift, the rewards will be the attention and dollars reaped from today’s online car shoppers.

http://www.digitaldealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=1573

Websites Can’t Create Leads

Your website has never created a single lead. There, I said it. Long lauded as the be all, end all of internet marketing, the website will always remain a limited, albeit powerful tool. Why is that, you ask? Well it’s because your website will always be a reactive marketing tool.

Your website sits out there in cyberspace, all shiny and glowing, whirring with multimedia and powerful data support. But until a consumer comes along, it’s worthless because it can’t go out and find leads. The best your website can hope for is to upgrade leads (turning a warm lead into a hot lead) and capture leads. You still need other tools (search marketing, email marketing, mass advertising, etc.) to drive leads to your site.

So, is your website important? Yes, it can be the most powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. But it can’t function in a vacuum — it’s the most important piece of a complete, integrated digital marketing presence.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

What is the Best Internet Structure for Each Dealership?

Auto Remarketing Magazine

By Bobby Malatia, of Kain Automotive

September 05, 2007

As I travel throughout the country, I am constantly asked, “What is the best Internet structure for our dealership?” Most of the time the dealership already has a current Internet setup, and it is just looking for reassurance that what it has in place is a good one.

The simple answer is it is not a simple answer. You have to look at many different factors to see which one will be most effective for your dealership and your market. I will try to break this question down and go over some of the main factors that need to be considered to answer this common but difficult question.

Let us first look at what different Internet structures there are that have experienced moderate to extremely good success.

SalesFloor: Internet leads are taken by one of the managers and distributed out to the regular sales floor.

The one person show: One dedicated Internet person who answers all the incoming Internet requests. a. The one person handles the leads and sets appointments to be given to the regular sales floor. b. The one person handles the leads as well as sales the vehicles themselves.

Appointment setters: Having multiple people handle the Internet leads and then set the appointments. a. These appointments are set for the regular sales floor.b. These appointments are set and given to a manager and then are distributed to certain salespeople. Internet Department: Having a dedicated team handle the leads as well as sale the vehicles (commonly referred to “cradle to grave”). a. Typically this is done using a different process than the regular floor process, though it does not have to be.

Internet Department and BDC: Using a dedicated Internet sales department with the support of a BDC. a. Leadsare handled by the BDC and then set or turned to the Internet department for the sale of the vehicle. b. The Internet department handles the lead, and then the BDC takes over after a set amount of time to take care of the long-term follow-up, and then gives it back to the Internet department once the BDC makes an appointment, or re-stimulates the prospect.

As you can see there are many options, and of course there can be variations of any of these as well.

Now that we have looked at some of the options, let’s tackle the tough question: which is the best one for you. To answer this question you must understand that most, if not all, of these structures can be and have been successful.

There is no one perfect idea for handling your Internet leads, and therefore we must look at the different factors that can influence your individual process. This will help you determine which structure will be most effective for your dealership.

The first of these factors is what the dealer principal/general manager wants to get out of the Internet. Does the dealership want an Internet department, or does it want an Internet dealership?

An Internet department can be a bit redundant given the structure you have in place, but an Internet dealership takes advantage of the skilled personnel already in management roles and molds them into the reality of today’s Internet-dominated sales and marketing environment.

However, we find that because of management resistance to working Internet leads through their current set up, it is normally best to set up a department and incubate the success before considering a merger back into the regular sales environment.

The second of these factors is your current personnel or personnel recruiting options. We believe you should decide on the structure your management feels most comfortable with and then recruit to fit the structure rather than the other way around. Otherwise, each time you hire someone for the role you will be prone to adjust the structure based on the talent and skills, which is not productive long-term.

There is a certain profile that we look for that has the best chance to excel in this type of role within the dealership, and we feel someone with a solid success record in sales, whether it be automotive, real estate, cell phones or airline reservations.

Persons in this position first must be persistent and willing to make multiple phone calls each day, be personable enough to build rapport quickly and be able to sell the appointment if the dealership has any hope of getting the consumer into the store.

