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Posts with interactive marketing tag.
Google Plus Pages Allowing Dealers To Do More (Half-Baked)?

With innovation and technology comes missteps and half-hearted attempts to "do it". As more dealers encourage their staff, and many times vendors, to push into new technology, software and social networking, which should be commended, the volume of missteps and simple ignorance increases as well. It's simple: if you don't know how to do something, get assistance. Just winging it in today's market won't pay dividends nor register with the public when it counts.

Google Plus Pages Equals Unknown_SMALL

Google Plus Business Pages launched more than a week ago and searches with typical terms (Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc) on G+ turns up car dealerships using Google Plus profiles as businesses. Not pages, Google Plus profiles as in personal pages. This is absolutely the same lack of common sense and willingness to "ask for directions" that has thousands of retailers on Facebook personal profiles rather than the appropriate business pages.

No different than buying a CRM and not utilizing more than 40% of its capabilities or paying $699 a month for a website without SEO services, multi-million dollar establishments continue to fudge it and then wonder why things "don't work" or "provide revenue or ROI". It seems that the more technology and opportunities avail themselves, the faster car dealers are willing to say "we don't have any more budget", "we're not looking to go after every thing we can possibly buy" and the ever-popular "we already are doing a great job using what we use". So things go 'round like they always do: crap in, crap out.

The jury is in on your decision to half-ass things: you're wrong! The rule is go big or go home.

When sales, service and parts staffs are quick to Google the latest part that a customer brings up, right after they check ESPN highlights on their smart phones, why do things stop before the extra click to search for "setting up google plus business pages" and reading a quick particle or, better yet, watching a two-minute video that explains everything to properly establish their presence. Naw, it's better to wait until it's seemingly too late to make a change and your competition that you "beat" now has a more established foothold in the same technology, website or service. A local dealer, after offers of assistance fro multiple companies, apparently had to wait until their Facebook "friend" page had over 2,000 people on it before asking about making a business page. WHY??????????????????

We continue to be an industry filled with ignorance, denial, shortcuts, Band-Aids and excuses. ALL of the information is available if you're willing to ask the right questions and select the right employee, partner or vendor. Yes, there is a lot of misinformation but it's not impossible to weed through it. Recently, a top-OEM endorsed social media company executive informed an audience at one of the auto industry digital marketing events that deleting spam posts from Facebook pages was not possible but that they "scan and report" such occurrences. Yes, there is incorrect information out in the market from what should be reputable companies so always finding the right ways to do things can be a challenge.

So are the absolutely-essential, need-to-have Google Plus Business Pages allowing dealers (and other businesses) to do more, just in half-baked ways? Yes, sure enough. Just like everything else that is not known, understood, new and not managed. Until it is…..

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Week At IM@CS: Chats With The Industry

Little fish in a big pond or big fish in a little pond? If you have process, vendors that back you and a great staff, it doesn't matter. In the event that you're looking for some smaller companies that 'fit the bill', you may want to check these out:

Customer For Life: CRM is not just emails. No, seriously! Get the most out of your database, at least until someone at your dealership actually gets to them. Having worked with Salesforce-based systems in the past, the foundation is rock solid. Put Ivan Feher and the team at CFL on the case at your dealership and you might just see great results, for less than you think. In addition, they seem to be launching something of value about every quarter so they like to keep you on your toes! http://www.customerforlife.com

Undertone Networks: Online media doesn't get a lot of attention compared to SEO and SEM for individual dealers but if you're part of an association, 20 group or own a number of dealerships, you may want to know a lot more about ad networks and starting to interact with your public the way that the big boys do. Not for everyone, but this is one of the areas that is a must going forward considering that you've already dropped all of your conventional marketing (or will this month). Contact Brad Fox, he has a great background in everything online automotive (or any of their regional offices). http://www.undertone.com

Free Press Release: When it comes to all of the activities that dealers want to but don't execute on, one that can help greatly and doesn't take a lot of time is press releases. Free is better (if you don't mind Google ads and other no-in-your-control aspects) but there is a minor charge to get rid of the 'other stuff'. Remember, it's a great SEO tool and gets your events, specials and other news-worthy events in front of the public. http://www.free-press-release.com

DealersCompass: Fixed-Ops seems to be saving at least a few lives for the proverbial cat as of late. Outside of merely cutting costs, dealers need ideas. Brad Bossen at DealersCompass has a couple decades of experience in making service and other facets of fixed operations work better, make more sense and deliver more dollars. He's based in Phoenix but planes, trains and automobiles go everywhere. Call Brad at (480) 234-7877 or visit him at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/brad/bossen or http://adpadm.ning.com/profile/BradBossen

We'll try to keep these updates weekly and ultimately have an area where you can get in touch with the vendors.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

If You’re Living By Service…Don’t Die By Service

We don't touch on service much here…time for a little breather!

