strategy

Video Has Officially Arrived

Nothing has changed the way consumers use the Internet quite like video. Youtube.com and its brethren have fulfilled the true multi-media promise that was made back when we were all still on dial-up. We knew the day would come… and it has arrived.

So what’s made it happen? Well first of all, well over 50% of all internet users in the United States now have high-speed internet access. Secondly, simpler video editing software and less expensive video cameras have made user-created video affordable to middle America.

Video and multi-media are no longer nice-to-haves for dealership websites… it’s a must have to remain competitive. In fact, video has been shown to increase click rates and the time a user spends on your site.

In short… It’s time to make video a part of your dealership’s web system.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

A Brand Is A Promise

I’m often asked about “branding” in terms of a company’s name, logo or tagline. Although these three elements are important, they constitute a small fraction of your brand.

Instead of thinking about your brand in terms of logos and taglines, think of your brand as a promise. Your brand is the promise you make to customers, employees, strategic partners, the media and everyone else. When you talk about brand, you’re really talking about experience — the experience an individual can expect each and every time they interact with your company. This extends to every touchpoint of your business, from calling customer service, visiting your showroom, clicking out to your website and returning to your dealership for service.

Thinking about branding in these terms forces you to ask different questions about how you run and position your business. Branding in this way can have dramatic effects on your business — effects that changing up a logo or tagline will never have on their own.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Where Is the Top of Google?

by Mitch Turck

If I had a dime for every dealer who demanded to be at “the top” of Google…trouble is, most of them don’t know where the top actually is. Or, they know where the top is and (as usual) prefer to invest money for instant ROI rather than invest time and effort for long-term ROI. In both of these cases, the dealer inevitably lands on spot #2: the top of paid search.

But folks, that ain’t the top.

If you’re a dealer asking questions about getting to the top of Google, then you already have some understanding of the power and value of search engine presence. But what you haven’t realized – or refuse to realize – is that “paid search” (PPC) marketing is not the magic bullet of search engine marketing. While PPC is highly cost-effective and can be tracked and analyzed to no end, it’s still just rented ad space. If you don’t pay for your ad to be there tomorrow, some other competitor will take your place… just like print ads.

Organic SEO on the other hand, builds upon itself. These are the results that “naturally” list out along the left side of the page; the sites which Google has deemed relevant to what users are searching for. The closer your site gets to the top of that area, the more clicks you receive, the more Google values your site, and the higher your site will go. It’s the snowball effect, and there’s really nothing like it in any other area of automotive advertising. Build a high-quality site and maintain it frequently, and you could be on top of the natural listings within a few months. That’s the discipline to keep in mind: the top of Google is in the organic/natural listings, not the paid listings.

The #1 result in the organic listings (Spot#1) gets about 40% of the click share on Google and other search engines. The #1 paid result doesn’t even come close (maybe 20% of the click share on a good day when listed above the organic side (Spot #3), and more like 10% at the top of the sponsored side (Spot #4)), and often you get better results as the #2 organic listing (Spot #2) than you would as the #1 paid listing. That means the majority of people are going to look past your PPC advertising efforts to find the page that Google has declared the most relevant page on the queried topic. That’s because users know PPC marketing listings are ads, and to a degree, they’ve trained themselves to avoid looking at such listings. It’s also because the organic results deliver more information in their results, so the user has a better idea of what they’re clicking on.

Now there are still a ton of people who mistakenly or purposefully click on paid listings, and I’m not suggesting you give it up. It is, after all, the second best marketing expense in this industry right now. But it’s still an expense, and that’s why it’s in the same boat as newspaper, direct mail, radio and TV advertising: when you stop paying, you stop getting leads. If you’re on a tirade about being #1 in Google, your first step is to realize that it’s not going to happen overnight, and that PPC marketing is not what gets you to #1. Your second step is to find a website developer who rocks at SEO and can build you a killer site… unfortunately, that means looking outside the offerings within this industry.

