Complete Dealer Solutions

Is your marketing solely consistent of vain advertising?

Vain advertising is when your only promotion is trying to sell something.

I see dealerships solely doing this.  Many of whom have 1,000s of customer’s e-mail addresses, and they only send them advertisements.  While this works well for stores like Best Buy who every week publish ads of what’s on sale, dealers have a different type of industry that could be better supported by keeping yourself in contact with your existing customers until they are ready of their next purchase.

While it takes a little time and effort to create a newsletter without any selling, the positives exponentially outweigh the inconvenience.  For example, people will continue to read when you offer them information over sales.  Does that mean you cut out the sale completely?  No, they can both co-exist.

For example, you publish a newsletter with a short article about the importance of summer (or winterizing) your car.  If your A/C is running up to snuff, it could be a hot summer. If you coolant is clean, it will be even harder on your engine (and who wants to be the person pulled over with steam coming out of their hood).

While your articles just explains why your car needs these tune-ups, backed by experts in the field and the manufacturers maintenance plans you state your case.  Then along the bottom, you strategically place coupons for just that type of work.

Now, you have just informed the customer.  You’ve also offered your service in case they need it.  I particularly don’t need any, but knowing that I need to pay attention to my coolant may have been calling and asking questions later.  It wasn’t an in-your-face come buy a new car advertisement that after one or two I’ve had enough and click the dreaded opt-out button.

Think of your customers as not just an immediate sale. 

- Aaron

One term that’s consistently thrown around as being synonymous is marketing and advertising.  They are not.  Marketing is not advertising.  Advertising is a part of marketing.

Marketing is mostly controlling what people perceive as your business.  And advertising plays an important role in this (if done properly).  But there is so much more.  It’s how your business is kept up.  It’s the attitude of the entire staff.  It’s what you do within the community.  It’s how you treat your customers.

Think of two men trying to sell a brand new, $100K BMW.  Both place ads in the newspaper and on the radio.  (So they are advertising).  When you arrive to look at the car, man #1 is in ripped jeans, hair all matted like he just woke up, and smells of booze and body odor.  The other man (#2), is dressed in a fine shirt, well kept and has a pleasant smell about him. 

#1 talks as though he doesn’t want to be there, refuses to unlock the car.  #2 gives you a complete walk around telling you of all the great features.  He hands you a business card and writes his cell phone # telling you to call him if you have any questions anytime of the day.

Both men have advertised, but only one is truly marketing himself.  #2 has considered everything from his appearance, to his presentation of the vehicle, to his ‘customer service’ going beyond the distance.

If your marketing solely consists of coordinating your advertising and press releases, then you need to stop and re-evaluate (and probably develop) your overall marketing plan.

- Aaron

I’ve noticed some legitimate companies starting to send off e-mails like phone calls, using phrases like “Good Morning Aaron” or “Hey Aaron” in the subject lines of e-mails.

While it may seem ok, you’re circumventing what everyone has begun to expect from e-mails.  Unless it’s a friend or family (someone you know) it doesn’t work. 

Why?  Because every spammer does the same thing.  Sounds great because you calling to the person by their name.  That should show them you have a relationship established already right? Have you ever received junk snail mail addressed to you from a company you’ve never worked with?  E-mail spammers have the same e-mail lists most of us do: our address books. 

How?  Because most people keep an address book, and everyone loves to open up attachments.  Many people will open attachments containing viruses, which will send the address book to spammers, and then send its self along to everyone in it.  So they know your name too.

What should be used?  Telling the customer’s the reason for your e-mail.  If you’re confirming my order, state that.  If you have questions about my order using something like “Company XYZ - We have questions on your recent order”.  Did I submit a quote request to you?  “Aaron I have your quote on printing costs”.

You only have a few moments to convey to the customer why you are sending the e-mail.  If it’s something they have requested, make sure they understand this e-mail is in response to their request.  Remember, the spam button is only a click away.

- Aaron

If you’re not sure what an RSS feed is, please read our post “RSS Feeds”.

RSS feeds allow your customers to get the latest news and information in a single place — their RSS reader.  This prevents them from having to go to web page after web page each day.  It’s a way to consolidate information they view regularly.

For marketing, getting into your visitors RSS feeds is like striking gold.  This place is constantly visited, watched for changes, almost as much as their e-mail.  It can constantly be updated with new information and you don’t have to worry about spam folders or the customer not getting your message.

But it also comes with many responsibilities, since it is very easy to be removed from their eyes for abusing the relationship you’ve established.  So be careful what you post, but don’t pass up the opportunity.

So what are good ideas for RSS feeds?  We’ve come up with a few ideas:

• Your service specials.  Creating an RSS feed to showcase all your current specials provides benefits for the customer.  It reminds them their vehicle requires regular maintenance while showing your dealership is there to help them.  Once the oil change notification comes on, wouldn’t it be great to have your oil change special appear in their reader?  Now they don’t have to worry about calling around or finding a deal — you’re already providing one.  Another great way to get them to sign up for your RSS feed — offer RSS Only exclusive offers.  Using our web solution, it’s easy to setup a service special for RSS only.  It’s simply a check box away.
• Your New Arrivals.   If they are casual car shopping, this keeps them abreast of any new vehicles, in case they haven’t found what they were looking for yet.
• Cars matching their needs.  They can register their search options/request and once vehicles arrive, they can be notified through their feed.
• Keep them updated of specials, events and promotions coming to your dealership.

