Post-click marketing continues to gain mainstream acclaim.

I found this great article by Miro Kazakoff, managing director at Compete.com, wrote a great article on MediaPost,

SOS For Marketers: Avoid a Crash Landing.

"The fastest, cheapest way to boost return on your online advertising investments has nothing to do with the design and placement of your creative. Based on a recent study, it is possible that your competitors could be generating five times the ROI as you are with comparable messaging and spending.

What can you do right now to increase the ROI of your ad campaign? Pay more attention to the post-click experience.”

(The Emphasis.)

   

Kazakoff goes on to offer four lessons:

1.     Don’t get between your customer and the activity you are trying to encourage — except when it helps customers get there. “Advertisers must help customers transition to the shopping experience through dedicated, quick-loading landing pages that tie the messaging and look of your advertising to that of your website.”

2.     Clear calls to action are key.

3.     Excellent integration and execution are needed. “One of the complexities of designing full landing page experiences (rather than just optimizing button placement or offer levels) is that it is never one component that drives success.”

4.     Benchmark against rivals. “Given the disparities in post-click performance and the potential for direct improvements to ROI by boosting post-click performance, CMOs spending money online should all be asking their teams some questions: What is the Best in Class performance in our industry for engaging and (if applicable) converting people who click on our ads? Where do we stand in relation to Best in Class?”

These are excellent points I couldn’t agree more. After reading Compete’s conclusion that post-click experiences are the key to competitive advantage in online advertising — something I have said for many years but am thrilled to have validated by an objective third-party study — I had to track down as much of their original research as possible. On their blog, I found the original post by managing director Miro Kazakoff, Where Have All the Clickthroughs Gone?, that reveals two case studies where competitors in the same market had dramatically different conversion rates based on their post-click experience. The first compared data across 20 campaigns from wireless carriers. The results show that the top quartile does 515% better than the bottom quartile:   Remember, all of this is after they’ve already won the click. It’s what happens next where the rubber meets the road, you have now paid money you need to get the bang for your buck…conversion.         Their second example was from the credit card industry, where campaigns to get respondents to start an application had a — get ready for this — 30X difference between the best performer and the worst:               Come by the Post-click-marketing round table at the Driving Sales Summit or just find me there I love to talk about this stuff its been a passion of mine for many years.

A new study of mobile vs. non-mobile Internet usage;

Based on a sample of 92 million impressions, shows that mobile users are approximately half as likely to click on an advertisement as non-mobile users, of the 92 million impressions cited in the study, approximately 1.3 million (1.5%) came from mobile browsing. While non-mobile held steady with a 0.83% click through rate, mobile as a whole pulled a mere 0.48% – just over half of the average.

While the recent growth in Smartphone’s has sparked a renewed interest in mobile advertising, it appears given the numbers that mobile users are not receptive to advertising – a phenomenon that is not surprising to me, given the mobile users propensity to be searching for quick answers or directions, according to the study by Chitika.

It has long been my contention that very few people are browsing the internet on their phone, yet we all want quick concise answers when we use it. If you think about it that is what you have the phone for  in the first place.

 

Of the five major Smartphone operating systems – Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone, Microsoft’s Windows CE, Palm OS, and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry – iPhone ranked the worst for click through rate at a dismal 0.30%. iPhone also accounted for the bulk of mobile hits, at 66%. The group which clicked on ads the most is teh “Other” group, comprised mainly of BlackBerry users and a small handful of other phone operating systems (including Symbian, Nokia, and HTC).

The click through rates are certainly lower than expected, given the industry’s general consensus that mobile users are more likely to click ads. However, it must be taken into consideration that this is a comparison of the same ads on different media. The ads displayed on mobile devices are the same as the ones displayed to non-mobile, rather than comparing standard online advertising with mobile-oriented ads. While there are side issues to consider in the mobile advertising market – accidental clicks being more relevant than in non-mobile ad serving – it appears that mobile Internet users are disinterested in advertising at an extremely high rate, and iPhone users are leading the charge.

What this amounts to is that mobile users are much more likely to use  their device to find quick information about something they are interested in, basically inbound marketing rather than coming across and ad and clicking on it. This seems to confirm a contention I have had for some time that mobile user are not running around surfing the web from their phone as much as they are looking for specific information.

What does this mean to you? Well short coding for more info is definitely a way a mobile user can get deeper information on the go about your store or offer. While iphone user are far less likely to click on your add an iphone app that gets the customer the information they want quickly is deffiently the way to go.

