An interesting report from comScore and I think some premonitions for retail automotive.

1. Could FREE shipping break open real eCommerce for automotive? I think it is certainly a big hurdle right now logistically and monetarily. Taking away the monetary factor may go a long way toward opening this up. Of course there are still some logistics involved and there is the tactile factor. The need to touch and feel the vehicle is diminishing slowly and logistics can be overcome… Thoughts?
2. Pricing in the palm of the customers hands. Like it or not that part of eCommerce is upon us, the whole TrueCar mess may have brought it to our attention on a large scale but it was going to get there anyway. It’s not yet main stream but customers walking around your showroom with iPhones in hand comparing your cars, dealership and prices is coming like a freight train. If you try to fight it you’ll just be run over by it. So here are a few ideas to help you embrace it.
   1. Use SMS short codes on your window stickers. Better than QR code because customers are more used to it and because you get to capture the cell number of the customer and have a possibility to continue the conversation.
   2. Use QR codes to direct customers to Google places to review your dealership and see your reviews. On your Repair receipts, on your envelope the license plates the customer gets, on posters in your showroom and just about any other correspondence you have with customers. It will pick up reviews. While you’re at it use QR to direct them to a mobile coupon as well, might as well get the service business there’s a little bit of money there.
   3. Remember people do things with mobile not research so much so help them do those things. If they want to compare on your floor have an SMS short code that gives them a special discount or incentive and links to other prices…Remember they are on your showroom, you’ve got home court advantage and they’re going to do it anyway might as well direct the process to your advantage.
3. The day of the “Big Lot” is coming to an end. I can foresee a day in the not too distant future where there are small retail dealerships in high traffic down town locations where you pick out your vehicle; it is stored in a central much cheaper storage facility outside the city but it goes much deeper than that however. I can see this going to mass customization where you pick the car, and the paint job and the electronics package, the wheels, tires, ground effects etc. and there is an assembly line type factory on the storage facility site that customizes that car for you in a few days then delivers it to your house. I would love to see someone try this on a small scale it would shake up the car world.

These are a few thoughts that come to my head as I watched the video above, let’s here yours.

See the full comScore report here.

An interesting report from comScore and I think some premonitions for retail automotive.

1. Could FREE shipping break open real eCommerce for automotive? I think it is certainly a big hurdle right now logistically and monetarily. Taking away the monetary factor may go a long way toward opening this up. Of course there are still some logistics involved and there is the tactile factor. The need to touch and feel the vehicle is diminishing slowly and logistics can be overcome… Thoughts?
2. Pricing in the palm of the customers hands. Like it or not that part of eCommerce is upon us, the whole TrueCar mess may have brought it to our attention on a large scale but it was going to get there anyway. It’s not yet main stream but customers walking around your showroom with iPhones in hand comparing your cars, dealership and prices is coming like a freight train. If you try to fight it you’ll just be run over by it. So here are a few ideas to help you embrace it.
   1. Use SMS short codes on your window stickers. Better than QR code because customers are more used to it and because you get to capture the cell number of the customer and have a possibility to continue the conversation.
   2. Use QR codes to direct customers to Google places to review your dealership and see your reviews. On your Repair receipts, on your envelope the license plates the customer gets, on posters in your showroom and just about any other correspondence you have with customers. It will pick up reviews. While you’re at it use QR to direct them to a mobile coupon as well, might as well get the service business there’s a little bit of money there.
   3. Remember people do things with mobile not research so much so help them do those things. If they want to compare on your floor have an SMS short code that gives them a special discount or incentive and links to other prices…Remember they are on your showroom, you’ve got home court advantage and they’re going to do it anyway might as well direct the process to your advantage.
3. The day of the “Big Lot” is coming to an end. I can foresee a day in the not too distant future where there are small retail dealerships in high traffic down town locations where you pick out your vehicle; it is stored in a central much cheaper storage facility outside the city but it goes much deeper than that however. I can see this going to mass customization where you pick the car, and the paint job and the electronics package, the wheels, tires, ground effects etc. and there is an assembly line type factory on the storage facility site that customizes that car for you in a few days then delivers it to your house. I would love to see someone try this on a small scale it would shake up the car world.

These are a few thoughts that come to my head as I watched the video above, let’s here yours.

See the full comScore report here.

One of my most favorite sayings in the world goes like this:

One of my most favorite sayings in the world goes like this:

This was a question asked on Dealerrefresh by Ed Brooks of vAuto. I find this a very interesting question for a lot of reasons and my answer is YES where you have control over it.

Obviously in a new car franchise you have less control as your inventory is dictated a great deal by the OEM but even they somewhat dictate your allocation by marketing. In our Toyota store here in Houston that I ran in the 90’s GST would give us our allocation based on our “Rolling 90” the average number of vehicles we sold in a 30 day period for the last 90 days. In a sense you could say they were dictating what we stocked by Marketing.

