Great Example of a Dealership's Customer Reviews / Testimonial 30 sec Commercial / Video Clip - Social Media - Automotive Internet Sales
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dealership (177)
http://www.alanvinesautomotive.com
A Tennessee Chrysler, Dodge & Jeep Dealership is Looking To Hit Their OEM Bonus ($50,000 Retro CASH) - Can They Do It? Of Course They Can!
Congratulations to Eric Nichols, Internet Sales Manager in Riverhead Long Island!
Eric is Delivering 52+ units per month in a 2.5 person department-
AIS - How Long have you been in the Automotive Sales Industry?
EN - 5 and 1/2 years. I was in the United States Navy before that for 4+ years.
AIS - How did you go from Navy to a Car Dealership?
EN - I worked some dead end jobs until my brother, Brian gave me a job in a BDC.
AIS -What type of training did you go through?
EN - Nothing except what was regurgitated down from the managers at the dealership, who were making it up as they went or heard something from somebody or the OEM. Until we hired http://www.DealereTraining.com / Stan Sher.
AIS - How did you meet up with Stan Sher and his company?
EN - Ironically, the GM brought him in after seeing that Stan Sher was a trainer for the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association. At first, Stan "Mystery Shopped" my dealership. Needless to say, I wasn' t that thrilled at first LOL! However I have become close with him and have learned a lot. Basically all of the ideas I had that were swirling in my head, Stan helped me articulate them and implement them.
AIS - So, I am going to transition the conversation for a little bit...
Tell me about your department in detail...
EN -
* Website Provider - http://www.dealer.com
AIS - Do you like them?
EN - Yes, no issue to date.
* CRM - http://www.dealersocket.com
AIS - Do you like them?
EN - I actually LOVE them!! It is my biggest tool! It is my command center. It is my complete accountability for my GM. After, Stan Sher helped setup processes in the CRM and create a guideline for how to measure the results in the BDC the tool has become my best friend.
AIS - Since you got excited when I mentioned the CRM, lets go a little deeper...
How do you use your CRM?
EN - We have an automated Email Action Plan, Data Mining, Lease Retention, Unsold Showroom Follow Up, Internet Leads, Incoming Phone Ups... Everything.
AIS - Any Social Media Integration with your CRM?
EN - Not at this time. Although we learned from Dealer eTraining the importance of incorporating social media into follow up especially with leads that have no phone number or leads that are unresponsive.
AIS - What is your internet lead process?
EN - First, there is ONLY 1 "automated" email template... The 1st one. Then we send manual emails for the next 14 days... THEN it goes into the "automated category" until day 44. Then it goes into a MONTHLY Email Protocol. We incorporate value builders and stress the importance of our positive online reputation in our process.
AIS - How long do you follow up with a prospect?
EN - 180 days... 90 days is NOT Enough Anymore. In fact, some OEMs require longer processes. We noticed that our customers have extended their buying cycle to as long as 180 days.
AIS - How do you handle the Phone Call Follow Up Process?
EN - It is different...
As soon as we get the lead, we IMMEDIATELY make the phone call. If we do not connect, Then we call them AGAIN, later on that day.
So, another way of explaining it is for the first 10 days we call TWICE a day... Morning and night, for a total of 20 calls in ten days.
Then we go from 10 days to 12 days to 14 days...
Then we call 21 -26 - 31 THEN we start calling monthly.
AIS - Who is your inventory solution?
EN - We have our own photo studio then we upload to http://www.VAuto.com
AIS - Who is your call monitoring solution?
EN - Call Measurement powered by DealerSocket
AIS - What is your Online Reputation Management Strategy?
EN - We were using Dealer.com but just cancelled to go to www.flipstreammedia.com - THEY ARE AWESOME! We are of the highest rated Honda dealerships in New York on DealerRater, Google Places, and other sites. It is a requirement of all of our staff members to attain at least one review per week.
AIS - What are you doing for Social Media?
EN -
* YouTube
* Posterus
* Tumblr
* Blogspot
* Carmind - http://www.carmind.com
AIS - What is your video and or VSEO strategy?
EN - We are using Flip Stream for it all. We learned basic in-house strategies for VSEO from Stan and use these practices at times.
AIS - What other additional resources, tools, websites, blogs etc... do you use as part of your "success strategy".
