I answered my phone and greeted the BDC Manager we’ve been training at one of our client’s stores.

BDC Manager: We have started getting a bunch of calls about a mailer that was sent out and my team doesn’t know how to handle them. Can you write up a script for us?

Me: Of course. Can you send me a copy of the mailer?

BDC Manager: They never gave us one.

Me: Do you know what the mailer says on it?

BDC Manager: I’m not sure.

Me: Does it make an offer to the customer?

BDC Manager: I don’t know.

Me: Does it invite them to do anything?

BDC Manager: No clue.

This is not uncommon. BDC training is an afterthought (or never takes place) when new marketing initiatives launch. Sales and marketing departments are not often integrated as they should be. On the regular, we see dealerships operating at a high-level in their BDC, at a strong pace on their showroom floor, and dominating the market with their advertising. And yet, rarely are these three integral departments sharing information openly. Long has our industry heard the customer knows more about the vehicles on our lots than the salespeople themselves. Whether this is due to some shoppers’ willingness to research their vehicle of choice tirelessly, or it be chalked up to salespeople’s unwillingness to educate themselves on product without being pushed to do so, take your pick. Now there is yet another glaring deficiency in our sales and BDC teams and that is the lack of knowledge of their store’s marketing initiatives.

The ad agency meets with the owner and General Manager to plot out a campaign to rev up sales. The eCommerce Director connects with the digital marketing agency (sometimes an entirely different company) to roll out a (sometimes entirely different) campaign to drive traffic. Maybe the individuals above remember to tell the sales managers of these new marketing initiatives. Even if they do, I assure you, it is rarely passed down to that of the sales and BDC teams. The last thing any organization wants is for their consumer-facing team members to be ill-equipped to answer customers’ questions. Knowing shoppers often have questions about current incentives, promotions, specials, and deals, why wouldn’t we want to make sure our sales team have access to that information.

A marketing department should:

Allocate a budget to each resource

   •  Identify specific audiences based on their opportunities and the needs of the              shoppers
   •  Create omni-channel marketing campaigns
   •  Develop content and call-to-actions based around those campaigns
   •  Target the audience with their messaging
   •  Incorporate that messaging across all platforms and teams
   •  Measure and analyze the effectiveness of the campaigns

Do this monthly, and you have yourself a marketing department. The breakdown occurs when ownership, management or marketing creates and launches advertising campaigns without educating the sales and BDC teams about these new initiatives. It is one thing to place a banner on your website’s homepage. It is something entirely different (and better) to keep them abreast of all active campaigns in weekly meetings.

As a dealer, if you’re dedicating dollars to marketing efforts (and we know you are), you need to ensure both your sales and marketing departments are working together to generate a high return on your investment. The moment a shopper encounters a salesperson or BDC agent who doesn’t reinforce the campaign, or even worse, gulp, isn’t familiar with it, the campaign loses all credibility.

Here is how to integrate your sales and marketing at each campaign’s launch:

   •  Educate your entire team on the new marketing campaign in a company                      meeting. (Yes, both sales and service, if you’re doing it right).
   •  Explain the opportunity for the campaign as well as any specifics regarding the           audience targeted and why.
   •  Provide copies of the campaigns/ads to them, including links to webpages for             them to review.
   •  Create point-of-sale material for them to have at their desks and reference when        working with shoppers.
   •  Incorporate into email templates for your lead handlers and, if possible, build out         a custom workflow process within the CRM for those leads specifically, both                  pre-visit and post-visit.
   •  Craft phone scripts for the BDC to use if calls will be generated (or, if your our               client, just call DealerKnows and we’ll create the phone scripts for your team)
   •  Request the sales team to do their part in return by sharing the campaign                       across their own social platforms, or at the very least, their own book of                          business within the CRM.

Inevitably, some advertising campaigns (smartly) revolve around “why buy” messaging. If that is the case, it is still important for the sales and service teams to see the content (and hopefully exude those tenets as well). In marketing, there is what is known as MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQL (Sales Qualified Leads). In automotive, suffice it to say, the great majority of leads are considered SQL – leads where the prospect expects to connect to a dealership agent to discuss a transaction. MQL’s are typically leads that indicate a customer has shown interest in a campaign, but generally would need to be a “soft-touch” if engaged with in the short term. Both MQLs and SQLs need to be nurtured, only differently. In both instances, the sales and BDC teams must have the insights to understand what drove that potential shopper’s intent or desire.