How to win the search position game

By Chris Lien

Sometimes being in the third or fourth paid search position is actually more effective — and a lot cheaper — than winning the top spot. Find out when it pays and when it doesn’t.
When marketers buy keywords, they often get caught up in the idea that their ads have to come first on the page — and they pay a premium for that placement. But first position isn’t always the best. Sometimes, position three or four will actually convert at the same or higher rate than position one, and at a fraction of the cost.

First position keywords can cost two or more times what a third position one does, and in some cases, it makes sense to pay that premium (for example, when you’re more interested in brand building than conversion, you’ll want to make sure your brand comes out on top). For campaigns for which conversion and profitability are also factors, position three or four can be better.

But how do you know which keywords should be in position three or four, and which are worth the splurge for the top position? How can you measure and test campaigns to find out which should be top-tier and which should be third-tier? How can you maneuver within Google, MSN and Yahoo to get the positions you want? Here are some tips that should help you win the position game.

Focus on what each click is worth, not on what position it should be in
In general, if a purchase conversion is worth $10, and one out of 10 people purchases, you should pay about $1 per click. You should offer that maximum price to Google (or another search engine) for the specified keyword.

After you launch campaigns, continue to test them for conversion metrics and adjust your top bid accordingly. Many marketers think that if the clickthrough rate is higher, the keyword should be more expensive. But you should determine the value of a keyword based on conversion rate, not clickthrough rate, because you only pay by the click.

Heads or tails?
Head keywords are generic terms that people search while browsing or doing product research, such as “mp3 player.” Head keywords often benefit from being in first position, because they capture a lot of “browsers” who just click on the first link and may be exposed to your site for the first time. These people may not buy now, but they’ll connect with your brand.

Tail keywords are often best in third or fourth position. These keywords are specific and appeal to committed buyers, such as “black ipod nano 8gb.” People searching for these keywords are usually more ready to buy, so they’ll look at — and even click through — several ads to find the best deal, even if that deal appears in a link halfway down the page.

The upshot? Head terms get much more volume and are often more expensive to boot, so to justify your investment you may need to measure carefully which visitors return to your website.

Set a top position
This is a tool on Google you can use to hold your keywords down in the rankings, even if you are bidding enough to be #1. It’s always better to figure out first how much your keywords are worth to your bottom line, and then find out where that places you. But this tool can be useful if you find that position #1 gets a lot of poor quality traffic that never converts.

Focus on the dirty dozen
Most marketers spend the majority of their budgets on a few top keywords, usually about a dozen, which are high volume and have a strong conversion rate. Focus on fixing the position of these keywords first, because correctly placing these top keywords will have the biggest impact on total revenues. Let the others fall where they will according to their conversion rates as described above.

Turn off Google Search and Content Networks
If you don’t opt out of Google’s search partners, like AOL and Ask.com, your position numbers will reflect a blend of your positions across all of those properties. To get an accurate picture of where your keywords are positioned on Google itself, turn off the additional distributions. You can always turn them back on after you finish your measurement.

Turn off Google Content Network. Ditto as above
To figure out what your keywords’ true positions are, focus on Google itself, not your position across all its content partners, such as New York Times, MySpace and About.com.

Work weekends
Some keywords perform stronger on the weekend, such as “gardening” or “beach wear,” for example. Set up automatic bid increases for these terms to boost your position solely on the weekends. (Google supports this at the campaign level; MSN supports this at the Ad Group level; and Yahoo doesn’t support it right now.) Remember: These boosts should be based on changes in conversion rates, not click volume. Look for the pattern before you set the boosts.

Pony up for brand and “executive” keywords
If you’re Coca-Cola, you just have to pay whatever it costs to have “Coca-Cola” be in the top position — that’s crucial for your brand. Plus you can use your company name in those brand-term ads, and other advertisers cannot (call the support team at the search engine if you see any violations of this). Likewise, if your CMO tells you the company needs to be in top position for certain keywords, like “digital camera” or “PC” to build your brand in those categories, then just pay what it costs to be in the top spot (and pull the cost from the branding budget!).

