I had the opportunity to look at a new product that is hitting the automotive business.  It is a social media solution for dealers.  Yes, I know, just one more solution to look at.  This product was developed by Netbiz who is in association with Cargigi.  The solution that they have come up with is being used in other industries on Facebook (i.e. photography studios, real estate, computer repair, etc.) and is now transitioning to the automotive industry.  As of right now, there are just under a dozen dealers that are signed up. 

There are three parts to the automotive solution that Netbiz and Cargigi offer.  The first is a posting to Craigslist tool with an incredible reporting tool that makes it unique.  With over 49 million unique visitors to Craigslist and it being number 10 in traffic rank in the US, why shouldn’t you be posting your inventory there?  The tool will post your inventory at your designated times that you would like to post.  (In the part of the reporting, you can see when people are looking at your vehicles the most so you can determine the best time to post.)  It has a 7 day rotation where it will post the same vehicle with different templates to make sure that the dealership doesn’t get flagged or blacklisted. 

The second part of the solution is posting your inventory to Facebook.  The postings are clean and will pull in any video that you may have right on your facebook page.  The edge that they have over a Dealerrater solution which a lot of dealers use is that it keeps you on the dealer’s Facebook page vs. taking you to the inventory page on Dealerrater where there are Google ads from your competitors.  The customer can share it with their friends on Facebook just like a lot of the other solutions that are out there.  The cost of the posting tool with reporting and tracking numbers is $399.00

The last part of the solution is specifically for Facebook.  Instead of a potential or existing customer seeing your wall when they get to your page, they will have a landing page within your facebook page.  It can be designed in different ways to gain likes from anything to getting a gift card somewhere or donating money for every like to different charities.  I really liked the cleanliness of the landing page and the graphics were very well done.  It has a call to action as you land there to like your dealership.  They also offer a targeted advertising solution where they handle it all for you.  They have two packages to choose from for their advertising.  You can take advantage of ‘Sponsored Stories’ or normal Ads that are on the right hand side of your facebook page.  The ‘Sponsored Stories’ fee is an affordable $200/mo. And the normal advertising package is $800/mo. 

Being an analytical guy, I loved the analytics that comes with the program.  It is very detailed and will break down your times of days that the cars are being looked at and it is real time.  There was only one thing that I didn’t like on the product and that was the landing page for clicking on a car will land you on the Facebook inventory page.  I can see a prospective customer clicking on a car from Craigslist and landing on your Facebook inventory detail page.  Yes, the customer can see all of the photos, video, and comments on the vehicle, but I can see a potential customer click on your car on Craigslist, get to your Facebook page, and then get A.D.D. and go see what Jared Hamilton or any of their other friends are doing today.  You can set up another ‘landing page’ which would be a separate url for that vehicle.  The reasoning behind this is for their reporting features.

You can view screenshots of their product on their Facebook page or their website. 

I had the opportunity to look at a new product that is hitting the automotive business.  It is a social media solution for dealers.  Yes, I know, just one more solution to look at.  This product was developed by Netbiz who is in association with Cargigi.  The solution that they have come up with is being used in other industries on Facebook (i.e. photography studios, real estate, computer repair, etc.) and is now transitioning to the automotive industry.  As of right now, there are just under a dozen dealers that are signed up. 

There are three parts to the automotive solution that Netbiz and Cargigi offer.  The first is a posting to Craigslist tool with an incredible reporting tool that makes it unique.  With over 49 million unique visitors to Craigslist and it being number 10 in traffic rank in the US, why shouldn’t you be posting your inventory there?  The tool will post your inventory at your designated times that you would like to post.  (In the part of the reporting, you can see when people are looking at your vehicles the most so you can determine the best time to post.)  It has a 7 day rotation where it will post the same vehicle with different templates to make sure that the dealership doesn’t get flagged or blacklisted. 

The second part of the solution is posting your inventory to Facebook.  The postings are clean and will pull in any video that you may have right on your facebook page.  The edge that they have over a Dealerrater solution which a lot of dealers use is that it keeps you on the dealer’s Facebook page vs. taking you to the inventory page on Dealerrater where there are Google ads from your competitors.  The customer can share it with their friends on Facebook just like a lot of the other solutions that are out there.  The cost of the posting tool with reporting and tracking numbers is $399.00

The last part of the solution is specifically for Facebook.  Instead of a potential or existing customer seeing your wall when they get to your page, they will have a landing page within your facebook page.  It can be designed in different ways to gain likes from anything to getting a gift card somewhere or donating money for every like to different charities.  I really liked the cleanliness of the landing page and the graphics were very well done.  It has a call to action as you land there to like your dealership.  They also offer a targeted advertising solution where they handle it all for you.  They have two packages to choose from for their advertising.  You can take advantage of ‘Sponsored Stories’ or normal Ads that are on the right hand side of your facebook page.  The ‘Sponsored Stories’ fee is an affordable $200/mo. And the normal advertising package is $800/mo. 

