Confessions of a Digital Car Guy

Happy New  Year to everybody at Driving Sales and to all the people in the Automotive community.  It’s been a truly rough ride in 2008 and 2009 looks to be an even tougher road ahead..

While there is plenty to look back on from 2008, I’d like to paint a virtual road map where our industry is likely headed in a vastly altered landscape.  So much has transpired in the last 4 months, it’s very difficult to quantify what the net results will look like by the end of 2009.  

Here is my attempt to predict the future.  Wish me luck.  I promise to be around at year end to keep score.

• The Domestics are going to be held accountable by the Fed Government in almost every practice. With the right oversight and quality control, their forced modernization will actually benefit the industry and hopefully level the playing field on the labor side of the equation.
• One of the "Big Three" will be no more.  I’ll leave that to the bright minds reading this blog to decide whom it will be.
• The net effect of this "Nationalized Domestic Car Business" should bring about wholesale changes in the way the industry markets their products.
•  With the continued decline of the Newspapers and the printed content empires of the past, Digital Media should emerge as the logical solution for both OEM’s and Franchise Dealers. (FINGERS CROSSED)
• The new HYUNDAI ASSURANCE Program is the first move by an OEM indicating they must find a way to bring purchase confidence back.  Expect many similar OEM strategies/campaigns to follow.
• There will be MASSIVE DEALERSHIP POINT DELEVERAGING in Major Markets.  In the last 7 years the good Ole USA over-expanded itself in every possible way.  Is it really conceivable there are enough Ford buyers in LA to encompass 25+ Ford Dealers?
• The ‘New Car Lead Model" of the past 11 years will DIE  replaced by NEW CAR VIN LEADS indigenous to Dealer Microsite Inventories.
• 50% of the old model "New Car Lead Companies" (I won’t mention names)will be gone by September.
• Credit will stay tight across all Brands as banks remain stingy in their lending practices buoyed by the over-extended American consumer.
• Dealers will finally understand IMPRESSIONS-CPM-SEO- and finally attribute ROI to my newly coined term "DIGITAL UPS"
• The Wholesale Business will be turned upside down as Values become updated weekly and reflect ACV accurately.
• REPUTATION MANAGEMENT isn’t a Buzz word anymore.  Dealers will be forced to invest in SEO to stay legit in the eyes of the ever vigilant web shopping public.
• The Service Director and General Manager will be the same person in many dealerships.
• 2 of the Major Auto Retailing Corporations will be no more by October.
• Tier 2 Dealer Associations will be finally held accountable for the way they spend their marketing dollars! 
• OEMs and Dealers who continue to invest in modernized platforms will reap rewards even in a very down economy.
• The “Digital Land Grab” marks an opportunity unlike any seen since before the 1950’s.  Most of the major Digital Media players are offering vast- geo-targeted-make specific-exclusive territories at bargain basement rates.
•  Jay Campbell will blog once a week for the entire year making Confessions of A Digital Car Guy a widely read industry blog!

There you have it.  

Feel free to comment on my predictions. 

Best of luck to us all as we steer our ships thru rough waters.

Technorati Tags: Big Three, Dealer Microsites, Digital Media, Hyundai Assurance, Reputation Management, SEO

If your dealership hasn’t figured out what to do in the weakest car market in decades, look no further than your internal process to maximize the power of the interweb’s reach.

The lastest JD Power data indicates that 75% of consumers begin their research online.  This is up 5% points over last year.  If 3/4’s of your potential shoppers are online, why isn’t the same percentage of your "reduced external marketing dollars" being used to capture this audience?  Here is a "simple solution" to put into action.  

Advertise online with the big Indpendent sites(Edmunds-Kbb-Autotrader-Cars.com). Optimize your website so it’s prominently and positively featured on the search engines(Impact Auto Media).  Make sure its easy to navigate-engaging -measurable and MOBILE FRIENDLY.  Ensure there are multiple photos of every car in your inventory-new and used.  Make sure you export your inventory to the various free classified sites and ensure the process is updated daily.

Train every member of your staff to understand the importance of your website.  Teach them to constantly refer to it when speaking with customers and clients.  Reward them when they capture people’s email addresses.  Use them to re-market to every single one of the people who transact with you-from the new car purchase all the way down to the consumer who buys Oil from your parts dept.  Reach out to everybody in your CRM database with bi-monthly emails notifying them of the specials and current offers at your store?