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19624.asp

Focus on the customers, not the clicks

By Chris Chariton

Traffic to your website is great, but engaged customers are what you really need. Here’s how to turn anonymous clickers into promising sales leads.

It’s time we re-framed the concept of “driving traffic” to websites.Just what is traffic anyway?Once upon a time, it wasn’t much more than a bunch of anonymous vehicles, people or things moving from one place to another. But since the dawn of the web, it’s what companies receive when visitors click from one place to another. And that’s the dissatisfying result: if your web strategy focuses on driving traffic, you end up with anonymous clicks and page after page of site traffic reports of limited value.

Rather than “driving traffic,” focus on getting motivated prospects and valuable customers to visit your websites and convert them into qualified sales leads. By re-framing your objectives, you may end up reallocating some of your online marketing investments.

Take keyword ads on general search engines. While these are important parts of an online marketing strategy, your ads may not be reaching the audience you are interested in targeting. You can end up paying for a glut of unqualified traffic — even if you have the right keywords.

One way business-to-business advertisers can avoid attracting unqualified traffic from the vast ocean of consumers visiting mass market search engines is by being more focused with your keywords. Instead of using “pumps,” consider using “turbine pumps,” a keyword geared toward a specific audience. Using long tail SEO keyword practices will attract people with the same specific and targeted interests.

Another strategy delivering motivated prospects — not just clicks — is displaying ads only to targeted audiences. You can’t always do this on general search engines, but you can with some B2B oriented destination sites — vertical search engines — where your filtered, targeted audiences are aggregated for you.

Other strategies to drive qualified prospects to your site include having a presence in relevant online directories, advertising in appropriate e-newsletters and showcasing your capabilities with banner ads on targeted web sites.

A robust, visible presence — more than just a link to your website — in online directories provides branding and messaging capabilities to motivate qualified prospects to visit you. Look for directories that are geared exclusively toward your B2B audience. They offer multiple options for showcasing your company and products.

Purchasing ads in e-newsletters can also change the focus from traffic to qualified leads. When determining an e-newsletter advertising strategy, consider both the size of the audience and the mix of readers. Ask the publisher for both the number of subscribers and a subscriber profile, preferably by industry and job function. Review the subscriber profile and you’ll know if you’re targeting the right audience.

Finally, don’t forget online banner ads that appear on targeted websites. Seek out a partner that offers a banner ad network allowing you to reach targeted audiences across multiple sites with a single buy, helping to save media research, program management and tracking time.

These strategies drive prospects to your website, usually to a specific landing page deep within the site containing relevant content. Now the other half of the equation comes into play: You need to convert these visitors into qualified leads.

The easiest way to accomplish this is by offering valuable content that qualified prospects will register to obtain. In other words, exchange something valuable to you (their contact information) for something of value to them (a white paper or Webinar offer). Your lead-focused landing page should also include a simple form that captures an email address and a phone number.

Converting site visitors from nameless, faceless clicks to identifiable prospects also gives you a way to accurately measure the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives, allowing you to shift dollars to the programs that perform best.
Follow these suggestions and you’ll never again incorrectly focus on “driving traffic” to your website. Your focus will be exactly where it needs to be: on customers, not clicks.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19928.asp

The Newest Sales-Boosting Strategy

By David Wengel

Making the sale hinges on the lead. On-demand lead scoring is a technique that clarifies who your best leads are and allows you to target them accordingly.

How many sales versus marketing conflicts would vanish if marketing could easily vet and prioritize every lead it passed on to sales? And how much airfare could you save if you could grow wings and fly?

If you’re a marketing executive, then you would probably put both questions in the same box because one is just about as likely to happen as the other. Vetting and prioritizing sales leads is labor intensive and expensive. Doing it fast enough to get the hot leads to sales before they cool off has been close to impossible — maybe only slightly less impossible than actually sprouting wings.

It would be in the marketing organization’s best interest to rank the promise of every lead it passes to the sales organization, but the realities of time and cost effectiveness have not allowed the necessary information gathering and analysis. Devoid of solutions, marketing executives have been left to soldier on as best they can: No matter how much they spend on marketing, most companies still treat every inbound lead the same, no matter how valuable the leads are likely to become.

