Have you ever wondered why PPC and SEO are often separated. Even in companies that offer both, they usually treat them as two separate entities, stating that the practices that work in PPC are different from the practices that work in SEO. We beg to differ.

Much of PPC is driven by Quality Score. This means that the keyword, the ad, and the page that you send them to should all match up and bring value to the person doing the search.

Much of SEO is driven by relevance of content. This means that the keyword, the organic listing, and the page you send them to should all match up to bring value to the person doing the search.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Google has stated over and over again that presence of a PPC spend has no effect on how well a website ranks organically. For years, companies in the automotive industry claimed that it did. Lately, there has been a reversal since there's so much content out there that demonstrates that the two do not correlate. As a result, companies have used that as a reason to now separate out the two.

The problem is that the correlations existed, just not in the way that was being preached. A page that's strong for SEO will also be strong for PPC from a Quality Score perspective. With this established, the only remaining piece to the puzzle is making the pages both valuable from a content perspective as well as strong from a conversion perspective. We believe we have this concept nailed, but that's something for our own blog.

Here, I'd like to encourage dealers who are doing their own PPC to think within this principle as they build pages. Sending everyone to the VDPs or SRPs is a popular strategy, but I believe it behooves you to do some testing. Building strong landing pages that work for SEO, PPC, and conversion may be your best bet. Does it require more work? Yes. Does it yield better results? Absolutely.

The SEO value of PPC is non-existent in our industry because it takes work, not because it can't or shouldn't be done.

We're talking about two separate strategies that have the same goals (traffic, leads, and sales) that play in the same basic venue. Don't you think they should be working together?

Digital marketing in the automotive industry has very few absolutes. When it comes to the difference between automation and manual effort, the proper answers are squarely in the gray area.

Let's take a look at some of the different aspects of digital marketing and break down which ones should be automated, which should be manual, and which should be a hybrid. Spoiler Alert: pretty much all of them should be a hybrid to some extent to achieve the best possible results.

Website Building and Maintenance

When I worked for a website provider, our biggest strength was the fact that we built custom sites. Our biggest weakness was that we built custom sites. It's hard and in today's day and age I've become a fan of using templates that have flexible content management systems for design fluidity and enhancement.

With that said, an automated methodology to the build that is guided by manual improvements is ideal. As much as we would all love to have websites hand-built exactly the way we want them, there are stability issues with that mentality. Inventory, specials, forms - automations is necessary to keep everything up to date. Where manual effort comes in is the design, improvement, and search engine optimization. Boilerplate content is all over today's websites because it's too challenging for most large website providers to hand-craft content.

PPC

It wasn't too long ago that I felt automation was necessary, particularly for keyword maintenance and bids. Then, I started noticing the improvements that Google was making and realized that a dealership or PPC specialist could do much of it manually. Most recently, I realize that a hybrid approach makes the most sense.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that way too much emphasis is placed on bid automation. In reality, letting Google manage bids can be nearly as efficient as having software do it, but there's more to it. Dynamic inventory ads, for example, are clearly easier with automation. However, it's in the manual efforts placed on keywords matched to ad text and ads matched to landing pages where the real separators come into play.

BDC, Chat, and Email Follow Up

Okay, so these are technically not functions of automation versus manual processes, but at the dealership level they really are. The choices are to have an internal BDC, chat operators, and email follow up or to hire other companies to do the work for the dealership. In a way, it's automation.

Once again I'm a little torn because it depends on the situation. For high-volume dealerships or dealer groups, the consistency that comes with hiring these services out can be beneficial. However, there's also an argument to building strong teams internally. If I'm forced to answer, I would say that BDC and email follow up should be internal and chat operation should be managed by a chat service.

Social Media

Again, the levels of automation here are minimal but there's still the presence of tools and strategies that should be addressed. Having a Twitter account that's just an automated feed from Facebook, for example, is a terrible idea. It just doesn't save much time and yields nil.

