Website conversion rates for other industries suffer from a cumbersome process.  The auto insurance industry spends a tremendous amount of money on traditional media to draw people to their websites.  Let's face it you can't watch a football game or the news with out seeing the GEICO Gecko or seeing the rapid service claim truck for Progressive encouraging people to get auto insurance quotes from their websites.

A study from JD Powers and Associates showed companies were only signing up 2% of all shoppers.  For the most part, the companies lose perspective consumers before even offering them a quote, says Jeremy Bowler, senior director of insurance practice. Reuters

What struck me as amazing in this press release was what causes the low conversion rates.  It was blamed on the cumbersome process involved to get a quote.  The companies are bringing a traditional sales funnel into their online activities.  The companies are making it hard to get a quote.  The closing ratio for people who actually go through the quote process online is only 20% while consumers that visit an agent or call in close at a much higher ratio at 52%.

Insurance companies are leaving a lot of leads that are not followed up on, Bowler says.  "[Insurance companies] spend all this money advertising to get people to come to the door, and they only follow up if the customer has filled out an application," he says. "Insurance companies have no way to measure how many more prospects escaped earlier in the shopping process--whether they were driven away by a cumbersome quote process, a non-responsive agency or misconceptions about price or service quality."

What can the retail automobile industry learn from this?  Read this and make your on conclusions.

Our widget is a cutting edge scalable solution, soon to be industry standard, that provides flexible deployment across many verticals.  Forward looking companies will invest in our systematized relative capabilities, to acheive compatible incremental processing.....

I am really not sure what that says.  It is probably decipherable to somebody.  The worst offenders of using gobbledygook to describe their products are B2B technology companies.  While there are probably not many offenders in the automotive sector (<<more gobbledygook) car business, it does happen, mostly in press releases and product descriptions. When you are describing your product tell people what it does and how it benefits them and leave out the jargon that buyers many not understand, try to use words that they use.  Buyers want to hear how your product solves their problems in their own words, not yours.  Your marketing and PR is the start of a relationship with buyers and should encourage engagement drive action, encourage phone calls and leads.  Don't allude to benefits peppered with terms that are designed to sound vaguely impressive.  What happens is products turn into industry leading solutions that help companies streamline processes, acheive business objectives or conserve organizational resources. I could point out plenty of examples but that would not be politically correct the right thing to do.

As worn out as this statement is it is worth being reminded every now and then. "People don't like to be sold, but they love to buy." Right now I am personally involved with buying a townhouse in St Augustine, FL and am very excited about this purchase. I feel like I received a good deal, easy to do in today real estate climate, love the location and best of all my whole family is excited.

Of course I am a salesman so I am an easy deal when I am ready to buy something. I just don't think my Realtor realized that when I told him that he could stop selling me. It took the wind completely out of his sails until I made the offer. Nothing he said or did was going to close me I had to close myself first.

Would I have made the offer if tried bear trap closes, used intimidation to extract an offer or tried to take it away by telling me how many other people had looked at the property or how many other people were coming to look at it? Nope, I had buy it first mentally and would have seen through that. As a matter of fact I would of probably just went to another Realtor and made the offer if I really wanted the property, just so I would not have had to interact with him anymore.

Car customers can and will do the same thing. If they don't like they how they were handled or feel like you do not have their best interest in mind they can easily find someone who does. The web has made it easy for someone to find another dealer that has a Natural Khaki Hyundai Sonata Limited 4 cyl with a navigation package. Just because you helped confirm their desire to buy on does not mean they have to buy it from you and they will not buy from you if you don't make it easy for them.

Just like when we left our current home to view the townhouse we had already bought it before we got there and no one wakes up and says I think I am want to go be sold a car. They are thinking hey it might be time to buy one.

Sure you can motivate people to take action, that is our job. You just can't motivate them to take an action that they do not want to take and build a long term relationship which brings in repeat and referral business. That is like Devo's "Whip It", a one hit wonder, that they will replay the next time they go buy a car.

Starting an Internet department in a store that has refused to embrace change in the past can be a daunting task.  One of the biggest roadblocks that I experienced when attempting this feat was a lack of acceptance of new marketing ideas.  Traditional media was understood and accepted because that was how management learned to attract customers, it worked for 30 years, no need to reinvent the wheel.

Without a doubt the internet has changed the way everyone does business.  For those that embraced it early, they are way ahead, those that have fought it have a lot of catching up to do.  The good thing is getting up to speed will not be the hard part, becoming a market leader online will.

There are online automotive consultants that can come in and get a dealer pointed in the right direction and give them almost immediate results from dealerships Internet marketing.  Studies range in the percentage of consumers that start their car shopping experience online, but I believe it is safe to assume that the percentage is over 75%.  So going from almost nothing to some online exposure it is easy to get fast results.