Your current employees should be considered for these roles, but you should not be afraid to recruit from outside your dealership. Use the profile and understanding of what the job requires to be successful and grow the department as needed.

The last factor that must be considered when deciding on the correct structure for your Internet department regards your current lead volume. We have recommendations on the volume for each set up and feel it is vital to maintain the right volume or the system will not do as well.

Before you worry about growth and spending more money to get more sales, you must be able to analyze what you currently have structure-wise and how effectively you process your current leads.

Using all three of the factors will help you put together an appropriate action plan to determine “what is the best structure” for you and your dealership.

http://www.autoremarketing.com/ar/news/story.html?id=6787

Five Things your Dealership Should Do to Embrace the Internet

Digital Dealer Magazine August 2007

by : Mitch Turck

The following five suggestions on how to get the most from your Internet department should yield some financial benefits. The sooner these actions are put into place, the better.

1. Your used car manager should be the most Internet savvy of all your sales employees. The used car manager should be scouring popular consumer sites (AutoTrader, cars.com, etc.) on a weekly basis to see how your used inventory pricing compares with the competition. The used car manager should also be checking the out-of-state wholesale auctions online, many of which will put together a great package to get your store’s business. And when it comes down to getting rid of one particular car, it should be the used car manager posting that car on Craigslist, enthusiast chat rooms and other community forums to maximize the vehicle’s exposure.

2. Your perceived DMA should shift from a “death grip on a five-mile radius” strategy to a “fishnet across a 50-mile radius” strategy. One huge obstruction the Internet presents to your local business is that it reduces traveling distance between stores from 45 minutes to five mouse clicks. Consumers who live in your area don’t need to come to you for their favorite brand anymore if a dealer 30 miles away is giving them a significantly better price, or has the customer’s car in-stock and ready to test drive while you are showing the customer a paint chip and telling him to use his imagination. Many dealers complain about this loss of local traffic due to the Internet, but then the obvious question becomes, “if a dealer 45 minutes away is stealing from your DMA, why aren’t you stealing from his?”

3. Your managers should submit mystery shopper leads to competing dealers every month. Are you wondering why so many of your Internet leads are telling you that Grass is Greener Motors is beating your offer by $100 a month? Instead of scratching your head, why not put a mystery lead into that store yourself, and see what kind of deal they are sending to Internet leads? Furthermore, find out what everyone is doing to stay in touch with their Internet customers, and how your competition is trying to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack. If your autoresponder says, “Unlike other dealers, we focus on 100 percent customer satisfaction,” and your three closest competitors say the same thing, then what good is that line? Use that opportunity to find ways to stand out from other dealers… and don’t forget to mystery shop your own Internet department as well.

4. Your sales staff should come to grips with the fact that Internet customers know more than they do. Depending on the competence of your sales staff, this may or may not be true, but it’s more important to realize that many Internet customers believe it’s true. They have access to information they never knew about before, and this puts them in a controlling mindset. If your staff doesn’t respect that, or is too proud to admit that maybe the customer does know more than them, there’s a high probability you will lose that customer to another store who lets them think they’re in control.

5. Everyone in your dealership should recognize that it’s only a matter of time before your entire customer base becomes Internet shoppers. If you are responsible for the future of your dealership, there is one statement you can’t afford to ignore: every customer is an Internet customer… they just don’t know it yet. Think about it – you can use the Internet to find a vehicle’s color combinations, standard features and options, MSRP, invoice price, typical prices paid by consumers, rebates (including manufacturer to dealer rebates), residual value, inventory availability, and dealer specials. Now try to tell me there’s a single up out there who wouldn’t take advantage of all that information if they knew where to find it.

The sun is setting on the days of uninformed customers – either have a plan of action, or have another career lined up.

http://www.digitaldealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=1522

Marketing Dollars Don’t Grow on Trees: How online advertising can revolutionize your dealership’s marketing budget

If you’re an auto dealership trying to establish an online presence, or trying to improve on your existing internet foothold, you’re probably thinking about internet marketing. If you’re not, get thinking, because the internet is just like anything else – he who markets most effectively, wins.