Recently, however, on-demand lead scoring, supported by advances in marketing technology, has developed to improve the quality of leads that marketing sends to sales.

On-demand lead scoring should ideally combine historical customer information with consumer data and predictive analytics. If you’re setting out to automatically prioritize each incoming lead, then you’ll need the level of insight that comes from combining these three types of information. Without all three, you’re throwing away chances to boost sales conversions and customer value.

The most basic on-demand lead scoring solutions reveal exactly who is contacting your company through your marketing programs, whether they’re reachable given the contact information they provided, which leads should be top priorities and which products or services are most relevant to the lead.

This information enables salespeople to target the hottest prospects, whichever criteria you use: those who are most interested in your products or services, most likely to buy a lot of them or most likely to turn into long-term customers. The same knowledge can tell you which of your messages and offers will provide a more customized experience for each prospect.

For example, an auto dealer receives names and phone numbers of active car shoppers within minutes of their filling out forms on auto-related websites. The leads are instantly and automatically scored based on 1) the individual’s verified contact information, 2) household demographics and 3) the dealer’s experience with customers fitting that demographic profile. The sales team knows to immediately pursue leads that score in the top 20 percent with an immediate outbound call or customized email. Others are prioritized for follow up in order of their potential.

On-demand lead scoring applies the same methodology to phone channels. When a credit-card issuer’s advertising drives prospects to its toll-free numbers and websites, the on-demand scoring solution grades them for potential value, matches them to the most suitable credit card and immediately routes likely-to-convert prospects to the best agents. The callers who are least likely to convert are routed to an interactive voice response (IVR) system, allowing the likely-to-convert callers to get more attention from agents.

A lead scoring solution’s predictive power is limited only by how much a company tailors it to specific business, goals and customer knowledge. For example, is the objective to grow revenue by increasing conversions or by focusing on cross-selling opportunities? Has the company found more upside in identifying prospects who look like its most loyal customers or in those who look like those customers most likely to respond to a particular offer?

In each case, the key is a rich mix of data that includes demographics, lifestyle and behavioral information, sales histories and product and channel usage. With currently available services, a company’s customer database and sales histories can be combined with descriptive and behavioral information to create predictive profiles. Companies that have embraced on-demand lead scoring have found three best practices that determine how successful their solutions are.

The first is that the lead-scoring information must be actionable at the moment you need it. Most existing customer insight platforms can offer microscopically precise insight on existing customers, but none of this rich information is actionable in the instant new prospects submit an online form or call in. In the past, you could segment your customers but you couldn’t predict which prospects would behave like your best customers unless you stopped to ask each prospect, say, the five attitudinal survey questions you’d found to be predictive. A lead-scoring solution must be able to link your customer knowledge to brand new prospects in the instant you begin to interact with those prospects.

The second best practice is a basic tenant of good solution development, but it merits mention nonetheless: data quality. Your lead scoring is only as good as the information that drives it. If your scoring doesn’t include verification of contact information, then you won’t even know which leads can be reached, making the effort worthless. And if your scoring solution doesn’t include up-to-date consumer contact information, then you’re slashing your ability to assign scores to your leads.

Finally, if your lead scores aren’t customized to your business, then their predictive power will lack punch. Off-the-shelf lead scoring systems typically rely on consumer profiles that aren’t even tailored to your industry, much less your company, so they provide uneven results when used to drive your real-time decisions. An online shoe store will miss some sales if it relies on the same customer profiles that an insurance company uses for its automated processes. A lead scoring solution that includes information from a company’s customer databases and sales history will be more predictive than one that doesn’t.

There is no single instant cure-all to the problem of dead leads, but on-demand lead scoring solutions are a huge step forward from what passes for lead qualification at many companies today. Lead scoring can improve the relationship between sales and marketing, which creates a stronger company that closes more sales and spends less on qualifying leads — without growing wings and flying.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19811.asp

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

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