Being an analytical guy, I loved the analytics that comes with the program.  It is very detailed and will break down your times of days that the cars are being looked at and it is real time.  There was only one thing that I didn’t like on the product and that was the landing page for clicking on a car will land you on the Facebook inventory page.  I can see a prospective customer clicking on a car from Craigslist and landing on your Facebook inventory detail page.  Yes, the customer can see all of the photos, video, and comments on the vehicle, but I can see a potential customer click on your car on Craigslist, get to your Facebook page, and then get A.D.D. and go see what Jared Hamilton or any of their other friends are doing today.  You can set up another ‘landing page’ which would be a separate url for that vehicle.  The reasoning behind this is for their reporting features.

You can view screenshots of their product on their Facebook page or their website. 

What is your call to action on your website? Hopefully, there are a few of them on your home page and also on your inner pages within your website. I have looked at hundreds of websites and thousands of pages in the automotive industry, and there are a few things that are common among all of them. But there are some that stand out more than others just because of the dealerships' call to action on the site. It made me want to click more and more, and even give some of my information, well, some of my mystery shopping information.

Trade In Apprasal Tool

About every dealership had some type of appraisal tool within their website. The most common ones seemed to be Blackbook, KBB, and Autotrader Trade-In Market Place. There are some pros and cons to all of them. Of course, you will always have the customer say that the figure is too low.

With Autotrader TIM, the one drawback that I saw was the number that was given. Yes, it is great that the figure is guaranteed by Autotrader, but if it is too low, the customer won't even respond to a phone call or an email wanting to acquire their vehicle. Autotrader says that it is a way to acquire inventory, but it is difficult to get a customer on the phone or via email because the number may be too low for them and they may feel offended by the offer made by Autotrader, not the dealership. Another con is that it can be time consuming for the customer with all of the information that they have to put in the computer just to get the figure. The pro is obviously that the price is guaranteed by them. If you as the dealer don't want the vehicle, take it to the designated auction and get your money back. Also, customer service is great with the Trade-in market place. They are fast on making any adjustments if needed on the phone with you as the dealership.

With KBB, it is a well known name and is where everyone has been trained to go in the past 10 plus years to get a trade in value. Their reputation has been good in the industry and according to KBB, they have 14-16  million hits to their site a month. I have no idea how many trade values are made, but I would guess that a large portion of the 14-16 million do a trade evaluation. The cons is that the customer always thinks that their vehicle is in excellent condition when they need 4 tires, and all of their services up to speed. It is easy to overcome with a customer just by going to their website and going to the condition examples.

Blackbook is the last common tool. When doing a trade appraisal with that tool, it will give you a $1000-$2500 range on the vehicle depending on how you have it set up. The one thing that I like about that is that it gives a range. That give the customer an idea on their trade, but to get a really firm number, they have to come in and have the used car manager look at it to put a firm number on it. You can also set the values to be from rough to average, average to clean, etc. I haven't really found any cons with Blackbook. Their numbers are generally pretty accurate.

Social Network Buttons

Social networking is here and now and it is here to stay so you better get with the program. There are some things that you have to watch when putting buttons to your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blog on your homepage. Yes, it is great to have them there so your customer can connect with you on another level. The thing that you have to be careful about is taking them off your website by click of the mouse. You spend all kinds of money in your digital marketing to get them to your website and they click on your Facebook button, it takes you your facebook page, then they can start playing on Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. and not make it back to your website to do what they originally were there for.  The same thing can happen with your Twitter, YouTube and your blog.  They may never make it back to your site.

Prominent Specials

Make sure that your specials are prominent.  If you don't have them on your website, get them there.  That should be the second most visited page within your website.  Also, be sure that they are current and coincide with any Manufacturer incentives so you don't confuse the public.  If you have something special, put it on there and differentiate yourself from the other dealers.  (Consult your advertising guidelines with the Manufacturer.)  Make sure that you have not only Sales, but specials for your Fixed Operations. 