This flow of communication and content should also be a two-way street. If marketing is smart, they’ll seek out insight from the sales team as to what is trending in their conversations with customers so it can be incorporated into future campaigns. Sales can definitely lend a hand in understanding current shopper needs and concerns. The teams should be open to discuss what is working and what is not, by offering suggestions, providing feedback, and even sharing constructive criticism. Only constructive criticism. Include management as a part of these discussions as well.

In the end, your dealership is spending money. Money to drive attention, traffic, leads and sales. You can be amazing at marketing, but if your consumer-facing team is blind to your advertising goals, you’re throwing money away. Make sure your marketing, service, and sales teams are sharing content with each other, working toward one common goal. They must be an integrated workforce. Otherwise, your salespeople look like a deer in the headlights when the phones ring and the leads pour in about offers which they have no information. Integrating your sales and marketing efforts is the key to setting yourself up for seamless success.

Want to get better at marketing? Read about lessons learned from my New Years Eve party two years ago.

• Want to get your team better at selling your store? Train them not to give lip service.

Dealers spend far too much time focused on where the traffic is coming from and not near enough on what is happening with the traffic once we’re in contact. With so much attention focused on digital initiatives, it is no wonder consumers are now talking about a poor customer experience. We focused so much effort on the evolution in marketing that we forgot to keep an eye on the quality of CX.

As sales fluctuate, so do dealers’ advertising budgets. Just 15 years ago, a typical dealer might have a handful of vendors serving them. Today, any walkthrough of your accounts payable department will show that number has grown considerably. Moreover, any walk through a conference exhibit hall and you will find an endless amount of providers also looking to partner with your organization. This has caused us to change the questions we ask ourselves. Where we used to ask how to reach and serve customers better, we turned our attention only to… “Where do I need to spend my money?” This eventually morphed into, “Did I spend my money wisely?”

Over the past decade plus in automotive, these questions forced us to take a close look at the ROI. Were we getting a sensible return on investment? Back in the day, we all had a version of an ROI calculator that we could deduce what providers were allowing us to be profitable, and which were not. (Typically, this was determined by formulas wrote in an Excel sheet featuring stats such as lead count, sales, margin, and cost per sale. Some rang that up against the F&I’s sourcing sheets they did before vehicle delivery).

As leads dried up, providers began calling themselves “advertising sources”, opposed to one that would generate leads. Brilliant. How can they determine if we’re good at not if there is no way for them to see valid data? That’s when attribution models solved the equation. No longer a first point or last touch quandary, but multi-point attribution could pinpoint their basic value. So as dealers we comb through statistics regarding all of the sources that might have influenced a lead, visit, consideration, or sale.

Yet, if Google states the average shopper visits 18 different websites before purchasing a vehicle (out of 100’s available), how might a dealer wrap their head around what percentage of profitability is reliant on each provider? If you can’t direct money to all of the sites they visited, which bear the most fruit? If they visited all, must you give money to all? And as the questions tunnel deeper down the rabbit hole, we’re off in the weeds. We lost sight of the most important aspect of the sale: the customer’s experience.

Whether it be a great phone experience, a poor lead handling experience, a pleasant greeting, the lack of test drive, a great product presentation, or no introduction to a manager, consumers will make up their mind predicated upon how they’re treated; not just what information they gleaned from your website. No amount of money can fix a poor phone, lead, or showroom experience. Dedicating dollars and attention to bringing in traffic rather than handling that traffic professionally is putting the cart before the horse. Anyone who has sold vehicles will tell you much of a consumer’s journey and decision-tree has occurred in advance of their visit, but few will say the shoppers’ minds were fully made up.

One wrong move in your communication (peer-to-peer online or in-person on the showroom) will cost you a sale. At the upcoming DrivingSales Executive Summit in Las Vegas, my great friend Brent Wees of The Next Up and I will show you the attribution markers that are stealing your attention away from the task-based metrics that truly influence a sale. Our session is titled “The Results Are In… And You Are NOT the Father of the Sale”.

Yes, like an in-studio awakening from Maury Povich, it is time we pay attention to the elements that contributed to a profitable customer experience. What do you feel influences the customer most?
Your ad budget?
Where your inventory is listed?
Your displayed price?
Your impressions?
Your VDP views?
Your clean website?
Or how you communicate and treat your customers?