During the worst days of GM’s VOMS program at our Chevrolet store we fought to get the best vehicles including the Avalanche a very popular vehicle from 99 – 2001 Why? They sold better “Marketing”.
 

In a sense one could say and I will say it, what you stock has ALWAYS been a “Marketing Decision”.
 

Back then I would line up Chevrolet and Ford Trucks on the front line or our Toyota store, this would just twist our GST reps head, but my point then was the same then as it is now.
 

“I have huge sign that says I sell Toyota’s and people know that what they don’t know is what else I have and there are a lot of potential customers driving by our store that are going to buy a Chevy or Ford pickup and I want them to know we are a choice for them.” –

I made it a point to stock that “Product” on our Toyota lot and “Place” it where I did: IE “A Marketing Decision”.
 

In used cars you are 100% in control of what you stock (one of the reasons why I love that business) and if you are doing that right you are basing what you stock on marketing decisions “What Sells” NOT what you can buy cheap!
 

THE VERY FIRST QUESTON YOU SHOULD BE ASKING YOURSELF WHEN YOU GO TO BUY OR TRADE FOR A USED CAR – “HOW AM I GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS USED CAR?” THAT IS A MARKETING DECISION
 

The “Book” really no longer has any value from a purchase perspective; the only thing that does have value is what cars are selling now and how much you can get for it. If you have a good recon dept. a great sales process and great marketing you can pay more for a car than the other guy because you can sell it for more and you can get out of it faster.
 

This was true 20+ years ago when I started in the car business and its true today, the only difference you have better tools and information to make those decisions but make no mistake if you are doing it right you are making them based on marketing.
 

Those are my thoughts what say you?  
 

Larry Bruce @pcmguy

This was a question asked on Dealerrefresh by Ed Brooks of vAuto. I find this a very interesting question for a lot of reasons and my answer is YES where you have control over it.

Obviously in a new car franchise you have less control as your inventory is dictated a great deal by the OEM but even they somewhat dictate your allocation by marketing. In our Toyota store here in Houston that I ran in the 90’s GST would give us our allocation based on our “Rolling 90” the average number of vehicles we sold in a 30 day period for the last 90 days. In a sense you could say they were dictating what we stocked by Marketing.

During the worst days of GM’s VOMS program at our Chevrolet store we fought to get the best vehicles including the Avalanche a very popular vehicle from 99 – 2001 Why? They sold better “Marketing”.
 

In a sense one could say and I will say it, what you stock has ALWAYS been a “Marketing Decision”.
 

Back then I would line up Chevrolet and Ford Trucks on the front line or our Toyota store, this would just twist our GST reps head, but my point then was the same then as it is now.
 

“I have huge sign that says I sell Toyota’s and people know that what they don’t know is what else I have and there are a lot of potential customers driving by our store that are going to buy a Chevy or Ford pickup and I want them to know we are a choice for them.” –

I made it a point to stock that “Product” on our Toyota lot and “Place” it where I did: IE “A Marketing Decision”.
 

In used cars you are 100% in control of what you stock (one of the reasons why I love that business) and if you are doing that right you are basing what you stock on marketing decisions “What Sells” NOT what you can buy cheap!
 

THE VERY FIRST QUESTON YOU SHOULD BE ASKING YOURSELF WHEN YOU GO TO BUY OR TRADE FOR A USED CAR – “HOW AM I GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS USED CAR?” THAT IS A MARKETING DECISION
 

The “Book” really no longer has any value from a purchase perspective; the only thing that does have value is what cars are selling now and how much you can get for it. If you have a good recon dept. a great sales process and great marketing you can pay more for a car than the other guy because you can sell it for more and you can get out of it faster.
 

This was true 20+ years ago when I started in the car business and its true today, the only difference you have better tools and information to make those decisions but make no mistake if you are doing it right you are making them based on marketing.
 

Those are my thoughts what say you?  
 

Larry Bruce @pcmguy

Some people have heard me say this in the past
 

“It’s not your website provider’s job to give you a working website. It’s their job to give you a functional one; it’s your job to make it work”
 

What does that mean…REALLY?
 

     • It’s Your Job – to know what keywords to rank for
     • It’s Your Job – to create good content to make that site rank
     • It’s Your Job – to work to get the backlinks to your site
 

At the end of the day that is exactly what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is Keywords, Good Content & Backlinks it is really that simple and also that hard…Why?

Because we have been conditioned to think our website provider is going to do it for us. I can’t tell you how many times I hear website providers tell dealers “Our sites rank better and have better SEO than what you have now” and how many times dealer change website providers because they think the new website will be the magic bullet to get them ranked better, more traffic and more leads…WRONG!