Then, there's the idea of using bulk posts from OEMs or large social media firms. This, too, is not beneficial to the dealership and is a waste of time. There are social media firms that do a nice job, but if a dealership has the resources to keep a robust presence on their own as well as to manage the ads properly, that's the best case scenario.

Classified Sites

As strange as it may sound, there are still those who manually post their inventory to sites like Autotrader.com. Bad idea. Thankfully, it's not very common.

What's more common is manually posting to Craigslist, eBay Motors, and some of the sites that charge per posting. The thought is that cost savings can be made by doing it manually, but there's a problem. Time costs money and the process isn't easy. While we don't promote automated feeds, there are tools like LotVantage available that make the posting process relatively manual while limiting the time wasted on the process.

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There are other things out there that deserve to be discussed. This is a sampling. If you want to discuss these or others, please comment below.

Automation has its place. Manual effort has its place. A key to success is discerning when to do things manually and when to push the easy button.

In this industry we often do things simply because they have been done before. Why not throw out the rulebook and do things because we SHOULD or WANT to? You don’t need anyone’s permission to pave the way for your dealership. It all starts with an idea that becomes a plan to present to those who need to buy in. You need to be that voice. I know it seems far fetched that anyone would take your crazy idea seriously, but as someone who started as an assistant and pushed until the owner let me try some creative ideas… I know that just one person CAN make a difference. So, throw out the darn rulebook! Everyone tells you to think outside the box, but no one ever tells you how to. Well here are a few ideas that I’ve used in my dealerships to get those ideas flowing for your dealership!

Salesperson draft

Every quarter or biannually we would shake things up. My team was not only responsible for their internet leads and follow up, they were also responsible for the salespeople on their “teams”. The Internet Team was responsible for making sure the salespeople on their teams were following up correctly, learning how to be digital with their consumers, spot checking emails and texts in the CRM, etc. The team with the best growth and /or closing percentage at the end of the quarter won a trophy and a monetary prize. This allowed them to forge relationships with the salesteams and the teams started relying on the Internet Team, alleviate any “us vs them” concerns,

Creative scheduling

I didn’t have the budget for as many employees as I wanted and truly felt I needed, so I went with 2 part time employees and eventually my owner bought in from our results and gave me 4! My team of four college students handled everything from answering and following up with leads, transcribing phone calls, customer service calls, showroom follow-up, inventory pictures, walkaround videos, inventory descriptions, website management, etc. We were our own little agency. Each of them had different skills in photoshop, video editing, being in front of the camera, and creative writing. We maximized their skills by allowing them to continue learning in the areas they were interested in.

Music theme days

I learned that my team loved music. So, they were allowed to listen to it while working. We would use the Turntable site and create a private room with just our team. Each person would be a DJ and pick a song within our theme to keep the day moving at a fun and efficient pace.

Break up your monotony.

Internet Lead handlers often have the most monotonous days. Answer leads the same way every time, handle phone calls the same way every time… I found that when I gave them a bit of fun, they all produced at a faster rate and performed better… and with a smile on their face! When they smile, the customer hears it and smiles along with them!

Brain time

I would find strengths in each team member that I could use for the department. Some were graphically skilled, others loved to be in front of the camera, one was musically gifted, while another was looking for a career in social media. Use their strengths and develop them. Allow them to use their brain so they feel they are growing. We are often so afraid that if we give our people too much, they will outgrow the role and ask for more money or move on. I had a much different experience. The more I gave them, the more they gave me. I allowed my team 30 minutes a week to work on their “skill”. The only caviat was that it had to be assigned or approved and MUST be a benefit for the dealership. So a walkaround video, a musical funny video for youtube, graphical marketing materials, or social media posts seems like they would cost the dealership money wouldn’t it? Why not use the resources in front of you and give their brains some relief?

