I hope that this caught your attention because I do have a secret.  I was reading this week's issue of Automotive News on Monday and there is an article on page 24.  If you don't get it, or your owner or GM hangs onto it for a few weeks and then passes it around, go find it.  It is about Internet Leads.  It basically comes down to how much dealers are not responding effectively to i-leads.

The survey was conducted by Piper of Monterey and shopped 4331 different dealerships and brands.  Here are some of their findings:

• Nearly 1 in 4 queries went unanswered within the first 24 hours.
• Only 16% of the leads submitted received an auto-responder.  I know that there is room for argument whether or not to have one, but I was surprised how low that number was.

Breaking it down by brand, there were some shocking things brought to the surface.  You would think that Toyota/Scion would be great in responding to leads since it is a little more geared towards Gen-Y (particularly on Scion).  They scored second worse with 36% of their dealerships not responding to the leads submitted.  Mini was actually worst in not responding to leads.

The top six brands were Lexus and Infiniti tied for first; Acura, third; Lincoln, Ford, and Honda tied for fourth.

Along with this article, Cobalt just released it's eshopper results from 2011.  The results are very similar.  Here are some of their results and taken from their study:

• 2 out of 10 leads never were responded to.
• 2 out of 3 weren't invited in for a test drive.
• 75% of the leads weren't quoted a price when requested.

These are just a few of their results.  There is a wealth of information out there on this thing that we call the internet on message boards like Driving Sales among others.  Car people are engaged on there and sharing ideas and practices, but the results are showing that so many dealers are missing the mark.

Here is my secret to our success and don't tell anyone.  Answer the leads!!!  It's just that simple.  Yes, response time is important, but more importantly, the quality of the content maybe more important as the Cobalt study revealed.  Now, respond to this post, and go respond to those leads sitting in that "New Bucket" in your CRM.

You can read the Cobalt study here. (Take note what you have to do in order to get a copy of the study.)

I hope that this caught your attention because I do have a secret.  I was reading this week's issue of Automotive News on Monday and there is an article on page 24.  If you don't get it, or your owner or GM hangs onto it for a few weeks and then passes it around, go find it.  It is about Internet Leads.  It basically comes down to how much dealers are not responding effectively to i-leads.

The survey was conducted by Piper of Monterey and shopped 4331 different dealerships and brands.  Here are some of their findings:

• Nearly 1 in 4 queries went unanswered within the first 24 hours.
• Only 16% of the leads submitted received an auto-responder.  I know that there is room for argument whether or not to have one, but I was surprised how low that number was.

Breaking it down by brand, there were some shocking things brought to the surface.  You would think that Toyota/Scion would be great in responding to leads since it is a little more geared towards Gen-Y (particularly on Scion).  They scored second worse with 36% of their dealerships not responding to the leads submitted.  Mini was actually worst in not responding to leads.

The top six brands were Lexus and Infiniti tied for first; Acura, third; Lincoln, Ford, and Honda tied for fourth.

Along with this article, Cobalt just released it's eshopper results from 2011.  The results are very similar.  Here are some of their results and taken from their study:

• 2 out of 10 leads never were responded to.
• 2 out of 3 weren't invited in for a test drive.
• 75% of the leads weren't quoted a price when requested.

These are just a few of their results.  There is a wealth of information out there on this thing that we call the internet on message boards like Driving Sales among others.  Car people are engaged on there and sharing ideas and practices, but the results are showing that so many dealers are missing the mark.

Here is my secret to our success and don't tell anyone.  Answer the leads!!!  It's just that simple.  Yes, response time is important, but more importantly, the quality of the content maybe more important as the Cobalt study revealed.  Now, respond to this post, and go respond to those leads sitting in that "New Bucket" in your CRM.

You can read the Cobalt study here. (Take note what you have to do in order to get a copy of the study.)

I am hearing across the industry from people all over the country that February was an incredible month. We are no different. Not only did we have a great month, the Parts Department had a record month as well. Living in the snow belt, we would expect that to be with a successful Body Shop. This year has been different though since we have had a mild winter. We have only moved cars 2 or 3 times to plow. Body Shop is holding its own, but has a little less business since mother nature decided to get with the global warming this year.

