Superman is my all-time favorite superhero.  There isn’t another that comes close.  Needless to say, I’m a big fan.  But as much as I like wearing the iconic S-emblazoned shirts, I’m no Superman.  I’d like to think I live by some of the same moral code attempting to help others through my training, but that comparison and analogy is a stretch (as it would be for anyone.)

There are very few superheroes in our business, but there are many people trying to help you succeed and thrive.   They share a willingness to assist, educate, and train the same way that Superman is driven with the need to help people.  The problem?  There are a lot more Lex Luthors out there looking to take advantage of you than there are automotive online crime-fighters.

In the original Superman (and I say “original” because to me and my generation, there is only one Superman and that is Christopher Reeves’ Superman), Lois Lane falls off of a helicopter dangling from a large tower.  She simply doesn’t have the ability to fly or the know-how to stop from smacking the ground (much the same way a dealership doesn’t understand how to stop their online sales from dipping or their closing ratios from waning).  Thankfully for her, Superman swoops in and saves her.  He grabs her and flies her upward.

There are many people in the automotive industry attempting to be the superhero that carries you to the promise land.  I would like to think my team and I at 

 are some of those trainers and consultants.  However, even when Superman reassures her that he’s got her, Lois Lane asks the obvious question...  “You - You’ve got me… who’s got you?”

In other words, how does their involvement in your situation guarantee you will be saved?  How this relates to our industry is this:  You have to ask what qualifies someone else to control the path your dealership is on.  There are no superheroes so what makes them the entity powerful enough to swoop in and control the destiny of your dealership?

Are you outsourcing your social media?  What makes that company qualified to do so?  Have they had success with social media before this or do they just know how to “sell” social media?

Are you outsourcing your BDC?  What makes them stronger at phone handling than your own staff?

Are you outsourcing your blog writing? Your chat?  Your search engine marketing?  Are you sure you can’t do this yourself?  Do you really need someone else to whisk you away from these responsibilities or can they be done in store by your own team with just a little training?

Is there a trainer leading the digital initiatives at your store that doesn’t have the experience or expertise themselves?  If so, maybe you shouldn’t be handing them the keys to your online kingdom so quickly.  Your online presence is one of your most valuable commodities – you can’t just trust it to someone who knows how to speak the hot-topic lingo.  They must know how to execute.  You need an expert.  Otherwise, there is a good chance you can hire (or promote internally) someone that would be just as effective as they are if given the proper tools and training.

The DrivingSales Vendor Rating system was created to allow dealership staff at the Daily Planet to show who can really fly and who just makes whooshing sounds with their arms pointed outward toward the sky.  It asks dealers to rate who they feel the real deal is.   It comes down to trust.  As a dealer, you want to trust your Superman, but it is imperative you make sure they have a history of being super before you asked to be saved.  And whoever has served you with trustworthy information over the years, those are the people you seek out for advice, training, and assistance.

Too many vendors out there are all cape, no substance.  They claim to be superheroes, but they are evil, smiling Lex Luthors, twisting buzzwords into sales pitches and walking away with your money.  Make sure to ask Lois Lane questions.  If they’re holding you, who is holding them?  What other experiences and successes can they pull from that proves they are the superheroes to your Lois Lane.  Be an investigative reporter before outsourcing your departments and make sure that you are teaming up with a real Superman.  

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and throughout my youth, our fine city would be infiltrated, so to speak, with unsightly visitors.  Bandits would swarm the town, shopping malls, and neighborhoods.  They would loiter about, often even able to go unseen without a keen eye looking for them.

They were vagabonds and pick-pockets, always looking for the edge to take advantage of you and fleece you on something (purse, wallet, game tickets) if you weren’t watching your belongings.  Some would go to the extreme.  If they saw you grilling out in your backyard, they’d walk right in through the open front door and steal the paintings white off your walls.  They were almost magicians at taking from you without you ever noticing.

Well we have Automotive Bandits as well.  They are right there, taking from you, and you don’t even see them.  You do nothing to prevent it because you are unaware they are taking money away from you.

The Bandits of the automotive world are these lead-generating website on YOUR Google Page One, singlehandedly stealing your customers right out from under your nose.  They live and breathe off of you and your business.  They optimize their own sites for your dealership’s name and gather leads that should be yours.  They take your business, customers looking for you specifically, and they sell them off to the highest bidder.  These Automotive Bandits are scavengers and will take whatever they can get their hands on.

They litter Google Page One with both organic positioning – based on their optimized content about YOUR dealership or they actually pay through PPC campaigns, leeching right off of you.

Here are some of the top Automotive Bandits I see.

AutoSite.com

AutoND.com

Autodealerbase.com

Autobodyalliance.com

Autodiscountgroup.com

AutoSales.com

Mystore411.com

Quickr.com

Vast.com

I’m sure there are some others I’ve missed so feel free to share them with the rest of us.  They are a dime a dozen and worth less than that.

Some of these are sometimes just microsites to third-party lead providers trying to maliciously get in on YOUR opportunities such as: 

Edmunds (everyone who wants to harvest leads buy PPC on dealership names)

Autotropolis – Going after YOUR organic internet shoppers because they are optimizing their site with keywords involving your dealership name and city in an effort to sell your leads right back to you – or your closest competitor.

Some are local directories, using solely PPC/SEM to break in onto your turf, such as:

Autos.aol.com – local directories where they can search for other cars.

Superpages.com.