It's great to be out of the website business. After a decade of working for dealership website providers, I now have the freedom to tell the story like it really is. There are certain truths about dealership websites that dealers need to know.

The first important point is that almost all dealer websites are either underutilized or incapable of being utilized at a high level. Here on DrivingSales the readership is more aware of this than the general dealership body, but even the people reading this article now have a good chance of falling into this category.

Most websites should be improved, added to, or replaced. Let's look at the three options, but first let's discuss why this is the case.

Universal Problems

Here is a brief list off the top of my head of problems that dealers face with their websites. Yours might not have all of these problems, but chances are very strong that you have at least some of these deficiencies.

• Boilerplate Content - There's very little a website company can do to generate unique, relevant content on every important page other than to hire an army of content writers. Very few do (and when I say very few, I don't actually know of any but I can't declare that none of them do until I go through all of them).
• Terrible Homepage Layout - At some point, website providers started pushing the idea of having several banners floating across the homepage. Testing has shown that very few people click on these banners, but that hasn't discouraged the practice. Then, the rest of the homepage is designed in a way that requires 3 minutes just to see everything and figure out where to go. Consumers aren't doing that. They're clicking within the first 30 seconds to the place they really want to go. Clean, intuitive homepages that tell a compelling story within a few seconds would be much more effective.
• Limited High-Quality Inbound Links - We've always understood the value of quality inbound links for SEO purposes. Lately, some website providers have jumped on the bandwagon, which is good, but they're still doing it at such a limited rate that it's not having enough of an effect.
• Too Many Calls to Action - There are providers who boast about having several calls to action on every page. The data shows that the most effective landing pages and even inventory pages have fewer calls to action. The most effective number is (you guessed it) one. A single powerful, relevant call to action is more effective than several.
• Poor Search Functionality - Sites like Amazon and eBay can attribute much of their success to proper search functionality. When will a dealer website come out that knows when someone misspells the word convertible with an "a" that the correct answer isn't "No Results Found"?
• Mobile Challenges - Responsive. Adaptive. I'm not here to debate those particular options. The list of challenges with mobile dealer websites goes beyond the layout style. Thankfully, this is one challenge that is being actively fixed in our industry, but there's still a great deal of room for improvement.
• Underutilized or No Blog - Blogging works. It works for the community. It works for SEO. It works for content marketing. It works for social media. If you don't have a blog on your website, get one. If you have one and you're not posting at least once or twice per week, start posting more.
• Ineffective Landing Pages - Most landing pages we see are terrible. Either they don't have an appropriate call to action, they don't have compelling and relevant content, or both.
• Bloated Content and Title Tags - It doesn't matter where your dealership is. You shouldn't stuff your content and title tags with more than two or three cities on the homepage and more than one city on landing pages. Instead, build more pages that fit each individual metro. When you put in too many, you might as well put in zero. Search engines aren't buying the concept that you're a "Honda dealership serving [list of 14 cities]."
• 2012 Inventory Pages - This is a topic that requires more than a bullet point paragraph. In fact, it probably requires more than a single blog post. If your inventory looks like the same types of inventory that have been on display in our industry for the last four or five years, they're probably not working the way they should.

That's off the top of my head. When we analyze websites, we usually see some or all of these and many, many more.

Dealer websites are like the movie Groundhog Day. Every time you build a new one, there's the hope of doing something better but it often turns out to be the same old thing over and over again. Of course, by the end fo the movie Phil (Bill Murray) puts in the effort to make it the best day ever for the folks of Punxsutawney, PA. As a result, he's finally rewarded with greatness.

I don't recommend building a digital marketing strategy around a Harold Ramis comedy. However, it's a good illustration that making something exceptional takes work. Just the other day we had to call a website company CEO for a simple fix to inventory because customer support told our client that something simple was impossible. You may be seeing the same challenges. If you're not, chances are you're not looking in the right places. These challenges are fairly universal. Thankfully, there are options.

Improve Your Current Website

This is the paradox in the group of three options. It's the one that's arguably the most effective yet it's probably utilized the least. The fact is that most websites, even the ones built by bulk vendors or OEM-mandated sites, have plenty of room for improvement as well as the corresponding tools to make most of those improvements happen.

Of the websites that we've seen improved, over half of them were OEM-mandated. They can be enhanced by improving the creative, eliminating extraneous calls to action, adjusting the boilerplate content, and adding additional pages designed for traffic and conversions. Most have or can have a blog. Out of dozens of platforms that we've worked on, only two platforms were generally unfixable and one of the two has allegedly made major changes recently.

Before jumping to option two or three, it's important to at least explore option one as it requires the least amount of time and effort and the results can be just as high if not higher than the other two options. I'll discuss why that is the case a bit later. For now, let's look at option two.

Add Another Website

For a long time, this was the most popular option for dealers with brands that had OEM mandates. The idea was to build a new, powerful website by an unauthorized provider and park the OEM site in the backyard somewhere.

This option has become less and less popular for a few reasons. The number one reason was the added cost. Fewer dealers are willing to pay for two websites. Another reason is the forced acceptance by the OEMs. Some of them will not allow their name on a non-compliant site, which means that ABC Lexus would have to park their shiny new site on ABCImportCenter.com or something like that instead of ABCLexus.com. Some OEMs won't allow co-op ad dollars to be spent sending traffic to non-compliant sites.

The most important reason that this option is fading is because the OEM vendors are getting better. We've seen a couple of the bigger providers adjust their platforms to make them easier to optimize, improve conversions, and look at least a little different from the competition.

Replace Your Current Website

This is the most popular option, particularly at the end of a contract. As much as most hate going through the building process, there are plenty of reasons to do so... at least that's the perception.

We've worked through dozens of new website builds since starting in 2013. If you include the changeovers we went through as individuals with previous companies, that number goes into the hundreds, possibly even thousands. The result is normally an improvement but rarely is it as great as dealers expect. I'm not saying it's a bad solution. However, it's an incomplete solution.

No website provider has a perfect solution. In fact, very few have what we consider to be a "great" solution and nobody has stood out as being superb at this point. That's the reason that I mentioned option one can yield as good if not better results. Changing website providers or adding a new website to the mix doesn't solve all of the problems. They all have their good and bad components and they'll all require effort to enhance them to their full potential. Out of the box, no website platform can be superb. Thankfully, nearly all of them can be made superb with effort put towards extreme and persistent improvements.

Greatness doesn't come at the flip of a switch. It comes through constant advancement, hard work, and incredible strategies. If you want to stand out, you have to put in the effort regardless of which website option you choose.

At first glance, it's an easy question with an instant answer. Car dealers want to target everyone within driving distance with their message. As Ripley said in Aliens, "It's the only way to be sure."

Upon closer examination, problems start to pop up. Even if we assume that "everybody" is actually a large portion of the audience (since you can't reach everybody from a literal sense), there are still holes in the strategy. Those who have extremely large marketing budgets could do it, but even then they really shouldn't. Here's why:

• At any given moment at most 3% of the adult driving population is in or near the market for buying one of your vehicles and that's if you have a very popular brand. For many brands it's under 1%.
• Reaching all of them requires large mass-media buys and a shotgun approach. Based upon diminishing returns, the second $10,000 can be less effective than the first, the third $10,000 will be less effective than the second... etc.
• Targeting is getting much, much easier today than it was even 2 years ago. This trend is only going to continue.
• Targeted messaging isn't just about being smart with your money. It allows (forces?) a dealership to be more focused on getting the right messages out to specific targets and through individual venues rather than a bulk message or singular slogan approach.
• Most dealers and nearly all vendors confuse marketing with advertising. More importantly, they confuse marketing with branding, PR, and buzz. There are big differences and diverse approaches to achieving a brand expansion. It should not be the only focus in true marketing.