At the end of the day the key here is MOBILE, PERMISSION and easy access to more info. That is what you should be supplying when it comes to mobile users.

 Hope this helps,

I just read a post on Linkedin entitled “If content is King, Does that make SEOs The Joker?”. I have also recently engaged in several conversations on DrivingSales.com and other on Social Media and other topics. It seems everyone is promoting their skill. Only natural I guess as their livelihoods depend on that skill. In todays competitive world and most especially online you have to be GREAT at all of it not just one part…like it or not that is the state of your business. There are 3 elements of all marketing, they haven’t changed, just the channels to deliver your story have multiplied 10x and your audience has grown 1000x smarter and more demanding.

1. Placement AKA audience, distribution. Whatever you want to call it, this is the mechanism by which you get your message out. These mechanisms breakdown into 2 categories: Proactive and Reactive I recently when into great detail on these categories as well as the channels in a post entitled “Communication Channels, Levels of Interruption and Marketing Effectiveness”, if you would like to dig deeper.
2. The ad AKA Header or Offer. This is what I will get into more detail later in this post as this is a neglected and very important part of the marketing process, it sets the tone for your story and if you don't get it right the respondent will go no further.
3. The Content, there can be no question it is king because it is where the rubber meets the road. You can spend a lot of money and time driving traffic only to end up with a lot of eyeballs and nothing to show for it. Without the RIGHT content you can’t get the conversion and if you can’t get that, what’s the point? For a deeper dive into content and conversion see “Clicks, Conversation and Conversions”.
4. *Social Media – I am adding this as a 4^th here because I think it is emerging as something you will have to do to be able to market effectively. Bottom line more and more people will begin to check your story out using social media and if it doesn't pass the smell test there you won’t get anywhere. This isn’t new…basically word of mouth and has been the most effective marketing since the dawn of time. However the internet has put word of mouth on steroids… be aware it is and will continue to affect what you do in your business and marketing.  

Now let’s talk about the AD, Header or Offer; this element is as, if not more important than the placement. Humans have an incredible ability to make snap decisions on a tiny amount of data. Then we will work to confirm that decision. The only chance our ancestors had to survive in the jungle was to make accurate spit second assessments. If you needed a week or even a day to decide if another Neanderthal was friend or foe, you were pretty dead. As humans with egos though we need to defend those decisions there for you only have a few paragraphs or seconds to get and keep my attention and if not I skew my perceptions to maintain that your message wasn’t right for me. This is why message match is soooooo important. If you write the right ad then send the customer to your random access main web making customer search for the information you promised then they will abandon your site and not return. Here are a few examples do’s and don'ts for ads, headers or offers: First a big don't – DON'T use your inventory as the offer in you search marketing campaigns! Please everybody is talking about inventory, be different. You’re a car dealer I know you have inventory, tell me why I should look at you to buy from. Do – keep it simple: Vehicle Buy Back… We need your Car! Cash for Clunkers… even more if you have a nice trade! Simply the Best Price and easiest purchase you will ever make! These are just a few, the idea get my attention in the first sentence. The myth everyone or even a majority will resonate with one ad, they won’t. You need to work hard to either match the message to your target audience or put more than one ad in front of your target audience, then test, test, test. Find the right ads that go with the right target audience. That means testing each ad with each channel. The only way to do this effectively is with software. Finally PLEASE match your message with your ad it would be a shame to get good traffic with a good ad only to convert 5% or less.

If you want to know more check out my blog at www.pcmguy.com over the next few days I will be adding some example header, ads, offers that have worked well over the years.

Hope this helps,

There has been a lot of buzz on social media these days. I have made my position pretty clear, social media is a support mechanism to your dealerships message not the primary carrier of the message itself. To that end I have studied a lot with a guy by the name of Chris Brogan. I met Chris in NY a few months back read his book Trust Agents liked what it had to say so I struck up a conversation with him one night, little did I know I was talking with a social media rock star. As I have had conversations with him and commented and read his blog post I more convinced now than ever that social medial is one of the core channels of communication and will be become the primary way customers will check out your dealership to determine if they want to do business with your store.

What does this mean? Well as some people may have read my recent post on Communication Channels, Levels of Interruption and Marketing Effectiveness, another post inspired by a Brogan post, I categorized then scored all the channels we as marketer use to communicate with customers, also gave examples of how primary communication channels could use support communication channels and message support channels to strengthen the trust in the message with the customer and your store.