In fact the website is pretty much worthless without the right online marketing strategy.

“Reality… the website should be FREE”
 

It is the tool of the online marketer not the online marketing strategy and that’s why I say…
 

“You don’t need a website provider you need a web marketing company that provides websites”
 

Without the marketing the website has NO VALUE.
 

What does a good online marketing strategy look like? Like this:
 

Now here comes the sad part ¾ of this you can’t even do because you lease you website presence from your provider you don’t own the property, and even if you did manage to find a good way to optimize your site it would only be a matter of hours before the other guy down the road on the same website platform had it too.

“The Law of equal incompetence” You can be no better than the network you’re on.
 

“AS LONG AS YOU LEASE THE PROPERTY YOU CAN GET NO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE”
 

So what’s a web marketer to do? Optimally?
 

1. Get your own website
2. Start an aggressive PPC & landing page campaign find the keywords that convert and start your online marketing efforts with them
3. Create a lot of good relevant content in your website 400 pages plus around those keywords
4. Get a wordpress.org blog make sure you set it up as a subdomain of your website
5. Create 30 plus relevant SEO optimized blog posts per month around your target keywords
6. Profile your customers & Facebook friends for interests
7. Share through social 20 pieces of content per day relevant to your audience
8. Integrate your social campaigns to your web presence to get the maximum traffic, SEO & conversion value
9. Use behavior targeting to drive organic traffic to high converting landing pages
10. ABT (ALWAYS BE TESTING) Split test everything often

I hope this post gets you thinking about your website and web marketing in a very different way, that was my goal.

If you want to know more or have questions we do a webinar on these very topics every Tuesday 1pm Central Standard Time , Click Here - Own Your Web Presence
 

Hope this helps
 

Larry Bruce - @pcmguy
 

Some people have heard me say this in the past
 

“It’s not your website provider’s job to give you a working website. It’s their job to give you a functional one; it’s your job to make it work”
 

What does that mean…REALLY?
 

     • It’s Your Job – to know what keywords to rank for
     • It’s Your Job – to create good content to make that site rank
     • It’s Your Job – to work to get the backlinks to your site
 

At the end of the day that is exactly what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is Keywords, Good Content & Backlinks it is really that simple and also that hard…Why?

Because we have been conditioned to think our website provider is going to do it for us. I can’t tell you how many times I hear website providers tell dealers “Our sites rank better and have better SEO than what you have now” and how many times dealer change website providers because they think the new website will be the magic bullet to get them ranked better, more traffic and more leads…WRONG!

In fact the website is pretty much worthless without the right online marketing strategy.

“Reality… the website should be FREE”
 

It is the tool of the online marketer not the online marketing strategy and that’s why I say…
 

“You don’t need a website provider you need a web marketing company that provides websites”
 

Without the marketing the website has NO VALUE.
 

What does a good online marketing strategy look like? Like this:
 

Now here comes the sad part ¾ of this you can’t even do because you lease you website presence from your provider you don’t own the property, and even if you did manage to find a good way to optimize your site it would only be a matter of hours before the other guy down the road on the same website platform had it too.

“The Law of equal incompetence” You can be no better than the network you’re on.
 

“AS LONG AS YOU LEASE THE PROPERTY YOU CAN GET NO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE”
 

So what’s a web marketer to do? Optimally?
 

1. Get your own website
2. Start an aggressive PPC & landing page campaign find the keywords that convert and start your online marketing efforts with them
3. Create a lot of good relevant content in your website 400 pages plus around those keywords
4. Get a wordpress.org blog make sure you set it up as a subdomain of your website
5. Create 30 plus relevant SEO optimized blog posts per month around your target keywords
6. Profile your customers & Facebook friends for interests
7. Share through social 20 pieces of content per day relevant to your audience
8. Integrate your social campaigns to your web presence to get the maximum traffic, SEO & conversion value
9. Use behavior targeting to drive organic traffic to high converting landing pages
10. ABT (ALWAYS BE TESTING) Split test everything often

I hope this post gets you thinking about your website and web marketing in a very different way, that was my goal.

If you want to know more or have questions we do a webinar on these very topics every Tuesday 1pm Central Standard Time , Click Here - Own Your Web Presence
 

Hope this helps
 

Larry Bruce - @pcmguy
 

All too often what we think are strategies are mere tactics and are driven by technology vendors want to sell us. I put together this 2.5 day class for our clients and perspective clients on Strategies to help them better define their own strategy online & off.

This is a 2hr version of a 2.5 day class.

All too often what we think are strategies are mere tactics and are driven by technology vendors want to sell us. I put together this 2.5 day class for our clients and perspective clients on Strategies to help them better define their own strategy online & off.

This is a 2hr version of a 2.5 day class.