These really are just the tip of the iceberg when discussing the merits of targeting versus mass messaging. I talked about it in much more detail on our blog.

The best part about working in the car business today is that every dealership, big or small, has tools through which to hit the right people with the right message. It comes down to proper targeting which is getting better all the time.

As a policy, we've always chosen to obey the "once and nevermore" philosophy with our social media posts for clients. We handcraft each post and that post will appear one time and on one dealership's Facebook page. Once it's used, it's done forever.

A dealer asked me today if that's a best practice or something that we do for the sake of proper service. The answer is that it's both. It's a best practice to use unique content nearly every single time (with an occasional exception described below) and to make sure that any content is only used for one dealership page. However, that doesn't mean that the rule can't be bent a little, especially for car dealers who are doing it themselves.

Let's quickly discuss both reasons that we made the rule and you'll understand why it's a rule that you're allowed to break.

Unique is Best, but...

In an ideal world, a company will be able to generate so much content that everything posted on Facebook is never reposted again. In the real world, we understand two things for dealers who are managing their own social media:

1. Content isn't always readily available, so sometimes you have to recycle content that was posted in the past just to keep the pages and profiles going.
2. Evergreen content seen by one batch of people last month may be relevant and interesting to a new batch of people who are seeing you post this month. This is a strategy that we employ for our own social presence.

We have made it a general practice to keep the content unique because that's best for our clients, but there's no harm in occasionally republishing exceptional content at the dealership level. The risks involved are minimal; every post will reach more new people than repeat viewers of that post as long as the gap in between posting is pretty wide. The two minor negatives are that republished content gets a lower reach potential through Facebook, even with ads, and you might have the occasional person in your market who sees the content for the second time and doesn't appreciate it.

The exceptions that I mentioned above are videos and extremely important content. In both cases, the base content can remain the same but you should still mix it up with the description and attached image whenever possible. These two types of posts are worth the risk since videos have the highest potential of getting strong reach and important content is, well, important.

With Twitter, this rule is tossed out at least a little bit because the percentage of followers reached with each post is much lower. The recent changes to Twitter might have an affect on this; we're testing to see. For now, evergreen content can go on Twitter relatively often. We try to limit it to no more than once a month for any individual piece, but again there's nothing wrong with mixing it up with different wording or hashtags.

Business Decision for Proper Service

The other reason we've chosen to take the nevermore-approach is because the exact opposite is the norm in the automotive industry. The vast majority of companies who are posting on behalf of dealers use content libraries, bulk posting tools, and regurgitated stories in order to fill their client's pages and profiles with content. We've seen disastrous results when a company posts the same picture of the same car with the same description to every dealer of the same brand on their client list. It's amateur and looks terrible when people see duplicated content like that sent out through automation.

I know what you're thinking. Even some of the OEMs are doing this, so it can't be that bad, right? I won't go into details, but I know a very prominent OEM social media person who left their job over this practice. They've had someone convince them that it's okay, that it's better than nothing, that people are unlikely to follow more than one dealership... the list of excuses are many but the reality is the same. It's a bad practice.

It would be easier and more cost-effective to do it the bulk way that so many companies have adopted. I suppose we're just silly rebels who believe that dealers deserve better.

Are you one of the few that blasts Social Media as a form of marketing? Maybe you just don’t believe that it works. Maybe you think it’s a huge waste of time. Well the good news is that you’re not alone. The bad news is that the numbers of non-believers are rapidly dwindling.

Let’s say that you’re on the fence about whether there’s actual ROI (return on investment) behind managing a social media page. I’m speaking on either budget or time as your ROI measurement. You may be asking yourself “Is this worth it?” Everybody seems to be doing it but does it mean you have to? I can assure you that a social media strategy not only works but it’s actually good for your dealership.