CONCLUSION: Social Media is most definitely a message support channel.

1.       Stop think of social medial as Facebook or a Blog, its much more than that. Think about how you can let customers comment on your offers and message how much more impact that will make when people see that real customers have taken advantage of the offer and liked it. Customer engagement is social media.

2.       Create Fan pages on Facebook for your stores sales, service, parts and body shop. Then start putting up some content. Facebook groups are dead but Fan pages do rock! Have all your salespeople become fans and engage in the conversations.

3.       Create helpful YouTube videos with salespeople and management as the main charter some suggested messages: Using the electronics in certain makes and models, how to get the most out of the stores service dept., what to bring with you that will help in credit situations, what is covered under the manufacturer’s warranty and what and extended warranty can do for the customer. SHARE them on your website and on Facebook.

4.       Uses short codes for customers to get more information text-4-info on an offer, text-2-join our twitter, text-2-vote on our next promotion, text-2-feedback on your service experience. Mobile is an reactive engagement vehicle not a proactive marketing vehicle.

5.       Use Facebook and YouTube to put a personal face on the dealership and its employees, talk about your families, community involvement, let your customers know that real people work here.

In the end the amount of social engagement you can create will reinforce your message make it infinitely more credible and without it you will not be able to be verified and if I can’t verify there will be too many others I can and I will go there.

What ways have I missed here, how else can we use social media to make the buying experience FAST, FUN and EASY?   

 

   