EN -
- Stan Sher / Dealer eTraining Blogs and Videos
- Sean V. Bradley / Dealer Synergy Videos
- www.automotiveinternetsales.com
- All Google tools... ESPECIALLY Google Analytics
- DealerRefresh
- Driving Sales - I actually wrote an article on Driving Sales
(I will POST it HERE)
“Use the Source” By Eric Nichols
For the first time in automotive history dealers can now get an accurate idea of where their marketing dollars are going and how well they are performing. Yes I am taking about the all mighty source. No not the force, “THE SOURCE”. It may not be able to help you move items around or read people’s minds, but it does something even better…. MAKES YOU MORE MONEY…
In my years as a BDC rep and a BDC director, I have learned that the source can be mastered and understood now more than ever before. How is that you ask, quite simple with the following simple steps I have come up with you will be able to not only save on your marketing dollars but will you can profit off of it.
Step 1- Understanding Sourcing…. The traditional advertising types radio, TV. Newspapers never gave you an accurate idea of if your marketing efforts where effective. When sourcing you need to use the parent, child approach.If your paying for all these campaigns you need to know what is working
PARENT= SOURCE meaning the broad spectrum source.
EXAMPLES OF SOURCE CODES
Fresh-up- A fresh up is any customer that comes to the dealership for no other reason but driving by or just walking into the dealership.
“NO ADVERTISING YOU ARE DOING BROUGHT THEM IN”
PHONE UP- Any customer who calls into your dealership that cannot be sourced to any specific advertising or 1-800- tracking #. Meaning if a customer calls your dealership using one of your individual 1-800 #’s and it shows up under that marketing effort, such as website, auto trader, cars, autousa, vehix, dealix etc……..THEY ARE NOT A TRUE PHONE UP THEY ARE WHATEVER MARKETING EFFORT THEY ARE TIED TO. INTERNET, TV, RADIO, ETC… EVERY MARKETING EFFORT SHOULD HAVE INDIVIDUAL AND SEPARATE TRACKING #’s FOR EACH AD.
Internet- any prospect that comes from any form of digital advertising online. It’s pretty simple as stated before if they send a lead/email into you it is pre-sourced in your CRM and labeled where it came from. Same with the internet phone calls your call tracking will say what website it came from. “INTERNET IS NOW ALWAYS GOING TO BE THE MAJORITY OF YOUR CUSTOMERS YOU TALK TO. LIKE IT OR NOT ITS FACT.”
INTERNET/FRESH-UP- Last but not least my own creation. So before I explain to you what an Internet/Fresh Up is. Let me ask you a question.
A customer walks into your dealership and you ask how did you hear about us? They are going to say the either one of the above sources. It is your job to dig to see where they came from. ASK ASK ASK.
Statistics say out of 100% of all traffic
8% emailed before coming in
12% called before coming in
80% came in without emailing or calling.
Now that 80% is a curious thing do you think that 80% just came in for the heck of it, No something brought them in. Now are you ready for the Shocker out of that 80% of unknown origin. 75% of that # saw you on the internet, Car buyers will hit your website or your car listing about 7 times before they come in and the time searching is 15hrs or more online shopping. All you need to do is ASK... Don’t take the easy way out it’s your money either you ask or make sure your people ask.
- YOU COULD POTENTIALLY BE EITHER..
- WASTING MONEY ON BAD ADS
- CANCELING MARKETING EFFORTS THAT ARE MAKING YOU MONEY. Example... My dealer principal wanted me to cancel a major listing company because we were not tracking well with leads. I put the foot to my people to ASK ASK ASK….. And low and behold it was one of the top reasons for my walk-in traffic sales.
So the point is that just because they are a walk-in doesn’t mean that you can’t source them correctly. Yes they did not email or call but a certain marketing approach brought them down find out what it is. If it’s the internet you need to know that. Hence INTERNET/FRESH-UP. It’s neither a true internet nor is it a true fresh-up.
CHILD = TRACKING CODE
Don’t worry no long drawn out explanation on this one. Tracking code is the exact marketing listing, basically whatever company you are using that is promoting your listing. Simple as that.
So now that I have explained the different sourcing structures, how do you us put a plan into effect to get these sources? The only efficient way to do this is the following way and it may sound like a pain in the rear but it’s the only effective method.