The internet has a couple of huge advantages over the rest of the advertising mediums you’re already familiar with—television, radio, newspaper, billboard, side of a bus. While these traditional methods are fine for building brand awareness and reinforcing purchase satisfaction, they are expensive. They are also typically not well targeted– there’s just no way of knowing if the people watching a particular show are in the market for a new car.

It’s on those two points that internet marketing blows all other mediums out of the water. For starters, if you are smart about your online strategy (or work with people like Dealer Impact Search Marketing who get paid to be smart about online marketing strategies) the internet is a cheap, cheap place to advertise. Running an ad on Google or Yahoo (the search engines are, after all, where the vast majority of people begin their purchasing research) doesn’t cost anything unless someone is interested enough to click on your ad—and even then, it’s typically only around $0.50-$2.00 per click. Not a high price to pay to send an interested lead to your website.

What’s more, online advertising is highly targeted—your ads only show up when people search for something related to your dealership or your inventory. Worried that your money will be wasted if your ads show up for people who aren’t in your city? Search engine advertising is so effective that it actually figures out where the searcher is located, and only shows ads relevant to that location. And if you use an online marketing company that builds your advertising campaign on an adaptive platform like the Dealer Impact Search Advertising platform, your campaign will become more targeted over time – only showing your ads for searches that have the best conversion rates.

These smart platforms also have the added advantage of detailed tracking. You can find out how many people have clicked on ads, for what keywords, what forms they filled out on your site, and even find out who’s called your dealership. Some have the added benefit of recording those phone calls and adding them to your online report.

What does this all mean to the average car dealership? Basically, if you move a chunk of your marketing budget online, and then spend those online dollars correctly, you can decrease your total budget while bringing more qualified leads to your site and increasing your sales. The online marketing arena is effective and cost-effective, so stop wasting money with those newspaper ads and get online today!

Jamie Wilson
Search Engine Marketing Specialist
DealerImpact.com

Coupons: A Story of Redemption

Published: August 14, 2007

iMedia Connection

by Steven Boal

If you want to both boost sales and track how online is affecting offline purchases, try online coupons.
The rise of interactive marketing has been incredibly quick and continues at a pace that keeps brands, marketers and media properties on their toes. With consumers spending more time online, marketers are redirecting serious dollars online, where more and more shoppers get news, entertainment and make their shopping decisions. Interactive is an essential piece of most marketing budgets.

Consumer packaged goods (CPGs) marketers are finding even their core buyers are spending more time online and making shopping decisions based on web research. They also realize the incredible sales potential in word-of-mouth marketing created by the more than 25 million internet users considered influential in recommending products to others [eMarketer, June 2007].

The challenge for these brands is how to close the loop from engagement to action and gain real insight into the impact their online advertising and promotions are having on in-store sales.

Where money is being spent in interactive

CPGs and other leading brands are leveraging a variety of methods of interactive marketing, including increasingly robust brand websites, rich media and video ads, email marketing campaigns, and much more.

However, since only 10 percent of shoppers purchase online (and even fewer purchase grocery products), it’s difficult to track return, whatever the goal.

Promotions, as distinct from brand advertising, often provide more measurable impact and are proving popular with online audiences and have resulted in robust consumer participation. Coca-Cola, for example, is currently running the highly successful MyCokeRewards program, with on-pack codes driving traffic to the promotional website where points can be exchanged for rewards.

One way Coke has “closed the loop” with these highly engaged consumers is by offering printable coupons in exchange for the reward points, bringing them back full circle into the store and giving Coca-Cola the ability to measure impact on sales.

Similarly, Pharmavite LLC, the parent company of Nature Made vitamins and SOYJOY nutrition bars, generates awareness, sales and brand loyalty through an integrated couponing program, where each element supports another. Emails to its database of 1.3 million subscribers often include links to the $5 worth of printable coupons (powered by Coupons, Inc. technology) on NatureMade.com. There, consumers can also join a rewards program, with cumulative points building toward a single, high-value coupon mailed to the participant.