I just read this post by Chris Brogan “Communication Tools and Levels of Interruption” and I have to say it is a very interesting read. What I find even more interesting is the comments from the people who read the post. Clearly these people were looking at this from the stand point of communication of a co-worker or friend and the interruption impact these had on their daily lives. Me, I looked at this posts and comments through my marketing colored glasses and found some interesting confirmations of our own research. This post will have more meaning for you if you read Chris’s post first and some of the comments then come back to this one. Some years ago I started looking into the ways multiple channels affected certain campaigns and found that there were two types of marketing campaigns: 1. Proactive – these campaigns would target individuals before they would show up on a business’s radar as being “In the market” 2. Reactive – these campaigns would seek to engage the customer based on a “In Market” trigger We then started to look at the different Proactive and Reactive type of campaigns and to score them based on cost, intrusiveness or interruption (I like interruption better, not exactly sure intrusiveness is a word), interactivity, and conversion rate (lead or action). Below is what we found. Score is based on a 1 to 5 system with 5 being the worst and 25 being the best. Proactive Channels: Email - 16 Email by far was the best for overall existing customer marketing, however was the conversion rate was very low and even detramental to the brand for conquest marketing. Email gets a lower mark in Interruption not so much for the interruption level as much as the competition with spam, we also believe spam impacts the overall conversion rate greatly. Direct Mail - 14 High marks for conquest conversion and low interruption, however cost broght it down considerably. Interaction was up some when we introduced microsites and conversion paths with memorable domains to the mix. Text (SMS) - 12 The killer in this channel is t he cost to the customer (possibly), no marketing you do should cost the customer anything for receiving it. Low marks also for conquest as this channel is perceived very intrusive by customers. My conclusions on Text don’t do it for anything other than very high priority notification and even then only with permission. Broadcast Voice - 11 High marks for cost however average conversion rate. This channel is now impacted heavily by law and can only be used for informational purposes. Live Calls - 10 Nothing more interactive, however very intrusive and very expensive with only average conversion rates even with the best customers if you're calling out of the blue. Better channel when used to follow-up on email or direct mail. Newspaper / Magazine (Traditional Media) - 9 Surprisingly this channel scored higher on our scale due to the ability of the customer to just overlook the ads section unless they wanted to buy a car. Again we were able to get some interaction and a good sense of conversion using microsites and conversion paths here as well. I would still not recommend this channel due to cost and declining readership. Television (Traditional Media) - 8 Cost and low conversion just kills this channel in most markets even with cable area targeting. We were able to raise interaction with Microsites and conversion paths some, however which gave us good insight into the converion rate of this channel. Radio (Traditional Media) - 8 Ccost and low conversion just kills this channel as well in most markets. We were able to raise interaction with Microsites and conversion paths here again some which gave us good insight into the converion rate of this channel. Reactive Channels: Search Marketing (SEM) - 17 No doubt the best way to conquest customers for sales and we are starting to see success in service. Cost effective as you only pay when someone sees your ad and clicks but scores somewhat low in conversion due to the competition of 3rd party lead providers. The conversion score went way up on this when we started using Local Post-click-marketing best practices, microsites and conversion paths. Free Listing Sites - 17 Free listing sites are by far and away a great area for car sales in general. Best for used cars under 10K. We saw 30% better results from free listing sites as we started using Post-Click-Marketing best practices, Microsites and Conversion paths. Banner Ads and Affiliate Markeitng - 16 Banner ads are a great way to conquest sales customers. Again here cost was impacted by competition but could be tempered by a good link and banner exchange with local websites like grocery stores, schools ect. We saw 30% better conversion results using Microsites and conversion paths and a good lift in traffic and lower cpi when we combined with and SEM campaign. SMS Short Coding - 15 Short coding is a bit new to rate, however it is a great reactive communication channel. Gets low marks for cost due to the fact that you really need to advertise the short code with another media. At this time this is the only recommendation I would have for the use of SMS in marketing. Social Media - 15 Really too new to rate, although given the buzz we have done so here. This channel is lending itself more as a support channel not a marketing channel. Possibly some banner opportunity as long as you can get it local. Dealerships Main Random Access Website - 15 High marks for interactive and interruption as a reactive channel. Low marks for conversion rate as business owners are still sending paid traffic to these sites and are treating the main website as a marketing catch all. Paid Listing Sites - 14 Sites like cars.com, Trader, eBay Motors ect are great as they have a lot of eyeballs on them however here they get low marks for cost due to the tremendous amount charged for inventory listings. These sites also produce a low conversion rate for the number of eyeballs they capture and the amount of competition for those eyeballs. Billboard Ads (Traditional Media) - 10 Overall can create some brand equity but it is extremely expensive to do so as it takes a lot of billboards 200+ in a medium size market. Low overall conversion although we did see an increase in interactivity and in conversion rate when using microsites and conversion path combinations. 3rd Party Leads - 8 All around lowest score, interruption is a 3 and probably should be a 2 because the customer gets inundated with calls from multiple dealerships all wanting to "sell the appointment". We have seen a decline in quality of this kind of marketing channel for a lot of reasons that will continue. I believe the level of interruption will continue to play key role in the proactive channels clearly supported by the comments in Chris’s post. To reduce this you will need to focus on the timing and the relevancy of the message more than ever before, consumers will continue to get more tools to block your message if they do not see its relevancy to them. We saw big boost in both Proactive and Reactive channels when combining channels and supporting the message with Microsites, Conversion Paths and social media, below are some of the best channel combinations.  Email Supporting Channel 1 - SMS Short Code Supporting Channel 2 - Live call - to short code customers that did not convert - WITH PERMISSION Message Support - Mircorsite - PURL / Share to Social elements Tracking Support - Toll Free Tracking # / embeded tracking pixel Supporting the message in email with a PURL (Personalized URL) will typically increase conversion rate 5 X. Direct Mail Supporting Channel 1 - SMS Short Code Supporting Channel 2 - Live call - to short code customers that did not convert - WITH PERMISSION Message Support - Microsite - memorable domain name / Share to Social element Tracking Support - Toll Free Tracking # Adding a Microsite with a memorable domain name increased our message depth and customer engagement and allowed us to add a social element to an otherwise traditional medium. Television / Radio / Newspaper Supporting Channel 1 - SMS Short Code Supporting Channel 2 - Live call - to short code customers that did not convert - WITH PERMISSION Message Support - Microsite - memorable domain name / Share to Social element Tracking Support - Toll Free Tracking # If you are going to head down the traditional media path these combinations are imperative to assign some accountability to these mediums. Search Marketing (SEM) Supporting Channel 1 - SMS Short Code Supporting Channel 2 - Live call - to short code customers that did not convert - WITH PERMISSION and Banner ads Message Support - Microsite - memorable domain name / Share to Social element Tracking Support - Toll Free Tracking # / embeded tracking pixel Whatever you do PLEASE do not send SEM respondents back to your businesses random access main website! If you're not going to use a Microsite or Conversion Path at least deep link them to a landing page. Better than a deep link a microsite or coversion path these will get you 5X better conversion rates. Free Listing Sites Supporting Channel 1 - SMS Short Code Supporting Channel 2 - Live call - to short code customers that did not convert - WITH PERMISSION Message Support - Microsite - memorable domain name / Share to Social element Tracking Support - Toll Free Tracking # Most free listing sites limit your ability with content. Using a Microsite or Conversion Path will deepen the message and allow for engagement. SMS Short Codes allow the customer to get what they want when they want it. Paid Listing Sites Supporting Channel 1 - SMS Short Code Supporting Channel 2 - Live call - to short code customers that did not convert - WITH PERMISSION Message Support - Microsite - memorable domain name / Share to Social element Tracking Support - Toll Free Tracking # Again using a Microsite or Conversion Path will deepen the message and allow for engagement. SMS Short Codes allow the customer to get what they want when they want it. Billboard Ads Supporting Channel 1 - SMS Short Code Supporting Channel 2 - Live call - to short code customers that did not convert - WITH PERMISSION Message Support - Microsite - memorable domain name / Share to Social element Tracking Support - Toll Free Tracking # Short Codes are Awsome for Bilboards use different codes for different boards to track the best locations. The common threads here are that Microsites and Conversion Paths and dramatically increase your converion rate on just about every channel. Social is a customer dirven thing and your job as the marketer is to give the customer an easy way to share the message and test...test...test what gets shared most from what medium, it will be diffrent for everyone. Finally Short Coding will be the biggest bang in mobile marketing. Another thing to watch out for and its a ways off but start thinking about it right now will be the new Microsoft Tag. This works like a 2D bar code but with any mobile phone wiht a digital camera. If Microsoft gets this right the possibilities become endless even down to making local follow up offers based on your location. I have been engaged in an ongoing SEO discussion recently “Dealerskins Hybrid Sites Claim State of The Art SEO” sparked by a press release. It has reaffirmed my belief that all channels of marketing need to work together and some work together better than others. At the end of the day what is new is old and its kinda funny, it comes down to Reach and Frequency only now the customer reach is very fragmented so if you try to appeal to everyone you will appeal to no one, message match is key and pre-conversion segmentation using microsites and conversion paths are the best ways to get that message match. The frequency has to be more relevant than ever before because if not the customer will just turn you off. Who would have thought 20 years ago you could just skip through the commercials on TV? At the same time marketing is more powerful today than it has ever been, because we have to pay attention to the details and customer worldviews this make the message more subtle and more credible but only if the message is consistently authentic across all channels and we live the stories we tell. Hope this helps,