HAVE A GREETER AT THE FRONT DOOR TAKE ALL INCOMING UP SHEETS AND LOG THEM INTO YOUR CRM… MAKE THEM RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. WE ALL KNOW THAT SALES REPS DON’T CARE AS LONG AS THEY MAKE A SALE THEY DON’T CARE WHERE THEY COME FROM AS LONG AS THEY COME IN. IT IS ON MANAGEMENT TO ENFORCE THIS. Having the greeter enter all info into the CRM will also ensure an accurate count of how many showroom visits you truly have. I have worked with managers who don’t collect log sheets, they throw them out to increase their closing ratio, they lose them the list goes on and on. As a GM, GSM, Dealer principal, BDC Manager it is on you to make sure that this is followed to a tee. The reason being is not only proper sourcing but proper follow-up is completed. And as you know that means more money in all of your pockets. Times are hard in our business now make the most out of everything you get in the door.
TO BE CONTINUED..... EPISODE 2: THE RETURN OF THE DUPLICATE
SOURCE - http://www.drivingsales.com/blogs/usethesource/2012/06/10/use-the-source
AIS - GREAT STUFF!
AIS - What types of advice do you have for other ISMs or Internet Departments reading this article?
EN - EASY... Analytics. Analytics. Analytics...
VERIFY everything. Be sure. NEVER Guess. I learned that by mastering your CRM reporting, Google Analytics, and other reports that you will always be able to monitor the success and/or shortcomings for the BDC department as well as the dealership.
I recently came across a case study from the folks at BoldChat, and in it, they discussed the impact and implementation that their Live Chat program has had on NorthFace's business.
Before we dive into the key points in the case study, here's a question you need to ask yourself:
- Does your dealership website incorporate some variation of a LiveChat program?
If your top priority is customer service, it should. Here are a few benefits that were pointed out in the Case Study:
- You will see an increase in customer engagement
- If a customer is not sure what type of car they're looking for, chances are that they'll much prefer a live chat to a phone call. They might not want to get on the phone until they're absolutely sure what they want.
- This also falls under the category of ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth). Customers are going online first before hitting the store/dealership. You must be there during the Zero Moment of Truth and Livechat can give you that advantage.
- After implementing Live Chat for their website, NorthFace saw a rise in chats/month from 4,000 to 17,000
- It will benefit your customer service team!
- Participating in live chat with customers will require your CSR's to become experts and more well versed in the product (i.e. vehicles) you're selling
- Before implementing chat, you'll want to vett your CSRs to ensure they're product evangelists.
So, does your website have some sort of Live Chat program? Why or Why not?
The Coolest Car Dealership Commercial I have Seen in a Long Time!
Mercedes-Benz Dealership Drives 200+ Website Leads Per Month With PPC
A Mercedes-Benz dealership, who is part of a large auto group in North Carolina, invested in online Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising with ReachLocal in November 2010. Their goal was to reach potential car buyers in their metro region, and to win business that might otherwise buy a vehicle from a competitive Mercedes-Benz dealership, or buy another Make of vehicle altogether.
The dealership worked closely with their Internet Marketing Consultant to build out a comprehensive list of keywords that a car buyer might use in searching the web for a vehicle. This list included every model of new and used vehicle they sell, as well as competitive keywords that might attract other buyers online. Their final keyword list was comprised of hundreds of keywords, both stand alone, and those paired with the major city names their customers likely come from.
Text ads were created to describe the dealership’s strengths and to create a compelling “call to action”. Effective text ads work by attracting the right searchers, and deterring the wrong ones. These ads were then mapped to the appropriate pages within the dealership’s website so that the searchers experience was seamless.
Once all of the elements of the PPC program were created, ReachLocal implemented them across 98% of where people search, including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, AOL and Ask. Tracking was set in place to identify any phone call lead that came in through the campaign, as well as any email or request for more information.
The program ran for 12 months, averaging 157 inbound leads per month for the dealership. After the first 12 months, they were so pleased with the performance that they increased their budget. After the budget increase, they experienced an average of 220 inbound leads per month. This averaged out to be an $11 - $12 cost per lead. Not only was the volume of leads impressive, but they were also highly qualified leads. People searching online for a vehicle are doing their research and have a better idea of what they want when they do make contact. So the leads that came in through their PPC program were better quality than those they were receiving from offline forms of advertising.
The Mercedes-Benz dealership not only grew their own PPC program, they also expanded to create similar programs for the other dealerships within their automotive group. Currently their entire group is advertising online with ReachLocal to generate qualified, inbound auto leads.
To learn more about how you can implement a successful online PPC program for your dealership, Respond to this post-
Does your dealership have its own blog? If your answer is no, then, I suggest you keep reading.....
The Importance of Blogging:Generation of Leads and Traffic
If you're reading this and your dealership does NOT have its own blog, consider this:
-B2C companies that blog get 88% more leads per month than those that don't
-Overall, companies that blog have 55% more website visitors
(Source: An Introduction to Business Blogging by Hubspot)
How Often Should You Blog
As evident in those statistics above, a blog can increase your website traffic, as well as your leads. However, it's not as simple as just creating a WordPress account or logging into Blogspot. A blog, just like social media, has to be kept up, maintained. In fact, companies that blog at least twenty times or more a month, see a SUBSTANTIAL increase in website traffic and leads. This is just one of the many benefits of having a blog. It gives you another avenue of customers to explore and reach. It helps to amplify your voice online for your dealership.
For your blog to be effective and useful, you must blog at least four/five times a week, or in between 16-20 times a month. There's no point in setting up your blog if you're only touching it every few weeks. That's what they call wasted real estate! The more you blog, the more likely you'll see an increase in your dealership's visibility online, and this is where SEO comes into play.
Blogging and SEO
All right, so you're blogging full-time and you should be showing up on the first page of Google in no time, right? Not so fast. With each post you create, there should be optimization taking place. You need to be do some research when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You need to know the keywords your customers are using when they head to Google to do research. Once you begin blogging more frequently and using the appropriate and industry-relative keywords in your posts (Optimizing), your online visibility will increase.
The benefits are obvious. You'll see a bump in website traffic. You'll receive more leads. You'll become a trust named and dealership online your customers can trust, and therefore, someone they could recommend to their friends and family.
If your dealership doesn't have a blog, why not?
Sean V. Bradley Interviews a General Manager of a Chevrolet Dealership in NJ About Being a One Price Dealership...
http://www.dealersynergy.com
The Small Business Social Media Cheat Sheet
http://www.automotiveinternetsales.com
Why Every Marketer Now Needs to Employ a Google+ Strategy For SEO
The internet sales team at Harnish Auto Family are a group of personal shoppers whose role is to provide you with a stress-free car shopping experience. To speak with a member of the internet team, call (888) 636-2381 or chat with us online at www.harnishautofamily.com.
Money Motivation
Do you enjoy it small, or would you love to increase the size of your paycheck? Coordinators round the world are being asked this question every day. No one likes a sub-par paycheck. If we can agree there, then I would like to share some action steps you can take that will be sure to enlarge the numbers in your bank account.
The first thing we have to realize, understand and embrace; is that as internet coordinators “WE ARE IN SALES!” The individuals who do exactly this in life (not just in our business) are the ones who prosper. In order to be successful here, every day on the phone we must sell three things…and here they are:
- Ourselves
- The Dealership
- An Appointment with the Dealership.
When we make or receive a call, we have to be the most friendly, /excited, /knowledgeable business person in our galaxy; and then we must sound like it. What do real business people do? First off, they always know the name of the person with whom they’re speaking. If you catch yourself asking “by the way, what is your name?” more than sixty seconds after your greeting, then you might be guilty of being unprofessional. When people are preparing to spend (especially large amounts), they want to talk to professionals…don’t you? In addition to the old rebuttal, we need to internalize: How about this, if we don’t handle our calls in the most professional manner possible, we could NEVER expect people to buy vehicles from us...OK?
“Here at XYZ Motors”…Do you find yourself using this sentence starter? You could be selling your dealership. This is exactly what you want to do if you are truly money motivated. Think of it this way: a dealership is worth lots of money right? If I constantly sell the dealership…then over time I’ll make lots of money…it’s that simple.
How do we sell appointments you say?...Good Question! The easy answer is to sell the aforementioned products extremely well. If we do a great job of selling the dealership and ourselves as a package, the appointment is a synch…unproblematic. However, we do understand appointments to buy cars aren’t selling like hotcakes these days; so here are a few extra incentives you can put on the table for your prospects.
Tentative appointments:
People seem to be more afraid than ever of commitment. Appointments give the impression of rigidity, so what can we do to flip the connotation? Use the word tentative to soften the word appointment. Statistics show that American people keep sixty percent of their commitments…no matter how strenuous. What does that tell us? We should just get our customers to agree to show up, then follow up. (The OH-SO important follow up…which deserves its own article entirely…as it shall have.)