In addition, coupons in the Sunday newspaper’s freestanding insert (FSI) include promotional verbiage driving coupon-hungry consumers to the website to print additional coupons.
Sheryl Biesman, manager of integrated marketing for the Nature Made Wellness Advisor, the online division of Pharmavite, sees printable coupons as an incentive to encourage people to register, which in turn builds the opt-in database.

“A robust, highly-qualified database is the key to successful retention marketing,” she says.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/16120.asp

The New Benefits of Search for Dealers

Good article about Search Engine Marketing…

Published: June 25, 2007 – iMedia Connection

Early internet education

In the early days of the internet, while consulting large metro dealerships about how the internet was changing their business, the concern was always the same. The internet made dealers nervous because web-savvy customers were only interested in looking up prices, which they would use as a negotiation point with a dealer’s competitors. At the time, these dealerships actually preferred not to advertise online because their “prime” customer was not an internet user but someone who would walk in off the street without having done his or her research.

The promise of online marketing

These days, nearly everyone is an “internet customer,” with 67 percent of all new car buyers researching online prior to purchase1. For the first time in history, online marketing can enable dealers to identify and speak to more than two-thirds of the people in their market area who will buy a new car in the next few months. Savvy dealers can now leverage the internet and turn their reluctance into profits, not only from new cars, but from used cars, financing and fixed operations.

That said, with the huge breadth of online media options (e.g., third-party research sites, online inventory sites, online classifieds, local news sites and social media outlets) dealers face a fragmented online media landscape. Due to the confusion that this invariably causes, most dealers have chosen to continue to spend the bulk of their advertising budgets on familiar and traditional media outlets. While this may reduce media buying complexities, we all know that successful advertising should follow consumer eyeballs, which are clearly on the internet.

Why search works for dealers

In order to gain mass appeal among auto dealers, media should be easy to purchase, have mass reach in the dealers’ DMA, allow for rotating offers to consumers and be highly measurable. Unfortunately, many online options do not fit the bill here, as most dealers do not have the time or expertise to evaluate the relative merits of thousands of smaller publishers. In order to simplify the media buying process while achieving the necessary reach, dealers have begun looking to search engines to deliver interested customers to their lots and phone lines.

J.D. Power and Associates cites that 85 percent of new car shoppers who use the internet for research are using search engines during the process. This means that more than half of all new car buyers use search prior to their new vehicle purchase, offering marketers an unprecedented level of reach. Because all of the major search engines allow marketers to leverage geo-targeting, dealers can message to actual auto shoppers in their DMA, a benefit that enables more targeted and efficient ad buys.

Many forward thinking dealers have experienced and realized the benefits of search marketing. Those leveraging search now have a solid view into how this form of advertising drives online and phone leads for sales and service and are now able to hold other media formats accountable to similar metrics.

Additionally, search ads enable dealers to test which messages and offers are most effective at driving interest from buyers in their area. Within hours of launching a campaign, a dealer can understand which offers are resonating and which aren’t. Real-time results can significantly enhance and inform overall advertising effectiveness; messages that are playing well online can be leveraged in other media channels as well.

The future

Search marketing at the local level is in its nascent stages. Auto dealers are just starting to think about this media as a viable alternative to traditional media and, as such, are just sticking their toes into the water. Today, most dealer search programs focus on new car sales and driving awareness of the dealership among new car shoppers. The possibilities of search marketing, however, are limitless.

Nearly one of every two online users visit Yahoo! each month (or the largest third-party research site, Y! autos) and we get over 150 million automotive queries every month in the U.S. Over 25 million of these queries are related to parts and service, and over 10 million are related to used vehicles. A dealer can leverage that knowledge to advertise used inventory and their service drive: the two most profitable areas of the dealership. Before long, a local dealer will be able to easily create a unique search ad for every piece of inventory — new and used — on the lot, rotating deals based on a user’s query. Additionally, that dealer can use search data to better understand user preferences in his market area to help drive inventory purchase decisions, lowering days to turn while increasing conversion rates.

