From AutoRemarketing
February 25, 2008
By John Avery

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — We get asked a lot about how to sell more pre-owned vehicles on the Internet. The best way is to make sure that you are doing all you can do to market your vehicles the right way. 

There are a several ways that you can accomplish this, and here are a few basic things that you can do. 

One of the most basic practices that will help you is to make sure that you have good quality photos on each vehicle. 

Prospective customers like to see the details on the vehicle and the condition of the vehicle before they come in. Having photos on your pre-owned vehicles really helps build the trust with your customer and builds value into the vehicle.

The only thing that is worse than not having pictures on the vehicles is having poor photos on your vehicles. Here are a few tips that you can use to improve your online photos: 

—Be mindful of your background. I would suggest using the same background for all of your pictures. It doesn’t take that much more effort to pull the vehicles to a common point to take pictures of it. Some dealerships have actually set up a “studio” to take their pictures.

This is as simple as hanging a curtain in the background so the focus is on the vehicle. You can also take the pictures that will be positioned so that your dealership name is in the background. This will help them remember your dealership name and will keep another dealer from trying to sell your vehicle to their customer. 

—I tried to make sure that the pictures were in the same basic order for each vehicle as well. This will give the customer consistency and will give them a sense that you genuinely care about earning their business. 

—Take your exterior pictures from the corners of the vehicle. Taking these angles gets two sides of the vehicle and shows the customer more than pictures straight on from the back and the front. 

—Take a picture of the odometer, this verifies the information that you have listed with the vehicle. Customers do not like it when they come in and the mileage is a misprint on the Web. 

—Make sure that you have pictures of the seat condition, especially the driver’s seat. This is one of the first things that customers look at because comfort is so important. 

The other big factor is something that most dealerships don’t take the time to bother with. Take the time to write a description for your pre-owned vehicles. It doesn’t need to very elaborate, but having a paragraph about the vehicle does build value into the vehicle and shows the customer that you don’t have anything to hide.  

Here are a few tips that will help you with your descriptions: 

—Make sure that whoever is writing them knows how to write with good grammar and that the spelling is checked and double-checked. 

—The best way to write a description is to write what you think that you would tell a customer if they were in front of you. What qualities of the vehicle would you most want to deliver to your customer? 

Here are a few items that you will want to include in your description: 

—Let them know if the vehicle was a trade-in or not. Also include anything that you learned from the previous owners (i.e., one owner, mostly highway miles, traded for a newer model, needed a larger vehicle, etc.). 

—Let them know about any certifications the vehicle has gone through in your service department. 

—Let them know if there is still a manufacturer’s warranty left on the vehicle or if your dealership has put a warranty on it. 

—Mention any equipment the vehicle has that will add value to the vehicle. 

—I also added a sentence letting them know that we had checked the Carfax history and that they would be eligible for the Carfax money-back guarantee. 

These ideas seem very simple, but many dealerships do not pay attention to these details and will give the customer a reason to eliminate you from their search.

http://www.autoremarketing.com/ar/news/story.html?id=7481

As we begin a new year, we hope you’ve spent sometime planning for 2008. Specifically, we hope you’ve spent some time putting together a detailed marketing plan for the coming year. Here are a few things to think about as you put that plan together.

• Set specific, measurable goals and make certain people are accountable for them.
• Determine what tactics will help you most cost effectively accomplish those goals.
• Budget appropriately. Remember, marketing is an investment in future returns, not a cost center.
• Examine your mix of traditional versus digital marketing spending.
• Invest in replacing your direct marketing with electronic marketing to cut costs and increase customer interactivity. This means gathering email addresses.
• Push your website to become the center of your sales effort.

Putting you and your team though even a basic marketing planning process will help you learn a lot of things. It will also help to focus you all on the same set of goals. And that’s the most valuable part of the process.

Once you’ve done those things and set your plan into action, remember to constantly check your progress and readjust your goals and tactics. In short, keep planning all year long. Because here’s the thing… unless you do, you’re plan will become worthless. Your marketing plan can’t become something you do once because dozens of unforeseen things can affect how you go to market. For instance, your competition could open a new store or make a major advertising push. Your manufacturer could fall on hard times. One of your new releases could become the “must have” car of the year. Or you may have to respond to a failing (or surging) economy.

All of those things could render your plan useless unless you’re willing to alter your plan and adjust to a new reality by doing some more planning.

That’s why we say that planning is essential, but the plan is useless. Sounds crazy… but it’s true.

D. Jones

Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant

SmackDabble, LLC

Use digital media to set your dealership apart from the crowd.

Look out across your dealership and you’ll see rows and rows of shiny new cars… All with that new car smell, low low financing and a pile of customer cash. All were just washed and are priced to move. There’s just one problem. The Chevys, Hondas, Toyotas and Cadillacs on your lot are the same Chevys, Hondas, Toyotas and Cadillacs that a customer can find down the street at a competing dealership. The vehicles were made in the same factory by the same workers to the same exacting quality standards and are selling for an all but identical price. And we know that a few dollars here and there won’t sway customers as much as we’d like.

So if the product is a commodity, all that’s left to set your dealership apart is the customer experience — how a customer feels during and after interacting with you and your people. And as more and more of that interaction shifts online, so does that portion of the customer experience. And with that comes the opportunity to use digital media to influence and enhance their experience at every stage of the sale.

You can use automatic responders and other email technologies to find and cultivate brand awareness with those customers who aren’t yet in the market. Then, use video and other multimedia to create a user experience on your web site that is unmatched and keeps prospects on your site as long as possible. Once they show some interest in a particular model, entice them by sending a coupon or an eBrochure. Then stay in touch with automated email technology. Are you doing any of these things today?

Using these sorts of digital media tactics allows you to interact more frequently, more effectively, more efficiently and in a more personal way than your traditional methods of phone calls and direct mail. Not to mention that, because of the time and cost associated with staying in touch, traditional methods force you to eventually cut ties. Not the case with digital media because it is not cost dependent. So staying in touch or following up with 10,000 prospects costs virtually the same as a few dozen.

Digital media can help you de-commoditize your undifferentiated product offering in this time where consumers are more fickle than ever. It’s all about the customer experience and increasingly that experience is taking place in cyber space. And because so many of the country’s dealerships have yet to jump on board the digital marketing bandwagon, there’s ample opportunity for those that do to find a true competitive advantage in the battle for brand awareness, customer retention and sales.

D. Jones

Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant

SmackDabble, LLC