We feel the same. And we have the data to prove why it is the more attributable to a sale than a single ad dollar spent. Check us out at the DrivingSales Executive Summit in Las Vegas.

As shoppers seek more and more information before transacting on a vehicle, it is no wonder that they are inquisitive, not just about the price, but about the deal. Dealers have long displayed a price, but rarely do they justify it with data.

Edmunds has been offering their assessment of “True Market Value” for more than a decade. CarsDirect and, later, TrueCar built their business around, not just sharing the price, but analyzing the price. CarGurus ranks the quality of your online price against competitive vehicles in the area and CarStory Market Reports have been confirming the legitimacy of the deal with a higher level of data insights for a couple of years now.

The survival and now success of these corporations prove that more is better when it comes to building trust with pricing data.

Now Cars.com is in on the mix. With their recently released pricing comparisons and deal badging on your inventory listings, there is one more automotive marketplace helping shoppers determine the quality of your online price. You may not realize it, but this is a good thing. The newest data suggests consumers in the car shopping phase spend roughly 60% of their time on automotive resource sites, and yet they are still surfing across a multitude of different sites, because one site doesn’t have all the information they seek.

They search vehicle reviews on reputable sites. They seek out consumer reviews in online forums. They ask around to ensure they’re choosing the right vehicle, they scour dealership ratings to do business with the right dealership and are going so far as to select their salesperson in advance of a store visit. It is only natural that the price of the product needs to be justified. They’re using all the info the Internet has to offer as a means to prepare themselves for a purchase (that fits their budget and their lifestyle). They’ve always asked “what’s the best deal?” Now they have the data to answer it. As dealers, you must embrace this.

As leads, calls, and walk-in customers flow into your store from these sites, are you using the data they’ve provided your clients to your benefit? Your team must reply back with validation of their data. You can’t say “that’s not really correct” when confronted with this information because they carry more trust in these sites than they do you at this point. You haven’t earned their trust enough to scowl at that pricing data. Instead, you need to re-confirm it. Your research and subsequent replies must include this information back to them, even if it may be redundant. Let the shopper know you’re on the same page with them regarding the professional reviews your vehicles have garnered. Make sure they’ve seen your dealer ratings. And by all means use these sites as well to justify your pricing. This will help streamline the in-store negotiation time and hopefully deliver a less antagonizing experience for every car buyer.

Just because it is online information doesn’t mean it works against you. Leverage it to your advantage. By showing you’re in-line with the online data, you’ll earn their trust and their business.

Your customers have questions. You can only hope that your people have the answers. Not all of your prospective clients (or loyal customers) want to speak to a live agent, though, so they visit your website in search of a quick solution. Above and beyond the relatively generic content placed onto your website at its launch, how well is your website at delivering them answers? Chances are, rather poorly.

In countless other industries, websites are constructed with a Frequently Asked Questions page (FAQ). Unfortunately, this common element is absent from the majority of dealer sites. A study last year from Blue Nile Research uncovered that 27% of all searches come in the form of a question. We like to believe that the text within our webpages answersthose questions, but I can assure you it rarely does. If a website content’s goal is to match up an online shopper’s search query with their intent, you must recognize what their questions encompass. The fundamental basis of a question starts with a “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Why”, “Where”, or “How”. Are those exact words written on your website? Not to sound like Alex Trebek, but you need to phrase that in the form of a question.

As Google looks to connect a searched question with that of website content, it is certainly in your best interest to actually have the full, written questions and their corresponding answers on your website. For that reason, you need to have a FAQ page on your website. The questions can be the sub-headlines on the page, and the answers can be either below them, or within an internal page linked by the question itself. (Talk to your Internet Manager if you have questions.) A FAQ page can improve time on-site, reward you with more search traffic/views, and earn you business if you do it right.

So how do you build a FAQ page? How do you know what customers want to see or are looking for? Crowdsource it.

• Distribute a simple questionnaire to each customer-facing employee (sales, service, and parts) at the dealership, asking them to write down the 5 – 10 questions guests asked them most regularly.
• Survey your in-store service waiting room guests, asking what the most pressing questions they generally have before a visit to the dealership.
• Set up a page on your website asking for the questions.
• Contact the OEM’s toll-free help desk number for customer service and ask them for their most frequently asked questions.