What was once a source of apprehension can be turned into a smart and significant advantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

David Schwartz is senior category director, automotive, at Yahoo! http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/15506.asp

Digital Marketing’s Killer Characteristic

It’s been said before and it’ll probably be said again. But something this important bears repeating…

Digital Marketing’s cost per unit is essentially ZERO!

There are no printing costs. No postage costs. No media buys. No commissions to sales people or printing costs. Send a message to 1 or 100,000 — the cost is the same. All those little ones and zeros are free.

And on top of that, digital marketing is usually more effective. You can include video and audio in your emails or on websites or even people’s cell phones. Let’s see you try that with old-world direct mail.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble LLC

Industry Trends – Going Digital with Your Marketing

The Automotive industry has finally decided they need to join the internet revolution. Dealerships are hiring Internet Managers, Setting up BDCs, and looking for website providers for their dealership, but are they looking for the right things?

The big push has been Websites and CRM across the industry, but those who really sell true volume know the answer is much more. The focus should be marketing.

Dealerships have always known marketing is key to staying alive, and they still continue to pay outrageous amounts of money to traditional media like newspaper, radio, TV, and direct mail even though they know they are dying mediums. The average reader of the newspaper is 55; however this is where the majority of their advertising dollar goes.

So where has everyone gone? Dealerships know the Internet is booming, however they still do not focus on reallocating their marketing efforts and their marketing dollars. GMs, Owners, and Internet Managers feel a good website and CRM tool is all they need to do business on the web.

The truth is a website is a reactive tool. What I mean by that is the website is waiting for people to show up. It serves no purpose to those who are not seeking it out. Dealerships advertise in traditional mediums to capture those people who might be in the “Buy Now” mode and to entice them to visit their dealership. There are rebates, incentives, sales specials, services specials, parts specials, etc. going on every week at every dealership. However, how many dealerships actually provide this information electronically on their website or pro-actively sent this information out to current customers? The answer is most of them don’t. They have not bridged the gap between having their promotions/events converted from static mediums to digital mediums, which is why we tell dealerships it is time to “Go Digital”

For those dealerships that have digital coupons for parts and service, marked inventory for sale, rebate and inventive ads, sales events, etc. all digitized the whole world opens up. Now all of these things can be sent out as campaigns, sales inventory can be sent out as notifications, coupons can be send to service customers automatically without any effort from the dealership, the website can contain all current promotions/events and ongoing marketing efforts can be initiated to all your past customers to have them be new customers. Basically advertising just went digital and the cost to get that message to the end consumer is nothing.

For those who realize this are ahead of the game and have already started to mass collect email addresses for marketing, just like they used to collect us mail addresses. These dealerships know if they get ahead in the race it will be very difficult for competitors to catch up.

Brian Cox
President
Dealer Impact Systems

Marketing On Their Terms

I was reading a collection of articles online this last weekend involving, in one way or another, “The Death of the :30 Spot.” They told of the increasing irrelevance of traditional advertising methods and how today’s consumer — including today’s car buyer — are becoming harder and harder to reach with television, radio, billboards and other “mass” advertising. These media outlets face a crisis because they’re becoming both more expensive AND less effective. Trouble brewing to be sure.

But the question is why? Well my guess, and a reason put forth by others as well, is that in today’s “my way, on my terms” society, consumers aren’t content with those things that aren’t specifically for them. They want it personalized and customized. Like their Whopper®, they want it their way.

So where does that leave the digital marketer? In a good place to be sure.

Traditional marketing methods (newspaper, television, direct mail) are slow and static. Every customer sees the same message in the same way. And launching a new campaign can take weeks or even months. But when you go digital, you can launch dynamic, multimedia campaigns in a matter of minutes. You audience sees a message that is tailored to their needs and their life. And the good news is, it takes little or no added effort on your part to make it happen.

Isn’t technology grand?

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble LLC