Credit Application

Your online credit application should be easy to navigate and easy to put the information in.  Also, make sure that you are abiding by all of the new Red Flag rules so you aren't in violation with the laws that were put in place the end of last year.  Also, when the lead comes into the CRM, make sure that they right people within the dealership have access to the information. 

Phone Numbers

Most website traffic to your site is just to get a phone number to contact the dealership.  Make sure that it is in a prominent location on the page.  Generally in the upper banner portion of the page is the best place.  There have been sites that didn't have a phone number on the front page at all.  I would have to dig into the different pages to find it.  Also, if possible, put different tracking numbers when coming from different sources (consult your website provider).

Chat

Chat is an up and coming product in the automotive industry.  More and more dealerships are starting to utilize it.  If you don't feel comfortable in doing the chat yourself, you can have it outsourced to a company and they will do what they are best at.  I have seen conversion rates go up 1%-3% as a result of having chat.  If someone is in their cubicle at work and can't make personal calls, they have another option of connecting with the dealership through chat to ask questions.

If you have all or just a majority of these item on your homepage, you will be at the conversion rates that you need to be at to be successful.  The benchmark that each dealer should be at is between 7%-10% for fixed operations and 2%-4% for sales.  This includes all leads submitted, appointments, chats, and trackable phone calls.  If you have these items in place, you should be in that percentage range and it will make you successful.

What is your call to action on your website? Hopefully, there are a few of them on your home page and also on your inner pages within your website. I have looked at hundreds of websites and thousands of pages in the automotive industry, and there are a few things that are common among all of them. But there are some that stand out more than others just because of the dealerships' call to action on the site. It made me want to click more and more, and even give some of my information, well, some of my mystery shopping information.

Trade In Apprasal Tool

About every dealership had some type of appraisal tool within their website. The most common ones seemed to be Blackbook, KBB, and Autotrader Trade-In Market Place. There are some pros and cons to all of them. Of course, you will always have the customer say that the figure is too low.

With Autotrader TIM, the one drawback that I saw was the number that was given. Yes, it is great that the figure is guaranteed by Autotrader, but if it is too low, the customer won't even respond to a phone call or an email wanting to acquire their vehicle. Autotrader says that it is a way to acquire inventory, but it is difficult to get a customer on the phone or via email because the number may be too low for them and they may feel offended by the offer made by Autotrader, not the dealership. Another con is that it can be time consuming for the customer with all of the information that they have to put in the computer just to get the figure. The pro is obviously that the price is guaranteed by them. If you as the dealer don't want the vehicle, take it to the designated auction and get your money back. Also, customer service is great with the Trade-in market place. They are fast on making any adjustments if needed on the phone with you as the dealership.

With KBB, it is a well known name and is where everyone has been trained to go in the past 10 plus years to get a trade in value. Their reputation has been good in the industry and according to KBB, they have 14-16  million hits to their site a month. I have no idea how many trade values are made, but I would guess that a large portion of the 14-16 million do a trade evaluation. The cons is that the customer always thinks that their vehicle is in excellent condition when they need 4 tires, and all of their services up to speed. It is easy to overcome with a customer just by going to their website and going to the condition examples.

Blackbook is the last common tool. When doing a trade appraisal with that tool, it will give you a $1000-$2500 range on the vehicle depending on how you have it set up. The one thing that I like about that is that it gives a range. That give the customer an idea on their trade, but to get a really firm number, they have to come in and have the used car manager look at it to put a firm number on it. You can also set the values to be from rough to average, average to clean, etc. I haven't really found any cons with Blackbook. Their numbers are generally pretty accurate.

Social Network Buttons

Social networking is here and now and it is here to stay so you better get with the program. There are some things that you have to watch when putting buttons to your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blog on your homepage. Yes, it is great to have them there so your customer can connect with you on another level. The thing that you have to be careful about is taking them off your website by click of the mouse. You spend all kinds of money in your digital marketing to get them to your website and they click on your Facebook button, it takes you your facebook page, then they can start playing on Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. and not make it back to your website to do what they originally were there for.  The same thing can happen with your Twitter, YouTube and your blog.  They may never make it back to your site.

Prominent Specials

Make sure that your specials are prominent.  If you don't have them on your website, get them there.  That should be the second most visited page within your website.  Also, be sure that they are current and coincide with any Manufacturer incentives so you don't confuse the public.  If you have something special, put it on there and differentiate yourself from the other dealers.  (Consult your advertising guidelines with the Manufacturer.)  Make sure that you have not only Sales, but specials for your Fixed Operations. 