Once you have gathered all of the questions, simply pare them down and see which can be combined. Come to a collective agreement as to the best (and truest) answer to each question. If you determine that shoppers are wondering about a specific price for maintenance/service, make sure that you actually provide the pricing on your website. Know that you can support the pricing with any additional information you see fit.

Then, go one step further. Whether you decide to have a FAQ page for each department, or one page that links down to internal pages (whereas each question could potentially have their own page), know that text-based answers aren’t enough. It is important to go one step further. Associated with each and every question, you should both have the answer written (in a very conversational language), as well as have that department head shoot a brief 30 second video answering the question. (You should post the video to Youtube with the title being the entire written question.) This way you have both a written answer and a video response with an answer. This will help tremendously with the search engines. Your video answers can exist both on Youtube, as well as the associated webpage.

One great bit of advice…”How” is the primary word that begins most search queries, so don’t forget to create How-To videos as part of your FAQ pages. You can start with the basic questions your clients ask such as…

“How do I check my oil?”
“How do I change my tire?”
“How much is an oil change?”
“How long does a tune-up take?”
“Why is my check engine light on?”
“When will the New Model be out?”
“What do I need for a down payment?”
and so on.

Each department will have their own questions, and the value for consumers to be directed from the search engines to your Frequently Asked Questions page is invaluable. You can still end every answer with a call to action to contact your dealership in some fashion. At DealerKnows, we even work with our dealer clients and their web providers to build “Ask a Tech” and “Ask a Manager” sections of the website to generate more conversations with shoppers. Live chat can certainly help, but if it is a managed provider, you are likely unable to answer common questions directly.

Think about what your website needs to do from a customer service perspective, and start answering the questions that are most advantageous, not just for the dealership, but for your customers. The who, what, when, why, where, how of our industry needs a digital refresh, and it starts with the often-under-utilized FAQ page.

– as seen in Dealer Magazine, October 2016

The i’s have been dotted and the t’s have been crossed on the marketing budget for 2016. You’re wrapping up another great summer of sales. You’d always like to sell more, but you’re comfortable with the direction of your store. The dollars you’ve dedicated toward your marketing is well placed and understood. As you prepare to face the gusty winds of winter leading you into 2017, you ask, ‘what more should I be doing to dominate next year?’

I’ll tell you. There are marketing strategies you need to embrace no matter what. Every one of these initiatives should be considered when preparing your marketing budget for 2017.

1) Planning 12 Campaigns on your Calendar
Look up your historical volume units sold per month on each date and set realistic goals as to each month’s output. Line it up with each month’s corresponding budget. Now estimate what you’d prepare to spend each month of 2017. (Make sure you don’t over-allocate funds in anticipation of a presumed difficult month. It is better to underspend in those instances, and plan more low-cost guerilla-style marketing events to drive traffic during those leaner months.)

Research what monthly events/holidays you can leverage and prepare an omni-channel marketing campaign. Recognize that every single campaign you plan in advance needs, not just financial investment, but support. If you’re doing print at all one month, it should be highlighting that month’s campaign. The website should then be updated to clearly identify each month’s campaign. As each month’s campaign changes, you should ensure all graphics and designs you develop should be used across all mediums (print, TV, video, website, email marketing, display ads, in-store signage and more).

Now, create columns of categories under each month for:

• Print advertising
• Direct mail
• Website / landing page creation
• Email marketing / e-blasts
• SEM / Display / Retargeting
• Off-site events
• Social media
• Optimization / Conversion tools
• Television
• Internet radio / Radio
• Additional payroll to dedicate tasks

Assign a % of budget to each category, highlighting preferred vendors (or team members), and which initiatives require marketing budget to achieve success. Once you’ve completed this, you will now what to plan for and how to prepare for each month. As you roll out each campaign, and educate your team as to the chosen “sale” for the month ahead, you’ll have the foresight to quantify spend vs. results.

2) Update your Email Templates, Phone Scripts, and Sales Processes
Start by putting yourself in the shoppers’ shoes. Visit your website. Submit a lead under a fake account, and mystery shop yourself. What type of online experience are you delivering? Does your website answer questions or leave you with them? Is the messaging you receive influential? Do you see that your people differentiate your store in their communication, or is it more of the same?

You need to create simplistic, clean messaging, both online, in email, and on the phone, to appeal to today’s mobile-focused customers. Processes that fire out and trigger within your CRM must be devised with both your salespeople AND shoppers in mind, rather than what management believes would be nice to see happen. When we serve our clients, this is the first thing we change as it is the easiest way to convert existing opportunities into fresh sales.