Talk to your personal phone trainer or internet director about helping the customers to understand the benefits of setting appointments verses just popping by the establishment. Dealerships are once again worth millions and should be treated with respect. As doctors, lawyers and realtors, so are car guys. Maybe we could title them something a bit more astute like:…“Vehicular professionals”…I’m taking suggestions.
Either way, having a more professional approach to our jobs will help us to grow our compensation. I’ll leave you with an old saying from the old See-Do-Get wisdom vault, “If we wanna get paid more, then we gotta do more for what we get paid for.” Think and comment about it…THANKS! Until next time, go out there and sell more cars, more profitably, more often!!!
http://www.facebook.com/dealersynergy
Sean V. Bradley, CEO of Dealer Synergy is giving away $2,000 CASH FREE (NO B.S.) to the Lucky Winner(s) - Automotive Internet Sales
Do You have a Social Media Employee Policy At Your Dealership...? You Better Create one ASAP!!
I think that got your attention...
*** This is VERY important ***
Every dealership should have a "Social Media" EMPLOYEE USE Policy. What I mean by that is that EVERY Employee at the dealership (Front and Back) needs to know about Social Media and its effect it can have for the dealership during work hours and OFF work hours.
"Off Work Hours" ????? Confused...?
Let me give you an example... a REAL example, not just a cool story to throw in for training and impact reasons...
I had a dealer client call me a while ago and tell me he had a "unique" problem. I was intrigued and asked him what happened. The dealer goes on to tell me that he had a voice mail from a very upset woman. And then he went on to detail the voice mail. It turns out the woman came into the dealership to purchase a vehicle and was working with a sales person. She did not buy the vehicle there, but was very interested in purchasing from them. So, she went home to "think about it" she went online and "Googled" her sales person's name... You won't believe what showed up on the FIRST page of Google... The sales person's MySpace Page. The woman "Clicked" the link and right there on the sales person's TOP of his MySpace page was the Sales Person smoking a "Marijuana Bong" (TRUE STORY) and the CAPTION on the Photo Read "Party Animal" - WOW!!! The woman was very disturbed that this person worked at the dealership and she did NOT want to do business with him or ANYONE that employed a "Drug Addict". It did not matter that the dealership had no idea what the employee did on his own time. It did not matter the sales person was one of the top earners in the dealership, it did not matter that the dealer was a great guy and helped a lot of people in the community. It ONLY mattered what her perception of the dealership was at this point. And what she told the dealer in that message stung him... She said she was a 50 year old woman and if she can "Google" her sales person in 5 minutes then SHAME on the dealership for not doing a better job hiring people that represent their establishment... Ouch, what can you say to that?
The sales person had NO idea that their "Off Work" antics, habits, exploits would EVERY hurt the dealership that he worked at or was trying to build a career at. Some might say it is NONE of ANYONE'S business what they do AFTER work... or while they are NOT working.
*** The problem with that is that if a person, a sales person, service, office person posts their life, posts their beliefs, posts their antics for the public. Then is NOT "Their Private Life" anymore... especially if they work at a MULTI-Million Dollar establishment. There is WAY too much at stake here so I iMPLORE you to pay attention to your dealership and your employees.
Here is what I suggest:
Immediately create a Dealership "Social Media Employee Use Policy" something that states that if you are employed at ABC Motors, you AGREE NOT to post ANYTHING compromising online, specifically Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube etc... If employees choose to have accounts like these they MUST EITHER Post PG - PG13 Content OR KEEP Your Account on "PRIVATE". This also goes about personal beliefs about sensitive subjects.
Then after you create the policy, have the dealership's attorney create a formal agreement and put it into the employee handbook and make sure they all sign off on it.
* This might seem extreme BUT please think of YOUR Dealership RIGHT NOW and YOUR Employees... ALL of THEM. Can you imagine if you left your dealership's reputation uncensored online, allowed employees post anything and everything without educating them of the harm to themselves and the dealership's reputation unintentionally. PLEASE believe that Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, PhotoBucket, Ning, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr... ALL of these site INDEX WELL!!! Meaning, that they show up on GOOGLE, MSN, AOL, BING etc... VERY VERY Well.
Protect your reputation-
*** Here is a COOL idea:
When you are about to hire someone... BEFORE you do, "Google" Them, "Facebook" them, "Twitter" them etc... Use the Internet as your own personal FBI Background Check :)
If you have any questions or if you would like some more information on how to secure your dealership's Online Reputation or if you need help educating your employees of Social Media / Online Reputation please email me at seanb@dealersynergy.com It would be my pleasure to help you.
