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Is Your Automotive Dealership Web Sites Boring?
After personally reviewing 1000's of retail automotive dealership Web site out of nearly 20,000+ retail automotive outlets and franchises.
The Conclusion is ......
Most automotive dealers are being “Sold a useless bag of goods” by all these internet sales marketing experts and have boring Web sites.
The average dealership is being Sold on the fact that they should pay...
Hundreds of dollars a month for a canned Web site template, thousands of dollars a month to list vehicles on third party Web sites and big money for pre-qualified internet leads and who knows what else.
These auto dealers are being told a few great stories of success, which I concluded are true, yet consider the facts; If you’re the only one properly utilizing the internet within your area, you will have success.
Think about it....
You're the only gas station with gas, doesn't take much to be successful.
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These dealerships are being offered CRM packages for thousands of dollars more a month, what’s this?.... When I started in this business over 25 years ago, I believe a successful salesperson followed-up on their customers by saying a simple "Hello", "Happy Birthday", "When are thinking of purchasing?", or "Guess What - We have a great deal going".
Why should this cost an automotive dealership so much more money, isn't this the core of a great automotive salesperson?
Am I Boring You Now? - How Do You Think The Automotive Consumer Feels?
Ok, maybe my comments are a little harsh, lacking some insight, or not considering the internet income potential. I concede, yet the point being made is I understand why the majority of automotive dealership Web sites are boring. These automotive dealers lack the in-house capabilities to expand beyond the basics and are accepting what is being offered, willing to pay an automotive internet Web site provider $ 800.00+ a month for a canned Web site template with very little innovative marketing support.
Are you one of these automotive dealerships that look at your TOTAL internet cost, Web site templates, factory mandated site links & lead sources, and lead generating third-party vendors and say "WOW" that totals $ 50,000 or more a year?
So now you ask, "What's this guy at AutomotiveProfit.com trying to say?"
The answer is - No peeking - Lets consider these basic and simple marketing ideas first;
Creating a visually clean & informative Web site
Designing a Web site with customer retention in-mind
Including your Web address in all your automotive marketing campaigns
Incorporating your dealership Web site into the day-to-day operations of your dealership
And most importantly, watching your total internet marketing cost and return on investment
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So Lets begin - Basic Automotive Web Site Marketing Solutions
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Step 1: Research Nationally Other Automotive Dealer Web Sites
As a reminder AutomotiveProfit.com is a dealership resource Web site, offering many services including a passive automotive employment section. Now, why is this being mention on a marketing Web page? Simple, within the automotive career section you as a Web Site researcher can easily access over a 1000 dealership Web sites nationally within a short period of time for interesting marketing ideas,
give it a try - Research Web Sites
Also, keep in-mind while reviewing dealership Web sites the capabilities of many nationally recognized automotive Web site providers and the services they offer their cliental.
National Automotive Web Site Providers
Now go ahead - How are you going to learn? I know you haven't looked at any other dealership Web sites yet.
It won't hurt and it won't cost you a penny, you cheapstakes.
Last chance to give it a try - Research Web Sites
So What Have You Learned?
Boy! I could get a better job - Hold it, that's not what your here for. You have learned which Automotive vendors offer interesting Web site templates and solutions, what specials other auto dealers are promoting the most, visually what you have found pleasing on a dealership site, some of the shortcomings of other auto dealer sites, and most of all what you think may work for your dealership.
Now for Step 2, No wait a minute... One thing that I have to suggest which could easy individualize and add some excitement to a dealership Web site would be a few simple professionally designed royalty free photo graphics, images, video or flash images that can be downloaded and inserted into a Web page, costing only $ 1.00 to $ 50.00 per image offered at a great Web site called
istockphoto.com.
Take a look and consider this cost-effective way of improving your dealership Web site with some visually pleasing images. You may even find a graphic artist which has created an image that could be incorporated into the branding of your dealership Web site. I really wish I had half as much talent as these individuals.
Another suggestion before moving on... Pickup the phone and Call Other Dealerships... behind every dealership Web site there's an individual, dealing with vendors, organizing departments, trying to make a living, and most of all suffering the trials and tribulations of creating a successful automotive dealer internet presence. Consider locating and contacting them, unless you're a direct competitor I'd bet that they would be willing to share some insight, successes and possibly some design items.
Now for Step 2 - Bored Yet? And they say content is king on the internet.
Step 2: Creating your online dealerships presence
I love this, all these fancy Internet Buzz Words used...
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, page optimization, content enrichment, keyword density, etc., etc... They probably just made up a few more while I was writing this.
The bottom line.. Major search engines are in the business of selling advertising and will always be trying to figure out a way to cash in on it. They in one night can simply say, "Let's just change our algorithms to create some havoc" and there you go, Poof .. all that work meaningless and all that money invested down the drain.
So what's my recommendation, simply accept the fact that the only thing that is here to stay for a long time is advertising on such search engine services as Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter and a few other potentially profitable inexpensive managed paid listings. By utilizing either Contextual advertising or Display advertising on these managed search engine listings and developing an online automotive business marketing strategy, simply target your potential customer so they will find you and your dealership Web site.
So the next question is... how much is this going to cost?
The fact is it may not be as difficult as your lead to believe by the internet marketing experts. You simply create a keyword listing, one quick suggestion I see not being used that often, is your dealership name and a few variations, so start by placing bids there.
As for bid amount, do the math... An average dealership spends $ 350.00+ per sold unit, if you're not just listing keywords such as car or auto and are somewhat specific, such as using your offered make, state and zip code, a $ 1.00 per lead may not be bad.
While we're on the subject of Search Engine Marketing being utilized in conjunction with your dealership Web site, I must direct you to a great & informative Webinar presented by: Compete, Inc. and Google™, Inc. This Adobe presentation is titled, THE AUTOMOTIVE BUYING PROCESS: FROM A SEARCH PERSPECTIVE. Its key objective being, understanding the online activities that consumers undertake prior to new vehicle purchases.
The Automotive Buying Process ... Enjoy
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To be continued -
Hope I didn't bore you with my Web site .......
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Email Marketing &
Newsletter Solutions
Developing a process to endure the increased Auto consumer buying cycle.
Keep the lines of communication open, motivate both automotive vehicle prospects and service customers to return to your
dealership by managing and maintaining an Email address database of incoming leads and existing customer, allowing you
the opportunity of broadcasting a series of promotional Email messages or Newsletters.
A sophisticated CRM system will not work if you have a limited number of Email addresses and
you'll enjoy a greater ROI if you have already experimented and tested promotional communications prior to investing in a sophificated CRM system.
Experiment with these simple to use software packages and collecting Email addresses for the future.
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