These are just a few of the possibilities with RSS feeds.  The main thing to start them, and keep working until you find what works.  And make it clear what the feeds are.  Many people are new to RSS feeds, but would love the benefit (imagine how happy they would be if you helped them discover it!).

- Aaron

First, the biggest question may be “What’s an RSS Feed?”.  The easiest way to think about it is that it’s like a news ticker, but anyone can publish anything using it.  It’s basically a text-based website, that is constantly updated with the latest information the publisher wants people to have access to.  Then, visitors subscribe to the feed (keep in mind that subscription doesn’t imply a cost — in fact most RSS feeds are free).  By subscribing, you tell your RSS Reader (more about this shortly) that you want to be kept up to date by that feed.

An RSS Reader is a program that will download the feed on a regular basis (usually every few hours, or when the feed tells it that the information will change.

A few examples:  A Large news corporation like CNN will have multiple RSS feeds for the interests of their varying readers.  They may have 1 feed with the latest money news, another feed for the top stories in the US, another for entertainment news, another with baseball highlights and so on.  You can subscribe to as many of the feeds you want.  So if you want info on your stocks and baseball scores, you would subscribe to their money feed and their baseball highlights feed.

Or, for example, if you want to stay up to date on this blog.  We post an RSS feed that will update with changes to the blog, such as new posts when they are added.

Now generally RSS feeds do not include the entire story.  They usually have a title, description and a link to view the whole article.

To view RSS feeds, simple do a Google search of RSS Readers.  Many sites, like Google’s iGoogle page, you can add an RSS feed directly to your portal page.  Or just use their reader at www.google.com/reader.  There are also window applications if you prefer those over web pages.

Stay tuned for more information on how to use the RSS feeds in your business marketing.

- Aaron

Video walkarounds, from most vendors, are simply the vehicle images doing a ‘Ken Burns’ effect.  That is, they zoom in and pan on existing images to give an illusion of a video.  Then combine a few of those together, add a voice over of someone reading off the options and voila, a video walkaround.  Actually, it’s more of a fake video/fancy picture slideshow.

Honestly, I don’t see the value in these videos.  Most visitors come to the internet to find out information quickly.  Sitting watching a video that has [the same] dealer intro, with someone [or synthesizer] just reading the options showing pictures already available seems a waste of time.  I [most people] can read a whole lot faster than listening to regurgitated info.

It’s a simple response to a growing trend — web video (ie: YouTube).  Yeah, appropriate video is great.  If you have video, actually walking around the car, showing the cool points, showing the great features, with enthusiasm, then you have what the hype is all about.  If you explain information not on the page, or show real video (not Ken Burns effects of already available images) with actual motion, then you have a potential winner.  But that takes time and video knowledge. (We have professional vehicle profile and information available for most new cars — just ask).  But instead of providing the means to do quality video, most providers just want to jump in on the hype of video (though the hyped video is not what they are providing) and make some money before it dies.  Reminds me of the talking animated face and the talking person who have faded as quickly as they came.

One site mentioned that video makes people stay on your site longer, which longer visits statistically equals more sales.  I don’t buy into that.  Yes, the longer someone is on your site, the better chances they find what they are looking for.  The better chance they will contact you.  But not longer visits simple because they watch a fake video.  Just not buying it. 

After watching 1 of these fake videos, I won’t watch anymore.  Will I leave the site? No, I just won’t watch any more videos.  Is it a show stopper?  Absolutely not, people will continue looking at your site and your vehicles.  Is it a waste of money? I think very much so.

- Aaron

Effective mass mailing takes planning.  What?  I can’t just e-mail my entire customer list?

Not if you want it to be effective.  There are steps involved, that many people skip either because they don’t have the ability to do it, never thought of it, or are just lazy.

Most common method:

1. Generate list of customers.
2. Generate generic e-mail message to send
3. Send e-mail to everyone and hope for high responses and low opt-outs.

Better method:

1. Think about your message.  What do you want to convey? For a good example, lets say you’ve just slashed your prices and anyone coming in will get an additional $1000 over their trade.
2. Now, think about your customers, and who would be most interested?  Then limit the e-mail.  If someone just purchased a vehicle from your dealership in the last few days, would they want to hear, straight from you, about missing the great deal by a few days?  Kind of salting the wound isn’t it?  Why didn’t you tell them about this great deal?  Maybe it would be best to leave them off of this mailing.
3. Now think about all the customers on that list.  With each e-mail you have a single opportunity to reach a customer with something beneficial to them, otherwise you risk the dreaded opt-out request.  This request will put you into a legal position to stop sending them the cheapest, most effective form of communication until they request it again.  There is a lot on the line.  Do you feel your simple promotion will be useful enough to prevent people from clicking that opt-out link? I doubt it.  Not everyone is in the market for a new/used car.  Constant bombardment of sales isn’t going to change that.  While it may plant a seed, or someone may tell a friend about it, most people will delete the message.  After enough (and sometimes that’s just 1), many people will just opt out.