So how did the Parts Department have a great month with wholesale to the Body Shop down? Two words...Accessory Sales. When a customer decides on their new or certified vehicle of choice, the salesperson will get all of the paperwork together for the Business Department and then while waiting, ask the customer how they would like to "personalize their new________." I have no idea what the percentage of customers that decided to purchase accessories, but for the parts department to have a record month while wholesale was down a little, that has something to do with what the sales department contributed.

So what are you doing with your accessory sales?  This will help the dealership in two ways. One, it will increase profit in the parts department. Yes, it is a wholesale to the sales department, but profit is profit. Then the sales department will have additional profit in the accessory sales.

With consumers keeping their vehicles longer (average age of vehicle on the road 11 years), we as salespeople have to take advantage of every profit center possible. So how can you make it successful?

1. Pay the sales team differently. Don't make the accessory sale as a part of the commissionable gross. Pay them the percentage of accessory gross separate from the deal and don't pack the commission.  It goes back to the WIIFM?
2. Have an accessory sale sheet and or accessory catalog for the vehicles to be presented at the time of the sale.  Ask the customer how "would like to personalize your new vehicle" and not "would you like to buy some accessories for your new car?"
3. Be consistent. Offer it on 100% of your customers. Even the ones that beat you down and down, chances are, they are ones to take care of their vehicles and will probably at least buy all weather mats.

Hopefully you will be able to at least add a $100-$200 or more to your per vehicle average, but every little bit helps, right?  How are you presenting accessories if at all?

I am hearing across the industry from people all over the country that February was an incredible month. We are no different. Not only did we have a great month, the Parts Department had a record month as well. Living in the snow belt, we would expect that to be with a successful Body Shop. This year has been different though since we have had a mild winter. We have only moved cars 2 or 3 times to plow. Body Shop is holding its own, but has a little less business since mother nature decided to get with the global warming this year.

So how did the Parts Department have a great month with wholesale to the Body Shop down? Two words...Accessory Sales. When a customer decides on their new or certified vehicle of choice, the salesperson will get all of the paperwork together for the Business Department and then while waiting, ask the customer how they would like to "personalize their new________." I have no idea what the percentage of customers that decided to purchase accessories, but for the parts department to have a record month while wholesale was down a little, that has something to do with what the sales department contributed.

So what are you doing with your accessory sales?  This will help the dealership in two ways. One, it will increase profit in the parts department. Yes, it is a wholesale to the sales department, but profit is profit. Then the sales department will have additional profit in the accessory sales.

With consumers keeping their vehicles longer (average age of vehicle on the road 11 years), we as salespeople have to take advantage of every profit center possible. So how can you make it successful?

1. Pay the sales team differently. Don't make the accessory sale as a part of the commissionable gross. Pay them the percentage of accessory gross separate from the deal and don't pack the commission.  It goes back to the WIIFM?
2. Have an accessory sale sheet and or accessory catalog for the vehicles to be presented at the time of the sale.  Ask the customer how "would like to personalize your new vehicle" and not "would you like to buy some accessories for your new car?"
3. Be consistent. Offer it on 100% of your customers. Even the ones that beat you down and down, chances are, they are ones to take care of their vehicles and will probably at least buy all weather mats.

Hopefully you will be able to at least add a $100-$200 or more to your per vehicle average, but every little bit helps, right?  How are you presenting accessories if at all?

DealerSocket hits the market with 3 new products within their CRM to take them to the next level at NADA in Las Vegas this week.  I was able to get a sneak peek of the 3 new features that they are rolling out last week that should bring their CRM up towards the top of the market.

The first part of the CRM enhancement is SocketTalk.  SocketTalk is a fully integratable texting feature within the CRM that will store everything in the history of the customer file.  When you click on the button to text a customer from within the CRM, it will open up a window and look like a text string like an iPhone.  You can also have instant messaging between employees that will pop up on the desktop.  The other nice feature is that it will integrate with your DMS so that when a customer’s vehicle is done in service, it will also alert them when the RO is closed.  Everything is opt in to cover any state and local laws to make sure that they dealership is compliant in texting laws.