Over the past few months social media has taken on a life of its own both in and out of the Retail Automotive Industry. It’s been incredible to watch. Like a shiny new toy I have seen the blogs fill with internet managers talking about social media, the blogs I have posted about social media have gotten 5X the attention in comments than that of others, it seems many are scrambling to involved, as they should. In Fact I recently read an article that the new Mac OS, Snow Leopard is integrated Facebook address directly into its own address book as I am sure MS Outlook will soon follow suit. Your customers are tweeting, flickering and facebooking at a rapid pace and you need to keep up.

Unfortunately what I am not seeing a lot of is THE MESSAGE, at the heart of all this for the marketer is the message. What this comes down to is that social media is another communications channel. like email, voice, text, search and even your lot and sign you are communicating a message and looking for ways to match that message to the customers that you are communicating to. Each of customers that comes from these mediums have a certain disposition and worldview, RELEVANCY is still king and we need to beware not to confuse the media with the message; technology on its own is not persuasive.

I recently got this email from a dealership on Back to School Savings; luckily I have kids so this message kinda makes sense, when you find out that the dealership sends this message to everyone well that’s now a different story. Go even further and the fact that this is a Cadillac dealership, you then realize that a big portion of their customers don’t have kids or their kids are grown and out of the house. How many just said to themselves naa I don’t have kids in school this isn’t relevant to me? I am betting a great deal. How many opted out? Someone clearly dropped the ball here, there are so many different ways this would have been better.

Let’s start with the subject line “Back to School Service Savings from ABC Cadillac” (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) well what about for customers we know have kids “It’s time for School here are savings to keep your family safe on their way” or if you don’t know if the customer has kids or not “Schools back that means more kids and traffic… is your car ready”. Either one of these subject lines would have gotten a far better read and click through rate.

Now let’s review the content. Rather than a chalk board and apple which has nothing to do with the diving conditions during the school year why not a bus with kids crossing the road to board a school bus and a crossing guard. I found this one on Google images in less than a minute.