3) Paying for the Intangible Rather than the Tangible
You can pay for leads (and you should).
You can pay for traffic (and you should).
You can pay for deep-links to your VDP (and you should).
You can pay for awareness (and you should).
But in 2017, so much of your business’ future will be determined by a positive, creative saturation of your local online market. This takes personnel dedicating time, energy, and brainpower to instilling goodwill in the community.

These are not things that you can simply spend money on and buy. Instead, it requires spending money on the intangible process of assembling teams in charge of finding new methods to engage shoppers and build the dealership’s brand. It may be payroll, in some instances, but you need to consider it a part of your marketing budget as well.

4) Improving Your Merchandising
Your product pictures already look great. You’re shooting in a photo studio with a high-powered camera and you already have a lot of pictures, which are photoshopped, filtered and watermarked. It doesn’t matter, as you still need to do more. Every piece of inventory must become its own advertisement. You can flesh out your written product descriptions, foregoing the automatically generated comments, and using data to develop customer-worthy statements regarding condition, service history, accident history, and ownership history.

You should also build upon your product display pages (or VDPs) with digital validation to grow the value of each vehicle, with market reports, video trade testimonials, transparent pricing, price validation tools, and third party reviews. To make a product or piece of inventory shine, it involves lighting, a high quality and quantity of pictures, video proof, well-written descriptions, and unlimited data assets to influence shoppers’ decisions.

5) Getting Creative and Consistent with Video
This falls between the tangible and the intangible. More videos are consumed than emails are opened and this trend is not going to change. Google recently released data showing that, for vehicle shoppers, the three most sought after video content are:

• Video Test Drives
• Product Feature/Option Explanation Videos
• Walk-around/Product Demonstration Videos

Those need to be on your video agenda for 2017, but you mustn’t stop there. Video throughout your website with assets such as personnel bios, customer testimonials, value propositions, how-to videos, service walk-throughs, and sales process explanations. This takes time, planning, and a team to execute, film and edit. But it has amazing impact to your time on-site, customer engagement, and winning online shoppers over. Don’t stop there. What videos do you like watching online? Funny videos? Videos about human-interest stories or your community? Why not bring in someone who can create unique videos that will breed that theatrical type of goodwill with the viewer? Don’t stop at the necessary vehicle videos. Think cinematic and people will believe your dealership is a theater they want to attend.

6) Caring More for Your Own than for Strangers
You have a book of business stored within the databases of your technology that are worth vastly more than the contact info of a potentially new client. I’ve long said great organizations recognize they need to dedicate twice the time to retaining past customers as they do attempting to conquest new ones.

Open up your CRM and develop processes, marketing, and messaging that continually builds the relationship between your loyal customers and store. Something as simple as a phone call on birthdays and anniversaries should be standard. Following up via email and text every time they’re due for service is necessary. Ensuring you leverage this past customer base to garner positive reviews for your business, and then promoting those reviews across social and web channels. You can go so far as dedicating marketing budget to a “thank you department”, as I’ve detailed with some of our clients, as a means to make long-lasting impressions in an effort to build lifetime loyalty with your most worthy clients over the years. These are all priceless acts for communication that you must embrace to own a foundation of customers going forward. You must make them feel appreciated, because only then can you hope to earn their repeat business.

7) Enforcing Internal Training and External Coaching
Consistent training and reinforcement of processes and techniques is not a one-time event. Nor should it be only performed over the course of a weekend with little reinforcement afterward. Training needs to happen internally, by the hands of your own management. We recommend daily check-ins with each salesperson, weekly save-a-deal meetings between manager and salesperson, weekly product/process group trainings, and monthly performance reviews with goal setting. Managers need to do just that. Manage. Ensuring the team is up to date on leveraging the in-store technology, understanding the product benefits, and following a designed process is step one to running a fluid sales organization.

However, coaching should be external. When managers are in-store training, you need to ensure they aren’t just pulling ideology from their own belief system, but are following best practices recommended by outside agencies. Sales managers have time in their day, but not enough to be an accountability task force within the CRM. One of our primary services we see our dealer clients taking advantage of is being that watchful eye within the CRM on their behalf. We gather their sales teams together in front of live, interactive video chats and address their specific needs, tailoring their ongoing education to their store. This two-pronged approach of in-store training coupled with ongoing coaching from outside influencers allow dealer owners to trust their most valuable asset (their people) are being cared for and groomed for future success.