You can do all of these things for less than $15k/mo.  If you are a real Web 3.0 Ninja, you could probably reduce this to $10k. In recessionary times, doing these things will not only allow you to survive but potentially thrive.

Make it happen! 

Technorati Tags: Engagement, Impact Auto Media, JD Power, Kelley Blue Book, Marketing, Mobile Friendly, Optimization

Whewwww….what a week in the global capital markets?   It was the single greatest week of equity losses in the history of the stock exchanges.  With our political leaders indecisive and the issues seemingly snowballing, we need to prepare for a protracted economic slowdown.

What are you doing to insulate yourself and grow your business in lean times?  When the economy dips and consumers move into a state of fear, brand loyalties are heavily scrutinized and the purchase funnel extended.  Car shoppers spend much longer time online evaluating their purchases.  They are hunting.   

While most Dealers are minimizing their ad spend, you should be looking for marketing opportunities.  Most of your competition is in hiding. The landscape is not as crowded. You’ll never have a higher probability of getting noticed. You should be in the "dollars per eyeball" game.   Where can you target the most in-market shoppers in the cheapest way possible?  

Online of course.   Do more to push people to your website.  Provide an opt-in survey or allow for some focus groups.  Ask them what they like about your site and how they’d like it changed to improve their shopping experience.  Make sure it’s easy to navigate, engaging and measurabe to conversion. Provide multiple clear and concise photos for every single new and used car in your inventory.  Position your fixed ops marketing as a need with coupons and offers updated daily.

And most importantly, utilize SEO to specifically guard and brand your stores online reputation.  Car shoppers are looking for value and products and services they can trust.  Nothing can destroy your store’s reputation like negative publicity or forum posts from people who endured a poor experience at your dealership.

Now is not the time to cut and run on your marketing budget, it is time to spend money wisely.

“A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.” Henry Ford

Marketing never stops. If you stop your marketing, you are wasting the brand equity you have built so far.  These are tough times, but they may be some of the most creative and opportunistic in years. Embrace them!

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Technorati Tags: Advertising, Engagement, Marketing, Reputation Management, SEO

Have you typed your Dealership’s name into any of the major search engines recently?  I would suggest you do so, if only to find out what you see on the first page.  Be prepared for what you’ll find, as much of it will be to your chagrin.  :)

Consumer Generated Content (CGC) is dominating the web these days. People go online to write about everything they see and do.  The restaurants they dine in, the gyms they use, the bars they visit.  All of the social networking sites are rife with reviews, photos and comments about the people and places in their day to day lives.  Why would your dealership be any different?    

Imagine the power and influence  your staff wields in every single day to day customer interaction?  From your desk manager, to your F&I, to your parts counterperson and even your receptionists, their performance is being evaluated on a grand stage.  How do you control what they say and do every day?

No amount of training or select hiring can account for their communication with your clients and potential customers?  And in these very trying economic times, it’s likely people will be on edge, prone to disagree or be combative.  You can’t afford not to be pro-active in making sure your dealership has a stellar reputation both online and off.  

So what to do?  

What if there was a way to employ the latest search technology to guard your dealership’s online reputation from negative reviews and commentary while also allowing for cutting edge geo targeting and brand building?

In my next blog, I’ll tell you about an amazing new company and its potential to revolutionize the way dealers market on the web.

Technorati Tags: Brand Building, Consumer Generated Content, Geo Targeting, Reputation Management

Every morning we wake up-shower-dress-fix our hair(if we have any) and hopefully get a protein based breakfast light on carbs.  ;)  We abide by a schedule. 

This daily regimen is ultimately about doing the little things.  You can’t be great without nailing the little things.  Without a solid "daily regimen" and consistency of achieving it, we are doomed to be inconsistent.  Inconsistency is the father of failure.

As a cardog, your thinning wallet may be attributable to inconsistent marketing.  You’re bigger than the economy right?  Now matter ‘how bad it gets’ you must still advertise…. You must go on by investing in the places where you customers are most likely to find you:  ONLINE.

Do you have a solid “Digital Regimen” that carries you through the day?