Now the message:

Dear Larry,

Summer is in full swing, and we know the kids don't want to hear it, but school is just around the corner. Make sure your Venture is ready for all your family travel needs by taking advantage of these great Back-To-School Service savings today!

If school is just around the corner summer certainly is NOT in full swing, if anything its “winding down” and you have taken your summer vacations putting wear and tear on your tires and breaks…right?

The coupons here are good, but the detail of the offer (the FINE PRINT) at the bottom…please guys this is the epitome of not being transparent. Why not let the customer click on one of those coupons and get the details in a conversion path or Microsite? Then you may take even farther to ask the customer in the path is this an emergency repair or a check up? So the message why you want those capons… not so much and the detail surrounding it well the fine print speaks volumes (you obviously don’t want me to know). These are just a few things, there is so much wrong with this email they are too many to mention.

The moral of this blog post MESSAGE MATTERS and in today’s media rich world it’s the little things that matter most, BE Authentic, BE Genuine, BE Transparent but also BE Relevant or BE Ignored. I wonder if we are all chasing shiny new objects without thinking for the message that should go with it? Don’t get caught up in Web 2.0 technology, work to understand how each channel works and the motivations of the people that use them. A good message in any medium can be effective, and a bad message can’t cured by Web 2.0.

Your customers must be compelled to act, allow them the choice to segment themselves based on what interests them the most. If you don’t you will just blend in with the rest of the white noise and no one will hear what you have to say.

Hope this helps

Recently my good Friend Kirk Manzo, a great sales and F&I trainer sent me these pictures. These are from a 2005 article in Dealer Magazine or someplace like that, I honestly don’t remember where this article ran. Apparently Kirk was training in a dealership in Florida and the dealer had this Poem blown up an posted on the walls of the dealership. I am honored and flattered that anyone would do that with something I wrote and thought it might be something to share here. See below, I always love the feedback on things like this so please comment. Thanks:

THE AMERICAN CAR SALESMAN

He walks with confidence and takes offense at direction.

He cannot be left on his own, yet his spirit will not be dominated.

He is free enterprise personified.

The American automobile salesman laughs in the face of affirmative action. He is one of the few workers in society who is paid exactly what he is worth.

While the average person views an hourly wage as security, he disdains it as unnecessary limit on his ability to produce.

 

He hears negative responses every day, but has never learned the meaning of defeat.

He believes free enterprise was created with him in mind.

He has the instinct of the hunter, coupled with great compassion and kindness. He speaks eloquently and detects the most innocent untruth from his customers.

He would never bow his knee to any king or queen, but has the uncanny ability to treat his customers like royalty.

He is uniquely talented, endowed with savvy that cannot be taught in a classroom.

His spirit is what America was built on.

He is a loner who has difficulty walking in step with others, yet he gravitates towards those who are like him.

He is intensely competitive, nevertheless quick to give a helping hand to a struggling brother.

He is a dealer’s biggest liability, yet he is that same merchant’s greatest asset.

Some elements of society would like to eliminate him, but have found him to be indestructible.

Without his personality, his smile, his spirit, there would be a giant void in America.

 

This is what I hope every dealer thinks of when they think of the professional automotive salesperson and while it is very true that it takes a very special individual to be an automotive salesperson I think that many of us in the business have come to believe that our salespeople are just born with the ability to sell cars…not true.

 

In my 20 years in the automotive business I have seen many salespeople with the sprit described above and with out the proper tools and training go by the way side, I shutter to think of all the potentially great car salespeople in business today that will never be because of that lack of training & tools. I see dealerships every day spend thousands on advertising to drive traffic to their store only to have the customers ran off by an untrained salesperson and with no record of the customers visit at all, this is a tragedy and one that will stop soon.

 

As of September we are on pace to sell 16.2 million units this year down well over 1 million from last year, I think the 16.2 million is too high and would not be surprised to see that number fall below 16 million. No matter what the number is, bottom line there are and will continue to be fewer customers, those customers will be more educated have more name plate choices and will demand that you give them a higher level of service. All of this equates to a higher caliber of salesperson as a necessity not a luxury. The training & tools you give your salespeople to provide higher levels of service to your customers has to be on the very top of your priority list.