The second enhancement that DealerSocket is releasing is Revenue Radar.  Revenue Radar is an equity alert program that will alert the sales rep when there is equity in a vehicle and can trade the customer out of their vehicle early.  This is a great program where you can do searches within the database for customers with specific vehicles in their ownership that you can trade for and source for your used car department.  The filtering within the program was very user friendly and all in drop down menus.  DealerSocket is tied in with the manufacturer programs so you will have the most relevant information to get to the customer when you call and try to schedule that appointment.  DealerSocket also has call centers that you can take advantage of and have them make the calls for you.

The last element of the enhancements is the Mobile CRM.  It is accessible on iPhone and Android platforms.  It was a very clean app as they were going through all of the paces of the product.  It is tied in with the main CRM so the Sales Managers can know what is going on out on the lot.  They can do a quick entry with basic customer info and they can fill out the rest as needed when they get to the computer.  The other nice feature is currently on the Android platform and coming soon to iPhone is the scanner for the customer’s trade in within the customer information screen.  One concern we all have as managers is sales people ‘faking’ their calls.  When they are clicking within the app and making the calls from their cell phones, it is a verified call and we as managers know that the call was actually made. 

If you are looking at adding a CRM or changing CRM companies, swing by the DealerSocket booth at NADA and they would love to show you the enhancements in person.  They are at booth 3180 and will be happy to go over all of their platform enhancements with you.   

DealerSocket hits the market with 3 new products within their CRM to take them to the next level at NADA in Las Vegas this week.  I was able to get a sneak peek of the 3 new features that they are rolling out last week that should bring their CRM up towards the top of the market.

The first part of the CRM enhancement is SocketTalk.  SocketTalk is a fully integratable texting feature within the CRM that will store everything in the history of the customer file.  When you click on the button to text a customer from within the CRM, it will open up a window and look like a text string like an iPhone.  You can also have instant messaging between employees that will pop up on the desktop.  The other nice feature is that it will integrate with your DMS so that when a customer’s vehicle is done in service, it will also alert them when the RO is closed.  Everything is opt in to cover any state and local laws to make sure that they dealership is compliant in texting laws.

The second enhancement that DealerSocket is releasing is Revenue Radar.  Revenue Radar is an equity alert program that will alert the sales rep when there is equity in a vehicle and can trade the customer out of their vehicle early.  This is a great program where you can do searches within the database for customers with specific vehicles in their ownership that you can trade for and source for your used car department.  The filtering within the program was very user friendly and all in drop down menus.  DealerSocket is tied in with the manufacturer programs so you will have the most relevant information to get to the customer when you call and try to schedule that appointment.  DealerSocket also has call centers that you can take advantage of and have them make the calls for you.

The last element of the enhancements is the Mobile CRM.  It is accessible on iPhone and Android platforms.  It was a very clean app as they were going through all of the paces of the product.  It is tied in with the main CRM so the Sales Managers can know what is going on out on the lot.  They can do a quick entry with basic customer info and they can fill out the rest as needed when they get to the computer.  The other nice feature is currently on the Android platform and coming soon to iPhone is the scanner for the customer’s trade in within the customer information screen.  One concern we all have as managers is sales people ‘faking’ their calls.  When they are clicking within the app and making the calls from their cell phones, it is a verified call and we as managers know that the call was actually made. 

If you are looking at adding a CRM or changing CRM companies, swing by the DealerSocket booth at NADA and they would love to show you the enhancements in person.  They are at booth 3180 and will be happy to go over all of their platform enhancements with you.   

So how is your 2011 ending up for you?  Did you get to where you want to be in sales objectives?  Did you hit your goals for the different internet sales teams, sales departments, or the BDC?

Over the last several months, I have heard from several dealerships from around the country that their internet leads seem to be down.  Sales seem to be up, but not the leads.  I have heard some dealers being somewhere around 10, 20, and upwards of 30% down from where they are "normally" are with their leads.  Yes, leads may be down, but is your floor traffic down?