• Are you Geo-targeting your store on all the Local Auto Portals with relevant ad campaigns?
• Do you have pictures of your Inventory(New and Used)across all shopping verticals?
• Do you have Video Content engaging both the eyes and ears of your consumers?
• Is your website interactive and measurable by engaging and involving your visitors?
• Are you positioned to benefit from the traffic of the search engines?
• Are you reaching the millions of eyeballs offered by the consumer generated content sites-Facebook-Ebay Motors-Craigs List-Youtube-Myspace?

If you said yes to at least HALF of these things, then YOU’RE ALMOST THERE.  If  you said yes to all of the above…. You’re a ninja, and I apologize for wasting your time. 

If you are deficient in any of the above mentioned criteria, you should investigate further or perhaps give us a call!

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, Consumer Generated Content, Digital, Geo Targeting, Search Engines, Video

You’re about to lose the bricks.  It’s not about Clicks.  It’s about pushing Iron through fiber.

Today’s consumer doesn’t care about your website.  They don’t care about your sweet flash intro, your nifty online credit app, or even your ‘next-generation’ inventory page.

They only know Google.  When they’re confused, they visit KBB.com, if frustrated, they visit Edmunds.com, and when hammered over the head by saggy saturated  OEM advertising and glitzy superbowl ads…. They visit AutoTrader.com or Cars.com and visit the possibilities.  One day, they might end up on your lot.  How do you part the sea and provide a clear path with all this overlap?  Oops, that was a question for 2005.

Face it, this is 2008.  Your neighbors are going out of business.  Your buddies are leaving the trade.  You shake your head as you leave it to the Green Peas….. Am I done?

OR

You take this for what it is.  Opportunity.  You embrace digital with the understanding  you will never, ever, pay for something that sounds like a lead.  You pay someone to sit at a desk and blog, facebook poke, myspace grab, and beebo about the day-to-day….   You embrace the day-to-day relevancy of the consumer. You use technology to track purchase cycles. 

Each “digital lookey loo” eventually becomes a buyer.  Make them yours by steering them for their 6 months in the purchase funnel.  Make friends through their friends via social media.  As they research a purchase, push them to microsites and landing pages for every single model you sell.   It really is possible.   Stop allowing traditional media’s “bygone” ways to dictate your future media mastery.

You’ve already cut the trees on the street to make your lot more visible.  At first, you did it so customers could see you better, but now, from your office, you see the Forrest through the trees.  YOU can bring customers into the showroom by making yourself visible on the places where your customers live…. ONLINE.

This is not about Pay Per Click…. Stealing your neighbors’ names for sponsored top of the page.  It’s about an organic effort to make yourself transparent.  You make your inventory transparent via mass distribution, and make your people relevant via social awareness/networking.

Remember, your customers don’t care about you:  They  only know Google, and visit the trusted resource when they need advice.   It’s up to you to fill in the gaps.

How you do you dominate both channels?  You call us.

Technorati Tags: Autotrader, Digital, Kbb, Landing Pages, Microsites, Social Media

Selling anything today is difficult.   There is so much competition in the marketplace and it comes from every corner of the globe.   How do you set yourself apart from your competitors?

It’s not going to be due to your superior product or superior product knowledge.   In today’s fast paced digital world, the people who respond quickly and efficiently will close the deal and out perform their competitors 9 times out of 10.

So how does one become a “First Responder”?   To start,  you have to be able to use all of the latest technologies to your advantage.  Email, Instant messaging and automated voice mail companies like Youmail.com or Phone Fusion are great ways to be able to control your first contact.  But the simplest and most effective tool at your disposal is a PDA.   If you aren’t using a Blackberry-iPhone-Palm or Windows Mobile device, you are at a serious disadvantage.

Is there anything better than being able to answer a clients question within 5-10 minutes of receiving it?  How much trust and rapport is built between your clients and potential customers when they feel your chief concern is also their own?

Think about it for a second.  You get an email from a frustrated client or a potential customer on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday evening out with your family/friends enjoying your weekend.   Contemplate the wonder on their face when you fire a rapid –professional reply addressing and identifying their concern and promising to solve their issue first thing Monday morning?   If you aren’t using a PDA, there is no way you could build this kind of trust with your clients and  potential customers.   Being a ‘First Responder’ will always set you apart from the competition.

Technorati Tags: Automotive Lead Handler, Blackberry, First Response, PDA