8) Advertising in Social
The old sales adage of “fish where the fish are” has never been truer than with social media advertising of today. With over a billion of users able to be targeted by, not just their area and demographics, but their interests, social media is the giant fish in the giant pond of marketing. Daily user rates continue to increase, as does mobile usage on these sites, and companies big and small are doing everything they can to grow their brand and engage valuable customers on these platforms.

However, it is not just enough to have a FB page and post to it regularly. Right now, advertising on FB is one of the best buys for the advertising dollar and every corporation should have a line-item in their marketing budget dedicated to it. Instagram is now available for businesses, ad space can be purchased within different platforms, Snapchat is reaching a new generation, and every day a new app shows up that can influence a segment of the population. No longer can organizations simply feel that having a presence on these sites is enough to keep them in the game. They must dedicate dollars to advertising their businesses if they hope to reach their intended consumers.

You need to prepare for what lays ahead, both within the industry, and within the economy. While the getting is good, you must batten down the hatches and determine what is influencing your business growth and what is simply spending money without influencing sales. Designing a well thought out game plan for a year of campaigns and ad spends shouldn’t happen quickly, nor should it take place without guidance. Nonetheless, it is a necessity for any business owner hoping to, not just stay the course, but also thrive in the upcoming year. By following the guideline above, with enough planning, your marketing budget can be set for 2017 and you can begin to monitor the return on your investments before the ball drops.

You are who the customer believes you are.
That may not always be your preferred image of you, but it is what you’re stuck with. Online search has changed and the content you create is a digital version of website nutrition. Google has updated the way they evaluate your site’s value. Based on their quality ratings guidelines, you are what you EAT.

The semantic web has blossomed into the need for Google to catalogue website quality based upon the E-A-T concept. (The most basic way to explain the semantic web is to get past the idea that online search ranking occurs due to the use of specific keywords, but rather logically understanding the searcher’s intent and connecting them with the websites that have the most relevancy to their needs. In other words, Google is fashioning an algorithm that understands my wife. It’s not about what she is saying, but what she is wanting. Confusing, I know.)

Which brings us to why you are what you EAT.
Google seeks websites that have E-A-T elements:

• Expertise
• Authoritativeness
• Trustworthiness

It is just like having a conversation with a friend. If you want to talk cars, you don’t want to hear from every friend that owns a car. You want to hear from the friend who has a history of putting out relevant content with information, facts, helpful hints, and more regarding the topic. You seek credibility from the people you want answers from. Ask yourself what questions your website actually answers (if any) and then determine if you’re putting out solutions, or simply sharing inventory. Do people visit your website only to know availability and basic pricing? Or do they seek to gain more insight into the car-buying process?

Here are quick factors to determine if your website is part of the solution or part of the problem:

• Do you have a FAQ page?
• Do you have a FAQ page for each department?
• Do you have video answers to commonly asked questions?
• Are these questions written in text themselves as sub-headlines on your page, and followed by the answers?
• Are you sharing vehicle comparisons?
• Are you comparing your own models against each other, as well as comparing to your competitors?
• Do you offer a way for website visits to Ask a Tech? or Ask a Manager?
• Do you give detailed explanations regarding buying vs. leasing?
• Do you share how-to videos?
• Are you involving yourself as an authority on related topics within forums, groups, social networks, and more?

Again – experts share their advice and opinions with others off of their website, as well, as a means to grow themselves into a trusted authority on the subject. Are you confining yourself expertise to one URL or are you trying to build a brand across all channels?

Start redefining how you serve answers to those people who have questions. Use your website, your team, your technology, and all of the mediums available to you. The more you focus on being a solution to people’s problems, rather than solely being the seller and servicer of a product, the more online search will benefit you. Be what you E-A-T and watch your search rankings grow.

You pride yourself on the quality of your used car inventory. You ensure your customers that each pre-driven vehicle is sales-worthy, and it is because you have made it so. Every vehicle, whether they be trade or auction-bought, is inspected, valued, and detailed. But what costs dealers the most time and money is the reconditioning. Are you leveraging that work performed to convert shoppers into buyers? More than likely, you’re not.