When it comes to running a dealership, there is basically one goal: to sell units. Of course, advertising and marketing are a huge part of achieving your goal. Most dealerships are used to the 3 conventional methods of advertising:

• Print
• Radio
• Television

To expand your reach and to hit your target market like never before, you MUST consider social media. If you’re thinking spending money on Facebook is a waste, you’re mistaken. The one thing to embrace about digital marketing is that it can fit ANY budget. It’s not a gamble and you’ll definitely get your money’s worth. Here’s an example of the potential and power of social media.

We work with a client in Long Beach, CA, and one of the social media posts we created (on May 31) went VIRAL. It’s not typical for a post to achieve viral status on the internet but the numbers that followed cannot be ignored. Another atypical detail is that this post included video (which will always bring up engagement). There was a fixed budget applied to that post (this is a daily practice) and it just took off. As of this writing, the post has reached 135,168 people. It was shared 1,206 times, gained 538 likes and received 117 comments. The video was viewed 41,079 times while the amount of total likes, comments and shares are well over 7,000. Organic reach was 130,625 and paid reach was ONLY 4,543! The good thing is that very little money was spent for these results. The amazing thing is that this was posted weeks ago and the numbers are still climbing daily.

Every dealer would be delighted to get similar results on their social media pages, especially Facebook. If you think that spending money on social is a gamble, that’s a legit opinion. 5 years ago, that statement would be accurate...today, this is a gamble that is surely paying off in huge dividends. Ignoring how essential social media is for a dealership is a bad idea. Are you willing to risk alienating an audience of potential leads and future customers?

I've been pretty torn over the last few months. On one hand, I'm so pleased to see that dealers (and even some vendors) are really starting to embrace building content pages on their website. On the other hand, I'm concerned that many companies are starting to promote building these pages as their complete SEO strategy. What's worse is that many dealers are starting to believe them.

We came across this recently when a dealer wanted to find out whether our SEO services were having a positive effect on their traffic, leads, and sales, or if it was another company that was working on things simultaneously. The other company builds pages. That's it. They don't support these pages with other signals and they don't build the pages with increased sales in mind.

2012 was the last time I made the recommendation to dealers to build content on their website or two hire us to do it for them. All I asked for was two pages per month. It was a reasonable request in my humble opinion - not too much work and yet a nice minimum to have some effect. I don't recall posting about it since then because dealers and vendors in general didn't seem anxious to heed the advice. Today, that seems to be changing. More dealers and vendors are doing it, so it's finally time to make the next batch of recommendations.

This time, there are two important takeaways. First, If you build it, you must support it. For very easy keywords, building a page and letting it sit can be enough to rank. For any keyword that can actually drive traffic, you must support it with off-the-page signals such as inbound links and social shares.

Second, if you build it, there must be a valid reason. Back in 2007, I learned that just because you can send people to your website through a blog post doesn't mean that you're achieving your SEO goals. At the end, it's not about traffic. It's about bringing in the right traffic and taking them to the right pages. SEO should help to sell more cars, not just drive more traffic to pages that have no chance of converting.

If you or a vendor build pages regularly on your website, you're already doing better than most dealers. However, doing better is not necessarily doing everything that can be done. Since more dealers and vendors are building content, it's so important to utilize the other factors within the Google algorithm to pull ahead of the pack.

In the coming weeks, we will be unveiling Octane, our strategy and service that enhances your website and digital presence in a way that generates traffic, leads, and sales. In the meantime, check out a description of Full Spectrum SEO, one of the major components of our Octane strategy.

Salespeople in automotive learn very quickly that standing on the point during drive time is the easiest way to grab an up.  You have first shot at the fresh meat as they roll onto the lot.  If they’re shopping, you’re eager to assist, right?  I vividly remember my first dealership having actual marks on the pavement, like some kind of treasure map, with x’s and o’s indicating the points which MUST be manned during peak traffic times.  There was one out front in the median between the entry and exit lanes, another at the end of the sidewalk in front of the new Chevy’s, and two more placed in the middle of the inventory lines.  Each day at t 11:45 AM sharp the loud speaker crackled to life and an authoritative voice boomed, “Gentlemen, It’s DRIVE TIME!” 