 

As one of the smartest dealers I ever worked for put it “Good habits are created in bad times and bad habits are created in good times” and the good news is for those dealers who weather these bad times you will have a better sales staff, higher profits and you will no longer be a slave to the market as you will have put the processes and tools in place to get the job done. That is where this starts with processes, we as an industry are going to have to look at our processes and not just those processes that happen when a salesperson is with a customer but more importantly what they are doing for the 5 hours a day when they are not with a customer. Here is where the proper tools come in, using the wonders of technology you can help your salespeople manage their day like never before, with great processes ordinary people produce incredible results but these processes don’t just happen they are built through diligence and hard work, they do not come from a software but they can be managed by software, you as a dealer can and will do these things, you will train your sales staff and you will be better off for it. It is going to be hard but as we say in this business “if it was easy everybody would do it”.

 

What it comes down to my fellow car people is that we are in a long over due coarse correction, it’s a good thing and will eliminate the imposters from our industry, but if you hold on to the last 6 years hoping it will come back it will eliminate you too. It is time to change the way we think and understand that good training and good tools will attract better people and will create some of the greatest car salespeople ever…l truly believe that and you need to too.

 

Socialnomics

I caught this video Socialnomics on YouTube yesterday. It is an awesome representation of the statistics and power of Social Media. Make no mistake Social Media will make as big if not bigger impact on marketing than the internet did during the early 2000’s and more than any other medium in history to date. With that said Social Media Marketing is not an advertiser push medium, you cannot and will not be able to control the message, Social Media is a pull medium and is driven and controlled by the user. The dealership advertising has no place there. In this space you will have to be authentic, you will have to be different, you will have to be remarkable or you will be invisible. So what does that mean, well it means the saying “Without the customer there is no car business” a mantra we in the car business have been paying lip service to for far too many years will now have to be true…REALLY! Then once you deliver on this promise you must make it easy for the customer to share their opinion of the experience with their Social Media friends.

Your dealership will have to make it easy for the customer to buy the car the way the customer wants, on the terms the customer wants, when the customer wants. You don’t have to like this fact but as they say….you can look it up. Your dealership will need to provide more than just good service it will have to be remarkable service. This is not just about price, as a matter of fact price isn’t even the main factor “Most customer are not shopping for a car…they already know what they want to buy and they know pretty much what they need to pay, they are shopping for a dealership and a salesperson they are comfortable buying from.” The pre and post sales service you provide is not just an important thing it is the ONLY thing.

Some common social media myths and mistakes:

A dealership MySpace, Facebook ect. – this is not for promoting cars as much as it is a forum for the dealership to promote itself as a great place to do business and more over a great place to work. Here post pictures of company outings, the bar-b-cue you had last Friday or Saturday for the sales dept. for lunch. Post job openings, post a bio of the salesperson / service person of the month (not because the salesperson sold the most cars, but what they did for a customer that was outstanding). Post pictures of the little league team you sponsor or the school event you sponsored. Think of your dealership as a family and place the pictures and events that a family would on this medium. It’s great if customers join, but you're not talking to them about sales through this medium you’re talking about how great the PEOPLE in your dealership are and letting the customer decide how important that is to them.  

Share-to-Social – this is where Social Media can have the biggest marketing impact. On your main random access website, your Microsite network, your landing pages or conversion paths, where ever you are making a sales or service offer allow anyone to share that offer on their Social Media page. When users share your offers it carries 1000’s times more impact than you trying to push the offer to someone. Here you must track when an offer is shared and test…test…test to find the offers that will be shared most.

Twitter – a one to many instant messenger. First you need multiple Twitter accounts by geography. Twitter is for small meaningful offers that promote dealership interactions mostly. Anecdotal information on Twitter is an audience killer. I outlined Twitter examples in an earlier blog post entitled “What place does Twitter have in your dealership”.

Social Media is NOT FOR SELLING its for TELLING so when I hear people say we don’t think we’re selling anything from it, it make me cringe. YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE… that’s the point your supposed to be telling the story of why a customer would want to buy from your dealership. Social Media can and will do more for your brand that any 1 million dollars of TV advertising ever will.

Hope this helps

The title of this post comes from an early Wal-Mart internet team saying “you can’t out Amazon, Amazon”. Bottom line, Hyundai was first to market with Cash for Clunkers and they were first to add incentives on top of this offering.  To come along now and try to say the same thing only louder or do it better is foolish and will make no bigger impact than GM’s failed attempt to follow Hyundai’s Assurance program. “You cannot succeed if you try to tell you competitor’s story better than they can”.  This is the hardest lesson for a marketer to learn about competition; as human beings we are well trained to follow the leader. The natural instinct is to figure out what is working for your competition and then try to outdo them, if they compete on price we’re cheaper, if they compete on speed we’re faster. The problem is that once the consumer has bought the competitor’s story, it is the same as convincing them they were wrong, and no one wants to admit they were wrong.