As you are looking at your 2012 advertising budgets, this is something to consider.  I was doing a little research within our back end tools that we have available to us from cars.com and Autotrader.  I came across a report that was intriguing to say the least.  It is the "Sold Inventory Report."  Some of this may connect the dots with your sales.  Here is what I found within our report.   Of the last 64 sales, only 7 had done a 'used car e-mail quote, 16 viewed a map to the dealership,   20 clicked through to the dealership website, and 5 printed details on our vehicles.  Can we credit all of these sales to cars.com?  Probably not, but it definitely connects some of the dots and may be a result of the 'walk-in traffic' that you may be seeing in your dealership.

So this will bring me to the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT).  Yes, there has been a lot of rumblings going on different forums in the last week, but I will say that without having full descriptions, multiple photos (minimum of 18 on every vehicle), and reviews, you may not be seeing these types of results.  If you are doing all of the right things with all of the above, hopefully you are seeing results similar to this.

When you put some of the third party sources, specifically classified listings, under the microscope, something that you may want to consider is the cost per VDP and not so much heavily on the cost per lead and sale.  Try and get that cost as low as possible.  I know that I am always shooting for less than a dollar per VDP.  These third parties are generating floor traffic whether you know it or not.  We all hear time and time again that Autotrader and Cars.com are your new newspaper ads and I really do think that they are.  My philosophy that leads are on the decline as dealers are having to be more transparent and get on the internet with their photos, descriptions, carfaxes/autochecks, and pricing policies.  If you aren't watching what the market is doing on a particular vehicle and shooting from the hip, you just may see that vehicle start to age on you.  If you aren't using a tool like vAuto or VIN's product, you may want to make sure that you are doing your research.  This will only help you in keeping your VDPs at the maximum viewing capability and getting the most out of your online marketing with those third party sources.

What are your thoughts on the lead volumes?

So how is your 2011 ending up for you?  Did you get to where you want to be in sales objectives?  Did you hit your goals for the different internet sales teams, sales departments, or the BDC?

Over the last several months, I have heard from several dealerships from around the country that their internet leads seem to be down.  Sales seem to be up, but not the leads.  I have heard some dealers being somewhere around 10, 20, and upwards of 30% down from where they are "normally" are with their leads.  Yes, leads may be down, but is your floor traffic down?

As you are looking at your 2012 advertising budgets, this is something to consider.  I was doing a little research within our back end tools that we have available to us from cars.com and Autotrader.  I came across a report that was intriguing to say the least.  It is the "Sold Inventory Report."  Some of this may connect the dots with your sales.  Here is what I found within our report.   Of the last 64 sales, only 7 had done a 'used car e-mail quote, 16 viewed a map to the dealership,   20 clicked through to the dealership website, and 5 printed details on our vehicles.  Can we credit all of these sales to cars.com?  Probably not, but it definitely connects some of the dots and may be a result of the 'walk-in traffic' that you may be seeing in your dealership.

So this will bring me to the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT).  Yes, there has been a lot of rumblings going on different forums in the last week, but I will say that without having full descriptions, multiple photos (minimum of 18 on every vehicle), and reviews, you may not be seeing these types of results.  If you are doing all of the right things with all of the above, hopefully you are seeing results similar to this.

When you put some of the third party sources, specifically classified listings, under the microscope, something that you may want to consider is the cost per VDP and not so much heavily on the cost per lead and sale.  Try and get that cost as low as possible.  I know that I am always shooting for less than a dollar per VDP.  These third parties are generating floor traffic whether you know it or not.  We all hear time and time again that Autotrader and Cars.com are your new newspaper ads and I really do think that they are.  My philosophy that leads are on the decline as dealers are having to be more transparent and get on the internet with their photos, descriptions, carfaxes/autochecks, and pricing policies.  If you aren't watching what the market is doing on a particular vehicle and shooting from the hip, you just may see that vehicle start to age on you.  If you aren't using a tool like vAuto or VIN's product, you may want to make sure that you are doing your research.  This will only help you in keeping your VDPs at the maximum viewing capability and getting the most out of your online marketing with those third party sources.

What are your thoughts on the lead volumes?