Drive times lasted from 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM, and resumed from 4:45 PM to 7:30 PM.  Every sales agent who was not actively engaged with a customer, in person, in the dealership scurried to the points and remained there until they grabbed a fresh up, or died trying.  If you were caught off-point, without a customer, during drive time, you were written up.  It was that serious.  Water breaks (for the weak) when the temperature hit 90 degrees, and bathroom breaks for “emergencies only” were our only solace from the lot.

These tactics were a bit intense, but they worked.  Too well, in fact, since each up generated a feeding frenzy I liken to throwing chum into a pool of sharks.  There were all out brawls, races to customer’s windows, and Spy vs. Spy-style subterfuge employed by the hungry, hot, tired sales people who often didn’t care if the up was good or bad, just so long as we could go INSIDE!   The idea was that every person who drove onto our lot was greeted promptly and if they were shopping, we were selling.  Nothing wrong with that.  The problem is that some sales people, managers, and dealers still believe the points are on the lot. 

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but the fresh meat is no longer outside your showroom windows, driving up uninformed with an open mind and time to spare.  The family trips to car dealerships to “look around” are long gone.  Even the much-loathed retort of “We’re just looking” has been silenced forevermore.  Today if you stand around on a pavement point greeting cars during drive time you’ll be nothing more than a concierge directing the APPOINTMENT of your colleague to her desk (or snaking them, which, if you still do this, a pox upon your house!)

The points have moved.  There are several locations to post up, and none of them are on the sidewalk.  First, you need to be present in search results pages on Google, Yahoo, and Bing, on page one, at the top and/or right hand column, in the sponsored results. Some people click the first result they see.  Be that.   But that’s not nearly enough.  More savvy shoppers look past the paid ads, to the organic listings, these are also your points.  You need to back up your paid ad with organic listings because the combination instills confidence in the shopper that you are, in fact, an authority on the matter.  Imagine all 10 organic listing on page one are your points, you should be stationed at as many of them as possible during drive time. 

Guess when drive time is?  It’s now.  Someone in your market is shopping for your product at this very moment, online.  I don’t care if you’re reading this at 11:45 AM, or 4:00 AM.  It’s drive time right now.  Standard websites might get you placement on one of the available points.  That means 9 points are unmanned.  Unacceptable.  There are no water breaks, or bathroom breaks from these points.  You know where else they’re “just looking”?  Facebook.  Be there. 

Facebook is equivalent to the point in the median between the entry and exit lanes of your brick and mortar dealership.  There are people coming and going all day long, maybe they are there for service and parts (a.k.a. cat videos and stalking their ex-boyfriend), but why not take a swing at them?   You got in front of every live body that crossed your point and made sure if they were shopping you were selling, right?  Do the same thing on Facebook.  There are countless ways now to decipher who is in the market for a new vehicle online, and to offer up assistance, before they ask, where they spend time.  Do that. 

There are more points, your website for example. Are you manning that post 24/7?  Is there a phone number with a live receptionist on the other end?  Is there managed chat, so they can reach out with any questions, 24/7?  Twitter, Pinterest, other social networks could be considered points, albeit the points in the back lot where the noobs get sent.  Don’t waste an awful lot of time on it, but have a presence, and pay attention to all your points, all the time.

The most important points are easy to man with a solid combination of content marketing and effective social media management and marketing.  You must CONSTANTLY generate quality content on, and off, your dealership’s website.  This is not a “set it and forget it” effort.  Quality content consists of unique text, images, video, and content-appropriate links.  Don’t copy and paste, and don’t half-ass your content.  Take the time to make it reader-friendly.  Don’t stop at your own site, that’s only one-third of the battle.  You need quality content off-site as well, and you must get on Facebook.  Posts to your front-facing page are a great start, advertising is a nice second step, next target your audience and deliver compelling in-feed marketing messages.  Get on the point. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, IT’S DRIVE TIME!!