It is my opinion that the reason some people are slow to adopt is a lack of education in and acceptance of the medium.  Then once they accept the medium they refuse to look beyond what everyone else is doing and branch out to try new things.  They rather follow a tried and true playbook and settle in with what everyone else is doing, versus expanding their level of discomfort and becoming innovators.

One of the biggest factors in slowing down the adoption of other than mainstream online marketing resources other than education can probably be tied to the age of the decision maker.
MTV was launched in 1981 and as part of the MTV generation I can remember when my elders would caution me on watching that garbage, and now I try to keep my kids off Youtube.com as a parental prudence.  People do not want to embrace what they do not understand, and age becomes a factor when trying new things, especially when you are already moderatly successful using what you know and that does not require obtaining new knowledge, just improving it.

Today there's a new revolution happening: YouTube is killing the MTV star. MTV and cable television is steadily being replaced by online videos produced independently by high school kids in their bedrooms, software executives with senses of humor and millions of others.  - Hubspot.com

Today's customers are using the Internet to engage each other and the companies they do business with.  Internet marketing is no longer about one way communication it is about building a relationship and getting your story in front of as many fans as possible. 

"In the era of the new social web, communication is actually evolving back to its origins of communicating with people not at them". Brian Solis

There are many industry specific platforms designed to start the conversation.  Dealer rating sites, our vendor ratings, Edmunds.com just to name a few.  These conversations can provide value to consumers, it gives them insight in what to expect when engaging different products, at the same time providing levels of marketing for the businesses.

Some dealers are utilizing myspace and used car blogs, plenty are using craigslist.org and one I know of is publishing ebooks on car buying at a document sharing site.  Still mostly one way engagement channels.  It is a step in the right direction in building a brand and establishing an online presence.  Now as an industry we have to look for ways that are give and take, contributing to the conversation.  There are no rules for social engagement, just suggestions, or definitive how too. 

It is a fluid environment changing daily and the ones that best understand it are probably in class right now jonesing to check their email and see how many views they got on youtube, they are the leaders and customers of tomorrow.

What are you doing to catch up?

Consumers are interrupted on average of 2000 times a day with outbound marketing.  That is why they use tools to block it.   Caller id, spam filtering, Tivo and satellite radio just to name a few.

Outbound marketing techniques rely on pushing a message far in wide in an attempt to reach the proverbial needle in the haystack, people in the market today, with a message to get them into action, visit the showroom.  The Internet is the ultimate inbound marketing tool in that it allows us to reach people who are looking for what we offer.  It does not interrupt them, they seek out what we have when they are ready for it.

The Auto Industry is using inbound marketing

We have numerous vendors that help dealers get their inventory in the eyes of shoppers looking for what we sell, build websites that draw in consumers looking for us and give us tools to engage once consumers connect with us.

Traditional sources of interruption marketing create inbound inquiries and have been doing it for years.  Direct mail, radio/tv commercials and newspaper ads help us find the needles in the haystack that raise their hand and ask to be sold. 

The problem is there are fewer needles in the haystack right now.  Dealers need to discover ways to reach more people who are asking to buy.  This will come at the expense of their competition, because the pie is shrinking and the ones that do it right will be taking larger slices.

The features at www.drivingsales.com will help the dealer community discover ways to get a larger share of their market, discover the best tools to accomplish their goals and network with peers that are looking to accomplish the same goals.

If you have an idea on how to best take advantage of inbound marketing submit it to our strategy board to get other industry professionals feedback and opinion.  If you are not already a member sign up today and get in the game.

I have been rereading Seth Godin's "The Dip".  It deals with knowing when to walk away from a project or idea and when to keep on plugging along through "The Dip".

When we start new projects results start happening pretty fast.  Anything outside of everyday business has an immediate direct impact on what we do right away it is when efforts exceedingly push us with lack of results is when we start to experience the dip.

At that point we have decisions to make.  Keep exerting effort with the end result in our grasp or to abandon those efforts and continue to seek the low hanging fruit.  It is how we respond during the dip that makes or breaks us in everything we do.

Being the best in the world is the ultimate goal in any endeavor and as soon as we lose sight of that the efforts diminish and momentum is lost.  I don't know your goals I know mine.  I will keep plugging along as I work through the dip, will you?

Follow Seth's blog on the dip and get a copy for yourself http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/

I am testing out different platforms to see how well they work for SEO, a case study on Search Engine Reputation Management and online social engagement.  One of these platforms is Vox.com.

I did a post there that was more of an exercise in SEO than anything else, you SEO experts may appreciate this, to create some links to to other properties to help SEO those sites, and I recieved a comment from a consumer that visited our site here.  (full post at My Many Levels of Seperation)

What do consumers want from car dealers?