CarStory data reveals less than 3% of all vehicle listings mention any reconditioning information. Why spend $700 making a car lot-worthy if you aren’t going to celebrate it?

All dealers know that shaving days off of their overall recon process can add countless thousands of dollars to their bottom lines (which is why software such as Recon Ninjas or Rapid Recon are taking off), but they aren’t utilizing this information when building value in their customers’ eyes. CarStory places a vehicle’s recon information on the VDP and inside the CarStory Market Report of every used car in an effort to add credibility to each unit.

Here is an example of how Subaru of Wichita leverages reconditioning data on their site using the free CarStory Market Reports:


In DealerKnows' opinion, though, a visual representation, while excellent, still isn’t enough. Dealers should also be sharing the recon info in their written vehicle descriptions. Let’s face it…using an automated tool that pre-populates descriptions filled with phrases such as as “This is a nice one!” or “Clean and in the wrapper” is not going to grab eyeballs. And writing those same word tracks IN ALL CAPS doesn't make it better. It makes it an eyesore. Instead, share information that builds value and credibility, not just appeals to emotions. Data science company CarStory also revealed there are 3 pieces of used car info shoppers seek first and foremost:

1. Vehicle Condition
2. Accident History
3. Service History

The parts you replaced, maintenance you conducted, and reconditioning you performed strongly influence two of the top three most valuable provisions you can share with shoppers. Show your recon process and info online, in your listings, on your VDPs, and in the showroom. Prove the money put into each vehicle to give peace of mind to buyers. You’ll find yourself in a better negotiating (and profit-retaining) position than you would have if you kept it quiet.

There are countless website providers beating down your doors and crashing through the phones. Some have great products and some have not-so-great products. Dealers need to understand that websites are not products. They are pets.

If you believe your website is a ‘leave-it-alone and let it do it’s thing’ robot, your website is going to be a misbehaving, costly animal. They should not be plug and play.  They can’t be left alone for too long or they’ll chew the leg of your new couch and not benefit you one bit. Yet far too many dealer websites sit unattended, poorly cared for, or viewed as an afterthought. They should not simply be chosen, hired, launched live, and let to live out its life alone under the domain. Websites should not be lifeless.

A great website is a living, breathing organism. It needs to be looked after, cared for.  It is alive, much like a pet. And with the proper care and maintenance will serve you well into the future.

So how do you make sure your website is alive?

• Make sure it not only has a name (domain), but is registered (across the business listing sites) as well.

• Dress it with lively conversion tools, but not too many or you'll suffocate it.

• Make sure you have ever-changing, dynamic calls-to-action, but not too many or you'll confuse it.

• Raise it to be responsive to all environments, be it mobile, tablet or desktop. (It should be able to adapt its behavior to the device. You can’t just have a lap dog.)

• Give it the occasional scrub and face-lift. A nice grooming and homepage refresh goes a long way to understanding functionality (especially if you A/B test the looks).

• Feed it with quality content, forever growing the pages. (Don’t let it sit dormant or it will wither away.)

• Show it around, say its name, and make others aware of its presence.

• Update its information, give it new tags, and be social with it.

If you constantly add to your website, exercise it, and feed it, it will grow. It will get big and strong and generate you more traffic than you’ve ever had. Like a good website should.

Understand this takes work. It takes a team. While we at DealerKnows aren’t website providers, one of our first priorities is to bring our clients’ websites back to life. In that respect, we are website veterinarians. We make sure dealers know how to keep them healthy, prescribe the right diets and exercise, and help groom them. It needs to be one of your top priorities as well. Know that website maintenance takes time, knowledge, a little bit of money, and a lot of focus.

So, ask yourself, how much attention am I (and my provider) paying to my website?  If you’ve left it there to die, it’s time to resuscitate it or get a new one. If you have a living, breathing website like I’ve described above, great job. Now don’t stop caring for it, and it will keep you happy for a long time. What are you doing to keep your website alive and kicking?

There are countless website providers beating down your doors and crashing through the phones. Some have great products and some have not-so-great products. Dealers need to understand that websites are not products. They are pets.

If you believe your website is a ‘leave-it-alone and let it do it’s thing’ robot, your website is going to be a misbehaving, costly animal. They should not be plug and play.  They can’t be left alone for too long or they’ll chew the leg of your new couch and not benefit you one bit. Yet far too many dealer websites sit unattended, poorly cared for, or viewed as an afterthought. They should not simply be chosen, hired, launched live, and let to live out its life alone under the domain. Websites should not be lifeless.