What you must do is tell a different story. If any OEM or dealer reads this post…here is a different story on Cash for Clunkers:

What was the bill originally designed to do? Give away taxpayer money? The essence of this bill is to get low mileage, high emissions vehicles off the streets…right? So here is story you can tell that will sustain long after the CARS money is gone.

If it’s good for the customer and it’s good for our planet…then it’s good for us!

If any one of your customers wants to trade a vehicle for even 1 gallon per mile better mileage then that is good for them, your customer.  Every little bit helps our environment, even 1 gallon per mile adds up over millions of cars, so it’s good for us, and with that said you are here to give them trade assistance to help them help our plant. Whatever the amount is $1500, $2500 etc., it doesn't matter -  the fact is you're telling a different story, one that the consumer can believe is more important than the one before it.

This is not just a positioning X/Y axis kinda’ thing; this is a real story that is completely different from the story that is already being told.

So the train has left the station on being first to market with Cash for Clunkers.  Failing that, now you must tell a COMPLETELY different story and one that captures the world view of the customers that have heard about the program but haven’t made a decision to buy yet. The world view of the customer above:  I want to get better gas mileage to help my family and my planet, I like the fact that a company is willing to help without using my tax dollars to do it, and just because I drive a later model car doesn’t mean I don’t want better gas mileage and help the planet. The story above can and will continue to resonate long after the CARS money is gone.

Just my take.  Hope someone at one of the OEM’s see this and decides to act, and for every OEM other than Hyundai, you need to act before they do since they seem to be beating everyone to the punch this year.

 

Before the "Golden age" of mass media, marketing wasn’t particularly important. Companies made commodities, things people needed. If you made things people needed, it was fairly priced and well distributed you’d do just fine. If you were a farmer you didn’t worry about marketing corn, if you were a black smith and could shoe a horse for a fair price you’d do ok, and the local barber cut hair. People bought stuff they needed and those with the skill made money providing for their customers’ needs.
 
Along came the “Golden age” if you had enough money you could buy a ton of television commercials, magazine ads or radio commercials and tell the story of your choice to each and every consumer, but you had to market to all the consumers at once, there were only 3 television channels and radio and print were also limited. You had 60 seconds to tell a simple story and if you did a good job you could create demand, instead of satisfying a need you could actually create a want.

These mass mediums were a miracle; it allowed companies with money to effortlessly create more money. To make that money all you had to do was create a commercial that created a demand, them make something to sell. Business quickly recalibrated and fell in love with what they thought was marketing using commercials to sell more stuff and these marketers had a great run, truly average products were sold for significant profit because of good advertising. Entire industries were born stores were invented, the Supermarket, just to sell the things that were now in demand. This was the “Golden age” of mass media when all consumers were created equal and you could sell anything to anyone.
 
Then it all fell apart, in a heartbeat mass media ceased to be the one stop shop for all marketers. Consumers realized they don’t trust commercials, we don’t listen to them because there are so many other ways to hear the stories we want to hear that they have lost their effectiveness. At the same time “Marketing” has become more powerful than ever before, that’s because the new ways we tell our stories have far more impact because they are more subtle. If you aren’t doing as well as you would like in your store it’s probably because you are acting like the “Golden age” of marketing is still here…it’s NOT!
 
If you are still in love with talking at your customers through mass media, seeing yourself on TV or hearing yourself on the radio then you are wasting money and overlooking many other more effective ways to spread your dealerships message. After the “Golden age” in what should be marketing darkest hour the consumer has reinvented marketing. It’s about  the new way of marketing… Telling stories, not buying commercials. Marketing is about the stories marketers tell consumers and then if we have done a good job the story the consumer tells themselves and their friends. These stories are not most effective in mass media they are best told one to one and…most importantly you must LIVE the story, you must be authentic or your story will die and your business with it.
 
So quit focusing so much on the “ad car”, stop looking for the next silver bullet “there isn’t one” and quit focusing on the other guys price. Tell your dealerships story, tell it to everyone you can, then live the story. Be authentic and the price of the car won’t matter as much. I am not saying that it won’t matter at all, I am saying that all things being equal if you tell your story and you're authentic and live the story you tell more people will want to buy from you.

Hope this helps.