The perfect dealership culture is a delicate formula because it has to:

1. Be authentic

and

2. Resonate throughout the dealership and community.

To achieve a great company culture isn’t as simple as a creative marketing message or rules handed down from top management. Culture issues generally exist because there are roadblocks in more than one place. To truly get to a company culture that sticks and resonates, you have to find your roadblocks, address them, and continue to identify if roadblocks reemerge.

Many people think that roadblocks stop and start with the sales department. Others point fingers at all other departments. The reality is that a single customer looking to do business with us touches every single department in an effort to drive away in a new car. Thinking that way will lead us to evaluate all departments and bridge those departments together.

Starting with the sales team is the easiest place to start (as long as it isn’t where you end). Sales teams are the faces of your culture. If they feel unappreciated or aren’t given the right tools, it will filter into every conversation had with customers. Sales teams require written rules and processes, expectations, and training. Those three components can drastically change the dynamics of your showroom for the better. Just be sure to follow through with ____ if any individuals don’t adhere to the written policies and culture rules.

Sales Managers are more important to address in my opinion than anyone else. These people set the tone of what both customers and employees experience. Poor management (led by fear or berating) will quickly destroy your efforts. Hold them to higher standards and stick to the same disciplinary actions if they become toxic to your culture.

Finance. Ah, Finance. Make sure they play nice, educate, and work with the sales team and the back office. There is no need to create hierarchies where none are needed. The processes of handing off paperwork and/or customers should be seamless. The communication should flow back and forth between any departments that need to work together to get that customer closed, financed, and posted to your DMS.

I’m not sure why we give such little attention to the Back Office. They generally keep our operations running smoothly and make sure we get paid! These people shouldn’t be given the run around. They should be given what they require to keep things running smoothly shouldn’t they?

Internet teams and/or BDC teams should really be extensions of the sales team, not the red-headed step children. Managers of both teams should be given authority and respect. Sales Teams and Internet/BDC teams need to work hand in hand. The handoff of a customer to any department needs to be smooth, consistent, and timely. The experience needs to match. Far too many dealers have great initial experiences when contacting from the Internet but in-person doesn’t match and customers are lost (and armed with perfect bad review content).

Ownership can often times be the roadblock. Giving certain 30 car-a-month guys free passes when they break the rules, hiring people they shouldn’t be, keeping people they shouldn’t be. not understanding current marketing needs, or not having the vision for that culture you feel is important to set you apart as a dealership. We may feel that there is little we can do here. My advice is to speak in terms they understand. Move the needle where they need to see it move and get their buy-in. I’ve done the impossible in making ownership see the value in these things, so I know one person can make a difference!

Everyone else. Every single person in your dealership that deals with a customer (or maybe even doesn’t) should be armed with your voice, mission, culture, or whatever you want to call it. Receptionists talk to your customers and often times give them the very first (and sometimes last) impression. Sales teams are the ones who give your customer the first impression, the last impression, and all the ones in between. Finance talks to customers when they feel most vulnerable and excited. Get ready makes sure the vehicles look like the customer is expecting. The back office answers their questions and handles their issues with trade-ins after the sale. Service keeps in touch with them and takes care of them until they’re ready to be sold again. Make sure that the words they use, the manner in which they speak to your customers, the processes they put their customers through, and their follow-up practices match what you want your company’s message to be. Do they present themselves the way you want? Do they do the little things you want your dealership to be remembered for?

Sometimes it is the owners that are the problem and sometimes it is the get ready team or finance. It doesn’t mean you have to have the perfect team, but you have to make sure you have the right process. Any break can cause a culture to fail.