A great website is a living, breathing organism. It needs to be looked after, cared for.  It is alive, much like a pet. And with the proper care and maintenance will serve you well into the future.

So how do you make sure your website is alive?

• Make sure it not only has a name (domain), but is registered (across the business listing sites) as well.

• Dress it with lively conversion tools, but not too many or you'll suffocate it.

• Make sure you have ever-changing, dynamic calls-to-action, but not too many or you'll confuse it.

• Raise it to be responsive to all environments, be it mobile, tablet or desktop. (It should be able to adapt its behavior to the device. You can’t just have a lap dog.)

• Give it the occasional scrub and face-lift. A nice grooming and homepage refresh goes a long way to understanding functionality (especially if you A/B test the looks).

• Feed it with quality content, forever growing the pages. (Don’t let it sit dormant or it will wither away.)

• Show it around, say its name, and make others aware of its presence.

• Update its information, give it new tags, and be social with it.

If you constantly add to your website, exercise it, and feed it, it will grow. It will get big and strong and generate you more traffic than you’ve ever had. Like a good website should.

Understand this takes work. It takes a team. While we at DealerKnows aren’t website providers, one of our first priorities is to bring our clients’ websites back to life. In that respect, we are website veterinarians. We make sure dealers know how to keep them healthy, prescribe the right diets and exercise, and help groom them. It needs to be one of your top priorities as well. Know that website maintenance takes time, knowledge, a little bit of money, and a lot of focus.

So, ask yourself, how much attention am I (and my provider) paying to my website?  If you’ve left it there to die, it’s time to resuscitate it or get a new one. If you have a living, breathing website like I’ve described above, great job. Now don’t stop caring for it, and it will keep you happy for a long time. What are you doing to keep your website alive and kicking?

My wife recently decided it was high time to get a pet dog for the family. I had been delaying this decision since my wife and I first moved in together (years and years ago). I just wasn’t ready for the responsibility. (And, on top of that, I’m allergic). Nonetheless, almost 15 years and two sons later, I acquiesced and began researching a suitable breed. Long story short, we decided upon a Havanese. We researched breeders, investigated, awaited a litter, and picked up our new puppy.  Cute as can be, I realize that this ball of hair will be essential to the growth and development of my children. But these first few weeks have been a lot of work.

To tie this together, I was recently honored to have been hired by Jacuzzi corporate to speak at their International conference on the subject matters of lead management and process improvement. Even though I was the one to be dispensing knowledge onto the audience of franchise owners and manufacturer reps, I was able to walk away with my mind swimming with ideas as well. I was intrigued by a simple statement from Jacuzzi’s Director of Advertising and Digital Marketing, Martin Borsanyi, during his session on social media. He said “Social Media is free like a puppy is free.” I can say first hand that this statement hit home. Literally. 

Any corporation can have a social networking account the same way anyone can adopt a dog. It just takes doing it. Sure, breeders charge an arm and a leg the same way a social media management firm does for their set-up costs, but relatively speaking, you can do it on the cheap yourself. However, if you want to get the most out of your puppy (let’s name her Social Media), then you are going to have to invest a decent amount of money and a lot more time.

Social Media the Puppy requires time for training. Not only does the puppy need training, but you need training on the puppy. You have to spend time with it so it doesn’t get lonely. You have to work with it ongoing if you want to see results in its behavior. You need to dedicate money to its collars, food, and grooming, just as you do to its promoting of posts, PPC campaigns, and FB dark posts. To do it right, you have to spend some money. To be the best owner of Social Media the puppy you can be, you have to give it a fair amount of attention.

It needs to run.
It can’t just sleep all day.
You need to feed it posts, tweets, links, Likes and comments.
You need to listen to its barking notifications, and respond accordingly.
Social Media is a new member of the family, and regardless of what you think of the channel, it is in its infancy. Social Media is the 80 lb black Labrador puppy that is too big to act like one. It still needs to learn its way, and it will break things in the meantime.

​Social Media the puppy is a ton of work. If you aren’t giving it attention, money, and time, you aren’t going to like how it behaves when full grown. You’ll never have control, and you’ll never have full ownership of it.  Treat it the way a young puppy deserves to be treated, and you’ll have a friend and companion for life.