Credit Application

Your online credit application should be easy to navigate and easy to put the information in.  Also, make sure that you are abiding by all of the new Red Flag rules so you aren't in violation with the laws that were put in place the end of last year.  Also, when the lead comes into the CRM, make sure that they right people within the dealership have access to the information. 

Phone Numbers

Most website traffic to your site is just to get a phone number to contact the dealership.  Make sure that it is in a prominent location on the page.  Generally in the upper banner portion of the page is the best place.  There have been sites that didn't have a phone number on the front page at all.  I would have to dig into the different pages to find it.  Also, if possible, put different tracking numbers when coming from different sources (consult your website provider).

Chat

Chat is an up and coming product in the automotive industry.  More and more dealerships are starting to utilize it.  If you don't feel comfortable in doing the chat yourself, you can have it outsourced to a company and they will do what they are best at.  I have seen conversion rates go up 1%-3% as a result of having chat.  If someone is in their cubicle at work and can't make personal calls, they have another option of connecting with the dealership through chat to ask questions.

If you have all or just a majority of these item on your homepage, you will be at the conversion rates that you need to be at to be successful.  The benchmark that each dealer should be at is between 7%-10% for fixed operations and 2%-4% for sales.  This includes all leads submitted, appointments, chats, and trackable phone calls.  If you have these items in place, you should be in that percentage range and it will make you successful.

What makes you stand out from the rest in the automotive business?  About every dealership has a CRM that they are using that generates all of the letters for you.  Yes, it is nice to have all of those form letters and emails generated for you, but how personable is it?

I was watching CBS news last night and they had a segment on hand written thank you notes.  Yes, I said hand written.  With the internet age and emails, people are getting away from hand written notes.  They did an ‘experiment’ and sent out some thank you notes.  The people on the receiving end were very appreciative.  There was one gal that worked at a Starbucks and received a simple note of her just remembering John’s name.  There was another gentleman that received the note, and made notice that he had written it on someone else’s stationary.  He said ‘well, thanks anyway and hope you have a great day.’

How does this relate to car sales?  Well, with CRM’s, for the most part, we all have gotten away from a simple hand written note.  If you do write a note, make it personable and make yourself stand out from the other 3-5 salespeople that they will be talking to in making their purchasing decision.  It will make you stand out as chances are, the others won’t be doing it.  Do it right after they leave the dealership on their first information gathering visit.  Hopefully they will receive it the next day or two and will appreciate it and you taking the time to hand write a note to them.  Yes, they may get a standard email from you that is automatically generated along with the others, but your note will make you a step above all of the others and increase your chance in the sale of their next vehicle.  If you don’t get the sale, congratulate them on the purchase of their vehicle and keep on following up on them like you sold them the vehicle.  They will definitely remember you in that and may send business your way and may purchase their next vehicle from you.

What makes you stand out from the rest in the automotive business?  About every dealership has a CRM that they are using that generates all of the letters for you.  Yes, it is nice to have all of those form letters and emails generated for you, but how personable is it?

I was watching CBS news last night and they had a segment on hand written thank you notes.  Yes, I said hand written.  With the internet age and emails, people are getting away from hand written notes.  They did an ‘experiment’ and sent out some thank you notes.  The people on the receiving end were very appreciative.  There was one gal that worked at a Starbucks and received a simple note of her just remembering John’s name.  There was another gentleman that received the note, and made notice that he had written it on someone else’s stationary.  He said ‘well, thanks anyway and hope you have a great day.’

How does this relate to car sales?  Well, with CRM’s, for the most part, we all have gotten away from a simple hand written note.  If you do write a note, make it personable and make yourself stand out from the other 3-5 salespeople that they will be talking to in making their purchasing decision.  It will make you stand out as chances are, the others won’t be doing it.  Do it right after they leave the dealership on their first information gathering visit.  Hopefully they will receive it the next day or two and will appreciate it and you taking the time to hand write a note to them.  Yes, they may get a standard email from you that is automatically generated along with the others, but your note will make you a step above all of the others and increase your chance in the sale of their next vehicle.  If you don’t get the sale, congratulate them on the purchase of their vehicle and keep on following up on them like you sold them the vehicle.  They will definitely remember you in that and may send business your way and may purchase their next vehicle from you.