IzzyRocks Said : ....... I read the 50 days follow up, I thought as a customer, what I would enjoy receiving in emails is testimonials from other customers the salesman had dealt with, and answers on FAQs such as special features of the cars, comparisons of features, information about what kind of tires are good etc etc. For example I have the ability to turn off the anti skid brakes, when would I do that? And then it would also be fun to see various colors and models of cars that were like what I was looking for and comparisons of your car to other brands.

This kind of feedback from consumers can provide huge benefit to the industry.  Especially if it is not solicited in the form of radio button surveys and moderated focus groups where someone leads the conversation.

While working on building keyword list for an SEO campaign I ran across a few interesting tidbits of information on "best practices". One of the ones that struck me most was where a group put together and open source document to give guidelines to organizations on best practices in social media interactions.

How we conduct ourselves online can be a huge tool in building our brand or destroying it. However nowhere have I found a a written or suggested automotive best practices for social media engagement. What is correct for one may be an aberration to another.

In a previous post here I talked about anonymity in blog commenting by a vendor. I can see the benefit that an individual may have in remaining unknown for personal privacy issues, but also see the need to establish a point of reference for basing your opinion and how not doing so can ultimately damage your message.

The report I was found was broke down into six areas to concentrate on in establishing in house "best practices". And will cover each one in a series of post.

They are:

* Checklist 1: Disclosure of Identity
* Checklist 2: Personal/Unofficial Blogging and Outreach
* Checklist 3: Blogger Relations
* Checklist 4: Compensation and Incentives
* Checklist 5: Agency and Contractor Disclosure
* Checklist 6: Creative Flexibility

Here is what they say about disclosure of Identity:

When communicating with blogs or bloggers on behalf of my company or on topics related to the business of my company, I will:

1. Disclose who I am, who I work for, and any other relevant affiliations from the very first encounter.
2. Disclose any business/client relationship if I am communicating on behalf of a third party.
3. Provide a means of communicating with me.
4. Comply with all laws and regulations regarding disclosure of identity.
5. We will inform employees, agencies, and advocates that we have a formal relationship of these disclosure policies and take action quickly to correct problems where possible.
6. Pseudonyms:
(Option A) Never use a false or obscured identity or pseudonym.
(Option B) If aliases or role accounts are used for employee privacy, security, or other business reasons, these identities will clearly indicate the organization I represent and provide means for two-way communications with that alias.
7. “We Didn’t Know”
Clearly disclose our involvement on all blogs produced by the company or our agencies.

What is your opinion?

Borrowed from "Blog Council"

Is process a way to manage people or do people manage processes?

With all of the technology that dealerships have at their disposal one would think that there would be a perfect process that is duplicable, transferable and easy to manage. In my experience I did not find that to be the case. The automotive vendors that I used had very rudimentary training for using their applications. Sure they were easy to use but the implementation was a nightmare.

It was mostly due to a lack of time. Perfect world there would have been cookie cutter processes in place that could be adapted and managed to maximize ROI. I would cringe when I would get the call from the ILM vendor to know why I did not have the work flows set up beyond a certain time period. They were worried about losing the account, but did not make it easy for people to get started with their product. (No I am not going to name them)

Granted I was in a situation where there was no established processes in place. Had I had some benchmarks to work from it would have been better. While at the same time it would of been impossible to work under an unchangeable process for me.

When I first started in the business in 1990 the process was mandated to the point of being authoritarian and inflexible with no deviation. In today's world where I feel that is an outdated management style, as that encourages the high turnover the industry has. However I see where consultants still preach this management style. Does this still work?

Back to the main question though.

Do you use process as an inflexible management tool or are people allowed to take ownership of a process to manage it and adapt it to help acheive the goal of moving more product?

Search Engine Strategies event located in San Jose, California from August 18-22 is the premier search engine networking and learning event of the year. I was surprised today when I spoke with one of the executives from TK Carsites when he told me they had a team attending and they have not been able to connect with others in the Automobile Industry in attendance, they can't find any other vendors that serve dealers there.

While the event is drawing to a close in two days I was asked to reach out to the community here to see if anyone had representatives there so the TK team could hook up with them. It would be a great opportunity for SEO and SEM professionals to network.

Right now they are covering the event and blogging about the workshops they have attended. Maybe when the next conference is announced we can have a staff to cover the event as well. If you do not have an individual or team there you can see what you are missing at TopDealerSEO.com where our industry peers are sharing the knowledge they have acquired at SES San Jose.

If you do have people there and would like to hook up with the guys from TK give me a call at 912-266-1629 and I can get you connected with them.