   How do you prevent this?  Broaden your e-mail message.  Convert it from a large advertisement to a functional newsletter.  Take the time to add one or two articles that pertain to general car maintenance, how to save gas, other items that people would be interested in hearing about, that isn’t trying to sell them something.  Then, when possible, give them a great deal they can use, even if they aren’t shopping for a car.  A coupon for a discounted oil change.  Even better, if you run an article about the benefits of flushing your coolant system before summer, then offer a discount to do the service (but do not place the discount in the article, it will cheapen the effect and turn it into an advertisement.

4. Now, think back to step 2.  With the new format, it may not be so bad to e-mail those customers.  But you’ll have to make that judgement call based on your offer.
5. Now think about the entire process.  Would it be more beneficial to schedule a bi-weekly/quarterly/monthly newsletter that provides this great information, instead of a hit and miss approach only when you have something special going on?  Absolutely.

So ultimately it comes down to some planning.  Think about your message.  Is it just a large advertisement, or is it something that your customers will truly get something from, and decide they want to continue to hear more.

I highly recommend the book “Permission Marketing” by Seth Godin.  And join is blog/mailing list at www.sethgodin.com.

- Aaron

So, does bigger = better?  Even though I’m a bit biased, I have to say no.  Actually, for web providers, I’d say the opposite is more true.

Case in point:

A client just switched over to ADP CRM.  (This isn’t a bash against ADP, they were just unfortunate to be the latest example proving my point).  Our client thought they had an issue with the software not parsing a lead properly.  ADP support sends an e-mail back to them stating the lead was not in the proper ADF format, which was then forwarded to me.

Looking at the e-mail, sure enough, it wasn’t the ADF Format, but HTML.  But none of our leads are sent with HTML, all are correctly sent as ADF.  After a quick glance, even I could see that this wasn’t a lead, but actually a message generated BY ADP software!

Now this begs the question about bigger being better?  Sure, they offer 24/7/365 support, but honestly what kind of support are you getting?  The representative didn’t even recognize their own system’s message.  They also jumped to look at just the last message, and not follow the trail back to the source.  The lead parsed just fine, but our client wasn’t used to seeing it where it was.  When dealing with smaller companies (such as us) we are more intimate with our software and can easily update, fix, whatever.  The others, it may take days to find someone who knows what they are doing to help fix it.

Food for though.

- Aaron

Here’s is a great reason why small companies such as Interlink Computing has a definite advantage.  We don’t have entry level web designers hacking away unmercifully at your biggest advertising asset: your inventory list.

Some larger providers (I will leave them unnamed, but check your website to see if it’s them), have decided to only show a vehicle’s thumbnail when the user hovers over the listing.

Now, this really bothers me.  (Yes it’s great for my business, but it’s extremely basic.)  Why on earth would you make the customer work like that to see a picture of your inventory?  It’s like going to the grocery store and having every item on the shelf covered with a black box that only has it’s name, ingredients, and price.  I don’t think you’ll be selling much there.

Even 3rd party portal sites know better.  More pictures are proving to sell more cars, and yet these sites are hiding even the most basic image from their customer.

Not only can they not see it, and you’ve frustrated them by making them hover over the images, but they also now have no point of reference to compare multiple vehicles.

Sorry for the rant, but some things are just inexcusable.  And the person hurt is the unknowing dealership who isn’t web savvy, but still runs an honest business.

Regards,

Aaron

If you haven’t read my previous post on “Give them what they want.”   you should take a minute to read that.  Don’t worry, we’ll wait here for you to catch up.

 Since we know that customer’s have not come to your site to be entertained or have their time wasted, we should take a closer look at what they customer came for.  Each site will be different, based on your offerings.  Do you sell new and used cars? How about a service center?  Quick Lane?  Collision? Parts? Accessories?

These are the areas you should focus on.  But also, look at your supplemental information.  Why you stand out.  These items are very important (once you’ve cleared the path for the main selling features.)  These are great to have along the site of your site, or anywhere it’s relevant but unobtrusive.

Designing a clear cut navigation system it important to allow the customer quick access to what they want.  A site with a navigation button ‘Vehicles’ that goes to a page with two choices ‘New’ and ‘Used’ is wasteful.  Two buttons, available anywhere a customer is on the site ‘New Inventory’ and ‘Used Inventory’ makes a more susinct path to exactly what they want.  This should be unclutters, susinct.

Next, make sure your links describe the page you are taking them to.  Say for example you are listing 20 vehicles, next to each is a ‘Schedule a test drive’ button.  When the visitor clicks that button, if you just take them to the vehicle page, they will be confused.  If you take them to the vehicle page, and jump the page to the schedule form (or better, have the schedule form appear large and infront of them) you’ve satisfied their request without making them jump through hoops. 

ALWAYS, BOTH IN PERSON AND ONLINE, GIVE YOUR CUSTOMERS WHAT YOU SAY YOU WILL.  That means if you give them a button that says they can schedule a test drive, then make sure when they click it, it does just that.

Regards,

Aaron