More dealers than ever are floating (or simply sinking slower) on the revenue from their service department. This trend should be supported with an overwhelming conviction to completely satisfy customers. The risk is just too large to lose clients both on the front and the back end of the store.

Things being what they are, it should come as no surprise that achieving such a goal is as far away as the next 20 walk-in customers. Equally as daunting, many service directors have had their budgets and discount capabilities slashed when exactly the opposite should be done. At the same time, it would be great to report that at least some budget has been thrown over to the web for marketing. But the jury that we could ask on that one was laid off.

Folks, don't kick the gift of traffic in the mouth! By the same token, don't give away the farm either. Instead live by balance, planning (yes, plan ahead, execute on the plan and don't change the ding-dang plan) and accountability. Make sure that your service marketing completely and clearly explains the benefits of servicing at your dealership, tangible perks (VIP club, fixed pricing or discounts, upgraded loaners, pick-up/drop-off, etc), guarantees and anything else that puts you up a level.

Get your customers to write up their positive experiences (and to offset the bad ones) on sites like DealerRater, CarFolks, MyDealerReport, Yelp, Google, etc. Provide maintenance clinics at your store (since you're already doing new owner events every one to three months, right?) to help your customers get more for their money and feature your parts and accessories. And then set up service scheduling on your site to make it easier for your customers (TimeHighway, XTime, UDC, MyCarPage).

This is not rocket science, it's customer sense. Over the past two days I've been told about two completely different examples related to service departments:

One via a friend in Michigan talking about his BMW. The service light came on, he called the dealership 30 miles away and the service writer informed him how to avert the visit (the 'fix' worked). He could have still had my friend drive to the dealership, get a complimentary inspection, spend time at the store with -insert a salesperson's name here-, and sent on his way with a $30+ charge. Instead they created a customer for life (with the exception that the service writer didn't get his email/text address, log the call in the CRM and create a GREAT follow up for the event).

The other you'll have to read for yourself here on Edmunds' Inside Line which is just plain astonishing.

Now is the time to go the extra mile, not cut off a few inches. There's nothing worse than stepping over a dollar to pick up a penny. Do what it takes to deliver the best experience everywhere in your dealership. And start with your next customer…

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

A December To Remember? For A Lot Of Reasons

No matter how tightly or loosely your association with the automotive industry, this is a month of reckoning for so many reasons. But most are still in 'wait and see mode'. That just flat out can't be comfortable and it's not right, so why is it done?  If you'd had the proverbial crystal ball, what would you have done months ago (if not years)?

It is interesting to hear about some level of negative consumer sentiment or backlash about the Toyota 0% advertising. When was the last time the public's voice rallied against dealers communicating with them too much or trying to sell them cars they didn't want?

Not to rip off Lexus and their annual end-of-the-year ad blitz, but will this be a December to remember? Some stores are talking about a small lift in their traffic, some about people buying again and some are just happy to get clients responding via email. How do you keep the water flowing?

These are constants in what IM@CS teaches daily:

1. Put everything in the customers' terms
2. Ask questions
3. Validate the customer (while talking less)
4. Answer their questions and ask a new one (yes, keep the conversation going)
5. Demonstrate a real reason to buy
6. Promote value, advantages and benefits

Then ask yourself what your marketing says and remember that if you keep doing the same things, don't expect different results. In a meeting with a dealer service provider Tuesday, their entire (refreshing) approach was to understand their clients' needs better. Almost everything we talked about related to engagement. So…what are you doing every day to think about how you communicate and relate to your clients?

Don't pay more attention than your precious time allows to think about the economy, bailouts, cut backs, fewer units sales, etc. Nothing affects you more than the leads you're not responding to, the terse or lacking responses and messages you leave, the appointments you don't confirm and the time you don't spend learning how to do things better.

Find every reason to make this a December to remember for your own reasons, get out there and be great!

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results