I strongly urge you to start keeping a close eye on the 10-12 spots that take up your dealership’s Google Page One.  Are they all of your online entities and digital assets that you control or are they Automotive Bandits, slyly pickpocketing your dealership of its leads right from under your nose.

Do your best to dominate these sites and move them down the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) so you can protect what is rightfully yours.  Automotive Bandits aren’t deadly.  They are just dangerous to your bottom line if you let them run wild on the streets of Google. 

Keep your eyes open.  Do you see them?  You may not even noticed they’ve been hanging around you all along.  They’re tricky little buggers and the first step to preventing their mischief is by seeing them in the first place.

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and throughout my youth, our fine city would be infiltrated, so to speak, with unsightly visitors.  Bandits would swarm the town, shopping malls, and neighborhoods.  They would loiter about, often even able to go unseen without a keen eye looking for them.

They were vagabonds and pick-pockets, always looking for the edge to take advantage of you and fleece you on something (purse, wallet, game tickets) if you weren’t watching your belongings.  Some would go to the extreme.  If they saw you grilling out in your backyard, they’d walk right in through the open front door and steal the paintings white off your walls.  They were almost magicians at taking from you without you ever noticing.

Well we have Automotive Bandits as well.  They are right there, taking from you, and you don’t even see them.  You do nothing to prevent it because you are unaware they are taking money away from you.

The Bandits of the automotive world are these lead-generating website on YOUR Google Page One, singlehandedly stealing your customers right out from under your nose.  They live and breathe off of you and your business.  They optimize their own sites for your dealership’s name and gather leads that should be yours.  They take your business, customers looking for you specifically, and they sell them off to the highest bidder.  These Automotive Bandits are scavengers and will take whatever they can get their hands on.

They litter Google Page One with both organic positioning – based on their optimized content about YOUR dealership or they actually pay through PPC campaigns, leeching right off of you.

Here are some of the top Automotive Bandits I see.

AutoSite.com

AutoND.com

Autodealerbase.com

Autobodyalliance.com

Autodiscountgroup.com

AutoSales.com

Mystore411.com

Quickr.com

Vast.com

I’m sure there are some others I’ve missed so feel free to share them with the rest of us.  They are a dime a dozen and worth less than that.

Some of these are sometimes just microsites to third-party lead providers trying to maliciously get in on YOUR opportunities such as: 

Edmunds (everyone who wants to harvest leads buy PPC on dealership names)

Autotropolis – Going after YOUR organic internet shoppers because they are optimizing their site with keywords involving your dealership name and city in an effort to sell your leads right back to you – or your closest competitor.

Some are local directories, using solely PPC/SEM to break in onto your turf, such as:

Autos.aol.com – local directories where they can search for other cars.

Superpages.com.

I strongly urge you to start keeping a close eye on the 10-12 spots that take up your dealership’s Google Page One.  Are they all of your online entities and digital assets that you control or are they Automotive Bandits, slyly pickpocketing your dealership of its leads right from under your nose.

Do your best to dominate these sites and move them down the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) so you can protect what is rightfully yours.  Automotive Bandits aren’t deadly.  They are just dangerous to your bottom line if you let them run wild on the streets of Google. 

Keep your eyes open.  Do you see them?  You may not even noticed they’ve been hanging around you all along.  They’re tricky little buggers and the first step to preventing their mischief is by seeing them in the first place.

1. Tiny font tends to get caught in spam. If you have font smaller than 10px, it can get you nailed by the triggers. (Think of all the legalese trapped at the bottom of special offers…that is why)
   
2. Large font sizes bigger than 2+ gets trapped in spam filters
   
3. More than two font sizes and two font types are no good either
   
4. More than two images or two links in your email can get you caught as well
   
5. If you do send an image, make sure it isn’t too large and overwhelming to the email
   
6. If you do send an attachment, make sure it is under 300k
   
7. Don’t use too many bolds, colors, exclamation points, or italics
   
8. Make sure your email text has the same font and size as your signature. (Not sure if it affects spam, but it ticks me off and looks unprofessional :)
   
9. Don’t use punctuation in your subject line  (Writing a good subject line is a necessity and worthy of another blog entirely.  Recognize its importance)
   
10. Make sure that if you are sending an html email, you have a higher percentage of text to html image. (I just learned of this one by researching… pretty cool)
    
11. Always test yourself by mystery shopping as you can easily get put on a blacklist – and that can be the primary reason you are getting sent to spam
    
12. And do your best to steer clear of these “trigger” words:

1. Tiny font tends to get caught in spam. If you have font smaller than 10px, it can get you nailed by the triggers. (Think of all the legalese trapped at the bottom of special offers…that is why)
   
2. Large font sizes bigger than 2+ gets trapped in spam filters
   
3. More than two font sizes and two font types are no good either
   
4. More than two images or two links in your email can get you caught as well
   
5. If you do send an image, make sure it isn’t too large and overwhelming to the email
   
6. If you do send an attachment, make sure it is under 300k
   
7. Don’t use too many bolds, colors, exclamation points, or italics
   
8. Make sure your email text has the same font and size as your signature. (Not sure if it affects spam, but it ticks me off and looks unprofessional :)
   
9. Don’t use punctuation in your subject line  (Writing a good subject line is a necessity and worthy of another blog entirely.  Recognize its importance)
   
10. Make sure that if you are sending an html email, you have a higher percentage of text to html image. (I just learned of this one by researching… pretty cool)
    
11. Always test yourself by mystery shopping as you can easily get put on a blacklist – and that can be the primary reason you are getting sent to spam
    
12. And do your best to steer clear of these “trigger” words: