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Special Finance Online

 

Special finance is back — I am seeing all over the country that sub-prime sales are up. More and more banks are approving people with bad credit and no credit. Special finance is not just for used car dealerships and buy-here pay-here dealerships. Special finance is for every dealership, even highline stores can benefit from sub-prime deals. More than 50 percent of the United States has less-than-perfect credit. So, if you are not actively and proactively taking advantage of special finance, you are missing the boat. Dealerships that are successful with special finance boast grosses averaging of more than $3,000 per copy.

Now that I have your attention, let’s focus on something very special — “special finance online,” where special finance meets the Internet. We know that more than 89 percent of Americans go online before they ever step into the dealership for some type of research. That goes for people looking for a bad credit/no credit car loan. Most dealerships in 2011 are doing unsatisfactory in their Internet departments; most dealerships’ Internet sales departments or BDCs are non-functioning or unprofitable. The bottom line is that most dealers are still struggling with automotive Internet sales, so it would seem absurd for most dealerships to worry about any other form of Internet sales. That fact, however, is in your best interest. There is a huge opportunity with “special finance online.” It is like the Wild Wild West. Since no one really has dominated special finance online, which means the door is wide open for you and your dealership.

Here is what you need to do to dominate special finance online:

  • First, create a “special finance” Website like www.autocreditapprove.com – Make sure it is NOT www.abcmotors.com / we do bad credit / no credit. You want to make it a complete separate entity, as if you have your own special finance lead source provider site.
  • Make sure that you have the proper “onsite” SEO done to your site. Title tags, descriptions, anchor text, alt tags, key words, site map, and so on.
  • Make sure you set up a separate Google Places page for your new special finance company, fully set up with unique content.
  • Set up Google Alerts.
  • Create an online reputation strategy for your sub-prime site. Google Reviews, Dealer Review Boost, Dealer Rater, Car Folks, Edmund Reviews, Yelp, etc.
  • Create a campaign of “focus” (microsites) — one site for each relevant category.
  • Create a Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) campaign.
  • Set up a full special finance social media campaign/strategy (along with social media SEO)
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Tumblr
    • Flickr
    • YouTube
    • MySpace
    • WordPress Blog
    • Create a powerful search engine marketing campaign (Pay Per Click)

Basically, you are going to build a special finance site and think of it as a brand new dealership. In the same way that you are going to dominate automotive Internet sales, you are going to dominate special finance online. The idea is to make sure that when anyone searches for anything at all related to bad credit/no credit auto loan in your area (and surrounding areas) they will find your sub-prime site. You are going to be the “Autotrader” or the “Cars.com” for special finance online in your area.

You might be asking how is this possible? It’s simple: Everyone is asleep at the wheel. Again, most dealerships are struggling on how to simply survive with automotive Internet sales, special finance online is not even on their radar.

If you have any questions about this article or you would like me to assist you for free in starting your special finance online campaign, please call or e-mail me.

 

Sean V. Bradley is the founder and CEO of Dealer Synergy, a nationally recognized training and consulting company in the automotive industry.
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