Over the last few years, Cobalt has been trying to win over their dealers and build confidence in them as a website provider.  In the last 12-18 months, they have really switched gears and wanted to focus on SEO.  With the help of Google Guru, Brian Pasch, they made some changes in how they can help dealers with their websites.  The biggest change in the last 18 months is the url’s on specific vehicles are now including year, make, model, and city with Brian’s suggestions which will optimize the search within Google, Bing, and Yahoo. 

Fast forward to July 21^st.  Cobalt just released PowerSEO.  There are only a handful of dealers on the program right now as it has just been rolled out.  PowerSEO is targeted to generate more organic traffic to the dealer’s website, which we all want.  Each dealer will be assigned an SEO specialist which will monitor and optimize the dealer’s website and pages with the dealer’s marketing goals.  They will do it all for you. 

1. They will set up all of the business listing pages on Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local.  They will also synchronize all of the information on online directories and yellow page websites. 
2. Monitor and analyze their website continuously for keyword content.
3. Perform regular optimization to improve the visibility of their website to search engines.
4. Do quarterly review of PowerSEO performance with the dealer.

Dealers will be able to access performance reports in the Dealer Command Center on a daily basis to see how they are performing in the search engines and see what the keywords that are working the best are.

Cobalt did do a pilot with 5 different GM dealers prior to the launch of the product.  They saw significant improvement in their organic traffic.  Traffic was up about 10% just due to the optimization tweaks that Cobalt did with the SEO Specialist.  The pages that they focused on were the New Vehicle Search, Used Vehicle Search, Finance, Hours & directions, and Parts and Service.  Here is a shot of what was improved:

 There There are obvious benefits to this program.  It will drive more organic traffic to your website, which has a higher closing rate than your third party leads.  Make you more visible on all of the search engines.  Increase your Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results pushing your competitors down the page.  The one thing that I liked is that it takes a lot of work off the dealer’s hands and they can focus on what we do best, and that is sell some cars. 

If you are a Cobalt dealer or have an ADP Digital Marketing package, you can contact Ellen Jones or your representative from Cobalt and they can get you set up with this program and take you to the next level. 

Over the last few years, Cobalt has been trying to win over their dealers and build confidence in them as a website provider.  In the last 12-18 months, they have really switched gears and wanted to focus on SEO.  With the help of Google Guru, Brian Pasch, they made some changes in how they can help dealers with their websites.  The biggest change in the last 18 months is the url’s on specific vehicles are now including year, make, model, and city with Brian’s suggestions which will optimize the search within Google, Bing, and Yahoo. 

Fast forward to July 21^st.  Cobalt just released PowerSEO.  There are only a handful of dealers on the program right now as it has just been rolled out.  PowerSEO is targeted to generate more organic traffic to the dealer’s website, which we all want.  Each dealer will be assigned an SEO specialist which will monitor and optimize the dealer’s website and pages with the dealer’s marketing goals.  They will do it all for you. 

1. They will set up all of the business listing pages on Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local.  They will also synchronize all of the information on online directories and yellow page websites. 
2. Monitor and analyze their website continuously for keyword content.
3. Perform regular optimization to improve the visibility of their website to search engines.
4. Do quarterly review of PowerSEO performance with the dealer.

Dealers will be able to access performance reports in the Dealer Command Center on a daily basis to see how they are performing in the search engines and see what the keywords that are working the best are.

Cobalt did do a pilot with 5 different GM dealers prior to the launch of the product.  They saw significant improvement in their organic traffic.  Traffic was up about 10% just due to the optimization tweaks that Cobalt did with the SEO Specialist.  The pages that they focused on were the New Vehicle Search, Used Vehicle Search, Finance, Hours & directions, and Parts and Service.  Here is a shot of what was improved:

 There There are obvious benefits to this program.  It will drive more organic traffic to your website, which has a higher closing rate than your third party leads.  Make you more visible on all of the search engines.  Increase your Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results pushing your competitors down the page.  The one thing that I liked is that it takes a lot of work off the dealer’s hands and they can focus on what we do best, and that is sell some cars. 

If you are a Cobalt dealer or have an ADP Digital Marketing package, you can contact Ellen Jones or your representative from Cobalt and they can get you set up with this program and take you to the next level.